A meditation on "Back to the Klondike"

I was eager to sample Fantagraphics' new entry in their Carl Barks library: Uncle Scrooge: "Only a Poor Old Man". It contains the first six issues' worth of Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge. Although I had already read the titular "Old a Poor Old Man," one story I was especially interested in sampling was "Back to the Klondike," a story which delves into some of Scrooge McDuck's past as he created his incalculable fortune.

The actual plot of "Back to the Klondike" involves Scrooge suddenly recalling he has a fortune in gold buried in the Klondike, so he hurries up north with Donald, Huey, Dewey & Louie to unearth the riches. The major complication in this tale is Goldie, a woman who once tried to steal Scrooge's gold and is now squatting on his one-time gold mine with her pet bear.

I understand there's a lot of interest in Goldie amongst Barks enthusiasts; apparently some fans consider her "the woman" of Scrooge's life (just as some fans consider Irene Adler "the woman" to Sherlock Holmes or Rebecca "the woman" to Wilfred of Ivanhoe). What I found most interesting about Goldie is a brief moment from the flashback scenes in "Back to the Klondike."

Goldie is introduced as a singer in the Black Jack Ballroom who takes a gander at Scrooge's goose egg nugget and forces her attentions on him, even though he has little interest in her (Goldie opens by offering coffee; presumably Scrooge accepts only because he won't turn down free refreshments). After learning about Scrooge's valuable claim, Goldie drugs Scrooge's coffee and steals all of his gold. Scrooge revives "six miles from town" and storms back to the Black Jack Ballroom, brutally pummels every man in his path, then reclaims his large gold nugget from Goldie. However, as the rest of his gold is gone, Scrooge demands Goldie write out an IOU for $1,000.

Even after obtaining the IOU, Scrooge isn't done with Goldie; he drags her out to his claim and forces her to work on his gold mine, declaring, "You're going to learn how hard a miner works for his gold!" Goldie works on Scrooge's mine for a month at just $0.50 per day. At the end of the month, Scrooge pays her off, but she throws the money in his face and storms off. "I dug more gold than you did, you tightwad!" she rages.

The difference in Scrooge & Goldie's reactions to valuables, crimes, rights and wrongs is what I find most interesting. Scrooge, for all his miserly ways, obeys the letter of the law (especially when it's to his advantage). He promises Goldie $0.50 per day and he pays her just so. Goldie, however, believes her work was worth more than what he promised as recompense; her pride won't accept it. Contrast this with the earlier gold theft: then, Scrooge is entirely a hapless victim (although his explosive reaction after the theft is probably partially enhanced by earlier attempted thefts of his gold, mentioned in passing); Goldie is completely in the wrong, robbing an innocent man. Thus, Scrooge will use the letter of the law to take advantage of others, but won't tolerate being anyone's sucker. Goldie thinks nothing of cheating someone of their property, yet she bristles at the notion of being cheated. The qualities Goldie hates most about Scrooge are those qualities she has in abundance in herself.

Say, perhaps there is something to Goldie as Scrooge's "woman?"

Three-in-One: some thoughts about Trio#1-3

John Byrne was the first comic book artist I could identify by name when I was a child. Why? It helped that his Fantastic Four was among the first comic books I read, but I became truly fired up about him when he was working on Superman. I haven't followed him to every project since then, but I like to check in now and then. In recent years, he's pitched his tent at IDW and I've sampled his work on Star Trek and Angel, plus served as a regular reader on Next Men and Cold War.

I wasn't certain about Trio when I first heard of it. Byrne writing & drawing a super hero comic about people named Rock, Paper & Scissors? What is it, a parody comic? I was further confused by the advertisement IDW ran in their titles (above). Take special note of the bottom text box: "Fans of Byrne's Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight especially, this is for you!" I wondered if anyone at IDW let Byrne see the advertisement, considering he's expressed some resignation about being identified with Alpha Flight; not that he dislikes his work on the series, just that he doesn't consider it one of his best assignments. I happen to love Byrne's Alpha Flight, but Byrne himself doesn't like to spend much time discussing his own past resume, preferring to look to the future. So, is Trio a step backward?

Three issues in, I'm still not certain.

Who are Rock, Paper & Scissors? Well, each one has powers which reflect the attributes of the popular game; Rock is made of stone, Paper stretches herself thin and Scissors turns his hands into razor-sharp blades. Where did their powers come from? Unknown. How did they come to be a team of super heroes? Also unknown. There are hints to some sort of shared origin behind the characters. They've been set up with an advanced headquarters manned by tiny robot drones ("widgets"), with said drones controlled by an unseen presence. We also learn Rock's transformation from human to stone and back again is painful, plus he can only maintain the transformation to stone for so much time. Perhaps the most interesting thing about these heroes is between the three of them you have an Asian-American, African-American, Arab-American and homosexual; no mainstream super hero book would have attempted this 30 years ago.

There's a strange sense of deja vu surrounding Trio. First, the team is attacked by Nautilus, an amphibious humanoid who commands a giant sea monster and wants revenge on the surface world. While he's an obvious stand-in for Namor the Sub-Mariner, the cover of issue #2 plants him in the place of a different Fantastic Four antagonist: Gladiator (himself a Superman substitute), as depicted on the cover of Fantastic Four#249:

...And homaged by Byrne again on the cover of Superman#8, with Superman in place of Gladiator and certain members of the Legion of Super-Heroes replacing near-matches from the Fantastic Four:

Just gaze at the debris in the background. Who draws better debris than Byrne? That's a rhetorical question, son.

The battle with Nautilus and his sea monster causes a massive loss of life, but before the threat can be dealt with, another villain enters the scene: Kosmos, a massive alien giant who collects water from other planets. Obviously, we're meant to think of the Fantastic Four's Galactus, but I'm also reminded of Terminus from Byrne's Fantastic Four run. In Byrne's Terminus story, Terminus was directed to Earth by an alien he'd forced to serve him, but the alien actually hoped Eath's heroes would destroy Terminus. While the alien seemed tiny next to Terminus, he was actually quite a bit larger than humans. Likewise, Kosmos has a stowaway aboard his ship, an alien who survived Kosmos' assault on his world. This alien seems tiny next to Kosmos, but is massive next to the human cast.

Before the threat of Kosmos can be resolved, the Nazi criminal Golgotha is brought to Earth from a parallel world. Green cape, armour... is he meant to be Doctor Doom?

I do find it interesting to note how ineffective the Trio are at battling their enemies and how these problems just continue to mount with each issue... like, it's as if Rock, Paper & Scissors are perpetually 22 pages behind the menace and never catch up. Byrne plays this series so earnestly I can't help but wonder if it's all a trick. I suspect he has some sort of twist in mind before the series ends; maybe the Trio will continue to muck things up until the Earth is destroyed. Perhaps it's all a fantasy going on inside the head of a Next Men cast member. Maybe he's having a laugh at his fans who have asked him to tell another Fantastic Four-like story, but intentionally sabotaged it. Then again, Byrne may just be having a grand old time telling a straight forward super hero adventure. My curiosity lingers on as I await the rest of Trio.

Review: Blacksad - a Silent Hell

According to statistics on Blogger, the top search term for Section 244 is "Blacksad." Hm. I would have thought "Amazing Race." In the interest of giving the public what it wants, I present to you my review of the new Blacksad graphic novel: A Silent Hell.

For those who have forgotten, John Blacksad is a private detective cat-man in a world inhabited by animal-people. Often assisted by his muck-raking journalist friend Weekly (a weasel-man). This new volume from Dark Horse contains the English translation of A Silent Hell, plus two 2-page stories and a feature entitled "the Watercolor Story" which explains how the art is created.

According to the back cover, this story is set in the 1950s; although the Blacksad series thrives on its period setting, it's hard to pinpoint when the stories are meant to occur (the animal-people interfere with some of the realistic touches). This is another grim, desperate thriller, with the only relief from its depictions of misery coming from the occasional humourous turn by Weekly and the attractive work of Juan Diaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido.

In this tale, Blacksad and Weekly are in New Orleans, searching for the missing jazz musician Sebastian Fletcher on behalf of Faust Lachapelle, a famous record magnate. Faust is lying on death's door and has considered the lost Sebastian his surrogate son; this doesn't go well with the producer's flesh and blood son, Thomas. There's also another private detective on the case, hippo-man Ted Leeman, who's just a little sore at losing his case. Behind it all is a mystery dating back to Sebastian's childhood and how Faust made him who he is.

In the middle of this story, Blacksad is saved from drowning by another cat-man, who appears and disappears mysteriously. This figure hints at having some sort of connection to Blacksad's past; is he a hallucination, or a supernatural ghost? And how does a cat-man wind up with a tattoo? Did he shave his chest? Or is the image just inked into his fur? Some of these questions may be answered in future Blacksad tales, which would be the first real series continuity (outside of Weekly).

While the visuals in this story are outstanding and I can understand why the creators were eager to depict Mardi Gras, it is a little hackneyed to set stories in New Orleans "just in time" for a celebration which comprises about 4% of the calendar year.

As with the earlier Blacksad tale "Arctic Nation," race relations come to the fore as Sebastian is meant to remind readers of African-Americans (even though he isn't a black dog-man; in "Arctic Nation," the African-American characters had black fur or feathers). A Living Hell is another stylish, energetic Blacksad outing and hopefully there are many more to come.

Bitter Fruit#11: "The Shadow Battles... the Brute!"

Welcome back to the penultimate entry in "Bitter Fruit," my story-by-story exploration of Archie Comics' 1960s Shadow comic book series wherein they transformed our hero into a spandex-clad super hero. Let's get right into it with the cover of the Shadow#7:

Note the top left corner no longer contains an "Archie Comics" label, instead placing an image of the Shadow within a triangle. This presumably helped customers thumbing through a spinner rack locate the title, but also meant the comic received no extra promotion from the Archie label. Next, check out our presumed villain the Brute: he wears a set of sunglasses with white frames and a red shirt with with a laced front. Who does he remind you of?

Woozy Winks, right?

I'm also entranced by the Brute's headphones. He won't even hear the Shadow's attack over the Sinatra blaring in his ears! Finally, I wonder how high the ceiling in this laboratory is; evidently it's high enough for the Shadow to crouch atop a desk and swing a giant lamp over the head of someone who's about 8 feet tall.

The opening splash page is very similar to the cover, only now the Brute's glasses and headphones are brown and clearly connected together. The Shadow indicates his hypnotism doesn't work on the Brute; perhaps the sunglasses are the issue? The blurb at the bottom right has some terrific garbled language: "See what astonishingly happens?"

The story opens in New York at a charity banquet, when waiters suddenly draw guns on the wealthy patrons to rob them. However, the Shadow steps out from behind a curtain and, via hypnosis, tricks the crooks into thinking he's backed up by an army of policemen. The gunmen surrender, enabling the Shadow to contain them until the police arrive. When the crooks are gone, the Shadow resumes his identity as Lamont Cranston and rejoins the dinner.

Elsewhere, we turn to... *sigh* ...Shiwan Khan's island. For the love of mercy, can't we have just one issue go by without Shiwan Khan? Amazingly, the series continues its newfound love of continuity as Shiwan reflects on how he and Attila the Hunter survived the destruction of his submarine by boarding a "shock-resistant survival bubble craft!" Well, that explains everything. I don't think we're going to see Attila this issue, though - he's restricted to a mere silhouette in the flashback. Having run short of funds, Shiwan needs to raise more money and begins by ordering his men to attack each other until only one stands; the last man standing is declared the greatest, so Shiwan gives him a special costume then subjects him the "Growth Ray" (where did this come from?).

The strongman is doubled in size and strength and tests out his power by smashing some of Shiwan's statues of the Shadow. Shiwan dubs him the Brute and supplies him with earphones to provide his instructions as Shiwan will send the Brute to rob locations. The Brute agrees, but being "brutally frank," demands one quarter of the final take (I rather like the "brutally frank" gag, it's like something Stan Lee's early Hulk would say). Shiwan sends the Brute aboard his (new) submarine and tells him to steal trillions; the Brute returns, "And to think my high school annual predicted I'd become a pharmacist!" Okay, now I'm just about convinced the spirit of Stan Lee has infected these proceedings. Days later, the Brute phones up a bank in New York and informs them they're about to be robbed. Five minutes later he bursts in, rips open the bank vault and steals all he can carry.

Next up, the Brute breaks into a beauty parlor and smashes up the Triple-Cross Gang, who run their operations in the back of the shop (who on Earth would trust the Triple-Cross Gang?); the gang surrender their money. Back on Shiwan's island, we see he not only speaks to the Brute via the headphones, but can see through the Brute's sunglasses. However, he's a little annoyed to see the Brute save the life of a child and chides his minion to "stick to infamous skullduggery." The Brute asserts himself, noting he's doing Shiwan's work; he sends the first shipment of Shiwan's loot aboard a rocket aimed at Shiwan's island (where did the rocket come from?).

"Later, at you-know-where..." all right, now we're past the point of Stan Lee-style playfulness and I begin to fear the scripter is just throwing up his hands and refusing to put in his best effort. The Brute smashes into a laboratory, but the Shadow is present! The Shadow orders the Brute to stop and the Brute obeys, but only as a feint; he's immune to the Shadow's mental powers and seizes an opportunity to slap the Shadow in the face. "Why don't you go shadowbox without yourself," the Brute notes, ever the joker. The Brute explains his goggles render him immune to the Shadow's hypnosis. The Shadow tries to smash him over the head with a lamp (as seen on the cover & splash), but the Brute's head is "stronger than even a third helping of garlic bread." The Brute is "ashamed" of the Shadow for ruining a "nice-looking" lamp and kicks our hero unconscious. Later, at Lamont's townhouse, Margo sees Lamont worrying about the Brute, not realizing he's the Shadow. Lamont realizes he'll have to invent some new way of defeating his foe. And thus ends the first chapter.

Our story resumes in "the Shadow's Amazing New Weapons!" The Brute has just sent another rocket of loot back to Shiwan Khan when Shiwan directs him to meet up with two of his men, who have just been ferried to shore from Shiwan's submarine. The two new henchmen, the Titan and Colosso, offer to help the Brute ransack New York. However, the Brute doesn't want their help and starts drowning Titan until Titan agrees to swim back to the submarine; the Brute grabs Colosso and catapults him to the submarine using a tree. Back at his island, Shiwan fumes over Brute's disobedience, but still wants him to collect money.

We turn now to the estate of Cyrus Galloway, a wealthy explorer who's collected many valuable treasures. A television crew visit Cyrus' home and ask if he's worried about the Brute robbing him, but Cyrus claims he has plenty of defenses and will donate $100,000 to charity if the Shadow foils any robberies. Lamont sees this on television and realizes the Brute is now certain to strike at Cyrus' estate, but since their first encounter he's been working on something to use against the Brute. The Brute sees the broadcast on the television set of some locals by peering in their window.

That evening, the Brute invades the estate. Cyrus sends his guard dogs to attack him, but the Brute contains them within a cage he found around the base of a tree. However, the Shadow appears, uttering his mocking laughter (hurrah! I've missed the laugh!). Before the Shadow can land a blow, the Brute steps into a trap set by Cyrus, falling into a pit. The Shadow's "Shadow-Gun" unleashes a spray of "weakness gas," a pink mist which causes the Brute to stop resisting; however, the Brute releases a green mist from his belt to counter the gas. How on Earth could the Brute have prepared for this? What is "Weakness Gas" anyway? This is exactly the type of comic book science which would be mocked a year later on television's Batman program.

The Brute grabs the Shadow and hurls him into Cyrus' crocodile pen, but the Shadow chases the crocs away by hypnotizing them to believe he's a giant crocodile. To get out of the pen, the Shadow uses springs concealed in the heels of his boots to launch him over the fence. Perhaps he bought them from Ant-Man? The Shadow asks Cyrus where the Brute is, but evidently during all of this, the Brute stole Cyrus' treasures and escaped. Cyrus mocks the Shadow's trademark phrase: "This is the Shadow! Ha-haaa-haaaa! Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows! Phooie! Off my property!" He's either channeling the feelings of every Shadow fan writing to Archie to complain about the series, or transforming into J. Jonah Jameson. The Shadow melts back into the darkness, hoping he'll do better the next time he fights the Brute.

On Shiwan's island, Shiwan receives a rocket from the Brute containing Cyrus' treasures. Back in New York, the Shadow's belt-buzzer sends him a signal. Since when has he had a "belt-buzzer?" the Shadow's agent 29-F (since when does the Shadow have agents? he did in the original pulps but hasn't in these comics) has spotted the Brute heading toward the government's "super-secret Futuro-Lab." The Shadow is aware Futuro-Lab is the home of "Project Z," a device which can transmute objects into diamond or gold. If the Brute had simply gone there first, he could've given Shiwan a lifetime of riches!

Just as the Brute reaches the room where Project Z is found, he discovers the Shadow waiting behind the door. The Shadow activates another device from his belt, the "power-beam," which knocks the Brute to the floor. Next, the Shadow draws his Shadow-Gun (boy, where does the author dream up these names?) and it fires electro blasts (not gas?) at the Brute. However, the Brute activates a paralysis ray he finds in the Futuro-Lab and uses it to paralyze the Shadow. Seeing this, Shiwan orders the Brute to unmask the Shadow. However, the Brute refuses; he's not interested in knowing who the Shadow is and challenges Shiwan to solve the problem on his own.

The Brute leaves the Futuro-Lab, offering yet another brilliant jab at the Shadow as he departs. However, from overhearing the Brute's conversation with Shiwan, the Shadow realizes where the Brute's orders are coming from. Rigging up his "hound-mike" (what?), the Shadow transmits a perfectly faked copy of Shiwan's voice to the Brute and orders him to the "Jewel Museum" (again, the author has no imagination). When the Brute arrives at the Jewel Museum, the Shadow pulls out a special whistle whose "supersonic" note shatters the Brute's goggles (so why didn't the Shadow lead with this weapon back at Futuro-Lab?). Now the Shadow is able to hypnotize the Brute and starts to work on him, but the Brute is, once again, faking; he kicks the Shadow over a ledge into the river (the museum is on the river, apparently). The Brute was also wearing contact lenses to shield his eyes from the Shadow, plus has a spare set of goggles. Hey, if the Shadow can just keep inventing new gadgets as the story goes along, I suppose it's only fair.

The Shadow slows his descent to the raging waters below using "compressed air jets" in his boots' soles. How does he have room in his boots for his feet with all the balderdash and malarkey being used as lining? By the time the Shadow returns to the museum, the Brute has departed. The Brute's next location is Lamont Cranston's own townhouse, where only Shrevy and Margo are present to meet the attack! Shiwan sees this and orders the Brute to kidnap Margo, to which the Brute complies. As the Brute races across New York on the rooftops, attracting a crowd of onlookers, Shiwan orders him to kill Margo Lane for making a fool of him. The Brute refuses this order because Margo is "too pretty!" Instead, the Brute hijacks a yacht and heads to sea, intending to collect his 25% from Shiwan Khan then live with Margo.

Lamont arrives at his townhouse to find a wounded Shrevy, who explains how Margo was kidnapped. Lamont promises to alert his "friend" the Shadow. Soon, the Shadow is following the Brute's yacht from his own speedboat. It seems his earlier power-beam left a radioactive trace on the Brute, enabling him to locate the villain again (then why did he need to create the false Jewelry Museum trap earlier?).

Now for the final act, "the Showdown on Gargoyle Island!" The Brute's yacht pulls up at Gargoyle Island, a poor man's Easter Island where the statues have horns. The Brute, no longer wearing his goggles, is set to meet Shiwan Khan and receive his 25% here. Shiwan arrives via helicopter and presents the Brute with his quarter - only per his exact words, "one quarter!" The Brute is furious, but Shiwan pulls out a shrinking ray which he claims will render the Brute smaller than a flea. Fortunately for the Brute, the Shadow appears and covers Shiwan Khan's face with his cape, causing him to drop the shrinking ray. The Shadow then turns his Shadow-Gun on Shiwan, projecting "blinding total darkness" (because I guess it can do that too) to keep the villain from finding his weapon.

The Brute decides to move in and kill Shiwan, but the villain drops a grenade in the direction of the Brute's voice. This kicks up some debris which knocks out the Shadow, restoring Shiwan's sight and enabling him to flee back to the helicopter. To save himself, Shiwan notes one of the Gargoyle Island statues has been damaged by the grenade and will topple on Margo, crushing her. Margo isn't unconscious, so I'm unclear as to why she can't get out of the falling statue's path. The Brute is torn between his desire for revenge on Khan (plus access to Khan's fortune) and saving Margo's life. The Brute chooses to save Margo, but as he grabs the statue he finds his strength is ebbing away; suddenly, he clutches his chest and collapses.

By now the Shadow has recovered and turns with Margo to examine the Brute. The Brute shrinks in size to normal; it seems the Brute's powers suddenly wore off (why?) and the strain of holding up the statue was too much for his heart. Margo asks the dying Brute what his real name is; he answers Victor Hess. The Shadow promises to bury the Brute in the USA, which is a nice gesture. Then he remarks "it's appropriate that one of the world's most grotesque villains should perish on Gargoyle Island" which is less nice of him. The Shadow steers Margo back to New York in the yacht. Then, the Shadow enters a "pseudo-sewer-lid" on a deserted street, opening some sort of passage to the "Shadow Operation Base" which lies beneath his townhouse (because I guess the townhouse didn't have enough gimmickry? secret passages, training rooms with live lions, crime lab and so forth?). The Shadow notes he has machines his base to record message from his agents, but has come to deposit the shrinking ray weapon in his trophy room. The Shadow muses that the Brute must have removed his contact lenses and goggles to impress Margo Lane because he was able to hypnotize him on Gargoyle Island; it was because he was being hypnotized that the Brute chose Margo over Shiwan! Well, that's just... he claims he was "too weakened" to have saved Margo himself. Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, Cranston... you sent that man to his death. Also, you failed to capture Shiwan Khan (again) and recover all the treasures, money and devices the Brute stole.

Once again we have a text feature story, "the Adventures of the Shadow." Last time, the Shadow had met Weston and began interrogating criminals by causing them to believe the Shadow was the Devil; the criminals revealed their master was Shiwan Khan. This time out, the Shadow isn't able to continue the interrogation because the men's minds are guarded against brainwashing; he was only able to get Shiwan Khan's name by flattering their egos. Say, then why has the Shadow been able to hypnotize Shiwan Khan's agents since then with reckless abandon? This is before the Shadow and Khan have even met! Weston asks the Shadow to join the ranks of C.H.I.E.F., but the Shadow declines, instead suggesting Weston recruit Lamont Cranston. The next evening, Lamont goes to Weston's cottage only to look "directly into the face of DEATH!"

As expected, this issue written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Paul Reinman, according to the Grand Comics Database. I have mixed feelings about this issue. On the one hand, Siegel seemed to having a grand old time writing the Brute's dialogue, but in all other respects, he wrote just another bog-standard super hero story with no sense of style. The uninspired place names and sudden introduction of gadgets as needed speaks to an author succumbing to his inner hack. If every issue of Archie's Shadow read like this, then I would understand its reputation.

Next time: the final issue of the Shadow! To be followed by a look back at the entire series!

Seven thoughts about IDW's Popeye#1

Thought#1: My background with the Popeye franchise amounts to experiencing some of the animated programs, comic books and singular live action film while growing up. I'm not very knowledgeable about the Thimble Theatre comic strip he originated from. It was the name of writer Roger Langridge which brought me to IDW's Popeye#1, rather than any fondness for the characters. Certainly, a cover homaging Action Comics#1 doesn't hurt at implying the audience's familiarity/affection for Popeye by likening him to Superman.

Thought#2: Even so, I recognized characters including Popeye, Olive Oyl, Swee'Pea, Wimpy, Alice the Goon, Bluto, the Jeep and the Sea Hag. I'm not sure if I had ever seen Olive's brother Castor Oyl before, although I'm certain I had heard something about hhim.

Thought#3: With so many of the Popeye franchise characters present and bearing in mind IDW originally announced this as a limited series, I wonder if Langridge and artist Bruce Ozella wanted to maximize what they assumed was a time-sensitive opportunity to indulge in the Popeye universe. Consequently, they've placed their best foot forward in the first issue which is exactly what a first issue should be!

Thought#4: In spite of my limited background with Popeye, I knew enough to recognize his first line of dialogue in Popeye#1 ("D'ja think I'm a cowboy?") is a play on the first words he spoke in Thimble Theatre. The things I've retained from years of comic book quizzes!

Thought#5: Then there's the sequence where Wimpy devours a whole shark in a manner very similar to the infamous strip where Wimpy devours a whole cow. What's great about references such as these is they aren't necessary to enjoy the story but are immensely rewarding for those of us in the know. There are probably other references to classic Popeye characters and situations I know nothing about, but I was never made to feel like an outsider.

Thought#6: Speaking of Wimpy, it wasn't until I read Langridge's take on J. Wellington Wimpy that I suddenly realized the protagonist of his Boom! series Snarked - one Wilburforce J. Walrus - is clearly an homage to Wimpy. Both wield their vocabularies to ingratiate and deceive others, wear derby hats, dislike violence and are friendly, but ultimately self-serving.

Thought#7: Interest in Langridge was enough to secure a sale of issue #1; the stunning art by Ozella and fun dialogue by Langridge was enough to ensure I'd be back for issue #2; IDW's Popeye is now one of the most pleasant comic books I'm reading.

Dynamite's the Shadow#1

In the midst of my ongoing series Bitter Fruit, which chronicles the 1960s Archie Comics' version of the Shadow, a new series launched: Dynamite Entertainment's the Shadow, written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Aaron Campbell. Dynamite is famous for their covers, never publishing 2 when it could be 4, never 4 when it could be 8. Occasionally one hears about the interiors of their comics as well.

This comic book is set during the early stages of World War II, before the USA intervened. The Shadow is already waging war against Japanese & German agents on US soil and soon his alter ego Lamont Cranston is being approached by the US government for assistance.

There is one moment early in the Shadow#1 which I rather liked: having cornered a small gang of armed men hied by the Japanese. Although the Shadow kills copious amounts of men, he does demonstrate a small mercy: one gunman drops his weapon and the Shadow chooses to spare his life, allowing him to go free.

Where I take issue with this comic is - of all things - the colouring by Carlos Lopez. After the opening action scene, the rest of the comic book is talking heads (a typical 21st century super hero comic, in other words). Above you see Lamont in a club, greeting two representatives of the US government. Note Lamont's black hair, grayish-black suit and striped tie. Note the younger of the two g-men has red hair and a green suit.

After three and a half pages of conversation, Lamont gets up and leaves. Or does he? Check the colouring on panel four here; it's supposed to be the green-suited government man, but the colourist has become confused as to where the characters are in relation to each other, so he colours the g-men to look like Cranston. The g-man returns to his proper colours in panel 5.

Just to further your confusion about which character is which, on the following page, Lamont is suddenly wearing a hat which conceals his hair; also, his tie has lost its stripes. Again, welcome to comic books of the 21st century! They really have about as many errors as comics books of any other time. It's a pity the editors couldn't ask the colourist to get the characters' wardrobes fixed before sending it to the printers, nor ask the artist to do something about hat-wearing Lamont which makes him recognizable as the striped-tie wearing man of the previous page.

On Joe Simon & Jack Kirby's Boys' Ranch

I'm not particularly fond of the western genre within film, television and literature. However, I have developed something of a fondness for certain comic book westerns. The western genre is based on falsehood - the idea of a rough, Wild West filled with spectacular gun battles and savage combat with Natives, but the real world version wasn't quite as consistently exciting or even as violent. Most of our ideas about the Old West come from Hollywood, subject to many cliches, stock characters and stock plots; western comics books are an embellishment of an already-embellished reality. Perhaps this is why Jack Kirby, the great embellisher, turned out to be well-suited to the western genre.

Jack Kirby's hasn't received as much attention as his popular super hero work; perhaps we ought to consider his westerns a little more seriously, given that Kirby reportedly wished he'd been given more opportunities to create westerns, but the market was seldom in his favour. Kirby's Marvel westerns are certainly lively as he brought a super hero sensibility to the material, such as renovating the Two-Gun Kid into a masked crimefighter with a double life as a lawyer (and thoughtful Kirby diagrams of how his costume functioned; seriously). Kirby's Rawhide Kid delivered memorable foes such as the Living Totem, the space alien who just happened to resemble a totem pole. This may have been unintentionally funny, but I maintain if you check out the Rawhide Kid, you'll find some of the most intentionally funny stories Stan Lee & Jack Kirby ever collaborated on.

Although I'm very strong on Kirby's Marvel career (I've read every single Marvel comic Kirby drew), I'm certainly weak on the other vistas of his legacy, probably most so in the years 1945-1956 when Kirby was starting up his own publishing house with long-time collaborator Joe Simon, only to be put out business soon after the Comics Code-era market crash. Among these Simon/Kirby joints (with art assists from Mort Meskin) was 1950-1951's Boys' Ranch (often given on the cover as "the Kid Cowboys of Boys' Ranch Featuring Clay Duncan), through Harvey Comics. For some reason, in 1992 Simon & Kirby had all six issues reprinted in a deluxe hardcover via Marvel Comics (edited by Tom Brevoort, no less!). I saw a couple of articles advertising Boys' Ranch at the time, but I didn't get a sense of why I should be interested; after all, it was no more a Marvel product than most of their Epic Comics output. Even if I had been interested, $40 was a lot to spend on just six comic books; I bought only a few trade paperbacks in those days and my limit was usually $15.

With the Boys' Ranch hardcover well out-of-print, why would it be worthwhile to go chasing this product down? Credit one Colin Smith, who praised the series to the high heavens in a recent article found at Sequart. I was intrigued and it took only a few minutes of shopping to procure a copy at Alibris (plug: along with a copy of the out-of-print Jack Cole's Plastic Man Archives Vol.1! both at reasonable prices!).

Preamble finished; so what is Boys' Ranch concerned with? The setting is a ranch near the town of Four Massacres. Teenagers Dandy (a young Civil War veteran), Wabash (hillbilly teller of tall tales) and Angel (dour long-haired killer) inherit the titular ranch from a dying man; with the help of their scout friend Clay Duncan (blood brother of Geronimo and hence a man at war with two worlds) and the eventual addition of cook Wee Willie Weehawken, they hope to make Boys' Ranch a safe haven for boys of all sorts. The only Boys' Ranch waif we ever meet is Happy Boy, an infrequently-appearing Native child who communicates with the others using sign language. There were multiple stories in each issue, along with special features such as pin-ups and educational pieces on life in the Old West.

Although the series opens with a strong focus on Dandy and Wabash as they meet and journey out west to Four Massacres, in subsequent issues they tend to fall into the background as Simon & Kirby were seemingly more interested in telling stories about Angel and Clay Duncan. Thankfully, halfway through the series' run Dandy & Wabash each become the central figures in one a story apiece. Compared to the serious drama surrounding Angel & Duncan, Dandy & Wabash are certainly light-hearted fellows.

Dandy is introduced to us in issue #1 with a caption declaring: "This is Dandy! Who finds a fight just as exciting as a pretty gal!" We don't see evidence of this until issue 3's "I'll Fight You for Lucy!" In this tale, Dandy tries to defend Lucy, a young woman, from her abusive father; the father sends a strongarm to beat up Dandy, but Dandy wins the fight. At this, Dandy's friends insist he has to marry Lucy. However, Lucy refuses to marry him; rather than feeling sad, Dandy claims he's happy to be free from her because he didn't want to get married. At the conclusion he even ignores an attempt by Wee Willie Weehawken to get him interested in a local woman, declaring he's more interested in feeding the ranch's pigs than going on a date. Thus, by the end of the tale Dandy has essentially sacrificed his one character hook; that's a heck of a way to gain the spotlight!

The laid-back Wabash is introduced in issue #1 as he begins telling a story about grandfather working as a scout for George Washington and dying at the age of 119. This finally bears fruit in issue 3's "the Legend of Alby Fleezer!" In this short story, Wabash tells the other boys a story about his grandfather, Albion Fleezer. In the grand tradition of tall tales like Pecos Bill, we learn Albion created the Mississippi River by blasting a lake with gunpowder. Although Kirby's work often found room for levity, it's always a treat to see him delving head-first into a comic narrative, made all the funnier by Wabash's insistence that he's retelling a "true" story, even as we witness talking crows and gophers.

As I said, Angel & Clay Duncan receive the most attention from Simon & Kirby. There's little to distinguish Clay Duncan from other comic book western heroes of the time; his significant hook is being blood brother to Geronimo, but such heroes were frequently blood brothers to at least one Native (often a famous one). There is some interest in seeing how Clay's relationship with the gun-toting woman Palomino Sue; he repeatedly tries to keep her out of the Boys' violent affairs, but she keeps recurring in the series to get the others out of tight situations.

The outcry over juvenile delinquency in the 1950s led to some of the hue and cry over the content of comics books, supposedly corrupting the minds of impressionable youths. Some media of the time recognized young people didn't belong on a pedestal, such as how children in Ray Bradbury's stories were benevolent half the time, pure evil the other half. Earlier, Simon & Kirby's various kid gangs came about when film's Dead End Kids were popular and the reckless, long-haired Angel is but a distant cousin to James Dean's later Rebel Without a Cause and his hair in particular predicts the hippies of the 1960s. However, Angel's hair is meant to subvert his nature as a killer - a typically "angelic" length of hair to match his "angelic" face and thus, earn his moniker "Angel."

Angel is outwardly a serious, cold-blood youth, quick to anger and insensitive to the feelings of others Despite this, in issue 3's tale "Mother Delilah," when Delilah tries to set up herself up as Angel's long-lost mother, hoping she can injure Clay Duncan through one of his surrogates. Delilah draws out Angel's softer side, then betrays his trust; it's more than young Angel can bear. We learn at least some of Angel's tough persona is masking the character of a lonely young man who desperately wants to be loved; thus we have a double subversion: the physically gentle youngster is outwardly tough but inwardly soft!

Taken together, we have Angel: a tough young man who isn't really tough; Dandy: a young man who claims to love romance, but doesn't really; and Wabash: a teller of tales, all lies. It's quite surprising to discover character written to be both simple and complicated at a level a 1951 juvenile audience would enjoy. Jack Kirby is always worth your time... even if you've got a few prejudices against westerns.

Want more? Check out some Boys' Ranch original art here.