Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
March 1982 was not blessed with a slew of great movie releases but the best-known of them bore such titles as Evil Under the Sun, Parasite, Victor/Victoria and Eating Raoul.
Even though I'm familiar with their titles, and some of their concepts, I don't believe I've seen any of them.
I shall, therefore, pass no judgement upon them, and leap straight into my look at what was happening with some of Marvel's less popular mags that bore that month upon their frontages.
He then unrefuses when his friend's killed by a man known as, "The Master Sniper."
Which leads him to Israel and a journey into something or other.
And, judging by that cover, so is a pterodactyl!
Or is it a pterodactyl?
It would seem Karl Lykos is alive and well in the Savage Land, and the Angel's on his tail.
But so's Peter Parker, sent there on behalf of the Daily Bugle.
However, once there, he and the Angel have to deal with the deadly menace of Brainchild.
As if that's not enough to keep us busy, we also get a back-up strip that features drug dealers and Daredevil.
I do believe Dennis the Menace already has two Marvel books of his own.
I must confess Dazzler's not a comic I feel habitually drawn towards. However, this issue features a gang of villains called The Grapplers and a name like that's enough to pique even my interest.
It seems she meets them on Ryker's Island, after turning herself in, for the death of Klaw.
Still, all's well that ends well and not only does our heroine defeat the felonious females, she also clears her name, as well!
Tragically, that's all I know of this issue's contents.
And, now, he has a third, so that we can relive his greatest adventures.
Still, all's well that ends well and not only does our heroine defeat the felonious females, she also clears her name, as well!
I don't know what happens in this one but I know it's thirty-eight pages long.
People may not be shocked to discover it's drawn by John Buscema.
Ahhh, MARVEL FANFARE! Boy, did I love that comic. Back in the days when having comics printed on decent paper, with excellent reproduction of the line art and vivid color was still a novelty. Those first few issues drawn by Mike Golden were just insanely cool. The mag had a hard time living up to that standard on a regular basis; most of the stories were pretty much just inventory over-stock, and too many were kinda dull and ordinary. But there were definitely some high-points: another stellar Mike Golden story, featuring The Hulk — two early Mike Mignola stories (both starring Namor) — a fascinating Angel story by Mazzuccheli aping Kurtzman — a fun Thing story written and drawn by Barry Smith — lots and lots of P. Craig Russell , inking everyone from Carmine Infantino to Mike Ploog and sometimes even himself — and several super-cool stories by the King of Quirky Comics Tony Salmons, including a nifty Daredevil story n MF #27 (with a GREAT Marc Hempel Spider-mam back-up, probably my all-time favorite FANFARE story).
ReplyDeleteb.t.
Moon Knight was a great comic at this time with some lovely Bill Sienkiewicz art in his Neal Adams phase. Ahhh I had forgotten about that Mazzuccheli Angel story and the BWS Thing strip - both excellent. I didn't buy too many issues of Marvel Fanfare but recall a nice John Buscema Black Knight strip.
ReplyDelete'Victor/Victoria' stars Julie Andrews as a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. Say what??? A struggling actress comes up with the novel idea of pretending to be a male drag-queen. This was the same year as 'Tootsie' so cross-dressing and gender-fluidity was suddenly big box-office!
ReplyDeleteI've never seen 'Evil Under The Sun' but I have heard the BBC Radio 4 version which is faithful to Agatha Christie's original novel unlike the film which moved the action from Devon (far too dull obviously) to an Italian island with the inevitable all-star cast. The film was a flop so maybe the public were bored of the idle rich murdering each other in exotic locations.
As for the comics - the only one I had was Dazzler.
For someone not habitually drawn to Dazzler's comic you do seem to feature it in these posts quite regularly, Steve.
ReplyDeleteI have a soft spot for the first couple of issues, but it lost any charm it had quite early on. Sure, the Grapplers do sound er... intriguing, but that shockingly bad cover on #13 would put me off trying the issue.
b.t., Michael Golden's artwork was great in those first two issues of Fanfare, BUT... when it came down to it, what you basically got for your money was a glorified Marvel Team-Up story.
With the £@#&%ing Angel! And then Ka-Zar.
And as you say, the book didn't even keep up that standard.
I reckon Marvel had problems with Fanfare because of the rapidly changing nature of the comic book field at the time. A new specialist mag featuring top creators was a great idea in, say, late '80/early '81, when regular newstand comics were very obviously in decline and a niche market seemed to be opening up.
But within a couple of years the basic premise of Fanfare had become irrelevant - what was the point of it when even the high lights were nowhere near as good as standard Marvel comics like, say, Daredevil #181, Dr Strange #55, Thor #337 and X-Men #186?
-sean
PS The really annoying thing about Fanfare is that in its later years Marvel were putting out another anthology title - Marvel Comics Presents - that ran Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X, and Don McGregor (with Gene Colan and Tom Palmer) and Steve Gerber's return to, respectively, the Black Panther and Man-Thing.
ReplyDeleteNow, if those three series weren't obviously fan fare - so to speak - that deserved decent colour and printing, then what was?
-sean
Excellent points, Sean. And yes, even at its ‘peak’ the actual stories in FANFARE were rarely anything special. Almost by its very nature, nothing ‘meaningful’ or game-changing was going to happen to anybody in the book. But as an unapologetic Art Snob, that was absolutely all right with me. Mike Golden drawing a two-part MARVEL TEAM-UP with Spider-Man and Ka-Zar in Pellucidar? TAKE MY EFFING MONEY, HONEY!
ReplyDeletePretty sure I bought every single issue for about the first half of its run (because Completist) but then started picking and choosing. About ten years ago, I dumped a bunch of ‘em during one of my periodic Culling Purges. Hmmm, a four-part Shanna the She-Devil story drawn by four different artists, none of them particularly amazing? Dump it! Wolfman and Cockrum doing a blatant Blackhawk knock-off? Pass! Pat Broderick drawing the cutesy Elfquest-y Hobbit-clones of Weirdworld? Christ, can’t believe I even bought that one…
b.t.
But b.t., that Shanna story was written by Steve Gerber!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, I bailed on Fanfare quite a while before you, so maybe I've missed stuff, but the best thing by far that I can remember was a Dr Strange story by Walt Simonson and Dave Gibbons. In the aftermath of Watchmen that really was something that fit in with the book's supposed raison d'etre.
As far as Doc goes, it was fairly straight forward... but thats ok, not everything has to be game changing, and theres nothing wrong with a standard one-off done by skilled people.
I'd say that was also the case with the Golden Spidey/Angel/Ka-Zar twofer, except Claremont's script was a bit too 70s team-up comic for my taste.
There was actually a bit of a 70s vibe with Fanfare - well, a lot of it was actually inventory from the 70s! - but that was true of the early direct market in general.
Moon Knight was a case in point - great Sienkiewicz artwork which got more distinctive with each issue as he found his own style, but the writing always seemed very 'bronze age' (compared to, say, the kind of thing Frank Miller was doing in Daredevil).
-sean
I bought Marvel Fanfare for about the first dozen issues or so. Like b.t., I was/am an art aficionado. Probably the high point, for me, was the BWS Thing tale. It's a pretty clever, pretty fun one-off story about another battle in the ongoing competition between the Thing and the Torch. Very much worth a look, if you haven't read it.
ReplyDeleteThat was the only one of this week's featured books I bought. At the time I was drifting over into the burgeoning 'Indie' offerings. Which brings up a question. Did the publications from the likes of First Comics, Comico, and Aardvark-Vanaheim find their way into your UK collections? Anyone read "Journey ", "Neil the Horse" or "Mars"?
Ooh, MARS. Might be the first time that comic has been mentioned on this site. It was one of my favorite First Comics titles.
ReplyDeleteb.t.
I was a big fan of some of the smaller publishing companies books in the early 1980s. I used to buy Firsts Eman regularly and the occasional isdues of Nexus and Mars. I also picked up the odd Comico title like Ribit (Frank Thorne) and Eman (I liked Eman). My favourites were always Usagi Yojimbo, Love and Rockets and the early Cerebus books until Dave Sim became a bit of a fulltime diddy.
ReplyDeleteJust loved that Moench & Sienkiewicz run on MOON KNIGHT -- exceptional stories & fabulous artwork!! I remember many creators on MARVEL FANFARE...George Perez (he's got difficult health issues & wish him well), & believe Frank Miller did a good Capt. America story -- beyond the others mentioned in other posts!
ReplyDelete