Back Issue #21 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

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A R E D - H O T L O O K AT D A R E D E V I L !

2007 April

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Volume 1, Number 21 April 2007 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Christopher Irving COVER ARTIST Michael Zeck COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark SPECIAL THANKS Sergio Aragonés Ann Nocenti Michael Aushenker Don Perlin Frank Balas John Petty Spencer Beck John Romita, Jr. Jerry Boyd John Romita, Sr. Mike Burkey Rose Rummel-Eury Russ Cochran Steve Skeates Gary Cohn Tom Stewart Gene Colan Ty Templeton Philippe Cordier Roy Thomas DC Comics Ciro Tota Tom DeFalco Herb Trimpe J. M. DeMatteis J. C. Vaughn Colleen Doran David Yurkovich Mike Dunne Mike Zeck Editions Deesse Mark Evanier Golden Apple Comics Grand Comic-Book Database Allan Harvey Heritage Auction Galleries Carmine Infantino Christopher Irving Tony Isabella Klaus Janson Dan Johnson Michael Kronenberg Ryan Liebowitz Steve Lipsky Ralph Macchio Lee Marrs Marvel Comics David Mazzucchelli Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics Mike Mignola Frank Miller Dan Mishkin Moon-Boy Brian K. Morris

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

INTERVIEW: Mike Mignola: The Genesis of Hellboy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Discover the story behind the comics hero-turned-movie star, with early Mignola art FLASHBACK: The Son of Satan: A Trident True Devil Hero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Spawned during the ’70s, Son of Satan toplined not one but three different titles in short succession GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Devil’s Moon: The Unseen Fallen Angels. . . . . . . . . . . 14 Colleen Doran reveals why this X-Men spin-off went unpublished FLASHBACK: The Hellish Humor of PLOP! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Remembering DC’s “magazine of weird humor,” with Sergio Aragonés, Steve Skeates, Carmine Infantino, and Lee Marrs PRO2PRO: The Blue Devil You Don’t Know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn horn in on their co-creation, now seen in DC’s Shadowpact FLASHBACK: Seeing Red: Dissecting Daredevil’s Redefining Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 An art-rich examination beginning with the Frank Miller era, featuring interviews with Klaus Janson, John Romita, Jr., Ann Nocenti, and Ralph Macchio DAREDEVIL ART GALLERY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 A showcase of pre-Miller DD artists, including John Romita, Sr. and Gene Colan WHAT THE--?!: Kirby Goes to the Devil: The Saga of Devil Dinosaur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 “The Comics Savant” ushers us on an archaeological dig BEYOND CAPES: Stig’s Inferno, or … Ty Templeton Takes You to Hell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Revisiting the 1980s independent title that starred the reluctant ruler of the underworld BACK IN PRINT: The EC Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 These ’50s golden oldies are must-haves for comics readers of all generations! BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Reader feedback on issue #19, with Don Newton art!

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $72 Surface International, $96 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Michael Zeck; contributed by Philippe Cordier. Daredevil and the Son of Satan TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Hellboy TM & © Mike Mignola. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2007 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. T h e

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Christopher Irving condu cted Augus t 17, 2006

Who is Hellboy, and where did he come from? When Mike Mignola published the debut Hellboy miniseries, The Seed of Destruction, in 1994, little did he know his monstrous monster hunter would lead the way for his career more than a decade later. —Christopher Irving

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CHRISTOPHER IRVING: What would you say is the genesis of Hellboy? MIKE MIGNOLA: I had never really given any serious thought to doing, and certainly not writing, my own comic. I’d done this drawing for a convention and written “Hellboy” on it as the last thing; I’d done this drawing with a blank space on his belt that I wrote it on. I thought it was funny, but wasn’t serious about doing anything with it. Then, in the next couple of years, all of the Image guys were doing stuff. A secondhand offer to do something at Image floated my way, and Art Adams was talking about doing a creator-owned thing. I started thinking a creator-owned book might be a good thing. I felt, at that point in my career, was that I’d tried to do a bit of everything. What was left to do was this book. I started trying to do a team book, but couldn’t come up with a name for the team, so I settled on the only super-hero name I’d ever come up with that I liked, which was Hellboy. As far as everything that went into it, it was just as an excuse to draw everything I’d ever wanted to draw. IRVING: Right around that time, you drew an issue of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (#54, Nov. 1993). How did that tie in to your development as an artist, and lead into Hellboy? MIGNOLA: When I said I’d done a little bit of everything: The last two jobs I did before Hellboy were the Dracula movie adaptation (which was a surreal experience), and I was working on this one issue of Legends of the Dark Knight. It wasn’t the first story I plotted, because I’d done a Hellraiser story before, but I plotted Batman in a supernatural story. It © 2007 DC Comics. D e v i l

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Beginnings: The Defenders #116 (1983): inks (uncredited)

Milestones: Rocket Raccoon miniseries / Batman: Gotham by Gaslight / Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser / Cosmic Odyssey / Bram Stoker’s Dracula / Hellboy

Works in Progress: Hellboy 2 / B.P.R.D. / Lobster Johnson / Abe Sapien

Cyberspace: www.hellboy.com

MIKE MIGNOLA Photo by ???

was so much fun to do, and was so much my kind of thing. I’m not saying no one else could have done it, but there was a wonderful feeling in doing a story about my kind of stuff. Believe me, I couldn’t give two sh*ts about Batman. I never cared about Batman. He’s easy to draw and it worked with my style, but I didn’t give a sh*t about Batman. [laughter] But I did love making my own kind of story. Coming out of that Legends of the Dark Knight, my thinking was that “This was fun. Do I do more stories like this and shoehorn existing characters in, like a ghost story with Wolverine, or a vampire story that I stick Batman in? I know the kinds of stories I want to do, so do I make up my own character to do my own stories with?” The kinds of stories I wanted to do I had in mind before I created Hellboy. It’s not like I created Hellboy and said, “Hey, now what does this guy do?” I knew the kinds of stories I wanted to do, but just needed a main guy. IRVING: In your team drawing, Hellboy was huge and hulking. Why did you “cut him down to size” and make him more human-sized? MIGNOLA: From when it was going to be a team book, I had the Fantastic Four in mind, and he would be the Thing/muscle guy. It was closer to the original convention book drawing: He was this big, ape-ish guy. When I let go of the team idea and made him the central character, it just made sense to make him more of a normal guy. It’s weird to say, but I never wanted to treat him like a monster, but just like a regular guy. To keep that look of Hellboy was great, but I needed to make him more humanly proportioned. IRVING: To make him more identifiable? MIGNOLA: I guess so. I write him like a regular guy. The whole gag with Hellboy was that he was going to look like a monster and have this whole origin with the Nazis and the World War II army stuff … just an absurd origin. Then we would play him, forever, like he was a regular guy, and there would be no references to his origin or that he was from Hell. He was just a guy, but it would be funny that he looked so much like the Devil. Around the time that I was doing Hellboy, Jim Starlin was doing a book called Breed; I’ve got to say I never read it, but it was the same kind of idea with a half-breed demon character. I had Jim come up to me and say, “What a brilliant move making your guy red.” His guy was blue-gray. I said, “He’s red because it’s funny.” I wanted him to look so stereotypically “devil,” as the guy on the Underwood Deviled Ham. It just had to be, “The good guy’s here,” and then a monster walks in. IRVING: Why a monster hunter? MIGNOLA: My goal in comics was to just draw monsters. The kind of book that I want to read would be occult detective books. I love occult detective stories; I have a big collection of Victorian occult detective stories that are always just regular guys [with beards]. I knew

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Michael Aushenker

Let’s face it … the Son of Satan should have sucked. His costume was pretty lame—a slapdash crimsonand-gold cape with matching spandex pants and belt, boots, and bracelets; a large pentagram birthmark branding his bare chest; and a glorified pitchfork (in case you missed the, um, point). His cursed powers were a piss-poor amalgam of recent Marvel Comics success stories Dracula, Ghost Rider, and Werewolf by Night. He was haughty and hot-headed, defiant and unrepentant, even repugnant and unlikable. On a good day, he looked like a bedeviled Robert Redford with two flowing locks of hair fashioned into devil horns; on a bad day he resembled an overgrown leprechaun with his Irish coif and pointy Spock ears. And that name—confusing! What the heck was it again? Damion Hellstrom? Daimon Hellsturm? Damien Omen Hellstorm? Even the artist credited as the character’s co-creator left the book because he found the concept “stupid.” By the Seven Circles! And yet … and yet … there’s something damn pretty cool and surprisingly enduring about Marvel’s most hellified creation: the tortured, brooding Daimon Hellstrom (thank you very much), aka the Son of Satan.

THE SATANIC ’70s

Looking back, the 1970s appear to have been a decade under the influence … of Satan! As hot as disco, Mephistopheles seemed to rear his ugly head wherever one turned. Satanic imagery and/or allegory became “hot stuff.” The Exorcist and The Omen scared audiences. Remember Warren Oates and Peter Fonda versus a town overrun with Satan worshipers in Race with the Devil? Metal was born. Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath exploited the dark side. As “Burn, Baby, Burn! Disco Inferno” blared from Studio 54, KISS demon Gene Simmons breathed fire and spit blood on stages worldwide. Van Halen was “Runnin’ with the Devil.” AC/DC sped on a “Highway to Hell.” Play “Stairway to Heaven” backwards and some swear Led Zeppelin conjured up ol’ Beelzebub himself. Kris Kristofferson, who “Beat the Devil” on his first record, titled his second album “The SilverTongued Devil and I”—Kris Kristofferson! Comics were no different. Fire and brimstone bubbled within the belly of the printer’s cauldron as Marvel began experimenting with supernatural super-heroes in the early 1970s: Tomb of Dracula, Man-Thing, Ghost Rider, Brother Voodoo (in Strange Tales). Even Jack “King” Kirby swung by the House of Ideas to debut a kiddie comic with the un-child-friendly title Devil Dinosaur… but not before creating the odd, compelling The Demon for crosstown rival DC Comics. [Editor’s note: See this issue’s “What The--?!” article for the story behind Devil Dinosaur.] 6

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The Devil Made Him Do It! Original cover art (note the balloon’s missing copy) to Son of Satan #2 (Feb. 1976), penciled by Sonny Trinidad and inked by Tom Palmer. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Yet none of these characters would prove as ostensibly devil-worshipping or controversial as the half-breed dark angel with the Comics Code-challenging moniker: the Son of Satan. A DIVERSE BACKGROUND “He is Daimon Hellstrom—spawn of the Devil; born of woman—man of God, heir to Hell—and his two natures are ever at war! For though he carries Satan’s mark on his chest, he is sworn to drive his father’s minions from the world of men. Exorcist, psychic, demonologist, wielder of the soulfire—he is all of these, but within him lurks a second self, a savage, satanic side he must constantly fight to control … lest he lose his human heritage forever! —Preface for the Son of Satan series The Son of Satan concept is a simple one (although continuity has been complicated retroactively, as Marvel probably realized that they were stepping on the toes of its religious readers). It begins with the union between the mortal Victoria Wingate and Satan (which revisionist history redefined as merely a demon calling itself Satan). Before Satan disappeared, the couple sired Hellstrom and his sister, Satana. While Satana embraced her darker lineage (which led to her own adventures in Vampire Tales and Marvel Preview), Daimon fought it. Many moons later, Hellstrom became a professor of anthropology. He set up shop as an exorcist/occult investigator, struggling to conquer his demons (a nagging genetic predilection for evil, labeled his “darksoul”) while battling some literal demons of his father’s making as the brooding, “soulfire”-blasting, trident-wielding half-demon dubbed the Son of Satan. Locking horns with his father in the depths of Hell becomes routine as Satan, despite a begrudging respect for his bellicose offspring, forever avows to use every minion at his disposal to thwart his cursed spawn. But the Son of Satan character has its genesis enmeshed with the early appearances of a more popular hell-spawned hero—the spirited motorcycle marauder Ghost Rider.

GHOST RIDIN’ WITH THE DEVIL

Make that Ghost Rider Dos. In 1967, Marvel had published a previous Ghost Rider, a short-lived comic centered on a phantom cowboy (itself derivative of a 1949 Western title). Enter Roy Thomas, Marvel’s young editor-in-chief, who, with the blessing of mentor and Marvel Comics architect Stan Lee, was about to shake things up. The year was 1972. “[Writer] Gary Friedrich,” Thomas tells BACK ISSUE, “had the notion of making up a Ghost Rider villain for Daredevil—some time after the Ghost Rider Western comic folded, of course—and I thought that was a good idea for a hero book instead, and Stan Lee agreed…” That “hero”—a humorless demon clad in black motorcycle leather and a flaming skull—was an instant success, quickly jumping from a test ride in Marvel Spotlight (MS) to his own title. The new X-Men’s Wolverine notwithstanding, Johnny Blaze the Ghost Rider may be the most iconic Marvel character to emerge from the 1970s (inspiring the 2007 Sony film starring Nicolas Cage). So Ghost Rider was on fire (so to speak), as Friedrich and Mike Ploog delivered “the most supernatural super-hero of all!” Marvel had obviously taken advantage of Code laxness … so why stop there?

The Curly Shuffle

The Son of Satan’s nascent beginnings originate with a story arc in Marvel Spotlight on … Ghost Rider #6–7 (Oct. and Dec. 1972). Enter the Daimon Hellstrom prototype Curly, with wavy red hair, cloak, and big pentagram of unnamed blood-like liquid—“the hues of Hell itself”—on his bare chest. At first, Curly saves the outcast Ghost Rider from the vices of a motorcycle gang. We soon learn that Curly secretly leads a congregation of devil-worshipping freaks in a plotline that involves him kidnapping Blaze’s love interest, Roxanne Simpson, to sacrifice her soul to Mephistopheles himself. Curly moves to plunge a jagged dagger into “Rocky” when Ghost Rider intervenes. Battle ensues for Roxanne’s soul. Enter Satan, etc. In earnest, Daimon Hellstrom makes his first appearance in the B plot of Ghost Rider #2 (Oct. 1973), written by Friedrich with art by Jim Mooney and Syd Shores. We’re introduced to Hellstrom by name as the mysterious exorcist invited to an Apache reservation to relieve the possessed Native American woman Linda Littletree. He arrives in suit and trenchcoat, his face hidden in shadow. He instructs Linda’s relatives to place a ringlet of ancient Egyptian ankhs around his wrists, to lock him in his quarters, and, Werewolf by Night-style, not to let him out no matter how much he begs. As night falls, we see Hellstrom, visage still obscured, within his secured chambers. He utters a most unusual prayer: “Holy Father in Heaven— Once more I ask you to see me through the nightly ordeal which is about to descend upon me…!” With the arrival of night comes his Jack Russellesque transformation that we, the readers, are not totally privy to. Sure enough, Linda’s relatives ignore Hellstrom’s request and release him from his ankh-and-key prison. As Hellstrom bolts from the room, we catch a fleeting glimpse of that nowfamiliar red and yellow garb. Fleeing, he utters: “…Farewell, fools—and may your names be forever etched in the legends of infamy for the deed you have performed this night.” The next issue featuring Daimon Hellstrom, Marvel Spotlight #12, would also introduce readers to his fiery alter ego…

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Allan Harvey

“My name is Roberto DaCosta. I am fourteen years old…” So opened the first issue of one of the oddest miniseries in Marvel Comics history. Fallen Angels, written by Jo Duffy and drawn by Kerry Gammill, was a spin-off from the popular New Mutants series. Running for eight issues in 1987, it told of the adventures of the aforementioned DaCosta, aka Sunspot, after he ran away from the X-Mansion following a misuse of his powers. Along the way he became a member of a gang of misfits and rogue mutants called the Fallen Angels who were led by secondstring villain, the Vanisher. During the series, the Fallen Angels became embroiled in a bizarre alien plot to experiment on their mutant powers. Along the way Sunspot’s fellow mutants Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, Warlock, and Siryn joined up. In the end, Sunspot realized he’d been a bit hasty in walking out on the New Mutants and returned home. That was that. It was a series that was largely played for laughs and concerned itself more with character than plot. It is perhaps most notable today for its inclusion of Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy [originally Moon-Boy]. Created by Jack “King” Kirby, they’d barely been seen since the demise of their own series in 1978 [Editor’s note: See this issue’s “What The--?!” for more on Kirby’s king-sized dino-hero]. Fallen Angels brought the characters firmly into the Marvel Universe for the first time. It also defined them as coming from an alien world rather than prehistoric Earth, and declared them mutants—presumably because of their unusually high intelligence.

Fallen Angels, Broken Hearts Young lovers Siryn and Jamie Madrox, on the splash page for the first issue of the unpublished Marvel miniseries Fallen Angels II (FA2). Art by Colleen Doran and Terry Austin. All original artwork in this article is courtesy of Colleen Doran and Allan Harvey. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Entitled “Black Sheep,” the second issue sees Pan getting used to his place in the Fallen Angels. Meanwhile, across town, a longhaired, black-suited master criminal called the Broker has called a meeting to discuss Pan and his escape. He’s not happy. They are keeping a collection of mutant children for some purpose and need Pan back. At Beat Street, Pan has more flashbacks to his abusive past, suffering indignities at the hands of his monstrous father. We also learn how the Broker originally captured him. He wakes up screaming and is comforted by Jamie Madrox. In the morning, he leaves Beat Street and attempts a solo mission to free the captured children. He’s not very successful and is almost recaptured by the Broker’s men. Moon Boy leads the Fallen Angels to him and they rescue both Pan and the kids. The Broker’s mood improves none at this news and he calls in Pan’s abusive father to help with future attempts at reacquiring the young mutant… The two issues that exist of Fallen Angels II present a much more coherent story than the first series, with a solid plot and direction. The dialogue is crisp and amusing and the characters live on the page. Colleen Doran’s art is rock solid, representing an early high for her.

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Even though the series was hampered by an inconsistent art team (there were three pencilers in eight issues), and was decidedly off-kilter for a mid-’80s X-book, it proved a success. At the time there were rumors of a second series, but it never materialized and the Fallen Angels became just a dim memory. So what? you cry, What’s that got to do with “The Greatest Stories Never Told”? A-ha! In actual fact, it was not just a rumor: A sixissue second series was being worked on in 1988. Writer and co-creator Jo Duffy was back, this time working with penciler Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil, Book of Lost Souls). Two issues were fully completed, with inks by legendary X-Men embellisher, Terry Austin. A third had just been started when the axe fell on the project. The first issue of Fallen Angels II begins with Jamie Madrox bidding a tearful farewell to his girlfriend Siryn as she departs the Fallen Angels. There follows a flashback to the appalling childhood of a new character whom we will come to know as Pan Halehone. He suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of his father, but has escaped to the big city where he’s living rough. Meanwhile, Fallen Angels’ resident goofball, Gomi, and his pet bionic lobster (hey, I said it was an odd series) are saying farewell to an old friend who was killed when Devil Dinosaur stepped on him in series one. Back at the gang’s Beat Street den, the T-shirt-wearing Moon Boy has introduced Devil Dinosaur to the dubious delights of MTV. Starving, Pan tries to steal some hot dogs, but runs away when he recognizes two mysterious characters from his past. He falls in with a group of religious extremists, but soon runs away—straight into the clutches of those he was trying to escape. At Beat Street, Devil Dinosaur becomes aware of his cries for help and the Fallen Angels go to investigate. They quickly overcome Pan’s kidnappers and save the day. Pan, whose mutant power is the telepathic control of animals, joins the misfit bunch.

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The Hellish Humor of TM

The chief architects of PLOP! (1973–1976) were Carmine Infantino, then publisher of DC Comics, and Joe Orlando, DC Comics editor, along with the creative talents of writer Steve Skeates and the world’s fastest cartoonist, Sergio Aragonés. I had the pleasure of speaking with Carmine, Steve, and Sergio, as well as regular contributing artist Lee Marrs, in the fall of 2006 and their insight is reflected throughout this article. Ordinarily, there is nothing remotely funny about torture, death, or the Devil. Jokes about such things are typically met with nervous laughter. Unless, of course, they are followed by a “PLOP!” In the early ’70s, MAD magazine was, in many respects, in its heyday, but there was a dearth of humorous comic books for older readers. Arguably the most successful “mature” humor comic book prior to that time was Marvel Comics’ Not Brand

Dewey Cassell

Wolverton at His Weirdest

Ecch, which had ended its 13-issue run in 1969. Subsequent attempts at humor comics by Marvel, including Spoof and Arrgh!, followed a similar formula to Not Brand Ecch, but without the same success. One thing that MAD and the Marvel comics had in common was that the humor was predominately parody. When DC Comics decided to enter the fray, they ultimately chose a different tack. At that time, DC Comics was attempting to capitalize on the success of its horror and mystery comics. New titles included Weird War Tales, Weird Western Tales, and even Weird Adventure Comics [Editor’s note: Adventure Comics temporarily added “Weird” to its logo, but not to the actual series title]. It was probably only natural, then, that DC would contemplate a humor comic book in the horror vein. Titles reportedly considered for the new humor book included Black Humor, Weird Humor, and Zany (which is why some T h e

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of the early PLOP! stories have a ZA number on them). Zany was originally comprised mostly of parodies of existing comic-book characters. Around the same time period, Sergio Aragonés was knocking on DC’s door: “I arrived in New York in 1962 and started working for MAD. Then, in 1966 and 1967, I went to Europe. Before that, I liked comics, but I never saw anything with humor here in the United States. There were funny animals in children’s comics and super-heroes like Plastic Man, but other than Archie, there were no humor comics. When I went to Europe, I realized there were a lot of humor stories, even serious stories drawn in a humorous style. I said, ‘Oh, my God, this is what I want to do.’ So when I got back to the States, I tried to convince someone to do humor comics. I had been bugging Joe Orlando to do humor, but I didn’t want to do another MAD magazine. I wanted to do humor comics,” recounts Aragonés. Then came a story called “The Poster Plague.” Steve Skeates explains, “I wrote ‘The Poster Plague,’ which I originally submitted to Warren Publishing for Creepy, Eerie, or Vampirella, wherever they wanted to put it. Warren turned it down, so I took it to Joe Orlando at DC, who used it in House of Mystery, illustrated by Sergio Aragonés. At some point they decided, more or less, to base PLOP! on the ‘Poster Plague’ story. They liked that combination of horror and humor, and they thought that would sell.” So, how did the new humor comic book come to be called PLOP!? Aragonés recalls the setting: “Joe Orlando and I were sitting in a restaurant talking with Carmine Infantino. They wanted a magazine that was different, something about black humor. Carmine came up with the name. We were talking about it and he said, ‘What will we call it?’ And I said, ‘We can call it anything, because if the magazine is good, then it will stay.’ And he said, ‘No, we can’t call it, for instance … PLOP!’ [possibly recalling the sound effect of ‘KLOP!” from ‘The Poster Plague’]. And I said, ‘Yes, we can.’ And so I started making sketches of things going PLOP! and they laughed and decided the name was good.” Infantino says they considered making PLOP! magazine-sized, rather than a comic book. Infantino was a friend of MAD magazine publisher Bill Gaines and although Gaines never directly told Infantino that he didn’t want DC to make PLOP! a full-sized

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Dan Johnson

cond ucte d on October 16, 2006

Blue Devil was one of the last, great comic-book characters created before DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths of 1985–1986 permanently altered its Universe. He arrived at an interesting time, in 1984, just a couple of years before things turned grim and gritty with the coming of books like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. Blue Devil was the polar opposite of those books. Blue Devil’s series was old-school cool, with a dash of super-heroics tossed in to lend some thrills and chills to its main strength: a sense of humor. The adventures of former stuntman-turned-super-hero Dan Cassidy came courtesy of the writing team of Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn, and together these gents created one of the last bright and shining examples of a comic book that knew how to have fun. Recently BACK ISSUE was able to catch up with Mishkin and Cohn and got the inside scoop on the secrets of Blue Devil. —Dan Johnson DAN JOHNSON: Before we talk about Blue Devil, I wanted to get some background information. How did you two come together as a writing team? DAN MISHKIN: We teamed up as 14-year-olds wanting to just make trouble, I think. GARY COHN: [evil laugh] Yeah. MISHKIN: We met in junior high school and we were part of a small crowd of good friends, who are still friends to this day. [As kids,] we talked and loved comic books and had a lot of other interests. At one point, when we were 16, Gary said, “I’m going to be a writer.” COHN: This was something I had known since I was about nine. MISHKIN: And he was talking matter-of-factly saying this, and my thought was, “I didn’t know you were allowed to say that!” It was a real eye-opening experience for me, because Gary kind of led the way and said, “If you’re the sort of person who is always thinking of and telling stories, you can make this your life’s work.”

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COHN: I’ve thought about what it was that gave me the confidence to say that, and it turns out it was around 1968 after [Harlan Ellison’s] Dangerous Visions came out. It was all those introductions Harlan had written about various writers that made [writing] a viable thing to me. I had some insight into who writers were and what they did at that point. MISHKIN: Right, and you were cocky. COHN: Well, yeah. I was trying to be Harlan. MISHKIN: Right. I was never cocky. COHN: So anyway, we both decided to be writers and we had been kicking around ideas constantly from the time we were 14 years old on. We told each other stories about the various characters in the comics we loved, and also about the things we would like to do if we created our own comics. MISHKIN: We ended up responding to each other ideas by building on them and it became a partnership without any planning. Gary came up with a character that, unfortunately, has never seen print, and because it’s the one you came up with when you were 15 years old, it probably shouldn’t see print at this point. The character was called the Wanderer, and we developed a lot of stories about the Wanderer, which was a lot of fun. That sort of made us into a comicbook writing team without having anyone actually pay us to do the work. [When] DC was publishing anthology titles like House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected, we managed to get our collective foot in the door. Then we finally made contact with the right person, who was Jack C. Harris. He was editing a new book called Time Warp, which was basically “House of Mystery in space.” It was an outer-space/horror twistending book. We sent Harris a dozen pitches, and one of them he liked. The one he liked was the one that didn’t fit the formula he said he was looking for, which was stories where the monster eats the girl and kills the space cop. COHN: We did a story about a guy getting a ride home from— MISHKIN: —Santa Claus! We had a story [called “On the Day of His Return” from Time Warp #3, Feb.–Mar. 1980] about this crazy old coot on this wintery planetoid that a guy crashlands on, and it turns out to be Santa Claus, who takes him home on his sleigh. We did an unexpected happy ending instead of a twist ending. Steve Ditko drew the story, which was really terrific. COHN: That was really exciting to us that on our very first shot, Ditko was drawing our story. Ditko is God. MISHKIN: And Ditko, actually, was crucial to Blue Devil. COHN: Our editor for a number of things we were doing was a guy named Dave Manak. At this point, Dan was living in Michigan and I was in New York. I was the point guy who went to the DC office once a week and schmoozed the editors. One day Manak says, “Ditko’s been hanging around the office and he really wants something to do. Do you think you and Dan can come up for something for him?” I went © 2007 DC Comics.

Beginnings: “On the Day of His Return” from Time Warp #3 (DC, 1980)

Milestones: Co-creator of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld and Blue Devil for DC Comics / Wonder Woman / Creeps (Image Comics)

Work in Progress: Writing The Forest King series of illustrated novels for Actionopolis

Cyberspace: www.myspace.com/danmishkin

DAN MISHKIN Photo courtesy of Dan Mishkin.

Beginnings: “On the Day of His Return” from Time Warp #3 (DC, 1980)

Milestones: Co-creator of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld and Blue Devil for DC Comics / Senryaku and Shi/Cyblade (Crusade Entertainment)

Work in progress: Currently teaching high school and developing a variety of new writing projects

Gary cohn Photo courtesy of Gary Cohn.

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Philippe Cordier

Daredevil is not a bestselling book! The title is not in the same commercial league as X-Men. But there is something about Marvel’s Man without Fear … something that attracts artists and, when done well, readers as well. There is also something unfair about Daredevil (DD)—such wonderful creators were on the book, yet a lot of them are unsung heroes. Talk about DD with fellow comics fans and the names you’ll hear are Gene Colan and Frank Miller (along with some discussion of Stan Lee, Bill Everett, and Wally Wood) among the “older” readers, while almost every “modern” fan will jump to the Kevin Smith/Joe Quesada, Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev, or Ed Brubaker/Michael Lark eras. That’s a shame, because a lot of other good artists worked on the character. In this article, I’ll focus on two kinds of creators: The first person we’ll look at is not an unsung creator—far from it, because we’re talking about Frank Miller. As great as the man was/is, his DD should also be remembered because of the artists he worked with on the title: Klaus Janson, David Mazzucchelli, and John Romita, Jr. (we’ll leave Bill Sienkiewicz for what could be a future BI issue). The second thing we’ll take a look at is a run that is not famous enough: Daredevil by

Something’s Cooking in Hell’s Kitchen (left) A 2002 pinup by Klaus Janson, drawn for charity, featuring the heavy hitters from the Daredevil cast. Courtesy of the artist. (inset) Early DD by Gene Colan (with Frank Giacoia inks). Detail from page 17 of Daredevil #20 (Sept. 1966). Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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A trio of ’80s photos from the archives of one of Los Angeles’ coolest comics shops, Golden Apple: (left) The first is of Frank Miller, back during his DD days; (below) in the second, Miller is seen with his Elektra Assassin collaborator Bill Sienkiewicz; (bottom) and the final photo features Golden Apple’s founder, the late Bill Liebowitz, doing his impression of Miller’s Wolverine. Photos courtesy of Ryan Liebowitz, with special thanks to Jerry Boyd.

Ann Nocenti, John Romita, Jr., and Al Williamson. This rather long and very good run is often forgotten because it was kind of a “strange” book, thanks to Nocenti’s twisted imagination. This article will allow you to look at some wonderful art from the greatest talents in DD’s history. For much of the original artwork you’re about to see, please allow me to thank Klaus Janson and John Romita, Jr. (and Spencer Beck and our other art providers) for their generous contributions. Before reading this article, please look back at our gorgeous Mike Zeck cover: What is there at DD’s feet? A newspaper! What is the headline? A “crime ring busted”: and those names listed are the same artists we’ll talk about in these pages! And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give the devil his due…

THE BEST THERE IS AT WHAT HE DOES (#158–172)

Frank Miller makes no mystery of the fact that he always loved crime comics. DD was as close as he could get to this genre, considering that crime comics weren’t the flavor of the month at the time (and still are not). When Miller got his start in the late 1970s, almost all you could do if you were a young cartoonist was draw super-heroes. Daredevil’s costume is plain enough to have allowed Miller to stay away from the all-too-colorful world of super-heroes that he didn’t want to do in those days. One of Frank Miller’s strength was and still is storytelling: His layouts are a joy to behold. Those skills didn’t come out of nowhere: There are strong influences by Will Eisner in the way the city (a character of its own) is portrayed in Miller’s DD, with long panels and layouts trying to slow down the reader’s eye, or multiple little panels making the reader fly across the page. Miller also paid a big tribute to the late Gil Kane in figure drawing, anatomy, and panel layouts that were clearly inspired by this artist. Miller added his sense of dialogue as soon as he could do the writing himself, very early on the run. [Editor’s note: Miller started as penciler with Daredevil #158 (May 1979), working with writer Roger McKenzie, then assumed the writing chores with issue #168 (Jan. 1981).] Miller is a consummate storyteller: Once a reader started his DD, he couldn’t stay away from it. Adventure, drama, strong and beautiful women, a sharp sense of humor, cliffhangers … and most of all, mood—mood all over the page! This grim-and-gritty feeling (way before it was cool to be grim and gritty) was this run’s forté, but it might not have been possible if Miller had worked alone—at least half of what made Miller’s pages so great came from someone else, someone who started as an inker (and a finisher), then became the sole artist of the book: Klaus Janson.

Photos courtesy of Golden Apple.

[continued on page 38]

(opposite page) Mike Zeck did this amazing Captain America piece for a French portfolio in 1983. The cover of this issue of BI (inset) is, obviously, a recreation of that plate, supplanting DD for Cap. Courtesy of Editions Deesse and Philippe Cordier. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Frank Miller’s Will Eisner-esque page 12 of Daredevil #187 (Oct. 1982), courtesy of its inker, Klaus Janson. Miller’s appreciation of Eisner’s work continues to this day: He’s slated to script and direct a movie adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit, planned for a 2008 release. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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John Romita, Jr. on Daredevil

conducted October 9, 2006

PHILIPPE CORDIER: What do you remember of your run on DD? What was it like to work on this character? JOHN ROMITA, JR.: The run on Daredevil was enjoyable, mostly, because I was able to draw finished pencils for the first time. Before that it was breakdowns … although my breakdowns were very complete, they were still considered incomplete. I was already telling stories, in my own fashion, for years, on Spider-Man and, for that matter, on X-Men. Remember, the process back then was plotting, art, then dialogue. So I was already pretty adept at storytelling. I do remember that I finally felt like I was part of the creation process for the first time while I was on DD. That was the most memorable part. CORDIER: How was your collaboration with Al Williamson? Did you talk with him at times? ROMITA, JR.: Working with Al Williamson was much like working with my father in that I felt that I was protected from mistakes… If my art wasn’t correct, then Al would repair it. Oddly enough, Al said he never had to fix anything, claiming he just “traced” over my pencils. Al was always the gentleman. I do admit that while we worked on Man without Fear I felt very in control of all my “tools” and felt fearless, pardon the pun! Overall, working with Al Williamson was one of the highlights of my career. Other than working with my father, I consider Al the finest “artist” I have ever worked with. Al was a brilliant illustrator, as most artists of his generation were, long before he made money as an inker. It is of no small mention that I say that Man without Fear may very well be the best work, overall, that I’ve done in my career … and in no small part aided by Al Williamson—and Frank Miller … can’t forget to mention HIM!!! CORDIER: I know Ann Nocenti can be a “strange” writer, but a very clever one. Did you enjoy “her” DD? ROMITA, JR.: Ann Nocenti was a very different type of writer when we teamed up on DD. Her storylines were, to say the least, very political, and I remember chuckling while I worked. I chuckled because of the subject matter: Women’s rights, or the strange image of women in society as well as the mistreatment of animals … not to forget the nuclear-power argument. (Interestingly, the French are more nuclear aware than the US, as far as energy utilization goes.) So to say the least, it was interesting to work with Ann. I considered myself to be independent politically, or moderate, if you understand … but working with Ann, I felt as if I were extremely conservative! This was also the time that Ronald Reagan was the US president ... so it became a great conversation piece between Ann and me. I look back upon that time as a turning point in my art career … and Ann, like Al Williamson, was right there. CORDIER: You co-plotted an issue (“A Beer with the Devil”). You worked the Marvel way—were you able to add a lot of things, ideas, scenes…? What kind of freedom were you given on the whole run? ROMITA, JR.: I had a good amount of freedom to add to the stories as I saw fit, but other than “Beer with the Devil” my additions were storytelling only. Ann and Ralph Macchio allowed me as much input as I wanted, but the stories were done far in advance. I was given free rein to do with those stories as much as I could.

CORDIER: Which part of your run did you like best: the urban DD from the earlier issues (including the “Inferno” tie-in), “DD on the road,” or “DD in Hell,” which you did at the end of your run? ROMITA, JR.: I would say that the best part of my run on the title was DD in Hell. I was able to redesign Mephisto (I couldn’t see the Devil with tights and a cape). It was just a visually wide-open period of time in the run. CORDIER: In your career you came to titles you had worked on before, like Iron Man, X-Men, and Spider-Man. What would make you consider being the regular Daredevil artist again? ROMITA, JR.: I would LOVE to work on DD again… It’s my favorite character to draw, overall, and it would be fun to return.

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Captions by

Michael Eury

After a revolving door of artists in the earliest issues of Daredevil, John Romita, Sr. began a brief stint on the title with issue #12 (Jan. 1966), initially drawing over Jack Kirby layouts. Pictured here is a rarely seen illo by Romita, a 1974 presentation piece for a proposed Daredevil animated TV series. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Tom “The Comics Savant” Stewart

Okay, let’s get this over with right off the bat. I like Devil Dinosaur. There I said it, let it be on my head. It’s a simple, fun comic that does exactly what it sets out to do. Proceed accordingly. It was 1978. Jimmy Carter was president, Laverne & Shirley was the top-rated TV show, and Jack Kirby was writing and drawing a comic book about a furry ape boy and his big, red dinosaur. Yes, that Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, Fantastic Four, and the Silver Surfer, the man who had more than a hand in making Marvel Comics the top-selling super-hero titles in the business, was drawing a strip that seemed a throwback to something he’d already left behind at a previous company. But with a big, red dinosaur. A Devil Dinosaur. Let me explain… In 1978 Jack Kirby had been in the comics business for 40 years. Kirby was still an immense creative force, but he felt spent on comics, Marvel in particular, and was looking for a way out. He was putting out Black Panther, Machine Man, and the last few issues of The Eternals. Jack worked away at a business he no longer felt he understood, at least not the way it was being run at the time. There were people in the Marvel offices that didn’t think Jack knew what he was doing, or misunderstood Jack’s need for control over his work as pigheadedness. They offered to help “fix” his writing, and were stung that Jack didn’t want to draw their scripts. Why wouldn’t the great Jack Kirby want to return to Fantastic Four or Thor? Why do something like The Eternals or Machine Man … or Devil Dinosaur? Why, indeed.

An Odd Mix A crimson dino, an ape boy, and armored adversaries—all in one (sur)reality! From the mind and pencil of Jack “King” Kirby. Original cover artwork to Devil Dinosaur #4 (July 1978), by Kirby and Joe Sinnott. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Meet the Man Downstairs “I wanted Satan to look like a well-used plush toy, a teddy bear that had lost its fur over the years,” recalls Ty Templeton of Satan, seen here in a panel from Stig’s Inferno #3 (that’s the Vortex Comics logo on Satan’s button). “He’s lost his ability to terrify and control us, so I made him small, and chubby, and kind of cute.” © 2007 Ty Templeton.

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Brian K. Morris

Abraham Lincoln, Cinderella, Genghis Kahn, Andrew Carnegie, Rocky Balboa—many names in reality and fiction rose from humble circumstances to embrace greatness. A surnameless man named Stig took a date home only to die, lose his special Leonard Nimoy-designer jeans, and eventually wind up as the Lord and Ruler of the Kingdom of Hell, with all of the powers and problems the post entails. The son of Canadian evangelist/entrepreneur/media personality Charles Templeton, Ty Templeton studied art at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) alongside fellow artists Anthony Van Bruggen, Klaus Schoenfeld, and R. C. Taylor, all of whom would make their own contributions to the world of comics. At a party, Van Bruggen mentioned his then-recent publication in a new comic book Vortex and urged Templeton to submit samples to publisher William P. Marks. “He needed artists in the Toronto area to keep his magazine going,” Templeton recalls. “I thought, ‘What the hell, right? Could be fun.’” [Editor’s note: The anthology Vortex, from Vortex Comics, ran 15 issues between 1982 and 1988. Vortex’s other publications included Mister X, Black Kiss, and Yummy Fur.] “Cheap Thrills” appeared in Vortex #5 (Sept. 1983), the first of Templeton’s contributions to the Vortex Comics family of publications. Marks liked Templeton’s work: “When I showed him some of the stuff I had in a drawer called Stig’s Inferno,” says Templeton, “he liked it enough to suggest I do a series.” Stig’s creation began when the teenaged Templeton read Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, an updating of Dante Alighieri’s classic story of a science-fiction fan’s journey through the Underworld to his eventual escape. “The novel goosed my 16-year-old brain just right,” and so Templeton started reading the original Inferno and the two volumes about Purgatory and Paradise. “I fell in love with them as stories. It took a bit to get past the language translations, but for a year or so, I was reading different versions, off and on, as my reading on subways and buses, getting to and from school.” Once at the Ontario College of Art, Templeton and Klaus Schoenfeld noticed that having a student body filled with artists could guarantee the campus newspaper a quantity of strips. But as Templeton states, “Klaus and I didn’t like any of the strips in the back of the paper and announced we were each going to do our own strips, a friendly competition of sorts. We were creating these things, mostly to entertain each other,” with plans to submit them to the student newspaper. Templeton fused his studies of Dante’s works with the “stranger in a strange land” feel of Alice in Wonderland and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, two of Templeton’s favorite D e v i l

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From Stig’s Inferno #1 (1984), Stig enthusiastically plays the actual “Stig Requiem,” a ragtime-like piece Templeton calls “a silly piece of music that either Klaus [Schoenfeld] or I had written. It’s supposed to be played ‘Allegro con morte.’” (far right) Detective Murdoch, shown here from Stig’s Inferno #3, had a last name that sounded like “murder” to Ty Templeton as well being “a good tough guy name. He’s not named after Matt Murdock, since as soon as I noticed it, I regretted him sharing a name with a famous Marvel character.” © 2007 Ty Templeton.

books, to create his own divine comedy. And being a fan of Eric Idle, Templeton drew Stig’s first-and-only name from a Monty Python skit and from the Rutles’ guitarist in Idle’s All You Need is Cash. As Templeton drew three strips of his new creation, Schoenfeld indulged his love of all things military in a tale of the Boer Wars. Upon seeing the results of each other’s artistic labors, Templeton recalls, “We came to this place where I didn’t like the way I was drawing mine and Klaus wasn’t sure what his story was supposed to be about.” The complementing of each other’s strengths was an omen. “It didn’t take a genius to realize we should team up and create together, so we did.” Klaus redrew the initial Stig tales and added another eight. However, those strips went into a drawer, never to be seen by the OCAD student body. Templeton philosophizes, “When you’re 19 and 20 years old, life intervenes and you don’t follow through on things or it becomes summer or something. We got busy with other projects, we were never completely satisfied with the strips, there were tweaks I wanted to do here and there, etc. So from there, they went into a drawer and sat there for a year or so.” Templeton showed Marks the would-be newspaper strips and received a green light for work on the series to commence. Templeton’s reaction? “I immediately went to Klaus and said, ‘We have a series, let’s go!’” But by this time, Schoenfeld labored as a commercial storyboard artist, making far more money than an artist for a black-andwhite comic book from a minor publisher. “So he gave me the blessing to go back to drawing what was

This illustration from Stig’s Inferno #3 spotlights Stig’s last date, Beatrice Portinari. Beatrice was based on Templeton’s girlfriend at the time and named after Dante Alighieri’s cousin, the love of his life and inspiration for his classic poem. © 2007 Ty Templeton.

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originally my own strip anyway, and off I went. My drawing had improved since the original, terrible attempts and I was a little more comfortable doing it then.” The original strips formed the first six pages of Stig’s Inferno #1, which saw print in 1984, and Schoenfeld found time to assist, according to Templeton, on “about four of five pages I was having trouble with, mostly the pages on the escalator [pages 4 and 5 of issue 2].” Stig led Beatrice Portinari to his self-built ramshackle home, located so far from humanity that a skeletal postman barely made it to within eyeshot of the house. Despite Stig’s numerous warnings, the locks on the outside of the door, the demonic-netherworld, and the wretched spirit talisman on the far wall that couldn’t be burned away or painted over, she couldn’t wait to hear one of Stig’s original compositions on the grand piano in the corner. Unfortunately, a pair of demons resided inside the instrument and they weren’t having any part of eviction. When Stig leaned into the piano to confront the squatters, he found out too late they’d booby-trapped the piano. One slammed lid later, Stig awoke in “Canto Two” and began his journey towards the River Styx. Unbeknownst to Stig, Beatrice called the police to investigate the young man’s death. Detective Murdock led a crack squad that arrested the piano before stumbling onto the gateway to the Afterlife and Stig’s trail. Meanwhile, Stig commandeered Charon’s motorboat after offering the demon Visine as relief for his blazing eyes, which he drank (Templeton’s favorite joke in the series). The boat crashed into Satan’s party and after escaping the Palace of Pleasure—as well as Satan’s glamorous wife Helene—Stig climbed onto Satan’s throne for a nap and awakened as the new Ruler of Hell. The artwork, slick and filled with all manner of sight gags, showed off Templeton’s and Schoenfeld’s appreciation of the early MAD magazines by writer/editor Harvey Kurtzman and artist Will Elder. “We both love the language and the craft of Kurtzman’s work, so yes, it was a tremendous influence,” states Templeton. “When I was younger, I wanted to be Kurtzman, Elder, Wood, Davis, and Severin. All of them. I couldn’t choose a style that I liked better than the others, so I internalized all of it. Certainly not a lot of any of them—I simply wasn’t that good—but there were bits and pieces of their styles in everything I did back then. We all find some style that excites us when we start out. When I was 20, it was Kurtzman and his stable of creators. That was ground zero for good comics for me.” The non-Stig aspects of the book were a tip of Templeton’s hat to the DC and EC comic books of his youth. Rather than full-length tales, Stig’s Inferno utilized

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Michael Eury

John Amos is an EC Comics fan. He told me so himself. No, I’m not a personal friend of the actor you might know from Roots, Coming to America, or Die Hard 2, nor would I expect him to recall our chance meeting. But imagine my surprise back in 1992 when, during my days as a DC Comics editor, I looked up from my desk one afternoon and saw Mr. Amos—yes, JJ’s daddy from Good Times!—looking into my office. At that time DC was headquartered in an Avenue of the Americas building which shared space with sister Warner Bros. companies. After finishing other WB business, John Amos encountered in the elevator a DC employee who worked for Joe Orlando. Amos confessed an appreciation for the work of Orlando, as well as EC luminaries Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, and Jack Davis. He was invited to the DC offices for an introduction to Mr. Orlando, after which he stuck around for an impromptu tour (and a little office voyeurism). George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are EC Comics fans, too. They didn’t tell me so themselves, at least not directly, but related their affection for ECs in their introductions to, respectively, the first volumes of The EC Archives’ Weird Science and Shock SuspenStories editions. Three celebrity endorsements for EC Comics, from personalities I truly admire! But I didn’t share their passion for ECs since I, like most of you, was born too late to have followed publisher William M. Gaines’ titles. (As a middle-aged man, I relish this opportunity to publicly proclaim that I am “too young.”) Of course, I’m aware that EC’s uncompromisingly graphic comic books torch-lit an industry-wide witch hunt more harmful than any eye-injury horror story. I was a fan of the HBO version of EC’s Tales from the Crypt, and remember that dreadful 1985 teen comedy Weird Science (which borrowed the EC comic’s name, but not its content) and its syndicated TV spin-off a decade later. A few years ago, during a consulting gig at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, I examined the covers of numerous CGC-“slabbed” ECs, but was unable to peek inside due to their protective casings. Despite that awareness of Gaines’ funnybook empire, until January 2007 I had never actually read an EC comic. Thanks to Gemstone Publishing and publisher Russ Cochran, I’ve finally joined the party … and have seen firsthand why those celebrities—as well as countless reviewers and publications, including Entertainment Weekly—enthusiastically recommend the recently launched The EC Archives. The EC Archives chronologically re-presents the EC Comics line in lavishly produced, full-color hardcovers. Inaugurating the series are the premier volumes of Weird Science, a Twilight Zone-ish tour of realms fantastic, and Shock SuspenStories, an ambitious omnibus merging crime, war, sci-fi, and horror tales into a single package. The work of John Amos’ favorites is on display, along

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