Off Registration
TM
October/November 2013
Off Registration October/November 2013
Contents
Off-Background: Steve Butler pg 6
Comics: Excerpt from Gallant
Comics #1
pg 12 Aman, the Amazing Man pg 22 The Viking Attack pg 36 The Origin of Blue Beetle pg 44
Eagle’s Eye Review by Paul pg 58
Hanna
Founder & Publisher April Brown
Editor in Chief Scott O. Brown Reviews Paul Hanna Photography & Design April Brown Digital Content April Brown Cover Art Daniel Govar Contributors: Barry Gregory & Steven Butler Excerpt from “GALLANT COMICS #1”
Bill Everett & Sam Decker “Aman, the Amazing Man”
Harry Shorten & Lin Streeter “The Viking Attack”
Charles Nicholas & Will Eisner “The Origin of Blue Beetle”
OFF-REGISTRATION is trademark and copyright © 2013, Bronco Ink Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Free pdf subscriptions are available by contacting subscribe@off-registration.com with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. For permission to reprint any portion of this magazine, please write Bronco Ink Publishing, LLC at publisher@off-registration.com. “Gallant Comics” TM & copyright © 2013, Barry Gregory & Steven Butler. Blue Beetle, Galahad, and Aman, the Amazing Man are in the public domain.
Dear Loyal Readers, Thank you for your patience this month. I attended the amazing New York Comic Con at the Javits Center in New York City to spread the word of Off Registration to a new audience! This month, long time comics artist Steven Butler took a few minutes out of his schedule to speak to us about his life and work, and we have a preview of his current self-published series to whet your appetite. And keeping with the theme, we dug up some classic comics from the 30’s and 40’s, including some very early Will Eisner work on the original Blue Beetle! We’ve come a long way as a medium since then, but it’s always nice to look back at our roots. And finally, our 2014 media kit is ready. If you would like to advertise with us in the magazine, our ad space is affordable, and we reach over 2,000 readers worldwide and growing. Just email me at publisher@off-registration.com, and I will send you a copy. Thank you reading, and enjoy this issue!
Sincerely, April Brown Publisher/Owner
by: Scott O. Brown
Off-Background: Steve Butler
Steven Butler has been a fixture in the comics industry for many years, with work stretching from First Comics in the 80’s to his self-published and Archie Comics work today. He was generous enough to take a few minutes to chat with us about his life and career. What follows is lightly edited for length.
Hi, Steven. You’ve been active in the comics industry for quite a while, even surviving the 90’s. Did you always want to make comics? Did it come naturally, or was it a long road until you were ready? I can’t really remember a time when drawing and art wasn’t a part of my life, and that interest in art has always been tied to comics. Some of my earliest memories are of hanging out at the comics spinner rack in Al’s Pharmacy on Main Street, Lucedale, Mississippi around 1971 or 1972. I can remember being just blown away by these bright, primary colors, and characters that
were running and leaping all over the place. This was long before any comic specialty stores were around, and you could only find them down here in pharmacies or some grocery stores. I was one of the only guys in my hometown who was into comics, and I have my parents and my sister to thank for exposing me to them. My dad was a World War II vet, and he remembered reading and liking comics back in the Golden Age (His favorite character was Doll Man, from Quality Comics). My mom was a big Wonder Woman fan, and my sister...well, she didn’t like superheroes, but she loved all the spooky anthology comics coming out back then from Charlton, Gold Key, and especially Warren magazines. Personally, I loved all of them. I remember tracing figures from panels I liked early on. I remember doing that with the Avengers/Defenders War crossover thing Marvel did in the early 70’s. From there, I started copying panels, then started trying to do my own drawings, using the same techniques I was trying to ape from other artists. I found out very early on that I loved drawing, and the whole process of creating something out of nothing and putting it on paper. The storytelling apect of it came a little later with more study. I watched a lot of sci-fi and Universal and Hammer Horror Movies at this time as well. All of it helped form a love of visual storytelling, but probably the greatest influence was my Grandmother. I spent a lot of time at my Grandmother’s house, and she was a virtual storehouse of Folk Tales and Ghost Stories. She could tell a story and have you in stitches laughing one minute, then scared to go out into the woods the next minute. She would change her voice and do all the things that make the stories dramatic and memorable. She could
create pictures with words! I remember always being able to see in my head the stories she was telling, and some of those images remain just as fresh today as they were back then. I guess they got “seared” into my brain! I believe her verbal storytelling chops went a long way in helping me develop my visual storytelling sense. I also had a really great High School Art Teacher named Tom Rath, who really encouraged and challenged me to do something with art, to go and make a career out of it. He didn’t try to turn me into a “fine artist” or anything, but really expanded my interest into ALL areas of art. He’s passed away now, but his contribution to my life will always live through the work. Can you give our readers a little background on yourself? I was born in 1965 in Lucedale, Mississippi, a much smaller small town back then than the small town it is now, if that makes sense. I graduated High School in 1983, then attended the University Of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, graduating in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art. I met some friends at USM, Roland Mann and Mitch Byrd, who I collaborated with on a comics project called Cat and Mouse. We did several issues and sent copies of them to numerous publishers. We got several rejection letters, then got a hit with Malibu Graphics in California. In the meantime, Mitch got some work for an independent company, and I got a call from First Comics in Chicago, and got the Badger gig from that in 1989. I did a year’s worth of Badger comics for First, then they went into bankruptcy. By that time, I had met some editors at Marvel Comics at a convention, who seemed interested in what I was doing. I sent them some samples and got work from them doing back up stories for some of their annuals that were coming out. From there, I did about a year’s worth of back ups and inventory stories, until I was approached to submit some try out pages for a
new series called Silver Sable and the WildPack. I did that book for a little over a year, then was approached to work on Web Of SpiderMan, which I did for another year. After that, I worked for a variety of different publishers like DC Comics, and Acclaim/ Valiant Comics. In 1997, I was approached by Justin Gabrie at Archie Comics to do some work on their Sonic The Hedgehog title. What I thought was going to be just a fill-in thing became my main bread and butter job for the next sixteen years. It’s weird, most folks consider me a superhero artist, but I’ve drawn more “funny animal” comics than superhero comics throughout my career. 1997 was also the year I met my wife Christy, and now, 16 years later, we have a son, Eric, with a family of his own, a daughter, Savannah, in College, another daughter, Lily, in High School, and a son, Aaron, in the 5th grade. We’re also the proud grandparents of a whirlwind disguised as a little boy named Dakota. I still get paid to draw comics, and I also am a caricature artist, t-shirt designer, and graphics artist. I have no complaints! With all the interest in classic comics, we’re living in a new Golden Age with not only formative strips being collected, but even the more unique books of the early Direct Market. Whatever happened to Badger? Are there currently any plans to continue or collect it?
The Badger is returning in his own series from Mike Baron and the newly re-established First Comics. I was contacted by First about the possibility of working on it, but I don’t know yet in what capacity, if any. I sent them some samples of my latest work, and I know Mike seemed to like it, so we’ll see what happens. Even if I don’t get the job, it was great getting back in touch with the company I started with, and they have my work on file. It’s funny, when the editor e-mailed me, he apologized, stating that he didn’t know I was still working in the business. That was a pretty telling thing. I’ve been doing Sonic for so long, I’ve kind of fallen off the “mainstream” grid, I suppose, even though I’ve been working pretty much non-stop all this time. Speaking of which, you are currently best known these days for your work on Sonic for Archie. Can you walk us through a day at your drawing board? Well, on Sonic, I always try to do at least two pages a day, if possible. That means at least four hours worth of work on the pencils for each page. Some pages take a little less time, while others take a little more. It all depends on what’s required to be drawn on the pages. Generally, I’ll start as soon as I get back from taking my son to school, which is about 7:30 in the morning. I make myself a cup of coffee, turn the radio (or audiobook) on, and get to work.
The only time I’m not listening to something is when I’m reading the script for the first time, and making visual notes. I usually do my thumbnails for the Sonic comics directly onto the printouts of the script itself. Sometimes, I’ll just dive straight into the pages without doing thumbnails, if it’s not a complicated or hectic scene. I usually do my gesture drawings on the board in non-photo blue pencil, so I don’t have to go back and erase, then I’ll do the finished drawing with a 2b lead mechanical pencil. I usually ship the pages out in two installments to Archie, where they still do hand lettering on the boards themselves, then it’s on to the inker, then the colorist, and so forth. I want to talk a little more about your Archie work. You were involved with the “New Look” Archie characters a few years back that took a lot of folks by surprise. How did that come about? Are there any plans to use them again in the future? Ha! Well, all of the fallout from that took me by surprise too. I had no idea when I took that job what kind of media frenzy would result from it. I think I was the villain of the month there for a while, judging by a lot of the comments from the Archie fans who didn’t want their characters changed. The truth of the matter is just this: Archie approached me with the idea of doing this long serialized story with the Betty and Veronica characters, but they wanted them drawn in the style of the Romance Comics from the 70’s. It was just going to be this different thing they were going to throw out there and see what it would do. It was never meant to take the place of the established style of the Archie characters. I kind of knew what they were wanting, but I had never done the romance comic thing before. I like a challenge, so I took it on, just thinking of it as a new assignment, nothing else. I gave it my best shot, and actually had a lot of fun drawing
the thing. Then that first cover got out there in the NY Times, and Regis and Kelly covered it, and then the internet was swarming with outrage over it. It was pretty crazy. In hindsight, it was a pretty savvy business thing for Archie to do, because it helped usher in this new era for the company, where they’re trying new things pretty regularly, and becoming more of a voice in the industry now than they had been in the past. So, all in all, it was a positive experience. As far as bringing them back, I suppose you could argue that they’re still using that style for the Archie- Married Life comic magazine. I don’t know if they could’ve (or would’ve) done that magazine if they hadn’t tested the waters with the “new look” stories.
You’ve also done a bit of work in the Christian branch of the comics industry. How did that come about? Can you tell us a little bit more about that aspect of your work? Well, first and foremost, I am a Christian, and I actively sought out work in that field. I made a promise quite a few years back when Christy and I started our family never to do something I wouldn’t let my kids read or see. I had done my share of things in the past that are out there,
and there’s nothing I can do about it--things I’m not too proud of now. I was just in a different place then. I can’t control what I’ve done in the past, but I can control what I do now and in the future. I just feel like there’s a niche for good, positive, storytelling, and it’s a niche I personally want to fit into. I met a good friend named Nate Butler (no relation) at a HeroesCon Convention in 1996 and told him about my desire to do Bible and Faith based stories, and he introduced me to several different people who I’ve worked with over the years doing Christian Comics. I did a series of comic tracts for a Professional Wrestler named George South, who gives them away at his wrestling events. I then did a 24 issue young readers series called Powermark for an Assembly of God Asia Pacific Missionary. Doing the Powermark work led to doing another 24 issue comics series called Welcome To Holsom for Gospel Publishing House in Springfield, Missouri. Welcome To Holsom was published exclusively for the Assembly of God Churches and was used as a pre-teen Sunday School take home reader. The complete story is collected now in three different trade paperbacks. I just finished drawing a follow up Welcome To Holsom graphic novel aimed at a teen-age audience. I really enjoy doing the Christian material, because it’s something I believe in wholeheartedly. No interview is complete without a horror story. What’s your worst experience in comics and how did you survive it? And on the opposite end, what’s your personal career highlight? Worst experience?! Just ONE?!!!??? Well, there was that time I sent two packages out at the same time, and Marvel got the Valiant stuff, and Valiant got the Marvel stuff- D’Oh!!! Then there was the time when that one publisher (who will not be named) sent me a check but “forgot” to sign it--!
Mostly, all the “horror” stuff comes from not really being in control of when you’re going to be paid, so you can pay your bills on time. Lots of factors enter into that- I’ve had misplaced invoices that didn’t get put into the system, or checks getting lost in the mail, or stuff like the guy “forgetting” to sign the check. Man, the freelance life isn’t for everybody. You really have to LOVE doing the work to make it in this business. I’ve been very fortunate over the years, and the good outweighs the bad 10 to 1, but there ARE those times that come along to try my resolve. But, that’s life, you know? I’m just thankful that I still get to draw pictures for a living! A personal career highlight was when my High School Art Teacher visited me just to tell me how proud he was of me. That meant a lot-more than working for Marvel, or any plum job I might’ve had. Those are great, for sure, but nothing beats validation from someone you look up to. Seeing the look on my mom’s face when I showed her my first paycheck from drawing comics was a highlight as well. My mom should’ve been from Missouri, the “Show Me” State. She just couldn’t concieve of the notion that people get paid for drawing these things. I get the same type of reaction from non-comics reading people to this day. When they ask me what I do for a living, and I tell them, they just kind of cock their eyebrow at me and say “I thought they did all that with computers nowadays”. Finally, you’ve been collaborating with Barry Gregory of Ka-Blam Digital Printing on new John Aman, Amazing Man stories, as well as other public domain characters. Tell us more about this new series and how it came about. Well, Barry and I have been good friends for a long time, and I’ve done lots of drawings for the Ka-Blam Print-on-Demand business that he and
Thomas Florimonte are running. About three or four years ago, Barry approached me with the idea of doing a series of comics of our own. I think he’d printed enough of other people’s comics to give him the itch to go the publishing route himself. First, we threw around the idea of creating all-new characters, but quickly opted to go the route of using all Public Domain characters for this idea. We spent about a year cherrypicking the characters we wanted to use. We wanted to do something different from all the other companies who were using public domain characters at the time. Personally, I simply wanted to draw the kind of comics I grew up loving to read, so the Gallant Comic books are going to be similar in “look” to the Bronze Age Comics of the 70’s, even though we’re using Golden Age characters to tell our stories. John Aman was the guy both of us gravitated toward. He seemed to have the most potential out of all the other characters, to base our storylines around, at least for this first arc we’re doing. He has Superman class powers, but he has a wild, untamed streak about him, much like Namor the Sub-Mariner, who shares Aman’s creator, Bill Everett. We have at least 30-40 characters, all public domain, who we’ll be using in the future. We just don’t want to dump them all out at one time. Gallant Comics is definitely the most fun I’ve ever had working in comics. Part of it is that Barry and I have extremely similar tastes in what we like, and our storytelling styles mesh very well. I don’t think I could do this series with anybody else, and get the same results. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done so far, but the best is yet to come, I believe. If you like comics that are bright, fun and not depressing, where the good guy is really good, and the bad guy is really evil, then Gallant Comics is for you! Where can anyone interested get a copy? Right now, they’re available exclusively at IndyPlanet:
GALLANT COMICS #1 http://indyplanet.com/store/product_info. php?products_id=8655 GALLANT COMICS #2 http://indyplanet.com/store/product_info. php?products_id=8656 Both issues are available in both print and digital formats There is a Gallant Comics web-site as well: http://www.gallantcomics.com/ Do you have any new projects coming out you’d like to discuss? Well, the Gallant work is the work I see myself doing for the foreseeable future. Barry and I are Universe-building with this thing and having a blast doing it. There may be some future First Comics work as well, we’ll see. Also, there is the Welcome To Holsom: Supernatural graphic novel that I just finished coming out. In between all the comics work, I also do lots of caricature gigs and commissions for folks. Anyone interested can contact me at stevenbutlerstudios@gmail.com Thank you for your time! Thank YOU for the opportunity! I really appreciate it! Meanwhile, Steven provided us with the first eight pages of Gallant Comics #1 to whet your appetite. But what are you waiting for? Go download the whole thing from www.gallantcomics.com . It’s free!
Submissions Guidelines: We are always looking for short stories of all genres! Your submission should contain the following 1. A typewritten cover letter with all contact information (name, e-mail address, address, and phone) clearly printed on the TOP of the page. Introduce yourself and move on with it, we don’t need your résumé. Also, if you DO NOT include an e-mail address with your submission, you WILL NOT receive a reply. Also, this is a good spot to give us a short, one-sentence description of your story. 2. Email FULLY COMPLETED pages. We’d like to see your completed story if it is twelve pages or less. If it’s longer, show us AT LEAST twelve pages that are complete and lettered, and let us know how long it is. If we like it, we’ll talk. We prefer full color or gray tones to straight black & white. We won’t turn down something brilliant, but keep that in mind. 3. If submitting a serial, send over a ONE PAGE, synopsis of the overall STORY. We want a synopsis of the ENTIRE series or story arc not what is just happening in the pages that you send over. As concisely and as succinctly as you are able, TELL US THE STORY, make us interested, and KEEP IT SHORT! We don’t want a lot of serials, so to be honest, unless you are the second coming of Neil Gaiman (or Neil himself), please stick to short stories. Send your submissions to: submissions@off-registration.com
Gallant Comics #1 (preview)
Script & Colors: Barry Gregory Pencils & Inks: Steven Butler
“Aman� The Amazing Man
(from Amazing Man Comics #21, March, 1941)
Created by Bill Everett Cover Detail: Lew Glanzman Pencils & Inks: Sam Decker
MONSTROLOGY is a collection of horror stories that mix and match monsters in different milieus to bring out new and interesting twists in an anthology of monster stories unlike any other. “Read these stories... Good people scared. Good people hurt. Good people dying. Good people damned for all eternity.” -from the introduction by Dave Elliott, MONSTER MASSACRE, A1 “...the right amount of scares, and any fan of horror books will fall in love with it.” -Nevin P. Jones, theweeklycrisis.com Available now at
GALAHAD “The Viking Attack”
(from Top Notch Comics #11, January 1941)
Script: Harry Shorten Pencils & Inks: Lin Streeter
“The Origin of Blue Beetle”
(from Blue Beetle #1, Winter, 1939)
Created by Charles Nicholas Cover Detail: Lou Fine Script & Layouts: Will Eisner Pencils & Inks: Charles Nicholas
Eagle’s Eye Review By: Paul Hanna Paul Hanna is a cartoonist who lives in Massachusetts. His interests include basketball, baseball, and finding a bigger role for comics in academic libraries. Follow him on Twitter at @paulhanna.
Gallant Comics Featuring the Amazing Man John Aman #1-2 by Steven Butler & Barry Gregory Gallant Comics www.gallantcomics.com $2.99 ea.
Comics that flirt with nostalgia always run up against the unobtainable quality – whatever it is – that makes nostalgia appealing in the first place. It might be a personal memory or an x-factor that just clicked with our adolescent brain in the right way years go. To successfully recapture this quality is virtually a Sisyphean task. Creators can succeed in recapturing
some element that manages to resonate with older fans, but the complete composition, the whole thing that impressed us years and years ago, is almost never re-achieved unless something new is inserted into the formula. The mid-late 1990s saw some success in recapturing the joy of the classics. Astro City excelled at balancing grounded, emotional character moments with over-the-top Silver Age style battles. Starman was a protagonist obsessed with the Golden Age past because of his relationship with his father. Madman borrowed the visual aesthetic of the Silver Age and utilized a similarly innocent, sincere yet playful tone, even when the content was dark; this was at a time when gritty comics were ubiquitous. Gallant Comics issues one and two sprint down Nostalgia Lane with unabashed mirth. Crafted with an obvious affection for the classic comics they are drawn from, both issues feature Bill Everett’s Amazing Man, John Aman, the Golden Age superhero who has since lapsed in the public domain. Also appearing are the original Blue Beetle, along with Jack Kirby’s Horace Googer, an obscure villain from the pages of Harvey’s horror comic, Alarming Tales. My familiarity with the original iterations of these characters is, I confess, pretty non-existent. Still, one of the most remarkable things about the work of Bill Everett and Jack Kirby in general is that it brought a type of dynamism and weirdness into comics that
was so resonant, it essentially rippled through the subsequent ages of mainstream comics, up to today. Both Everett and Kirby are creative forces of a caliber that leave a permanently altered landscape behind it – quite an impression.
Creators like Everett and Kirby built stories that were fun not just because they espoused farout, fantastical concepts, but because they were held together by a visual style that embraced rising tension and dynamic action in a particular way. These were not just ideas, they were revolutionary examples of technique in storytelling; the stories had a distinct tempo and flair to them, and once you were sucked into the way idea X, Y, or Z was introduced or revealed, your eyes popped. The plot and story hearken directly back to something out of the Golden Age. Horace Googer’s story is directly from a classic Kirby horror comic. This is pre-1960s Kirby, where the content was on the
ground idea-wise, it seldom reaches the eye-popping narrative style of Everett or Kirby – the panel composition and transitions do not start to pop until partway through issue two. Things like crazy perspective angles, moody coloring, the perfect splash page that sneaks up on you – not because you didn’t see it coming, but because it looked so different from what you expected – these sorts of elements are somewhat sparse. The linework itself has an unmistakably clean and classic craft skill to it. Seeing work in this mold makes me want to look at the black and white originals and pore over the details in the inks. I adore absorbing work like this, especially when it’s smaller press work, because there is such obvious and conscious appreciation not just for technique, but for the superhero genre as well. Both issues scratch the nostalgia itch really well, but like a lot of superhero endeavors, it does not (yet) introduce that x-factor that clicks with the mind of an adult who read superhero comics as a kid (unless that comic is The Amazing Man, of course). But there enough of a difference between the first two issues to suggest that maybe the comic is progressing towards something. In the meantime, though, the itch lingers, and readers will look back at their Astro City, Starman, and Madman comics longingly as the late 1990s retro revival continues to become pure nostalgia as well. Gallant Comics is something I want to revisit. I want to see where it goes. The idea of public domain superheroes has the potential for new and fertile creative ground within a genre that already has all the gold, silver, bronze, and chromium mined completely from it.
verge of something completely and amazingly nuts. In this case, our villain is a scientist who has created an army of biologically-engineered plant-soldiers. While Gallant Comics covers well-tread