Comic Book Nerd by TwoMorrows Publishing

CONTENTS: Whizzer . . . . . . .1 The slick, glossy, hip and edgy showbiz wannabee with all the number 2 from the Big Two.

Comic Book Meatmarket . . . .9 As much fun as an economics textbook with a comic hidden inside.

Comics Buyer’s Guise . . . . . . . .17 Better than the magazines in the doctor’s office.

The Jake Herbie Obsessor . . . . . .25 There’s hero worship, and then there’s this.

Bagged Issue! . .29 Celebrating some the crappiest years in comics history.

Ultra Ego . . . . .33 Covers all the greats. All three of them! Endlessly...

Scrawl! . . . . . . .39 Learn to draw comics and go broke!

Type Now! . . . .43 Learn to write comics, TV and animation and go broke.

Comic Book Artiste . . . . . . .47 Learn patience by subscribing.

The Comics Urinal . . . . . . . .53 Discover why everything you like is no good!

Purviews . . . . .59 Each issue of this monstrous thing destroys about 100 acres of rainforest, advertising what’s destroying the rest. Enjoy!

Internerds . . . . .62 In cyberspace everybody can hear you scream! Ant-Man, Avengers, Capt. America, Dr. Strange, Fantastic Four, Hercules, Hulk, Human Torch, Inhumans, Iron Man, Nick Fury, Scorpion, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Thor, X-Men TM & ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Batman, Inferior Five, Green Lantern, Justice League, Superman, Swamp Thing, Wonder Woman TM & ©2006 DC Comics. • Donald Duck TM & ©2006 Walt Disney Productions, Inc.

PETE VON SHOLLY PRESENTS: THE PETE VON SHOLLY INTRODUCTORY EDITORIAL PAGE To the Reader/Purchaser of this magazine, A few words of introduction are necessary to welcome you to the first (and doubtless last) issue of Comic Book Nerd! Only a few words may be necessary, but I’m going to use lots and lots of them because I have a large ego and talk as much as I want, especially in my own magazine. So, anyway, you know you’re tired of reading actual comic books and that collecting is where it’s at. There are now a host of magazines where you can just read about the comics which appeal to the discerning collector. Comic Book Nerd presents a sort of overview of these marvelous sources of information which serve mainly to alert you to all the great things you can never have. But I can and I do. I live to gloat like the rest of my lofty ilk. Not peers, ilk. More about me later. No, now. Why wait? There will be even more later anyway and I still have some space to fill. Let me go on. In these pages I will poke fun at, demonstrate my superiority to, and look down on the magazines I feature. They can gripe and groan all they want and I could care less. Here at the Von Sholly Castle, atop Von Sholly Peak in Vonshollywood, I stroll the vast halls and grin smugly at the treasures which festoon them in fancy frames. The vaults below hold slabbed masterpieces which no one will ever see. Even I don’t look at them. It’s all about having them, you see. It’s all about having what others want, even if I could care less about it. My original cover art for Fantastic Four #1 for instance; nobody knows I have it, except you now. I give this as a minor example. It’s not Kirby’s best, but it’s the one everybody wants and that’s why I have it. We’ll talk more later— well, I’ll talk and you’ll listen. COMIC BOOK NERD #1 is a TwoMorons, I mean TwoMorrows publication, and they’re located at 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, 919-449-0344, www.twomorrows.com. Everything in it was written and drawn* by Pete Von Sholly (with his son Pete Jr as P. Don Sheets and Mike Van Cleave as contributing writer). Any similarity to actual people and characters is probably intentional, this being a parody mag and all, but any source characters are TM & ©2006 by Marvel, DC, etc. and CBN makes no claim on these properties. All material taken from other sources is used strictly for satirical purposes: no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. We swear. Comic Book Nerd and Pete’s original characters TM & ©2006 by Pete Von Sholly. Printed in Canada. First (& last?) printing. * Pete did not draw the covers and art in the Whizzer Top Ten Reasons Why, etc. section. Obviously. Those are all copyright by the original copyright holders and CBN makes no claim on them! They are reproduced here for those aforementioned satiric purposes only. Thank you.

An exception to our rule! ragic Nerds guy Chris Wart here. We don’t usually promote independent books ’cause there’s nothing in it for us, but Mad Dog Murderboy’s amazing Road-Killa art (along with his persuasive letter) convinced us otherwise! Buy his book, please! And now your letters!

Yo Dudes of Whizzerdom, I read every issue of your mag from cover to cover and there’s so much stuff in it that the great thing is I don’t really have the time or need to read any actual comic books anymore! I’d rather read your coolness anyway! But the other day I went and snatched up a new issue and took it to my crib to enjoy many pages of greasy looking women with those big perfectly round breasts like you would see airbrushed on the side of a rockin’ van, dozens of kickin’ scowling heroes with crazy eyes and those wicked cool teeth that go all around their heads, and what do I find? It’s like half black and white and there’s all these weird ads and columns and stuff about really old comics and so I checked the cover and it’s totally like not even Whizzer! It’s some Comics Buyer’s Guise deal, man! They are totally ripping you off, man! You should sue them or something cause a lot of your readers are going to get really cheesed off when it happens to them! SEXY BLOODSAW FENTON shreddingduderuler@hotmilk.com

SBF! We tell our readers again and again, “You got to read the title!” And further, if it ain’t in a plastic bag and a bunch of useless s--t doesn’t fall out when you open it, it ain’t us! Whizzified Ones, Where are the fart jokes? I read your whole mag and couldn’t find a single one! What gives here? You guys are slipping! KENT FIGURE Bohunk, Duh

Kentington! Check the cover and make sure it was Whizzer you bought. Ugh, just a second... (BRUMMMMPH!) That was a good one. Wish you could get a whiff! Better? Whizzadocious Wildmen, Your magazine is the greatest thing going! I wouldn’t know what to buy without it. However, I do notice that you never seem to mention TwoMorons, Gallstone, Dark Hoss, or any other publishers but Mangle and BC. Is there a reason for this? Are there no other comics or comics-related magazines worth our time and money out there? TY MALONE Socio Path, Ill

No—and we never even heard of those companies you mentioned. They must be really small and insignificant or we would know about them. We only bring you the stuff that counts and that we know is great. See their big ads all over every issue of Whizzer! That’s how you know they’re good! Dear Whizzer, I wanna end your letters column! I just wanna fill up the space you have at the bottom of the page and I’ll do anything you want for the chance! Please! SELMA BODY Anything, OK Y.I. OTTA, Nyuk, Nyuk, NYUK

WHIZZER 666

Dang! You almost made it, but this line’s the bottom. Sorry!

WRITER: Crank Filler ARTIST: Crank Filler As the comics community continues to flounder about for some relevance, Crank does what Crank does best! He delivers good old sex and violence, and sales are soaring for first editions of his Skin City knockouts! Crank’s books are presented in glorious black-and-white and are easy to read, have no big words or complicated stories, and have lots of sexy babes and big tough gritty guys who cuss and bleed like crazy! Slab some of these quick, gang!

WRITER: Bob Burgerbiter ARTISTS: Bob Burgerbiter and his Mom It’s the end of the world! Yeah, again. And what do you think? Why, the Living Dead go out and stumble around like always. But not ZOMBIE MILKMAN who just keeps trying to deliver this sour milk. He doesn’t know what else to do—he’s dead, okay? This rare gem comes from the hottest artist in the HOT COW stable, Bob Burgerbiter, and they are flying off the shelves, so better get yours before the price gets even higher!

WRITER: Derek Potcalling ARTISTS: Stiggy Kettleblack

WRITER: Stephen Kink ARTIST: Alex Tooth

The British Invasion rides again as rock and rollers who take too many drugs break through to another dimension. Don’t miss this super-hot import! It even comes with a little packet of some kind of white powder stapled on and seems to have three or four pages printed right on top of one another on each page. It’s incomprehensible, but if you use what’s in the packet, you won’t care!

They laughed when Classics tried to foist this one on them back in the Stone Age Sixties, but it’s been rediscovered in a warehouse—a box of unsold copies are now available and going fast! Better hurry because the convention season is coming and the word is out on these limited super-rare masterpieces of inspired commercial madness! This is the rarest of all Classics and rather a mystery since it was done before the author even wrote the story! Wooooooh!

WRITER: Brainy Marshall Bender ARTISTS: Tempura Shrimpe & Hamfist Schlock

WRITERS: Tim Barton and The Studio ARTISTS: Tim Barton, Rich “Spindly” Heimlich, and Goth Anorexia

The rebooted X-Men/Hulk Hybrid series with the special Variant cover—where the artist wasn’t sure if the big guy in the foreground was supposed to be the Beastie or Woolyverine, so he kind of fudged and made him a little of both—is one of the hardest of all comics to find! A very small number of these were printed and the prices are skyrocketing. The even rarer version where Marvel Hulk Girl has a moustache is now completely gone! Don’t waste another moment without this one, wise investors!

WRITER: Jamal Zimbabwe Dillingham ARTISTS: Chili Dogg Jones and Da Hoodwinks YO YO YO! It’s da Pantha in da Hood doin’ his thang like you always knew he should. No jive-ass Vibranium Bling and electric jungle bullshizzle. Jamal and Chili promised to keep it real and that’s the deal! This one’s so hot we have to put copies in asbestos bags, homies! That Black Pantha is one bad mamajamma straight up! Unh. Yeeyuh! Prices are already on the rise so you better recognize! Black Pantha Represent! B’lee dat!

Barton’s first entry into the comics field is dynamite. He even sketched the idea for the cover on a napkin and showed it to his team—his only actual contribution—but somehow the Barton magic comes through! (While lensing his remake of The Wizard of Oz, when the house fell on the Wicked Witch and only her stripe- sock clad legs were showing, the crew was horrified to find that it was Barton himself under the house! Thank God he lived or NOBODY could afford a copy!)

WRITER: Howard Shakin ARTIST: Howard Shakin Whole lotta Shakin goin on with this one! Hot babes and really cool designs for chairs and cars and stuff! Sound effects and outstanding lettering for days! This one’s so hot we can hardly get copies bagged and boarded before greedy speculators swarm in and grab them all up! Don’t miss the notorious lube job scene! A number of parental complaints surround this baby so you KNOW it’s the one to hoard!

WRITER: Jake Herbie ARTIST: Jake Herbie

WRITER: Alvin Moose ARTIST: Dave Meatandpotatos Giblets

When the kids play baseball on the harsh world of Epoxylips, they don’t mess around! Read TAKE ME OUT AT THE BALLGAME! Don’t miss this key issue from Herbie’s celebrated Fourth Whirl in the comics biz. See how great he was before certain evil snaky bastards in the company showed their true colors. Those would be green and yellow, as in jealous cowards!

Leave it to those wacky Brits to re-invent our superfolks and turn them into something new and generally highly disagreeable! But boy do they sell! Especially the reinvention of Kal-Hoon, the ACTION hero that started it all. The first issue of this groundbreaking run goes for $1K in CFGC NM! Get it ASAP or be SOL!

WHIZZER 666

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WHIZZER 666

Payment must be included with all orders or we will throw your letter straight into the garbage and possibly send somebody around to beat you up. We take all the credit cards. Credit card orders must include all the usual crap. And tell us what days you want to attend, etc., and don’t be stupid because we don’t change anything once we have your cash. Send all the money you want or can get to: Whizzer World South, PO’d Box 666, Fullabalo NY 888888. Then hold your breath until the tickets come. For faster service go online and sign up for our spam-o-thon and advertising deluge.

WHIZZER 666

Tickets are sent when we get around to it so don’t EVEN bother to call or e-mail as you will never get through to a real human being to whine to even if we had some here. Any money received after the due date will be kept and no tickets will be sent so pay attention to all this stuff or you are SOL bigtime! It makes no diff to us once we have the dough! All advance ticket orders by those who do everything right get a “FREE” bit of hype from one of our secret employers; an exclusive comic book by one of those three-named “hot” writers and drawn by the “artist of the moment.” Whoopee.

Meatmarket Mail Too much of a great thing???

COMIC BOOK Meatmarket STEPHEN A. GIPPI Chief Executive Officer RUST COCKROACH Editor & Publisher FLIP A. COYNE Chief Grading Consultant JENNIFER N. COGNITO WILL WORRY MICHELLE MELON Contributors PRICING & MARKUP REPORTS ROBERT M. OVERPRICE Senior Bean Counter MICHAEL MAIM’EM Chief Valuator HAROLD HOITY V.P. of B.S. RESEARCH DAVID WEENIEWITZ Head Lookerupper UPTON O'GOOD Authenticity Transmogrification

Dear Rust, What’s with all the Frazenkle stuff all the time anyway? I mean, the guy’s great and everything but sheeesh! Mel Mybutt Disgruntled, Utah “Doctor” David Weeniewitz replies: “Endless reams of fulsome praise for the great Froy Frazenkel are always in order! The other day the Master was cleaning a brush and the resultant blot alone was resplendent with verve and piquant suggestion! Note the sly, humorous sweep of the big smear at the bottom which leads the eye unerringly...” (cont’d on page 99)

Wrong side of the bid! Dear Sirs, What’s the story with these HoitySnooty Auctions you guys are always advertising in Comic Book Meatmarket? Last year I was down on my luck and sold them my SpiderMensch collection (the first 100 issues plus Amazing Fancy #15 all in NM shape!) and they only gave me a thousand bucks for the whole set. Now I see they are selling the first issue alone for twenty thousand—or whatever they can get for it! What gives??? Ben Hadd Wottasap, ME Harold Hoity replies: “Ah, we receive so many such queries from benighted souls... let me try to explain this again... a valuable comic book like that, in your irrelevant unfamous hands, is worth perhaps seventy-five or eighty dollars, whereas coming from a prestigious firm like ours (and presented in a high-grade UV-proof flexible protectant poly-hexalene envelope— a plastic bag to you—and laid out on a velvet cushion) is worth considerably more by virtue of the elite pedigree it now possesses! P.S. When things get tight again, let’s talk about those early FFs you showed us! Ciao!”

Reprints of Darkness! Dear Mister Cockroach, We all know the EC books were pretty great, but how many times do you think we’re going to buy the same stuff??? This is just evil! Same’o Same’o Caca, CA

Dear Same’o, Seems to me you can’t buy that stuff too many times since there’s never been anything as good since! Speaking of which, watch for our ads for the next incarnation, which will be a stunner! It collects the ENTIRE EC LIBRARY into one book eight feet thick! It will be the largest book ever created and you won’t want to miss it! You can read it, sit on it like couch, or add wheels and a motor and ride all around town on it—it’s just that great! Let me know how many you want! There’s even a super special edition which comes with an actual bone from Willhelm Graines’ skeleton which I am reluctantly parceling out at the request of his estate. Wow! The Crypt Keeper would be so proud to have one of these! Hurry, though—there are only 206 bones to choose from! Yrs, Rust

Grade Expectations Dear Editor, One of your readers sent a book here to the CFGC Institute for grading and slabbing and our new radiation treatment, and then claimed that one of us put a coffee cup on it and made a big brown ring on the cover and then took off thousands of dollars in value because of it! This is absurd! We only took off five hundred dollars for the defect. You take your chances when you deal with us and (cont’d next issue. Maybe.)

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Sergeant Saltoposuchus! hit the floor and gimme fifty push-ups if you don’t remember him!

AbOve: The issue that started it all! RighT: A Joke hubert guest cover!

Comic Book Meatmarket 187

November 2004

THE WAR THAT TIME WISHES HAD HAPPENED! But we got to see it anyway! by Jennifer N. Cognito

n the early 1960s, as interest began to wane in the previously popular genre of war comics, Rational Periodicals came up with a unique twist on the now— tired subject matter. Always keen to keep up with the readers’ interest in the latest fads of the moment, Rational created a brilliant new line of comics which featured not only our fighting forces, but combined them with nothing less than dinosaurs; a favorite subject of kids everywhere! The exciting mix of soldiers and saurians gave us one of the best series of comics ever produced: Star Spangled

Dinosaurs! What sane kid could resist the fabulous depictions of machine guns ripping through million-year-old monsters or G.I.s roasting them with flame-throwers? Glorious stuff! Right from the start, the clever pairing proved a smash success as the books flew from the racks! Month after month we were treated to the spectacle of fearless WWII fighting men stranded on various Pacific atolls lost in time and engaged in furious battles with the giant prehistoric monsters that once ruled the world! We were treated to what is truly a high water mark in the history of comics. Let us celebrate it once again in these pages...

Other books were rushed into production to cash in—but with less success.

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The book’s first couple of years saw existing plots and gimmicks from many years of popular war comics revisited and revamped to add the new antediluvian element, making them seem brand new once again! Issue #142, whose cover sported the blurb “I Fought With the Dino GIs of Lost Island!”, took the series to new heights in a story which chronicled the adventures of several shipwrecked GIs who arm and train a group of dinosaurs in order to destroy an invading horde of Japanese on a strategically-placed island which is important to the Allies. The story reaches a terrific finale when a squad of now-crack prehistoric troops in full military regalia receive medals for their “conspicuous bravery” from none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower! (Many of these immortal tales came from the typewriter of Robert Kannigrrrr, the fastest and angriest writer in the Rational Comics stable. It was said he could throw something at you and dialogue a page before your concussion!) The stage was now set for the introduction of the most memorable character of all. In a story where the dinosaurs were actually drafted and sent to boot camp (Star Spangled Dinosaurs #138), we meet the small but power-packed Sergeant Saltoposuchus. Described as “three feet of savage sphenosuchid,” this feisty cigarchomping crocodyloid led the book into a series of nerve-rattling tales which stand among the best in the history of the medium. Subsequent issues reached a fever pitch as the dino-soldiers formed their own special units and were sent on dangerous missions; frequently with a by-the-book dino-loathing human Captain or Sergeant, who by story’s end finally sees the light declaring, “They might be ugly, but them lizards can fight like GI’s!” One story of a dinosaur who TOP AnD RighT: Several Star gives his life (the tragic Private Protoceratops) to Spangled Dinosaurs featured offer a blood transfusion in order that a bigoted rendered cover art by the human GI might live, brings a tear to the eye of legendary Russ Teeth. anyone who has ever read this comics beLOW: Detail from a classic masterpiece. (“G.I. Hate to See a SSD cover! Dinosaur Die” from SSD #167.) These deathless classics were drawn by the dino-dream team of Russ Andrews and Mike Escondido, with occasional guest covers by comics legend Joke Hubert (creator of TORG, another milestone of dinos in comics history)! We caught up with Mike Escondido and managed an exclusive interview for the enlightenment of our readers. CBMM: How did this exciting series come about? Mike Escondido: I can’t recall exactly but I do recall Mister Donkeyfield, the Publisher, coming into our office and saying something like “come up with something for the damn war comics or you’re fired!” CBMM: Wow! That’s pretty harsh, isn’t it? Escondido: Necessity is the mother of invention... or the mother of something... I can’t recall... CBMM: Dinosaurs were popular with kids at the time... Escondido: That’s it! Yeah, we knew dinosaurs were popular

with kids at the time. We just used the old Lost World kind of plot, only with soldiers. CBMM: Some of those storylines were pretty far out! Escondido: You try coming up with a cockamamie dinosaur war comic every month for a coupla years. You pretty much do anything. CBMM: Your Sergeant Saltoposuchus character was pretty interesting. Escondido: Yeah, he was patterned after my old drill sergeant when I was in the service. CBMM: His personality? Escondido: No, I think he actually looked like that. I can’t recall... CBMM: The “sounds” of the dinosaurs and weapons are quite unique. How did you come up with them? Escondido: The sounds of the dinosaurs were inspired by Donkeyfield. I could never understand what he was saying when he was yelling at us, and he usually had a mouthful of pastrami. Made for some interesting lettering though... the lettering guy loved those long roars— he got paid by the letter, I think. CBMM: What about the sounds of the weapons? Like the machine gun, the “budda budda budda”? Escondido: Andrews had a bad stutter, so we just used that for the sound. CBMM: What about the big tanks and the battleships, the cannons, etc.? Escondido: My office was right next to the men’s room. CBMM: Oh... After the sales rolled in on Star Spangled Dinosaurs,

PSYCHO SAUR-SPOTS by “Doctor” Will Worry An explanation for the success of Star-Spangled Dinosaurs based on his unique psychological analysis of the phenomenon. “Obviously the dinosaurs represent something sexual. Everything else does. But aside from that icky subject, the authors clearly painted a picture of post-World War II angst which pervaded our country even as the coming Vietnam War loomed. The threat to young readers was cleverly represented by a code in the dinosaurian nomenclatural permutations. It is no mere coincidence that the “saurus” suffix ends with US! The Saltoposuchus character’s name includes the SALT acronym which prefigures the SALT talks and TOPO which represented the end of the Ed Sullivan show, which of course added to the vacuity felt by young Americans of comic book reading age and stupid adults who also read comics. Soldiers fought against human enemies but when the earth’s very past rose up against us, the ramifications of the traumas of early childhood are implicit; the tiny helpless infant sees nothing less than a world full of terrifying and imposing giants, replete with menace that lingers and finds expression in the titans of prehistory. Obviously. The analogue is suffused with paroxysmal gigonomities which goad the rhinoplastic pondiferosites of the legume d’etat. Or in simpler terms: ‘Gog ergo plasmus sperf.’ Is is any wonder?” “Doctor” Will Worry, The Soft Room, 200?

you did some experimentation with dinosaurs integrated into other types of books, didn’t you? Escondido: Donkeyfield insisted on cramming the dinos into everything we had. He knew it wouldn’t last forever so he wanted to cash in quick. CBMM: So the results were... Escondido: Yep, Dinosaur Romance, Space Dino, Little Lottasaurus, and my personal favorite, Two-Gun Tyrannosaurus. LeFT: A recent attempt to revive SSD for propaganda in the War On Terror. This pencil sketch was for the aborted second issue.

CBMM: That sounds great! Why didn’t that work out? Escondido: A dinosaur don’t look so good ridin’ a horse. Tough to draw. And he couldn’t reach the guns with those little arms. But we did our best. CBMM: All of those books are highly collectable today, fetching big prices on the comic book market. Escondido: Great. We made about 63 cents a page for pencils and another dime for inks. CBMM: Whoa! What was the pay for lettering? Escondido: A pat on the back and a warm bagel if we did it ourselves... which was sometimes worth it. CBMM: Did you use any particular dinosaur books as reference for the prehistoric animals? Escondido: Are you kidding? We didn’t have time for that. We knew what dinosaurs looked like. We seen them in the movies and stuff anyway. CBMM: That explains a lot... Well, thank you, Mister Escondido for the greatest dinosaur and war comics ever produced! We owe you a debt of gratitude. Too bad Russ Andrews didn’t live to see the renewed interest in your team’s work. Escondido: He got off easy. And whatever debt you think you owe me, it’s nothing compared to what the shlubs I used to work for owe me... I’m still waiting on a check from Donkeyfield. CBMM: That was about forty years ago, wasn’t it? Escondido: I can’t recall...

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John Newcar/ Fran Gottalottado SoCalled Comics 2120 Avarice, Suite $$$ Costa Mucho, CA When it come to comics and comics profiteering, there is nothing like a good plug in Comic Book Meatmarket to grease the old chute! Creaky magazine prices have shot up like crazy since your series of articles by “Doctor” D.W. have been appearing every month! Needless to say, the ones with the Frazenkle covers have gone through the roof! I’ve also noticed an upsurge in the Kneel Atoms books, since the Creaky coverage—even the ones like Weird Wrestling where he only did the covers! Thanks as always; as you know, I’ve had boxes of these things at cover price collecting nothing but dust for twenty years!

Arnie Scheimenheimer Nooyawk Collectibles Twenny-Two Fitty, Toity-toid St. Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk I seen a big rise in the Sci-Fi pulps and magazines, like Unbeknown, Amazafying Tales, and Hah? since youse been featuring them things. Lotta fans din’t know Willy Wood and all them EC guys was doin’ artwork for ’em. But they know now and they gotta have ’em! Could you mebbe also show some of them other really lousy horror comics too? Cause I got tons of ’em, cluttering up the place and if you was to make people think they was valuable they would prolly start movin’ too!

Paul Bearer House of Secretions 10987654321 Blastoff Burbankdale, CA Thanks for plugging that Sergeantstein fiasco! I couldn’t get rid of those things for (cont’d on page 86)

Comic Book Meatmarket 187 November 2004

SHUT

UP AND

Dear Silver Sage: Gramps “Grisly” Tingles is a legend in the field of horror comics, perhaps the unquestioned master of the macabre. But so little is known about the history of this reclusive genius; can you clue us in, and tell us where he is today? X. Post Facto Walla Walla Bing-Bang, Wash. (Well, yes and no, X. Tingles’ first published work was for Mortician’s Hi-Jinx, an obscure trade magazine designed to cheer up workers in funeral parlors, in 1942. It seems the die was cast for the sullen teenager even then as he was dismissed by Crackly Grimpenmire, the publisher, after only a few of his dreadful cartoons saw print. In World War II, he illustrated propaganda for the Army, designed to repulse and demoralize the enemy. It must have worked as the war ended shortly after he enlisted. He returned to the United States and found work in comics, moving from company to company until he finally found his niche at Gill Baines’ Enterprising Comics (EC). His work was featured in Hideous Psycho Science, Ugly Terror Horror, and the Vault of Nausea, and those books are where he made his indelible mark on the comics business. Tingles is a notorious recluse and few people ever knew him personally—or wanted to! I'd like to bring you some exclusive tidbits about our horrendous hero, but his whereabouts are now unknown! Recently something came to my attention which, although surely a twisted joke or hoax, will nonetheless be of interest to Tingles’ fans one way or another! It seems a packet was forwarded to the CBG offices by the State Mental Hospital at Sefton, Massachusetts, which contained a spiral notebook crammed with essays and articles on comic books, some interviews with veterans from the EC days, and an odd crumpled photograph which was paperclipped to the book. Since the cancellation of Comic Book Meatmarket, publisher Rust Cockroach has been missing from the comics fandom scene. I was sorry to hear of his troubles, for it was in fact his journal that I received. The pertinent data has been carefully transcribed from his crisp handwriting. Here then is the story of Rust Cockroach and his visit with Gramps “Grisly” Tingles; a little thing we might entitle The Call Of The Crackpot, or The Notebook From The Institution.)

Comics Buyer’s Guise #8,832,948 • June 2006

OCT. 25 Received a letter from Dimswitch today! YES! I have finally found Tingles! Further he has invited me to visit him in his home and conduct the first interview with one of the most reclusive and private creators in the industry. I expected a reply, if I ever received such, to come in an ancient yellowed envelope bearing archaic stamps and sealed with blood red wax bearing an imprint of something not altogether a bat nor an octopus impressed into its glossy surface, stuffed with parchment of disturbing texture and covered with crabbed spidery characters warning me to stay away if I valued life and sanity.... but no. It was a small crisp envelope, with an Easter Seal stamp, and a brisk, neatly typed note inviting me to his domicile and providing directions thereto! I am sure matters will become more sinister as the day approaches, for the day is none other than Halloween! OCT. 29 The time draws near... I shudder with a mixture of dread and eagerness which swirls in my fevered mind. To what den of damnation am I being drawn, lured by my own mad desire to meet the man responsible for so many nightmares! OCT. 30 Tomorrow will be the day I set forth into the wild Massachusetts hills in search of I know not what! Perhaps I should reconsider while there is still time. I have pored over the written directions and unassuming hand-drawn map to shadowhaunted Dimswitch! Yet no distant howling assails my ears this night, no fevered scratchings and

Comics Buyer’s Guise #8,832,948 • June 2006

fumblings at my door disturb the calm fall evening. Everything is disappointingly still and prosaic if the truth be known. But tomorrow, ah, tomorrow I shall embark into the realm of mystery! NOV. 1 Back home again... still stunned at the tale I must tell... but let me relive the day... I set out at noon for the four PM meeting, motoring briskly up the new Turnpike past cornfields and shops selling fresh homemade cider, the cool air making my nostrils stick together unpleasantly until I rolled up the window. Surely when I reached the deceptively named Blossom Hill Road turnoff the sky would begin to cloud and darken... the road would narrow as it wound into the hills and great swollen trees loomed suffocatingly close on all sides and icy wine-dark streams which had never seen the sun flowed like sluggish cold blood in the veins of a vast slumbering monster... but no. The road was pleasant and dotted with fast food emporia and neat newly-built houses with bicycles and basketball hoops bespeaking happy burgeoning families within. No strangely deformed cats or dogs darted across my path, no brittle monstrous unknown fungi or vegetation waved eerily in the breeze. Nothing. At last I came to the intersection of Happy Valley Glen, doubtless renamed from Gibbet Way or Unwholesome Path or something like that. Surely, I thought, this road, as I made the left turn indicated by the map, would lead through a dank reed-choked swamp where gnarled branches of stark leaf-stripped trees reached toward the gray pitiless sky begging for mercy, for release from the visions which stalked through their dark alleyways when the sun sank like a wan old hag into a quicksand bog... but no.

(Above) Examples of Gramps’ work for EC. When told his cover for Hideous Psycho Science was unfit for children, he changed it to the rendering shown below. Poor Grisly! It’s possible these experiences led to his seclusion.

(Previous page) A Grisley self-portrait.

SHUT

(Above) Tingles tried out for Mangle Comics in the mid-Sixties and these surviving samples show that he had still not got the idea. A note from editor Stan L. which was found paperclipped to the art, simply said “See what Willy Wood is doing.”

UP & READ THE STORY Happy Valley Glen wound through pleasant fields, past frozen ponds where iceskaters glided happily, past a rustic old mill, now a charming Bedand-Breakfast... but soon I would come to THE HOUSE and things would change... I could imagine the bleak and swaying edifice where moonstruck windows glared blindly at the world screaming of the secrets locked behind them, mad with the pageant of horrors they alone had witnessed, under the crumbling gabled roof with shingles which hung and flapped like dead skin... THEN the fear would be justified... THEN the mood would be set for the momentous meeting! But no. When the actual house came into view, I had to double-check the address to reassure myself I had indeed arrived at the correct destination. There was no mistaking the number on the mailbox... but the trim white cottage of recent vintage belied my expectations so shockingly I had to take stock of myself and sit for a moment to take it all in. Could this homely little edifice be the actual residence of Gramps “Grisly” Tingles, the man who even drew his heroes and heroines with demented secrets shining darkly behind their happy faces? The man who drew comics so nasty you didn’t even want to touch the pages to turn them? I went to the white paneled door and knocked briskly as I summoned my courage. Surely this was a trick, a front... surely the horror gibbered and lurked just inches from where I stood, surely the door would slowly open with a creak like a wail which might come spiralling up the stained stone corridors of a castle from the torture chamber which lay below... but no. The door opened and the smell of fresh-baked cookies assailed my nostrils rather than the fetid charnel house miasmal

outpouring I fully expected. And as the portal swung wide, a pleasant white-haired gentleman wearing a conservative brown sport coat, white shirt with tie, and tan slacks was revealed to my bulging eyes. His mellow voice was as disarming as his home and appearance. He smiled broadly and said, glancing at his wristwatch, “Ah, Mister Cockroach, I believe? Do please come in.” A thought raced through my mind as I stepped over the threshold—surely the door will slam shut as soon as I am inside and the man’s true character will be revealed as he screams and launches himself at me, all foam-flecked lips and glazed rheumy eyes and flying hair and bony fingers closing around my throat... Instead I was ushered into a pleasant parlor room with a wholesome fire burning and a soft upholstered couch to which I was led. As I sat, Tingles’ lovely wife entered with a tray of cookies and milk, smiled a warm glowing smile and bade me relax and help myself to the goodies. It seemed her two brothers were visiting, equally pleasant old gentlemen who were helping Gramps to put up some paneling in his studio that afternoon. Ah, the STUDIO, I thought! So THAT is where the horror lurked, that was where the soul-blasting truth would reveal itself like a shroud falling away from a festering walking corpse with long icy fingers and strands of thick rubbery saliva stretching

Comics Buyer’s Guise #8,832,948 • June 2006

between its grinning jaws... but a glimpse inside revealed a most ordinary room with an easel upon which rested nothing more sinister than a lovinglyrendered oil painting of Mrs. Tingles... As for my long-sought interview... alas, there is so very little to tell! No hidden secrets, no dark sources of inspiration, no ghastly mad genetic strain in the Tingles Clan... he simply did the comics because they asked him to and never thought much about them. He thought their alleged frightfulness a joke and dismissed all the attendant mythology with a soft pleasant chuckle. He hadn’t dropped out of sight; he simply couldn’t find work in the comics field and so retired to paint and savor his remaining years in this totally sane and rustic little community. And so, after an hour of pleasant but bland and unrevealing conversation I thanked my host and prepared to take my leave. But I asked one favor; might I not get a photograph of myself with Mister Tingles and his wife? Contrary to all expectations, he cheerfully acquiesced and his spouse’s genial brothers even got into the act as I set up my camera and posed, glass of bland milk and all, with the smiling foursome as the automatic shutter snapped the historic photo which, alas will be rather less historic than I had imagined. I took my leave of the Tingles residence and drove home. It was, needless to say, a boringly uneventful drive. After dinner I sat down and wrote these words for such posterity as they may merit, although I doubt any editor in the fan press will find much of interest here. At least I will have the photograph, which shall be the only shot of Tingles known to exist. I shall develop it in my darkroom on the morrow and that will be the end of my “adventure”. At least there may be some novelty value in the picture.

Comics Buyer’s Guise #8,832,948 • June 2006

(There the narrative ends—but it does have a rather interesting postscript. It seems Rust suffered some kind of breakdown the next day and has been institutionalized ever since. His wife secured the journal and forwarded it here to our editorial offices for us to make of it what we might. I hope Rust responds to his treatments and therapy and may someday soon rejoin his beloved comics fandom! And then there is the photograph, shown below... poor Rust... to go to such lengths to fulfill his frustrated desire to find a really weird guy with a lot of scary weird stuff going on and get a big scoop. Still, the photo is odd, and Rust is not known to have any knowledge or skill with regard to photo-manipulation. Make of it what you will, for I was told that Rust will not speak of it and, moreover, that his doctors highly discourage it as a topic of conversation.)

(Left) When the horror books were cancelled, “Grisly” tried his hand at love comics, kids’ comics and even funny animals. He didn’t seem to grasp the nature of the problem, apparently believing that the genre itself was the issue. He just couldn’t do comics any other way than the way he was used to, no matter what venue he chose.

LITTER FROM OUR READERS Write to us at Comics Buyer’s Guise YEAH, SO? 700 No. Use St. • Oweeyo Weeyo, LA 54321 yeahso@krauts.scam www.comicsbuyersguise.scam FAILING GRADES Don Getit 2 Dumtolive Numbskull, ME IQ2L0 Dear YEAH, SO? I don’t understand your pricing of books at all. How the heck do you figure out how much a comic book is worth anyway? Margie Thompson replies: It’s very simple, Don. We have contacts at every dealer in the country and at every store as well. They send us messages via dreams and telepathic impulses which we tabulate and corroborate with top professionals. We write everything down on big yellow legal pads and then shred the pages and mix them up in a big hat which was once worn, as legend has it, by Mister MXYZPTLK or someone who looks very much like him, then we throw the paper away and price the books on a sliding scale according to who has what and how badly they want to get or get rid of them. The bottom line is; don’t worry about it, we know what we’re doing so you don’t have to.

SOMEBODY BET ON THE BAY Frank Anne Beans 2 Centsworth, Tellingmy, MA Dear CBG, Why on earth would anybody take your crazy and wildly fluctuating prices seriously? Why shouldn’t we just go on Freebay and buy everything we want there without all the complications and middle-men involved? Margie: Oh sure, throw your money away on some scamster! Next thing you know you’ll be sending all your money to the exiled king of Balonia! The Internet is pure evil, with the exception of our site, of course.

TONY THE TYPER Willy Nilly 601 Halfadozen Wishy, Washington Hey, This question is for Tony Isabony: mainly how can I get in on your scam and get people to send me all kinds of

free stuff just by saying how great it is in a column? Is that all you have to do? Tony replies: If it was that simple, everybody would do it, and then where would we be? I resent your implication that I give good ratings out to everyone in exchange for comics, by the way. I ONLY give good ratings to comics I happen to like and want free copies of!

SILVER BULLETIN! Don Sproot Address withheld because we couldn’t think of anything Dear So-Called Authorities, I realize you think you know everything, but having had a chance to read your article on Gramps Tingles in manuscript form I feel compelled to tell you that I, as one of the oldest living fans of comics, visited Tingles when he was only 22 and snapped the enclosed photo, then again forty years later and snapped the second photo! And although he told me to go away both times, I have the proof I was there. So much for the claim that no photos of the man exist! I saw him! (And he saw me which is why he wouldn’t talk to me because I was too nerdy, but that’s beside the point!)

Gramps Tingles at 22? Or the product of a crafty nerd?

Margie: Well then this issue has three historic photos! Thanks, Don! Your subscription is hereby extended, so be quiet!

WHA-HOPPEN??? Milbert Meekly happymuffin@hotmilk.com Dear Sirs: So I buy the new Comics Buyer’s Guise, wondering why it’s sealed in run-of-themill plastic this issue (surely you’d use Mylar at the very least). And I take it down to my room in my parents’ basement and plop down to enjoy many hours of columns and opinions and reviews and retro-somethings and price lists, and what do I find? Behind what I thought was the usual Alec Gloss cover is a bunch of slick paper talking about the latest company mega-crossovers, and girls with big boobs, and fart jokes, and articles on those “gotta buy ’em all” scams, and young guys playing with

Tingles forty years later! The more things remain the same, the less they change! toys, and hip, edgy jokes! Then I take a closer look at the cover and realize I’ve been took for a copy of Whizzer! I want my money back, but I’m not giving back all those cards and things that fell out when I opened it! Act your age and make your magazine look like what it is, and quit trying to fool people. Comics Buyer’s Guise #8,832,948 • June 2006

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Comics Buyer’s Guise #8,832,948 • June 2006

THE ARCHIVIST’S PAGE THE FINE ART OF SNIFFING AND RELATED COMIC COLLECTING TECHNIQUES By Ekim Evaelcnav CBG gives you the lowdown on the care and feeding of your collection.

If any “red flags” pop up during this process, disengage the comic and let it drop to the floor. It is an imperfect and unpure thing and not worth the paper it is printed on.

PART ONE: THE “VIRGIN” While a fair amount has been written about the various ways to store comics and the pros and cons thereof, we can never know enough about the actual criteria and selection of a comic book directly from a newsstand or comic book shop and how to properly handle and store it while preserving it in its pristine state. Firstly, an often ignored aspect of collecting is that ANY comic that is on display in a store of any kind has been placed in a shipping box at the printer and has then been REMOVED from said box by the store owner and placed in the rack or on the shelf. This of course precludes virtually ANY and EVERY comic from being truly “a virgin”. Yes, the sad fact is that nearly every comic has already been “known” before we can get to it! However, do not despair... there is hope. Most likely the comic dealer reached into the shipping box and removed a fair “stack” of the books and placed them on the rack. This is good! It means that only the spine and open edges of the comics in the MIDDLE of the stack may have had actual hand contact! (The top and bottom issues are, needless to say, worthless to us now.) PART TWO: THE PROPER EQUIPMENT At this point we recommend the following items to assist in the critical pre-selection part of the process: 1) A pair of white gloves. 2) A fur-covered spatula. 3) A small plastic funnel. 4) A jewelers “loupe.” 5) The archival encasement. Like anything worthwhile, this step requires the proper tools for the task at hand. PART THREE: THE EXTRACTION! Firstly, “eyeball” the “central core” of the stack on the rack and make your selection. Now, using the powers of levitation you have learned from years of reading DOCTOR STRANGE, etc., concentrate on raising the issue you have selected from the stack and slowly levitate it into a reclining or “flat” position. This may seem difficult at first, but practice at home will facilitate you and you will soon find yourself doing this with ease.* At this juncture adjust the jeweler’s loupe and bring the comic to eye level. Slowly rotate the comic in mid-air, carefully checking the all-critical aspects: spine, staples, cover gloss, etc. If any “red flags” pop up during this process, disengage the comic and let it drop to the floor! It is an

imperfect and unpure thing and not worth the paper it is printed on. Select another copy and continue. Upon finding the comic to fit all the correct criteria, it is time to address the most crucial part of the process. PART FOUR: THE SNIFF Insert the small plastic funnel into one of your nostrils, holding the “free” nostril closed with a finger, and carefully begin to move it over the comic while inhaling gently, and being careful not to come into actual contact with the book. Use your olfactory senses to detect any and all unsavory scents. These would include toilet paper, inferior wood pulp, or even the slightest whiff of human contact. If all the above pass muster, don the white gloves and, using the most delicate and minimal contact, open the archival encasement you have selected. Concentrate on slowly lowering the comic into place. Quickly close the encasement from the hinged edge out to force out as much air as possible. Congrats! You have likely acquired as close to a “mint” copy of your selected comic as possible. PART FIVE: TRANSPORT Still wearing your white gloves, levitate the encased comic onto the fur-covered spatula and carefully exit the comic shop. DO NOT attempt to continue to levitate the item as you may be distracted, and losing your concentration could result in your disengaging the comic and the comic could fall and be damaged. In this event, go back into the comic shop and repeat steps two through four. PART SIX: HOME SAFE Still transporting the comic on the fur-covered spatula, gently place it in the spot you have selected for it to spend eternity. Now forget about it! Never take it out and most certainly never gaze at it even in its encasement as we do not yet know what negative effect visual observation on a comic book may have. Just enjoy the fact that you have successfully accomplished one of the most intense and difficult tasks in all of comic collecting! Salut!

*Editors note: While we realize many of you will find this a bit difficult to swallow, keep in mind that you are a comic book reader and collector! You most likely believe in Santa Claus, UFOs, Ghosts, Bigfoot, and people who have super powers and can fly etc. So this is not as a big a “leap of faith” as it would appear on the surface. If all else fails, use “the force”! ’Nuff said!

Comics Buyer’s Guise #8,832,948 • June 2006

Mark eVERNERD

Her-B-Qs

A column answering Frequently Asked Questions about Jake Herbie, by Mark Evernerd (below) The first version of a Herbie cover done for the old Hatless group. Editor Stan L. got cold feet as the Comical Code began to exert its iron hand and had inker Dink Airs rerender the image to please the stern overseers. Tales to Stupefy TM & ©2006 Mangle Characters, Inc.

ur first question this issue comes via e-mail from seven-year-old Tuxford Noodlefactor, whose parents should monitor his Internet usage more carefully:

Your magazine always seems to focus on the disputes between good ol’ Stan L. and poor Jake Herbie. I thought these guys were the best of buds! What gives? At what point in their relationship at Mangle Comics did the friction begin? Pretty much from the very beginning, with one of the earliest covers Herbie drew for Tales to Stupefy. Back

those days), so Stan had Dink Airs go in and rework the piece to meet Code standards. Needless to say, Jake wasn’t happy about the change. But in typical fashion, he took it on the chin, and went on to produce such household names like the Scarlet Skateboarder, the Implacable Glut, and Captain Space and the Astro-Blasters, forever changing the face of comics. Next up is Mickey Bitsko, who asks: So how come you know so much about Jake Herbie anyway?

(next page, top) This cover for Siphon & Herbie’s Superhero Romance shows one take on the caped crusader theme that didn’t quite fly. Their attempts at adolescent humor were also met with more yawns than yays. Shows that even the great ones didn’t score every time! Oh well... (next page, bottom) Penciled page from something...

then, Mangle Comics was still known at the Hatless Group, and they were churning out one tired monster rehash after another, until Jake showed up and lit a fire under them, later helping to launch the Mangled Age of Comics. For Stupefy #13, Jake drew a really compelling cover (which was inked by Joe S’not), turning in a piece that he recalled as one of the finest of his career. But editor Stan Liebergoldbaumweinsteinbergfeldbloom (whose name used to give Mangle’s letterers Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, so they shortened it to just “L.”) got worried when the Comical Code deemed it too intense of an image, and demanded it be altered. S’not was tied up inking three other books at the time (S’not was all over the place in

Ah, a question I am often asked. Well, I happen to have spent a great deal of time with the man and soaked up his wisdom at every opportunity. By the way, have you ever heard of Frank Welcher? Another great man; one with a great voice talent which was used for Jake’s Darkhide character. Welcher was the voice for many insipid cartoon characters at the great Hanna-Barbera studios and also did sound effects. When the robots in Disney’s Blech Hole movie had to squeak and beep, that was Frank you heard. He also voiced the tiny dinosaurs in Prehysterical, made the sounds of Dumbass Duck’s flatulence, and actually portrayed the Monolith in the Broadway stage version of 2001: A Space Odyssey as well providing eerie drones and wailings in his inimitable way from within a big black wooden box. More about Frank next issue. Now back to Herbie, and this from l’il Richie Howell: I’m a big fan of Joe Siphon and Jake Herbie’s work in the Golden Age, and hope to one day get to work on one of their characters. They were so prolific; it seemed like, every time you turned around, they had invented some new genre that had never existed before. And they all succeeded! Was this due to Siphon’s business acumen, Herbie’s artistic ability, or what?

years surveyed—from 1940-1981). This breaks down to about four panels per page, or eighty panels per book. On close examination, we found that each book contained at least twenty panels which consisted only of lines and sound effects with only the most cursory depictions of actual figures provided. It only took him about three seconds to draw a page of such panels. Therefore, for each eighty panels presented, roughly 25% were cheats (or shortcuts to put it kindly) of this sort, as shocking as that may be to fans to hear. It follows, then, that for every three books he actually drew, he got a fourth book out practically for “free”! Our next question comes from Mike Roister: Why didn’t Herbie complain about Vinnie Velveeta’s lousy inking of his books?

Both, actually. The S&H team, from their first big hit on Captain Hoboken for Hatless, up until their last work together on Fleaman, produced one hit after another. They even had a line of green trading stamps named after them in the 1950s. But they had a few flops along the way. While it seemed like a natural, the short-lived Superhero Romance genre never really took off. Turns out boys didn’t want to see their he-man heroes kissing (ick!) girls, and likewise the girls didn’t want to see men running around in their underwear (probably figuring they’d see it enough later in life when they were married). So they stuck to stories of men in skintight outfits sharing intimate adventures with underage male sidekicks in masks. Which might explain the behavior of a lot of the adults I see at comic conventions who grew up reading that stuff. The other genre that didn’t grab hold was Funny Puberty comics, which involved making light of the trials and tribulations faced by teenagers everywhere. The only title launched, The Purple Pimple, was a superhero spoof that failed to pop with kids, so S&H abandoned plans for The Involuntary E (to have been drawn by Willy Wood’s brother Morning), and Mutant High School. Herbie later claimed that he brought these ideas to Stan L. after his split with Siphon, and Stan turned them into the Implacable Glut and Men-X, but Stan always asserted that his approach of giving real-life problems to the Mangle characters was all his idea. Guess we’ll never know the true story. Our next question comes from Jon B. Cooked:

The fact is, Jake was never told about what Vinnie was doing: erasing tedious characters and backgrounds and filling in whole panels with black whenever he could. It was only when Vinnie lost an entire issue of Captain Space pencils on the subway en route to the racetrack that Jake became upset, as he was forced to go down to the office, and draw and ink the whole thing again in an hour-and-thirtyfive-minutes. Vinnie usually inked Jake’s stuff while at the track, and meant to do so that fateful day, but he evidently put the stack of pages down and somebody ran off with them or something while he went to the restroom. But Jake didn’t much care who inked his stuff, though, figuring that Stan L. would never give such an important task to someone who was irresponsible—or overly expensive, as that might take too long and deadlines were not to be missed! If Frank Welcher were an inker, boy would he have been good, I’ll bet. He never missed a deadline or a recording session, and blew very few lines. In fact, there’s an interesting story about Frank... (continued on page 92)

While it’s true that Herbie did some really great work, I’m more amazed at the sheer volume of pages he produced. I spent the last 11 years, 4 months, and 3 days in my mother’s basement doing a complete count of the number of physical pages Jake drew in his lifetime, and came up with a staggering 13,459,926,007.15 pages (I deducted .85 for that lame-o book Demon Dinosaur he did for Mangle in the 1970s). Even with working seven days a week for all 50 years of his career, that averages 737,503 pages per day! My question is, how did Herbie manage to produce so many more pages than any other artist of his generation? Jake “Hero” Herbie’s fabled output of pages has made him a veritable legend in comics history. No other artist produced as many pages in as little time. Could he do the work of many men in a fraction of the time just because he knew what he was doing and had his chops so together? Or was it something else? On average, a Herbie book contained 20 pages of art (during the peak

Turn the page for A PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED Herbie PENCIL GALLERY! 27

Gallery 1

Jake’S Unseen Pencils

irect from the Herbie Pencil Archives, comes more proof, if any be

D needed by now, that Jake Herbie was a true master of the pencil! Any pencil! Having personally touched all of these fine drawing

instruments, I can attest that each literally vibrates with raw, Herbie power (the kind men like). We’re working on getting these added to the Smithsonian, if they’ll just return our phone calls.

The Office Depot brand No. 2 pencil It was a staple in Jake’s last decade. This one may have been used to draw Shooting Star, Captain Defeat, or some animation art! Feast your eyes, fans!

The sporty Eberhard Faber ECOwriter No. 2 HB This was a rare choice for Jake and was used only on special occasions like when he ran out of the Office Depot brand late at night! This one was given to Mark Evernerd as a gift.

??? A tantalizing glimpse of “what might have been” may be found in this newly discovered Herbie creation! The man just never stopped! (Experts believe this was drawn with the ECOwriter!)

Sanford Black Prismacolor Here’s a penciling enimga! Found in Jake’s garbage by Mike Thimbledough, it was used on both ends no less! It doesn’t get any better than this, fans!

A special treat! Last but not least, some shavings from Jake’s pencil sharpener (a Panasonic Auto Stop model, as legend has it)! 28

When Comics Got Real, And Dark, And b u C k r a D e h T ! n e Real Dark! m h plot c & Sp

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nalling! Things would never be the same after the creator of Skin City got through with the Daily Planet’s highly dysfunc-

(left) As disgusting

tional staff!

as it may be, this is the only SPLOTCHMEN

Meanwhile, Across The pond...

cover we could show you in the pages of this magazine! The

Following his (frankly pretty

rest venture into

gross) run on Sump Thing,

realms even ickier.

writer Alvin Moose teamed

Trust us on this

with artist Dave Gibson to

one!

explore the vital question of what things might be like if superheroes had bodily functions like the rest of us, in (below) Moose

Splotchmen! We can only wonder

and Gibson’s

if comics ever had to get this

original concept

real! No excretion was left

drawing for the

untapped in this highly disturbing

SPLOTCHMEN.

series! No stain, drip or discharge was not let loose upon a repulsed yet fascinated readership—who had never

seen anything like this in a humble comic book before, or wanted to.

Maybe they shoulda kept working on it...

(cont’d on page 99)

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Peter Sandwichham by

Somebody at Rational Comics was anything BUT in the 1980s, as these proposed crossover cover roughs clearly show. Of course, a lot of people were getting high in those days... Anyway, with crossover fever also running high, many ideas were considered and thankfully thrown away when the square suit-and-tie brass got a look at them. But we’ve gotta admit it might have been fun to see Jake Herbie’s Demon Dinosaur and Joke Hubert’s Torg square-off while Monkey Boy and Chee Zee kicked each other’s hairy corny butts in the treetops!

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Ray T Thompson’s hompson’s SelfSelfRay Centered Comics Comics F Fanzine anzine Centered

PLUS:

No. 54 June 1-7 2006

Title writer/egotorial

Comics I Like, And That’s It!

s you know, comics more or less began to be worth a darn when the Just-Us Society of Americans stories debuted back in 1942; this was of course in the pages of the never-to-be-forgotteneven-if-you-never-heard-of-them (at least not while I’m around) All Smash Comics from the Rational Comics group and it seemed comics just didn’t get any better than this because for your humble dime you got to see Doctor Fake, Sourman, Green Canteen, Honkman, et al. cavort for eighty or ninety pages each month (!) and, yes, the art may have been crummy, the writing crummier, and the paper crummiest, but by Gadfrey, we loved it; in fact, we ate up every smelly page and this is what inspired a new generation of writers and artists to take up pens, pencils and typewriters and do our best to copy the glorious images and words we found in these “books”—and even though the original comics may be turning slowly into cornflakes now despite all efforts to halt the inevitable organic deterioration of the cheap paper, we can be secure in the knowledge that we now buy expensive badly reproduced hardcover reprints of the things as Rational makes even more money over the graves of the poor saps who labored for slave wages to craft them (only to grow old and watch their creations be reborn again and again and turned into multi-billion dollar franchises as greedy corporations devour the once tiny outfits that published them back in the glory days of comics) and later as we scrambled about, trying to recapture our youths as a network of nerds we now call Fandom was born so that what happened was, before I could get my mitts on the Just-Us Society and the rest in a writerly way, I made my own “zines” as tributes to them, the first of which was done with somebody whose name I now forget, and called (what else?) Ultra Ego: the very periodical whose reincarnation you hold in your sweaty ink-smearing collectible-devaluing fingers, which kept me busy and happy until I broke into the actual comics profession—and let me assure you that the second generation of comics makers had to fight to elbow aside and lord it over

the original creators, as stubborn cusses like Joke Hurbert and Jake Herbie continued to try to make a living in the increasingly inbred field; even I found it was hard getting Stan L. to let me do the actual work for him until he realized how much cushier his life would be and then he brought in a host of new scribes such as Gerry Conwank, Steve Englespleen and the rest, simply putting his name above us all and calling it a day; and thus I finally began to chronicle the actual four-color fantasies of my favorite characters, sticking to the credo that there was never a concept too lame to revisit, and as you may imagine, it was a joy adapting and expanding upon the adventures of Gonad the Unsociable, All Smash Squad, Squadron Sensational, Just Another League, the New Young All Smashers, and the rest for a while, and how gratifying it is now, years later, that I find myself returning to the fun of doing Ultra Ego again as a wretched new crop of former fans arises to push me and my nowaging brethren aside; perhaps the fourth bunch of comics “creators” to crowd the now-dying hopelessly inbred medium (and may I add that, like a copy of a copy of a copy of a stat of a mimeograph, they all pretty much blow); and so anyway, revel with me in these pages as we celebrate “the greatness that was” and let us say “to hell with comics anymore and to hell with the rain forests too” (just kidding, eco fans—Ultra Ego is printed on pulp made from recycled unsold TwoMorons books!) and to sum up, my point is that magazines about comics are the only things left that get the old ink pumping in my veins anyway, just like when I started out with the original Ultra Ego, and if you are still reading these words, I’m sure it’s true for you as well! This issue: We cover the same stuff we always cover and never get tired of covering, so lay back and enjoy, effendi; the best has already been!! Bestestest,

COMING NEXT WEDNESDAY

Golden Age Meets Silver Age, Again! • ALL SMASH SUPER SQUAD meets the YOUNG SUPERSTAR SMASHERS and the ALL SMASH YOUNGSTARS—by me natch! • SCRIPTS I WROTE FOR MOVIES THAT NEVER GOT MADE! Cause nobody asked me to write them and I couldn’t get anybody to read them! Featuring “rare” art (meaning nobody ever used it because it sucked) by DON HACK, JOHNNY ROMEATBALL, RICH BUNGLER, GRILL CRANE, JOHN BUSCAMAMA, and the ever-popular MANY MORE! • 1940s Legends NODE MARCEL, HAUSEN PFEFFER, RAB MACOY, and BILL EVERWETT say “Hah?” • Special tributes to people you never heard of nor ever will again! • PLUS: FEH (Forties Era Heroes) by MARV (“We didn’t know we were getting reamed!”) CRAYZE starring Hoppy Bunny and Mister Tony yet again, and Mighty Giblets’ MISTER MUNCHER’S COMICAL CRAP with the usual obscure junk! Edited by RAY THOMPSON vel Characters Inc.] Strange TM & ©2006 Mar [Hulk, Captain America, Dr.

SUBSCRIBE NOW! If you don’t like the rates, move out of Canada! For less issues, cut the price in half. Cut the magazines in half too if you want to! What do we care?

TwoMorons. Sucking The Life Out Of Comics Fandom.

IDONTSH OWER CARD

Captain Space And The Astro-Blasters

Stan L. Speaks Out About Mangle Comics’ Galaxy Gallopin’ Her o by Ray Thompson EDITOR’S NOTE: Captain Space burst onto the scene like a supernova back in the sizzlin’ Sixties, and shines brightly to this very dazzlin’ day. But where did the concept originate, and how big a role did Jake Herbie play in its creation? To find out, I called the private number my former employer, the everlovin’ Stan L., had given me, and for some reason got connected to a laundromat in Hoboken, NJ, even though Mr. L gave me that number himself just last week. Strange. So I tracked down Stan at the Blue Shorts Comicon at the Shrine Auditorium in LA during a Q & A session, where he talked about the character’s creation. I had to transcribe this con panel myself, thanks to Jim Amish, who doesn’t have e-mail at that barn he lives at in Pennsylvania.

Retro Rocket Report The panel begins as I ask how the Blue and Gold Gladiator came to be. Livin’ Legend Stan L. leans back and sighs as a wave of fond pseudo-memories breaks on the bejewelled beach of his multifarious mind:

LEFT: Painted art by Jake Herbie, done at great expense and effort! RIGHT: The “draw” that broke the camel’s back! The Annual issue which was the kind of rare treat we used to get for a mere quintessential quarter!

Captain Space And The Astro-Blasters

STAN: I created him and his team just like I came up with all the rest of them! I just closed my all-seeing eyes, knit my beetling brow and called forth the Mellifluous Muse to work her mighty magic and Lo! A new star shone in the fillibustin’ firmament which I then began to polish and hone into the garrulous gem—. AUDIENCE: But you wrote in your Bullpit Bulletin that month that your Uncle, the publisher, came to you and said, quote: “‘We need some new funnybooks. Get busy, schmuck!’ So I called Jivin’ Jake Herbie, who was only doing fifteen books a month at the time and simply told him I needed some new stuff. He said not to worry, that he’d have something for me tomorrow and the next morning this package arrived and within were twenty pages of groovy new characters and stunning story! It was all there, the plot, the designs, the action all spelled out in the margins like he always did!” STAN: [blankly] I said that?

Well, right, anyway, I just sat down and created the book right then and there! It all just came to me like magic! Those were the days! AUDIENCE: But you just said—? STAN: [clearing his throat dismissively] Hey, I was always trying to give the artists a break! That’s the way I am, effendi! I really thought everything up all by myself. AUDIENCE: Why did the covers and art in Captain Space feature a “painted” look? STAN: That’s because we wanted to cut down on inking and coloring costs by seeing if one guy couldn’t do it all. Herbie hated it because it took him five times as long to finish the art for no extra pay, but sacrifices had to be made! It cut his output down to thirteen other monthly books, so we knocked it off after a year. Jake complained about everything in those days, but he was persona non grata at the calculatin’ competition so we had him by the noogies. When we came to the Halcyon Holiday Special, Jake had to do fifty extra pages for free because Uncle Morty said his pulsatin’ page rate was too high and he was making too much money. I guess it kind of sucked, but c’est la versimilitudinous vie, no? AUDIENCE: Why was there such a lack of ethnic diversity in your early comics? Were you catering to “whitebread” America? STAN: Don’t be silly! Who cares if you’re a Joltin’ Jew, a Charismatic Christian, a Madcap Muslim, or a Hyperventilatin’ Hindu? Who cares if you’re brazen brown, rustic red or winter white? At the Mighty Mangle Offices, all men are created equal, so sayeth I! We saved on ink when coloring Caucasians is all! Hey, that’s the way things were done back then! If Herbie hadn’t brought that Black Pantha in, they might still be. I mean, if I hadn’t told him to! AUDIENCE: Captain Space is again in production as an animated television series. [Editor’s Note: As some of you may remember, a show using art from the comics—no, they didn’t pay the artists again, troublemaker!—was produced in the stone-age Sixties!] Are they going to do it right this time? STAN: Believe it, believing one! We have absolute control over this show! Everything will be presented the way you always wanted to see it! Trust me on that, Pilgrim! LARRY AUSTIN: [from audience] Will Jake Herbie be given credit as a co-creator? STAN: I have no control over that. [laughter]

Herbie The Hate Bug? Some say this exchange from Captain Space is a thinly-disguised metaphor for the way Jake Herbie was beginning to feel about working for Mangle Comics. What utter nonsense people read into these things!

That’s our Stan!

CFGC maintains a steadfast commitment to monopolization of grading and price-fixing for all comics and magazines. Our grading team makes up the rules as they go to fit any collecting situation. They are the most conniving and manipulative “experts” in their “fields” and can be bought at fairly reasonable prices by shrewd high-end dealers. Through expensive research and unquestioned hype, our brand of slabbing provides the most effective barrier against prying eyes, air, light, moisture, vermin, radiation, smells, competitive sellers and coffee.

CFGC’s Registry is an opportunity for highend dealers and similar lowlifes worldwide to know exactly what you have and where you have it. They will all know where you live and where your comics are stored— and isn’t that a comforting thought? This is our way of patting you on the back and saying, “Boy, do you have a great collection there—and when you fall on hard times, we’ll be here waiting for you! Heh.” www.collectors-gloat.scam/gotcha See w of Fan hat a set #1-10 tastic Fo Amaz 0 can becur ing! ome! And a su look at Age bstantia what for y collecti l Golden says ou! Wh on can their their coen some do mea retirem mics ar one n it! ent, e they

Welcome to the CFGC online population confabulation. This information is provided at a modest price to all collectors and professional... er, collectors. Don’t try to click onto anything else because you will get nowhere until you sign up, log in, and fork over. And give us your credit card number. We adjust our prices and charge according to the value of the book. Just think about it. Our average charge per low-end book, for grading, tabulating and slabulating is about fifty bucks per. Now, if your have a collection of hundreds (or thousands) of books, well, it’s rather staggering, isn’t it? Bwaahaha. Now the rules: (get comfortable) 1: All books submitted will be entered into the comics population and may need decontamination treatments to stop paper viruses, as they may sit around in piles with other books for weeks. 2: We don’t care what you think your collection is worth. You don’t know— that’s why you have come to us, so keep that to yourself. 3: If you open the “slab” we will provide, all bets are off. Don’t worry. The book inside is most likely the same one you sent us (we get a lot of books); besides, since no one will ever touch it again, what’s the difference? The little sticker we put on the outside with the information we come up with becomes the actual value of the book. It’s more important than the actual book! Imagine. 4: We cannot remove smells from books. If your books smell, the only thing you can do is lock them up in one of our airtight containers. 5: Smudged fingerprints on covers, scotch tape and crayon drawings present significant decreases in book value even if we put them there.

Take all the mystery and fun out of collecting with our census report! We will know exactly how many of what comics are left and where they are and what shape they’re in. Go to www.CFGC.nosy.scam and snoop through more files than even the government can! And have we mentioned that we charge for this too? Oh yes. When you’ve paid to have your comics inspected and sealed up so you can’t ever touch them again, and need even more outrage, this is it!

Normal slabbing is fine for moderate protection, but our new ULTRA-SLAB PROTECTION system is better. Eliminate ALL light and contaminants with this new wonder. See how handsome a display it makes of your books, and you can also use them to build a structure to live in! (shown at left) CFGC’s Bitch Boards are great for sniveling and sniping at other collectors—with the added ability to hide behind a smarmy web name and avoid getting punched in the nose like you deserve for being a total a--hole! Go to www.CFGC.smartass.scam

Jack-up those values and hoard those comics where not even you can get at them anymore with the CFGC system of hyper-protective tools and invasive schemes! Online at www.CFGC.Funsover.scam!

1-888-BIG-SCAM P.O. Box 0000 Sackapoopoo, FL 66666 www.CFGC.Comics.scam

FROM THE EDITOR KNOW YOUR ENEMY! Part 2: WRITERS!* As you recall, last issue we discussed EDITORS. Now it’s time for another problem. For years we artists have had to suffer at the hands of people who don’t actually work hard, who don’t actually get their hands dirty; they don’t care how many characters are in a scene, in a crowd. They don’t care if they want to see things in warped perspectives, cars, airplanes, famous buildings... that stuff isn’t their problem. They know it and they secretly smirk about it. Yes, of course I am speaking about the people who palm themselves off as “writers”. Now, before we go any further, let’s get something out of the way. Real writers are a different story. They are valid artists like we are. They are wonderful and deserve all the earthly rewards they can accrue. They can also be counted on one hand. Ben Grimm’s hand. The bad writers outnumber them a million to one, yet they are treated like celebrities and vast reams are written and printed every month singing their praises. We are all expected to moon over their every wonderful notion. It says so in all the magazines. And who says all this? Who makes all these claims? Who do you think? THEY DO! Why? Because they can! Because they can “write” the magazines! Artists have to know things. We don’t have spell check and formatting. We have to draw stuff. We have to draw any damn thing they think up and we know they think up hard stuff on purpose. And they say things like, “...and then a monster like nothing we’ve ever seen before pounces on Spaceman Bob!” They leave the obvious problem to us! And if we actually drew something like nothing they’ve ever seen before, they wouldn’t even like it. They say things like, “Make it like Frazetta—but not like Frazetta.” Sure. BUT TAKE HEART! More and more of us artists are wising up and writing our own damn comics. We could hardly do worse! And now we have computers too! Now we have keyboards too! We don’t have to erase and spill ink and get pencil smudges all over our hands anymore. We can edit and change things all day long without x-acto knives and tape and scissors and all that sharp and sticky crap. We don’t even need letterers anymore—sorry fellows! Nor colorists. This is the age of the artist/writer/inker/letterer/ colorist/publisher, and hopefully the beginning of the end for people who say things like, “Could you make that panel about 15% more interesting?” So invest in some equipment, brush up on your keyboard skills and get ready to take the world by storm! Your day has come at last! (Never mind the fact that there are probably more people making comics now than reading them. That doesn’t bear thinking about!)

Manly Mike, editor

* Sorry for the blab on this page, but it’s important! Don’t worry, the nekkid girls will be back in a minute!

A VANISHING BREED OF SAP! The poor slob artist who exists at the mercy of writers and works from scripts and has to tolerate illconsidered and difficult stuff to draw; who has to constantly “fix” problems the writers dump in his lap. This is a family magazine so we’re not even going to touch upon animation writers here, and what they do to underpaid storyboard artists. But it would make your blood either run cold or boil!

The modern artist sits at his tablet and keyboard, chuckling while he waves a magic pen around; complicated perspectives, color gradations, letters, and digital cutting and pasting become but playthings in his relaxed clean fingers.

Next Issue: KNOW YOUR ENEMY! Part 3: ART DIRECTORS! 40

SCRAWL! • WINTER 2003

Scrawl! Lesson 10: Anatomy ##

by Brat Blabbins & Manly Mike

et’s start with the skeleton. Not only is it the underlying structure of the human form but it’s also something the comic book artist will often be called upon to draw. You can hardly find a comic book where a skeleton doesn’t show up somewhere.

Now first you got your skull with all its orbits, zygomatic arches, mastoid processes, maxillas and mandibles, etc. We can just call it the head bone (and it IS in fact connected to the neck bone). Sticking out and down from the skull is the spine with all the ribs, shoulder and pelvic girdles and dependant limbs and that’s about it. The skull and the upper arm and/or upper leg bones Old composition loaded with wasted are all you need to know for most pirate, space. zombie and cannibal stories. Get yourself one of those little rubber keychain skeletons if you can and you can pretty much fake it from that. Now, on top of the pesky skeleton are the muscles! All the huge muscle masses make up the primary language of the superhero artist. The bones are nothing compared to the muscles. But they’re pretty complicated, sorry to say. However, don’t be discouraged. A few minutes spent swiping from some old fogey like Grill Krane or even Skeeve Ditkoid when he was good will give you all the basics. But do NOT just swipe from Jake Herbie (who invented his own anatomy) or you will end up with Rick Bungler or one of those guys. Kneel Atoms is good to copy from too especially if your characters need to convulse a lot. A big stack of comic books and some tracing paper will be good things to start with. Now, the muscles of the head are very few and since you never have to worry about muscles that don’t show on the surface... (continued on page 63)

New composition eliminates the need for background and drawing feet!

RIGHT: FINALLY an action pose that hog, Jake Herbie, didn’t think of! Arms may be up OR down! Wow! Copy this!

SCRAWL! • WINTER 2003

DESTROYING THE HUMAN FIGURE

BRAT BLABBINS & MANLY MIKE

Tips on Modern Comic Art: Superheroes (Part 62,915)

A puny old-time “golden age” hero wasn’t much more than a common man in a costume!

Step One: Simple shapes! Figure out where things will go.

Jake Herbie began to punch things up a bit in the Sixties...

Step Two: Add details slowly and carefully, following the form you created.

Flyfield and his cohorts upped the ante and the first modern heroes were born, thank God!

Nowadays, one just makes up all the muscles one wants and slathers them on. Veins, sweat, stubble, it’s all good!

Step Three: Pump some iron, drink nine cups of coffee, and jump on that sucker with both fists. THINK ANGRY while you draw. Tear up the paper with the pressure. Grinding your teeth may help!

That’s all for now. See you next issue!

SCRAWL! • WINTER 2003

CAN’T PENCIL, INK, LETTER, OR COLOR? YOU’RE IN LUCK!

6 95

In the USA

M AG A Z I N E

Jabruary 2006

HAVE NO ACTUAL TALENT? BE A WRITER! THINK UP IMPOSSIBLE STUFF FOR OTHERS TO DRAW! IT’S NOT YOUR PROBLEM!

BUY A LAPTOP, TAKE DOPE, AND WATCH TV ALL DAY! BY NIGHTFALL, START TAPPING THOSE KEYS & SPEW TILL YOU PASS OUT!

BE RESPECTED FOR MAKING THE LIVES OF ARTISTS INTO LIVING HELLS!

TOSS AROUND MEANINGLESS WORDS LIKE EDGY, HIP & STORY ARC! NOBODY WILL CALL YOU ON IT BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW YOU’RE FULL OF S--T!

The Magazine Magazine About About Making Making stuff stuff up, up, and and getting getting paid paid for for it it The

READ This!

Message from Manny Fingerlick, Editor-in-Chief

“Artists.”

They all think they can write, until you let them tr y. (Once in a while one of them can pull it off, but you can count them on one hand... Nightcrawler’s hand.) There are legions of wannabee “auteurs” out there, but they all come crawling back to us eventually. Of course, by then it’s too late as some “hot” young artist has popped up and taken their place. The “hot” young artist is a problem for them and a blessing for us real writers as they are usually humble, work hard, and work cheap.

Most of the grumbling oafs with their dirty fingers finally realize that we writers outclass them in every respect. Our skills, which come from lofty literary sources (such as movies, television, and other comic books) are more refined and cerebral. If we decide a story needs a cast of thousands, let the scribblers worry about the details of what each one is wearing, what they’re doing, etc. That kind of stuff is fun for them anyway, not work. The elevated craft of the wordsmith is a proud endeavor. We are the voice of comics and animation. We declare and elucidate things in stentorian, mesmerizing orations from carven daises, while the inarticulate artist is not much more than a gesticulating, annoying mime, clamoring and trying to cry “look at me, look at me”; only saying it with gaping mouth, bulging eyes, and waving spasming fingers. Ugh. This is the magazine for writers. Artists can look at that other thing, although we welcome their money if they can learn something about who they really are and where they belong in these pages. Of course you have to be able to read in order to do that, so... I have typed!

Manny Manny Fingerlick P.S. Be sure to check out my latest book, Superman Between The Sheets! Not only does it dig deep into our 44 | TYPE NOW!

cultural psyche to explore what we see reflected back at us in the bedroom when we look at superheroes, but I used more fonts in it than that hack Manly Mike will ever dream of owning! So there! ABOUT OUR COVER: Those eager beavery pencil pushers have their work cut out for them NOW! All next year will see the epic Mangle CROSSOVER TO END ALL CROSSOVERS (until the next crossover anyway)! Dozens of your favorite writers will be working together trying to outdo each other—and will we make those whining artists sweat! Every character we ever created will be snarling and punching every other character until the damn paper bleeds! I like to start off with a caption like: “Page one—FULL PAGE—the battle of the ages is raging with dozens of Mangle’s hottest characters in mind-boggling action!” And then have lunch.

COMING NEXT ISSUE: • ALVIN MOOSE The eleventeen-time Iger Award Winner couldn’t be reached, but we’ll dissect an issue of his magnum p.i. Splotchmen, and try to figure out how he managed to get it published in the first place.

• KURT COBUSIEK The former comics writer turned rock star takes a few moments to hang up the phone on us as we call him to ask for an interview about his epic mini-series AstroTown.

• TRENTON PIERCE PINFEATHER The fan-favorite writer discusses the importance of using three names, and the pseudo prestige it confers.

• PLUS: More “Soup2Nuts” cooking tips, a new pretentious photo of me like the one atop this page, and more!

HIP & EDGY:

the BOYNTON LARS OFFALBAUM Interview Conducted via carrier pigeon on October 6, 2005 by Manny Fingerlick Transcribed by Steven Lice Copy-edited by any number of Offalbaum’s hangers-on

knock on the door of his 52nd floor Piffleburton Hotel Suite and it flies open with a burst of gagging smoke, and there stands Writing Sensation Boynton Lars Offalbaum himself; shiny head agleam with diamonds of perspiration which blink and seem to change places in time with the shifting neon hues of the New York skyline that stretches beyond his balcony. “Whoa, it’s the Reporter Man! Enter, Dude!” he screams and yanks me inside. The room is awash with comic pages, some in pencil, some inked, laid out on all available tables and couches, wads of crumpled paper littering the floor, an incense burner pouring out billows of purplish haze as Marilyn Manson screams from the stereo while Rob Zombie answers back

from a boom box shaped like a rocketship—the sounds crashing together in an incomprehensible cacophony in the center of the room where the wunderkind’s chair is positioned. “Just workin’, dude!” Offalbaum shrieks above the din. “Siddown! Have a drink!” he bellows, offering me a can of Red Bull and a bottle of hot sauce, both tied to a fifth of Vodka with barbed wire. So this is the man who now writes the adventures of Mangle’s Civil Disobedience company-wide crossover, the man who swept the Iger Awards for his Penultimates: The Krull-Skree Big Mess. I sit, drink deep, and unpack my tape recorder as he sets fire to a comic page and throws it off the balcony laughing wildly. Then suddenly he turns off the music and folds his tattooed limbs into a lotus like an origami manic monk and picks up a huge black stein of something which, although aflame, he drinks from and belches unashamedly. When he fixes me with his penetrating slightly cross-eyed gaze and nods, the interview begins. —MF TYPE NOW!: So, how do you choose your artists? BOYNTON LARS OFFALBAUM: I need, like, a guy who can keep up with me! I don’t think I’m unfair about that. Like, if it wasn’t for all the stuff I think up, what would they have to draw? Nothing, that’s what! Hell, I even do thumbnails for the big babies! TYPE NOW!: What are your inspirations? BLO: Well you know, I come from the classics! Like the early Scrimmage Comics days! Dude, those were comics, man. That was the s---! It’s like I feel I started reading comics just about the time they started getting good. Everything before that is like totally boring to me. It’s like black-and-white movies. Puhleeeze! (laughs) TYPE NOW!: What is that stuff you’re drinking? (CONT’D) (left) Offalbaum strikes a contemplative pose as words seem to swirl through his cranium... linking and breaking apart, forming sentences and almost-sentences as chains of fantastic ideas and fancies well up from an inner raging affair with a little hottie of a muse... when in fact he confides he is actually wondering where he left his car the night before. TYPE NOW! | 45

of imaginary th clever names Neon signage wi s. All the cars are different . 5 ive GE ect PA rsp 12 pe ep ilding s in de FLEAMAN RISTIC building les zip between the towering bu reflected in every e usands of FUTU over the city, tho nyons. Thousands of flying vehic shower of glass, his startled fac gh Hi E ON L crashed out of we a ic ca PANE a high window in ilding. In the room FLEAMAN ggles, heavy endless geometr m the fro hts es sh lig cra cts go bu AN ars the produ M we of EA s He FL ve . e. ea os gle the der mad phies iliar log and have unfam TS erupt from un ody fist. His eyes twinkle with m behind him is filled with tro t ard! Startled BA blo his back. The roo connects the FUMIGATOR’s fis is tiny glistening sh ATOR grinning and waving a on g lun ua aq an st IG ng mi ITA can see the FUM a CHEMICAL TANK resembli lly all species. A trail of toxic y partner, MOSQU tua es FLEAMAN’s sex entric circles of radio gloves and carri ndreds of stuffed animals of vir ay of the room, nc orw co do its ng the em in ich , hu MIGATOR gassi she wears wh FUMIGATOR for hunting and a picture of the FU signed wristwatch ’s jaw. Behind the t with with FLEAMAN ssing a button on the specially de lled PREY is open to page with wall reads midnight. A black ca ca flea screaming and pre ht. A magazine on a coffee table the background). A clock on the atching its ear from which a tiny in while scr s ing ed waves into the nig Egypt (see pyramids and such ce pro hisses at the in a herd of hippos stuffed chair and looks up from a to what may deep green eyes funny bug slang (make this up)! window, falling des through the room just in time to see it all! plo ex jumps, cursing in an am Fle s the glass, d Mosquita enter tter and crash of d With a harsh cla as the Fumigator taunts him an and a tumble an re than a punch om CAPTION: do his be y this! It takes mo on your neck before you even surel th wi ay aw t ge l fiend! You won’t be back in your face and gnawing inous pestilentia l “Arrrhhh! You he to put Fleaman out of action. I’l : AN M EA es FL a bunch of fum RTNER is right behind you! d FALL, you ? Just shut up an notice that my PA pid as my costume stu as I’m nk thi she is! Do you re you will, Sure going “Ha ha haaa! Su osquita which is !” FUMIGATOR: on ying whine of M belly till I look like no an the petty buffo for are my Prep ell this, Fumigator! out enough of your blood to sw ! You’ll pay for AN! NOOOOO d drive you crazy before I suck AM LE “F : an ur face MOSQUITA to be all up in yo carrying a large litter! ng a pregnant dugo CAT:

Hsssssss!

SOUP2 NUTS

REEEEET! WEEEEEEE! SK KWEEEEEE! SK EE! KRUSHLE! SPLE are about a huge us NKLE KRISH! rhaps in a nightm rio HHHHHHHHHI SH SEEN (except pe hero from behind a swarm of va ER EV VE E’ GLASS: ANYTHING W re) soars toward the tumbling ildings blur as he KE bu LI e Th UN ar. GN ne s SI nk the lex poses “swim as the vehicle ba An airship of a DEhave but that’s neither here nor PANEL TWO EAMAN smiles arcs in the air in a series of comp miracle machine! ck insect I often t of the way! FL de flying metallic sti which scurry like mad to get ou dozens of windows. FLEAMAN LEOPTICAR, his specially ma be not working! m to model aerial cars, startled onlookers peering fro toward the vehicle. This is the COosquita and frowns as it seems see M falls but we can rushing night wind to maneuver is similar to the one worn by all ich rcruiser. It appears ming” through thewrist device as he dives, one wh lab and atomic wa me cri ing a fly th wi ial s spec He fiddle pticar, Fleaman’s streaks the Coleo ge t from the night Bu ined some dama N: IO ms to have susta CAPT may not be lost! signal watch see pass now! n ow y M r! ca oned the Coleopti villain opened up a can a whoo Mosquita summ at ! “Ngh! Good thing ough that window up there! Th vibrating madly : AN M EA thr her costume are g into tiny shards FL when I crashed ose WINGS on din wh plo ita ex qu os are M ts e ble e several glass go gator whirls to fac sest to camera. Th above, the Fumi m the sound! A wine bottle and ing es which are clo fro Back in the room of the bigger on OCOPS is charg PANEL THREE- off the shelves all over the room reflected in about thirty or forty nose and mouth! A squad of EC ding up toward lea g tor ay, also from his to reveal iron rings in the wall e anything Things are fallin e of the Fumiga from them anyw en the horrified fac ons unlik ap we h tec (and we can see ring his eyes but blood is pouring ce’s secret door is swinging op h hig ing several pla Fumigator is cove coming in the window. The fire les and metallic armor plus carry d ck into the room an ECOCOP is festooned with bu g effect on ad has a devastatin the roof. The he fore. white noise which of ll be wa n ng see ini er a wh we’ve ev wildly, creating m all orifices of the room. s wings vibrate fro osquita’s wondrou a team of ECOCOPS pours in M N: IO ed a t as CAPT nted slut? You ne the Fumigator jus to me, you segme as soon as I can get my ing do u yo are t u ha to dole out to yo e tunnel AGH! Splut! W “AAAAAAAAA new poison which I’ll be glad it’s up to the roof via my escap ial FUMIGATOR: taste of my spec ted with the right mixture! Then ! HA HA HA! jus killer canister ad accursed interlopers can stop me se an army of before any of the scle here to stop ! We have the mu loss you are experiencing it nd fie r ste ma t, sure of tha e of blood you “I wouldn’t be so d from the looks of you and rat nder right now and let us save An ECOCOP: nt to surre wa t gh punks like you! mi u yo t g! In fac shouldn't take lon ich she’s from her fangs wh CONT’D

BATS:

A sample script page from BOYNTON LARS OFFALBAUM’s edgy, hip FLEAMAN mini-series. To the right is the same page as he generously laid it out for Michael Michael Michael, the latest penciler to quit an OFFALBAUM project for “artistic reasons.” “He’s kind of a wimp! ”, says BLO!

46 | TYPE NOW

Y.E. Ed’s Usual What Can I

Tell Ya? I’m sorry about everything, now let’s move on! There (whew!). Now that I’ve gotten this issue’s apology out of the way, let Y.E. Ed welcome you to the New, Improved Comic Book Artiste where, free from the constraints of the TwoMorons censorship stranglehold which has muzzled and muted my mightiness lo these many moons, Y.E. Ed shall hold forth with all the naughty words and full frontal nerdity Y.E. wants! In fact, I’m thinking of a totally new, never-before heard expletive right now, and Y.E. vows to use it somewhere in the pages of this issue, and every issue to follow (but, y’know, only to celebrate the passion Y.E. Ed feels for this much-maligned medium). And ye magazine shall likewise pour forth from Top Shlep Productions with the regularity of a man who pursueth a very fibre-rich diet! Thou shalt see, verily forsooth, by Y.E.’s Iger Award’s shiny tin patina, or my name be not Y.E. Ed! So standeth back! This issue we feature the legendary Skeeve Ditkoid and his equally legendary Charlatan Comics oeuvre! The strange, reclusive fellow brings forth into these pages all the nuttiness one would expect. He spoke to Y.E. through a crack in the door and told your crusading editor to basically go away, but that’s more than he’s told anybody else in thirty years, so we got the scoop! Let Y.E. also mention my other upcoming projects, available for purchase someday: the CBA Bullchute newsletter; Sumpmen: Mulch-Monsters of the Sewers... (continued next issue, whenever that may be)

48 CBA V.2 #1

TOP: Y.E. (dressed as THE FLYING FIST) shows up in Sandy Eggo to tell Johnny Moron and company it’s OVER! ABOVE: A rare look into the creative process of the eccentric writer/artist behind the Punctuator, Skeeve Ditkoid! He seems to have considered other options as to the character’s name and modus operandi! Few pencil sketches from Ditkoid are known to exist. Enjoy a special glimpse into the workings of an elusive and fascinating figure in the history of Charlatan! Right on, Skeeve, you nutty rascal, you!

CHARLATAN COMICS! The comics for the REST of us! The inside story of this most-maligned publisher! by Y.E. Ed

49 CBA V.2 #1

FORGET parents! These are the comics so lousy they were thrown away by the kids themselves! Many such epithets have been hurled at the subject of this little essay... but let us see whether they were truly deserved!

50 CBA V.2 #1

While most of us recall with fondness the more high-profile comic book publishers like Mangle, Smell, and BC, very few remember some of the “lesser”, but none the less significant, comics that littered the magazine, cigar store and treasurefilled drug store racks of the past. Mold Key and Classics Insinuated might immediately spring to mind, but one of the most maligned and forgotten comics publishers lies languidly out of the “mainstream” and is seldom discussed while all the others have received their just “props” in the exciting world of comic collecting. Let us now shine the spotlight into a dark corner of comics history and there find, cringing, one of the truly great, and for the most part ignored and/or forgotten publishers ever to stumble onto the comics scene—CHARLATAN! Charlatan! To some they were the pinnacle of publishing. Those few of you who may be familiar with the Charlatan line will fondly recall the superlative art and narrative content that was found in the pages of those interesting books. Charlatan was the brainchild of Fernando Rigatoni, conceived while he and an associate were serving some time for larceny, a practice some would unkindly say he continued throughout his comics publishing years! The Charlatan line was “released” (no pun intended) onto the stands in 1954. While produced on a shoestring budget these books were nevertheless able to attract some top-notch talent during their 35-year history, and included a wide variety of titles in many genres which were eagerly devoured by

kids (and some adults) who were eager to read anything as long as it was mostly pictures. Indeed, part of Rigatoni’s genius lay not just in his ability to get his comics printed and distributed at all, with the fierce competition and monopolistic lock the major publishers had within all the key distribution channels, but to get them into places where the competition was slim, such as meat markets, penitentiaries, waste management firms and construction sites. While most publishers concentrated on keeping rigid schedules for the production and dissemination of their product, Rigatoni took advantage of this by calculating exactly when the other more popular books would be sold out and THEN slipping his books into the empty spaces left after the “good stuff” was gone! Readers had no choice but to buy the well-placed plethora of shiny new Charlatan books! By this method the books sold well in the spaces in between the release of the better, or more popular, titles. When the child with the spare dime showed up on the wrong day, Rigatoni had him! And many children were glad to be had! While the big publishers went in for tie-ins with the most popular features films of the day, and later with big television series, Charlatan was able to find many of the less notable properties and produced books based on them. Little Smarty (Who Had A Party) was adapted from a crude cartoon show and was in the vein of Little Lulu, Richie Rich, and Dennis the Menace which chronicled the exploits of its leading “kid” char-

LEFT: One of the most popular post-Mangle books from the legendary Skeeve Ditkoid! He reinvented the old Pox character, The Blue Beagle, and gave him a modern ’60s twist with high-tech weaponry and Ditkoid’s trademark wacky villains! He worked with Charlatan Scribe Extraordinaire Joe Grill who, it was said, could write a script while playing ping pong or fishing coins from a drain with chewing gum and string! He had to, rates beings what they were in those days. Joe fondly remembers a time when there was a shortage of ink and he had to have a whole book colored yellow! Joe explained how he solved the problem, “Well, there was no ink. Rigatoni didn’t pay or couldn’t pay and the BLUE BEAGLE was due out the next week! So I wrote a story where the sun got super hot, see? And everything was just yellow for the whole story! You had to be creative at Charlatan, let me tell you. Cheap sons’a .....”

ABOVE: During the “Monster Craze” of the Sixties, Charlatan licensed the Kongo and Gorgar properties and churned out a stream of comics featuring those cinematic behemoths. Or rather they didn’t actually bother with the expensive tedium of licensing and, being so low-profile, got away with it for quite a while... finally being forced to combine the monsters into a new non-copyrighted “original” entity called KONGORGA!

LEFT: They also pumped out fortynine issues of the legendary CRAZY HIP GROOVY GO-GO WAY OUT MONSTERS mag to cash in on the craze. These gems are hard to find these days, but well worth the search!

51 CBA V.2 #1

52 CBA V.2 #1

acter, while Outer Space Guy was tied to an obscure kids’ TV host who appeared on a local station out of Poughkeepsie. Another kid-oriented comic, Little Matzo, a noble attempt at creating a book about an “ethnic” character lasted only one issue, but is fondly remembered by all those lucky enough to have seen it, and commands high prices on the collector’s market today. Bug Fear and Tales to Drive You Out of Your Mind sold well and introduced the great Skeeve Ditkoid to the world back when he was easier to deal with! And while other publishers went for the “easy” big movie adaptations such as The Seventh Seal of Sinbad, The Land Unwanted and Atlanticus, the Last Continent, Charlatan had to content itself with the likes of Kongorga and Repdiculous and managed to turn out some fine stories based on those low budget features. Some said they were made for each other, and how true it was! As the major companies introduced different genres to entice the public, Charlatan was never more than three or four steps behind in coming out with something similar in title or characters to capitalize on the interest generated by the competition, a shrewd and time-honored tactic used to this day in all media. Artists who were between jobs, not quite up to the standards of the “big timers” or just too inebriated to know where they were, would make their way to Charlatan to put ink to paper and contribute to the company’s burgeoning line of books. This was no mean feat as, for quite a while, it seemed Charlatan Publications could not be found at the same address for more than two days in a row! Indeed, though few records exist, we have been able to track at least 23 locations for Charlatan between 1959 and 1960 alone! Our records find Rigatoni’s roving company at six phone booths, two nowdefunct bars, a boxcar in the Chicago stockyards, and a men’s room in the Poughkeepsie bus station. It is interesting to note that the last address mentioned still boasts the phone numbers for many industry professionals scratched into the paint inside one of the stalls! Charlatan was finally able to find a permanent home in 1962 at a massive abandoned printing plant outside of Jersey City. Rumors persist that this was actually a government dumping site for toxic waste but most attribute these to a misunderstanding of Charlatan’s product. In this fortress-like facility the writers wrote, pencilers penciled, inkers and letterers plied their trade, colorists splashed the exciting but limited hues Charlatan was able to purchase, books were printed, bound, stapled and shlepped all over the East Coast in a fleet of bread trucks. Charlatan had finally come into its own. Many artists lived in the basement of the building, working on the books for room and board. One month, when paper was short, cases of unsold books were reissued with new covers and sent out that way. Nobody noticed! The artists played shuffleboard, ping pong and cards and worked by candlelight when the power was occasionally cut. But all who toiled there are to be envied and the stories that came out of that old asbestos-lined

building are both legendary and legion. Skeeve Ditkoid, Nick Cuticle, Joe Station, Dink Garondo, and many other comics legends found a haven at Charlatan when they found themselves unwelcome at the bigger, snootier firms. Our gain, we say! Sam Glandsman, a legend himself, interviewed in the pioneering Ultra Ego fanzine in 1969, shed some light on the unique situation. Glandsman: “Charlatan was in this huge place that allowed them to produce all their comics and mags without ever leaving the building. Many of the staff built small shanties out of printing plates and actually lived in a section of the basement. After much of the original art was printed, it was dumped back into the basement where the underpaid artists used it to make fires in the winter and as wallpaper. Believe me, you were taking a risk if you went down there. If those guys caught on that you were there looking for work, you might never come back. Competition was tough in those days! I’ll never forget the last day I was there. There was an explosion and a giant sinkhole opened a swallowed the whole damn place. It’s a miracle most of us got out! [That sinkhole is unkindly claimed by detractors to be a good metaphor for the whole company!] It’s all gone now! All that Charlatan original art, lost forever... I tell ya, there’s a gold mine down there!” After that, Rigatoni relocated but things were never the same. Even with all the insurance money he got, he claimed the company had fallen on hard times and page rates were cut to a quarter of what they had been! Glandsman: “That’s saying something when you consider we were getting a page rate of 2 cents for pencils and a penny for inks! You had to do five pages to make a dime. Literally!” And so, there you have it! After surviving for decades under incredible conditions, which included a devastating hurricane, floods, fires and bombings, Charlatan finally closed its non-existing doors and gave up the ghost. (Including Real Gone Ghost, the dead juvenile delinquent character which was created as an “homage” to Casper many years earlier.) The hole was filled with cement, burying a trove or original art and, some say, Morrie their letterer (who was alleged to have already succumbed to tuberculosis—a stone was erected on the site in his honor just in case). And thus the end came to Charlatan Comics, a great company whose efforts may have been humble, but they still contributed to the astounding body of work of that great American art form, comic books, and provided much enjoyment to a generation of fans! (Our thanks to all those who provided art and information for this great article, whoever you were. Ye Iger-winning Ed will stop at nothing to get the goods for you, good readers, and will not rest or slack off just because he happened to win that old award for his humble efforts last year—I’d share it with all of you if I could! Mwah!)

THIS PAGE: A cover from the Charlatan Classic, E-YOW! They don’t make them like that anymore—well they do but there’s no place left that will publish them! Ha!

THUD AND BLUNDER ILL LEGAL MOVES Dear Harry, It has come to my attention that a lawsuit has ensued pursuant to the interview you conducted with my cooperation last year. I took it as an act of friendship to bandy words with you and did not expect you to print everything that was said in an atmosphere of casual give-and-take and with a tacit understanding that discretion would be used with regard to whatever conversational nuggets and gems might have dropped from my lips during the proceedings. I may have made comments regarding the mental state of various individuals of our mutual acquaintance which are now being used as contentious evidence in these egregious proceedings. In short, let me inquire as to what role and responsibility you and the Comics Urinal may be expected to take? Yours in expectation of explanation and support, Arlen Hellison

HARRY REPLIES: Dear Arlen, I too am under duress as a result of the unfortunate disgruntlement and virulent consternation on the part of certain parties and their litigious maneuverings resulting therefrom. May I simply state that you knew perfectly well what the situation was during our exchange and that I reserved all journalistic options as I would do with any other interviewee, hence I don’t quite understand what you might be asking or expecting me to do. Yours in the spirit of mutual support in these ongoing matters, Harry Growth

ARLEN REPLIES BACK: Harry, Are you saying you do not expect to bear the precipitous brunt of the forthcoming tribulations sans my company and that the implicit guilt, should such indeed be found to exist, is somehow shared between us? I certainly hope my perception of your intentions is misplaced and in error. AH

HARRY ANSWERS BACK AGAIN SOME MORE: Arlen, How awkward indeed this seems to be becoming! Imagine if you will, my turpitude and potential indignation if I may use such contentious terms, at the notion that you expect me to bear any blame whatever regarding these incipient recriminations which threaten to undermine my high regard for you and your moral fiber and related constitutional material. Yrs, HG

ARLEN GETS TESTY: Look, You seem to be encroaching on the territory of feigned innocence, an area in which you are no doubt an accomplished venturer but an area of 54

disingenuous habitation for such as person as you are, or perhaps such a person as I imagined you to be in my innocence. This is your magazine, young sir, and I consented to be interviewed within its increasingly suspect pages only to find myself quite alone on the deck of your titanic difficulties. The captain, to pursue the metaphor, seems not willing to capsize with his blameless passengers but is rather seeking to be absent in the manner of the storied rodents when placed upon a vessel which is taking on water and listing precipitously! Let me be plain. I assume no responsibility for what you may print, even if I did say it. Is that clear now?

MISSES THE GORY DAYS Dear Editor, I used to like your magazine back when people argued about stuff publicly. That was fun. Bring back those kinds of letters pages, please. Luvva Goodfight, Summona, MD NAH, we’re above that sort of thing now- Ed.

KNOWS WHAT HE LIKES HARRY TAKES THE GLOVES OFF! Clear as the bile you spewed, you traitorous phony! Mister Big Shot. All bold and brassy when there’s nothing at stake, but “Mister Hands Off” when the impact of your casually and freely distributed vituperation comes back to bite you on your snooty butt. I ain’t taking the blame for what you said, bud. How clear is that?

ARLEN SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS: You vile, cowardly punk! I’ll come right up there where you’ve had to flee to avoid other people you’ve double-crossed and kick your smug ass for you! How would you like that? You can get sued in a f---ing hospital, “bud”, just as easily as in your little chickens--t hideout! I may sue you myself, come to think of it!

OH F---ING SO? Bring it on, old man! I dare you! Come on! Hey, do you think I’m afraid of feisty little loudmouths like you? Bite me big and choke!

NOW THIS IS JUST WRONG! Why you dirty stinking little cretin! Who the f--k do you think you’re f---ing with anyway? You edit some piece of s--t little magazine about comic books and you think you can take on an award-winning genius like me? You putz! You toad! You oozing lesion of a human being! And another thing—my lawyers can eat your lawyers for breakfast and have room for toast and f---ing orange juice! They can handle you and this other schmuck without opening their damn briefcases. They can send their two-year-old kids to deal with this kinda penny-ante nuisance! Get ready! Sell your s--t and run away! Judgment Day is coming early for you!

Dear Comics Urinal, What’s with all these people who can’t even draw getting all this coverage lately? And what’s with all these people I never heard of anyway? Comics are supposed to be an American art form—get rid of all these foreigners, will you? Where’s all the good superhero stuff you used to feature, by the way? Those are the only comics I like anyway. I expect you to shape up and go back to serving the needs of your readers or else I will just go read something else. I’m warning you! Signed, Peter Out

LESS AND MORE! Dear HG, You have these guys writing for you who are always talking about “journalism”. Isn’t a “journal” like the Wall Street Journal or something? Like a newspaper, I mean? How can there be a journal and journalism about something as dumb and irrelevant as comic books anyway? Who are you kidding with all these hoity toity big words and phony high standards? I do like the way those Mexican guys draw girls though. But the one guy’s stories are too weird for me. I guess they might be really good but I can’t tell. That makes me kinda uncomfortable but his brother sure can draw some hot chicks. Well, I guess that’s all I wanted to say. Oh, I like that guy who draws the skinny funny weird people too, the Bradys or whatever he calls them. He’s good too. His chicks are kind of weird but at least his stuff is funny. Fuller B. Loney, Madswipe, OK

LG HAS THE LAST WORD OOOO! I’m scared! The big bad little man is after me! OOOOO! What will I dooooo? Ha! Hey, you know what? It’s MY magazine and I’m having the last word because I simply can! Drop dead!

FANCYGRAPHICS BOOKS • Publisher HARRY GROWTH • Editor KIM THOMPTHON • Somethingorother EVERYBODY ELSE • Lackeys & Hangers-On

THE HARVEY AWARDS

THE COMICS URINAL IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THIS YEAR’S HARVEY AWARD WINNERS, WHO ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS LAST YEAR’S HARVEY AWARD WINNERS BY AN UTTERLY AMAZING COINCIDENCE! ven though they perfectly well should be. By the way, we received a letter from Juan Marbleshort who asks, “How come these awards are named after Harvey comics anyway? I mean was Little Load’a some kind of milestone or something?” Juan, you rube, these awards are named for the greatest cartoonist who ever lived, Harvey Kurtzmensch, not some cheesy company which ground out forgettable dreck! Kurtzmensch’s dreck is unforgettable, from his fabulous Hey Lookit! strips to his immortal Little Fancy Fanny, which sucked the very life out of his career from when he started it until the bitter end! But enough educational ejaculating. Let us get to the point here.

The Winners Are: Best Continuing Series: Meatball by Daniel Clowns Best Writer: Daniel Clowns for Goat World Two Best Artist: Daniel Clowns for Ghostball Best Magazine About Comics: The Comics Urinal (where Daniel Clowns is often written about) Best Funny Looking Comics: Peter Baggy (who knows Daniel Clowns) Best Hot Chicks: Haime Hernando for Loving Rockets (who also knows him) Best Publisher: FANCYGRAPHICS, who publishes, well, you know. Best Inker, Letterer, Colorist, etc., etc., etc.: WHO CARES? We might as well offer awards for who takes the garbage out or parallel parks their car best! Best Superhero Book: Sorry, no such thing. Best Big Expensive Book: The Vast Nigh-Endless Peanoughts Encyclopedic Conglomomorium Best Non-Fancygraphics Book: See the Superhero Entry Best New Cartoonist Since Daniel Clowns: P. Don Sheets

THE COMICS URINAL REVIEWS Jim Ringworm reviews everything DC put out last month: “Feh.” Doofus Dinkley reviews everything MARVEL and IMAGE put out last month: “Feh and double feh.” Harry Growth reviews COMIC BOOK NERD: These guys think they’re pretty funny evidently but I have news for them. This outrush of screed fails to amuse or entertain. When contacted for comment, Pete Von Sholly simply said “Anything you like, I did it, anything you didn’t like was John Morrow’s fault.” Morrow declined to answer the Urinal’s inquiries except to say he had nothing to do with Comic Book Nerd whatsoever. When they make fun of everybody but us, they do have some points to make. But that’s our job. When they try to make fools of US here at the Urinal, well, that’s our job too.

endary quality of these hallowed strips. You have to buy them and you have to buy all of them. Growth also reviews—well the hell with it. Let’s put it this way: If it’s a FANCYGRAPHICS book it’s great and you should be ashamed of yourself if you don’t buy it and love it. We got Peter Baggy and the Hernando Brothers and a whole bunch of other stuff so get with it and start shopping. We pay these guys only when their books sell, and not much then so do your part and support them! PICK A CARD! (below): The notorious grossout sets are coming back like a bad lunch! From Kitchen Stink. Fancy packaging for bubble gum cards now sold with no bubble gum is the braindead brainchild of Denny Kitchen and Flopps, who are jointly recycling some dopey old monster cards which would be of no interest whatsoever except they feature some art by Willy Wood and Hack Davis, two of the gods of comics who must be praised. These would be better if we published them.

The Vast Nigh-Endless PEANOUGHTS etc., etc. by Charlie Schultz: One of the few true gems in the history of cartooning and only we dare bring you every damn scrap of it in a series of awkward and expensive hardcover books you will buy out of duty and reverence and put on a shelf and never touch. Your children will sell them on eBay when you die or just give them to the Good Will but you may rest secure in the knowledge that you fattened our coffers and helped justify the leg-

THE “Reading my comics is time well-wasted!” says P.

THIS SPREAD: Sven the Angry Swede (who seems neither Swedish nor angry) and Unlucky Sal (who is named Sal and is unlucky) are two of Sheet’s most popular series!

unique style of cartooning speaks to the ephemeral yet solipsistic side of directionless postmodern society. His is the voice and vision of a cathartic spleen modulated by psychoactive drugs and video games like his enthusiastic readers from one coast to just a little beyond the same coast. The Urinal’s guiding light, Harry Growth, spoke with the perspicacious P. Don Sheets on the phone and here is a transcription of their conversation.

P.’s

P. DON SHEETS: Hello? HARRY GROWTH: Hello. Mister Sheets? SHEETS: Yeah. GROWTH: Growth here, from the Urinal. SHEETS: Who? GROWTH: Harry Growth from the Comics Urinal.

SHEETS: The what? GROWTH: Like to talk to you... ask you a few questions about your comics. SHEETS: I— GROWTH: Tut tut. Spare me the spurious modesty, you brilliant devil. Let’s start with your background. SHEETS: I go to high school. I don’t have any background. GROWTH: Ever the kidder! What are your influences? Surely your deceptively layered stories spring from a rich background in the literature of our times and are yet redolent of a select historical perspective. How did you come by such a rich blend of fecundity? SHEETS: I— GROWTH: I would venture I sense a more than passing familiarity with Hairyman and dare I say, Voltaire, Satre and Camus. Not to mention Kriegfeld and Kurtzmensch. SHEETS: I— GROWTH: I understand. You are clearly above and beyond such mundane trifles as autobiographical and literational minutiae. The pointlessness of it all leaves you somewhat aloof with your searing perceptions withering all those who foregather to perpetuate the malaise which grips the world’s facetiously called “comics”, n’est-ce pas? Am I right? (pause) Hello? (Several moments of muffled voices follow...)

INTERVIEW SHEETS: I have to do my homework. GROWTH: Ah, homework. Isn’t it all more or less thus with titans such as yourself? The elusive lure of the Muse has many appellations. But can we please discuss your comics for just a moment? SHEETS: I— GROWTH: What about the sly yet subversive Crimson Coconut which is at once an obvious deconstruction of the superhero ethos and an indictment of the status quo of the modern corporate commercialism which continues to devalue the spiritual currency of the day, this “coconut” of yours, obviously a metaphor for Southeast Asia, and the Communistic threat that looms yet recedes when approached behind a veneer of innocence. SHEETS: Well, no it’s just a coconut. GROWTH: Ah, and Charlie Brow is just a neurotic kid, and Krazy Kow is just a cartoon animal who throws bricks. SHEETS: And he has super powers and stuff. He’s little and fuzzy and— GROWTH: (chuckles) And your Unlucky Sal is just a shmoe with bad luck. SHEETS: Um, right. He— GROWTH: P, you don’t have to guard yourself when you speak with a bastion of true journalism such as myself. The depth of these penetrating books and their observations and indictments of the bland and mediocre cry aloud in virtually every panel. SHEETS: Well— GROWTH: Ah, ever the straight man, the facade never wavers. But the Urinal readers can handle the truth! Who is the real force behind your fabulously rare Nut House Stoodio productions? SHEETS: My dad. He made those comics for my birthday on the copier in his office. A friend of his who hates you sent them to you as a joke I think. GROWTH: Pish tush! No more toying with Harry, now! We at the Urinal thirst for the facts, the unvarnished story behind the story. SHEETS: I have to go... GROWTH: Ah, and “go” you do. As a mission’s status may be “go”. As a piece in a Monopoly game may, allowing the requisite card be possessed, sometimes pass “go” without— (click) Hello? Hello? (dial tone)

“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?” Test Now we know what you’re thinking: This is one of our smartass articles designed to belittle you. Well, of course it is! If that bothers you, skip the whole thing and continue to thumb through this issue looking for something you might actually be interested in, and won’t feel stupid reading. There isn’t anything like that, but you can look. The fact that you bought this magazine indicates some non-idiot potential. You may know the major publishers hate us so much they won’t talk to us, so we are not likely to have news most idiot comic readers give a s--t about. But sometimes we can start fights or spread juicy rumors and get people mad at each other and then print their letters and threats while they’re flying fast and furious. That’s fun and everybody likes that. We at The Comics Urinal have had our genius cognoscenti (mainly Harry Growth and Kim Thompthon) devise this little twenty question test for you. Answer these questions as honestly as your ego will allow, to determine if you’re an idiot or not. 1) Do you lose time from work due to reading comic books? ❏ Yes ❏ No 2) Do comic books make your home life unhappy? ❏ Yes ❏ No 3) Do you read comic books (as opposed to real books) because you need pictures to hold your attention? ❏ Yes ❏ No 4) Does comic book reading and talking about comic books on the Internet take up more than twelve hours of an average day? ❏ Yes ❏ No 5) Have you ever spent so much money on a comic book that you had to lie to your family about it? ❏ Yes ❏ No 6) Have you ever turned down sex because you wanted to finish reading a comic book first? (Skip this one if you’ve never had sex.) ❏ Yes ❏ No 7) Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment, such as a comic book shop or convention, while looking for ever more comic books? ❏ Yes ❏ No 58

8) Do you go crazy on holidays when the weekly comic book shipment gets pushed back a day? ❏ Yes ❏ No 9) Have you ever dressed up like a comic book character (after the age of ten)? ❏ Yes ❏ No 10) Do you read comic books while crossing streets? ❏ Yes ❏ No 11) Do you crave a comic book first thing in the morning? ❏ Yes ❏ No 12) Does comic book reading cause you to have trouble sleeping because you’re afraid you'll miss an issue of an extensive crossover? ❏ Yes ❏ No 13) Have you ever bought all versions of a comic book with “variant” covers? ❏ Yes ❏ No 14) Are any of your comic books “slabbed”? ❏ Yes ❏ No 15) Do you read certain comics books like a duty, even if you don’t like them? ❏ Yes ❏ No

16) Do you read comic books alone? ❏ Yes ❏ No 17) Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of a comic book? ❏ Yes ❏ No 17) Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of a comic book? (just making sure you’re paying attention...) ❏ Yes ❏ No 18) Has your physician ever treated you for reading comic books? ❏ Yes ❏ No 19) Have you ever tried to read a comic book while driving a car? ❏ Yes ❏ No 20) Have you ever been to a hospital or institution as a result of reading comic books? ❏ Yes ❏ No

Done? Want your score? It doesn’t matter; if you even took the test, you are an idiot. But if you buy only Fancygraphics books for a year, you may be able to hide it better.

Last but but hardly hardly least least is is Last the all-encompassing all-encompassing the Internerdnet, where where nerds nerds Internerdnet, of all all kinds kinds come come together together of to comfort comfort and and console console to one another another and and revel revel in in one the nerdiness nerdiness which which cuts cuts the them off off from from normal normal them society. Countless Countless webwebsociety. sites and and blogs blogs fill fill the the sites frothing bandwidths, bandwidths, and and frothing no nerd nerd will will fail fail to to find find no like-minded nerds nerds with with like-minded whom to to consort, consort, argue, argue, whom and threaten threaten or or publicly publicly and belittle in in spirited spirited debate! debate! belittle Once social social outcasts, outcasts, Once Comic Book Book Nerds Nerds can can Comic now glory glory in in company company now formerly found found only only at at formerly conventions and and lonely lonely conventions corners of of bookshops bookshops or or corners comic book book conventions conventions comic (especially the the costume costume (especially contests) and and bars. bars. contests)

MORE FROM PETE VON SHOLLY Ah, me again. Let me begin my wrap-up by making what may be a rare confession. I am the “ultimate” collector, not as in a recent marketing scheme, but in the truest sense of the word ultimate. I have literally the best copies of every comic book ever printed. Multiple copies. I use VG FF #1’s to wrap fish. But there’s something that’s been gnawing at me for a while... mainly that most of what I have, OTHER people can have too. Not many other people, but that’s not the point. I am special. So if you see me smiling like a man who just found a mint copy of Action #1 in a thrift shop for a nickel, it’s because of my great new genius idea. Get ready to weep, collectors, would-be rivals, copycats... I have just had a comic book commissioned to be written and drawn by the top men in the field. (One of them is dead, but I have his brain in a jar connected to a special biomedical computer which allows him to work for me.) I had only ten copies printed and I have them all, slabbed, graded at 10.0 CFGC and locked in the vault at Fort Knox (which I recently purchased and moved to the caverns below my estate). But that’s not all! Each issue has its own variant cover by the top, most collectable hot artists in the field! I’m not even going to tell you what the comic IS! But I will say it features the hottest characters ever and you would just DIE if you knew who they were and what they were doing. Of course I have all the original art too, which I may yet decide to destroy. You can’t even suffer properly because you will never know what you’re missing! Nobody will. And these books will be buried with me, should I ever die and end up slabbed myself. So I am now indeed the ultimate collector and that’s that. I have also begun buying up the best copies of all comics ever published and destroying all but one of each which I, of course, pop into the old vault. It’s not quite as fun as my publishing scheme, but I have to have something to do next, after all. Well, if you can still hold your pathetic head up, I have one more bit of news for you. This very magazine you hold in your hands will soon be completely worthless as every single issue has a special set of dissolving staples holding it together. Except my mint copy, of course. Nothing you can do will stop the staples from dissolving and the book from falling apart. The ad below shows what you might as well do with this rag... and your whole collections for that matter. Well, I could go on but you’re not really worth it. Yours truly (to use the conventional lie),

And Now, On To Some Real Stuff You Can Spend Real Money On, Really! 63

REAL MAGS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

BACK ISSUE

BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments such as “Pro2Pro” (a dialogue between two professionals), “Rough Stuff” (pencil art showcases of top artists), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more! Edited by MICHAEL EURY. (100-page magazine) $6.95 cover price

ALTER EGO

ALTER EGO, the greatest ’zine of the 1960s is back, all-new, and focusing on Golden & Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews, unseen art, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America, featuring the archives of C.C. Beck and recollections by Fawcett artist Marcus Swayze), Michael T. Gilbert’s Mr. Monster, & more! Edited by ROY THOMAS.

WRITE NOW!

WRITE NOW!, the magazine for writers of comics, animation, & sci-fi, puts you in the minds of today’s top writers and editors. Each issue features writing tips from pros on both sides of the desk, interviews, sample scripts, reviews, exclusive Nuts & Bolts tutorials, and more. Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

(100-page magazine) $6.95 cover price

(80-page magazine) $6.95 cover price

DRAW!

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR

DRAW! is the professional “How-To” magazine on comics, cartooning, and animation. Each issue features in-depth interviews & step-by-step demos from top comics pros on all aspects of graphic storytelling. Contains nudity for purposes of figure drawing. Intended for Mature Readers. Edited by MIKE MANLEY.

The JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR celebrates the life & career of the “King” of comics through interviews with Kirby and his contemporaries, feature articles, rare & unseen Kirby art, plus regular columns by Mark Evanier and others, and presentation of Kirby’s uninked pencils from the 1960s80s. Edited by JOHN MORROW.

(100-page magazine with color) $6.95 cover price

(80-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 cover price

SUBSCRIPTIONS & BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE AT: www.twomorrows.com

OUR ESTEEMED COMPETITORS:

We’ve had a lot of fun in CBN at our competition’s expense (and our own), but this industry is blessed with a wealth of great publications and websites about comics. Here’s a few: Wizard Magazine: www.wizarduniverse.com The Scoop Newsletter: http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com Comic Buyer’s Guide: www.cbgxtra.com Comic Book Artist: www.topshelfcomix.com The Comics Journal: www.tcj.com Previews: http://previews.diamondcomics.com Newsarama: www.newsarama.com Comicon.com’s The Pulse: www.comicon.com/pulse The Beat Weblog: www.comicon.com/thebeat Comic Book Resources: www.comicbookresources.com Silver Bullet Comics: www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com

If you’re viewing a digital version of this publication, PLEASE read this plea from the publisher! his is COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, which is NOT INTENDED FOR FREE T DOWNLOADING ANYWHERE. If you’re a print subscriber, or you paid the modest fee we charge to download it at our website, you have our sincere thanks—your support allows us to keep producing publications like this one. If instead you downloaded it for free from some other website or torrent, please know that it was absolutely 100% DONE WITHOUT OUR CONSENT, and it was an ILLEGAL POSTING OF OUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. If that’s the case, here’s what you should do: 1) Go ahead and READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, and see what you think. 2) If you enjoy it enough to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and purchase a legal download of it from our website, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop. We’d love to have you as a regular paid reader. 3) Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. 4) Finally, DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. We offer one complete issue of all our magazines for free downloading at our website, which should be sufficient for you to decide if you want to purchase others. If you enjoy our publications enough to keep downloading them, support our company by paying for the material we produce. We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard-working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this work. We love what we do, but our editors, authors, and your local comic shop owner, rely on income from this publication to stay in business. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so will ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download. TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

www.twomorrows.com

*Contains some bad language. By accident, but... NOTE: Sergeantstein is technically SOLD OUT, but I will release a few copies from my private stash; strictly limited to the first 1800 orders! Limit: 500 per customer please!