Missing Beings (late)

As in: Hobarthy

A crappy comic so I don't find myself driven to post. Only two panels, though more could result in more ridicule. Mostly, just so bad I can't bring myself to spend more time on it.

There are also two terrible images that make it look like the secret to being a gun slinging action hero is DANCE!
Enjoy.

Mack Bolan: Executioner

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

When I was in high school, my knowledge bowl team often traveled to "away" tournaments, sometimes hours away or even far enough that we had to stay overnight. When we did, I always enjoyed buying cheesy "men's action" novels from gas stations along the way. One of the cheesiest was the Mack Bolan: Executioner series. Needless to say, it was fun to find an Executioner comic.

When I started reading the comic, though, I was appalled. Not only trite and cliche, the comic was downright offensive. It fulfills the worst stereotypes at every opportunity.

The storyline is also libelously close to that of Frank Castle's (The Punisher). Namely, both are vietnam vets with special forces training who came home to find their family dead. In The Punisher's case, his family was killed in cross-fire, I believe. In The Executioner's case, his father got in debt to a loan shark, who captured Mack's sister in some bizarre prostitution scheme. Both go on murderous rampages designed to clean up the mafia because the police can't or won't.

Here are a few more panels:

The worst-dressed gangsters ever: This looks a bit like the villains are dancing as he shoots at them. Alas, every woman in Don Pendleton's world is sexxed up: I can't resist a bit more commentary, so read below the fold for more panels and grousing.

The Punisher is one of Marvel's least interesting heroes. He kills pretty much everyone he thinks is a villain. In the past few years, though, Garth Ennis has added a bit of depth by giving him some self-conscious bile. As at the end of Unforgiven, Ennis' Punisher knows his soul is gone, knows his killing does little, but he does it anyway.

All that said, The Punisher has his own code of violence. While he will murder thieves or drug-dealers for being themselves, he will never kill a police officer. In recent issues, he's even stepped up to defend children and victims of slavery-prostitution rings. Here's where he parts company with Mack Bolan. In the short flashbacks of the comic, we learn that Mack's sister had a promising college career until her father got in debt to loan sharks. To help (and thus prevent her father from having a fatal heart attack under the stress), she starts working as a prostitute for the gangsters. When her father finds out, he goes crazy and shoots his whole family and kills himself. Mack's little brother survives to tell the story. Not surprisingly, Mack decides to murder the people responsible.

Oddly, though, he does so by infiltrating their organization. Rather than just killing everyone, as The Punisher does, he meets with them and gets a job. In order to get their confidence, he hangs out at their pool and gets himself in this jam:

And he sleeps with the prostitute. While he does hesitate for a moment, his libido wins out over his ethics. He seems to show no remorse about his situation, unaware, perhaps, that his seductress was likely just as coerced as his sister. So goes the uber-masculine world of Mack Bolan.

Alas, I won't learn how the story ends. I don't plan to buy the next issue.

Bonus gripe: Why are there quote marks around his thought in the last panel? Don't quote marks imply he's remembering an aphorism from somewhere or something? I don't think that phrase is in Barlett's quotables.

Ghosts

As in: Hobarthy

December of 1976 brought some weird comic stories.

More panels below the fold.

Hobarthy Collages (1)

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Since October marks the 6-month moment in the Hobarthy project, I thought I'd take a stab at a collage. I used the panels from Kiss and Tell and Hand of Fate. These images are 750x1000 pixels, and will open in pop-up windows. Enjoy.

Hand of Fate

As in: Hobarthy

This is October's Hobarthy project comic. I thought this would be a lot like The House of Mystery from the cover, but it ended up being a wannabe Hellblazer. More interestingly, it played to all the noir conventions with the utmost sincerity—aware that it's being cliche and sublimely content with being so.

I spent some time making a couple collage pages (to practice up for the year-end Hobarthy project) with panels, so instead of doing a mini-collage here, I'm going to put up a couple panels and make snarky comments (ala The Comics Curmudgeon).

I imagine the writers feeling edgy when they named the psychic detective's raven "Satan," but it inadvertently resulted in OMEN-inspired hilarity. I like the sub-text that Archie's sidekick is actually a minion of the evil lord.

This sequence is odd. The angry lady with the purse is mad because her husband (balding) philandered with some woman named Gwendolyn, a fact revealed by the stage psychic (Satan's minion). Then a man who's dating a woman named Gwen socks the philanderer, sure that his sweetheart has been unfaithful. The fight continues in the second panel; the angry wife watches, shouting with vengeance or indignity. Which is it? Is she commanding violence against her husband or is she offended by it?

Poor Archie. His minion (with her dark powers) could easily best the siminan attacker, but instead she plays Kane to his Grasshopper. "Leverage, Archie. Leverage." Then she dances.

The mysteries of profanity in comics. At the beginning of the comic, Archie, surprised by the stereotypical "dame with a case" in his office, falls off his chair and howls "SHI--". Presumably he was too startled to blurt the full epithet, because here it appears in all its glory.

Kiss and Tell (September)

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

I bought this comic for the Hobarthy project in September and never got around to posting it. I bought it thinking it would be noir crime comic. It ended up more like a noir superhero comic. It's issue 7 of a Samson story; the lady on the front of the cover is the story's Delilah.

Here are a few panels (not in the order they appeared in the comic):

American Flagg!

As in: Comics , Hobarthy , Science Fiction

I'm a bit late getting this comic up, but this was the comic I found in the bins during my random search. I must admit--I've heard of this before and was pretty excited about finding it. Nonetheless, I've scanned a few panels for the Rose Hobarth project:

Leaping Lizards!

As in: Comics , Hobarthy , Science Fiction

Month 3:

This title is your standard Western adventure story, but with alien reptiles as the heroes. Hence, Interplanetary Lizards of the Texas Plains.

I didn't find a sub-story in this one to arrange here, but there are lots of amusing panels. Check 'em out:

1:	2:
3:
Do Gauchos really pee on cacti? Lucas wasn't stealing from Streetcar, but from IPLotTP. In a classic sign that a writer isn't confident in his artist, the narrator box tells us what the picture obviously shows. I find the last panel of this part really funny. The authors constantly give the old man lines like this, to make him seem more "Western", I guess. At one point he says "Don't forget all that stuff I teached ya." 'Teached'? I like the overhead shot. The contrast between the top panel and the bottom one in the quality of the art show that this guy would be really good drawing landscapes and backgrounds with a partner to draw the action. Also, this is one of several places the authors use "Yikes", which makes me laugh.	4:

Posted by briley at 9:45 AM

The Unseen Hand

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Month 2:

There were lots of panels that could port to a larger story, as long as your character's name is Mike. Here are a few, arranged in a vaguely amusing way. I imagine the man with bandages as either a man in a hospital bed or a space mummy (the bandages + the weird sci-fi tube) from Mike's subconscious. I like choice 2 better.

The Experiment Begins

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Month 1:

February 1980. Oddly enough, art by Howard Chaykin (with Al Milgrom). I swear I didn't look at the inside before I bought it. Totally random that it's HC's art. Or fate, one of the two. (See extended entry).

I'm thinking that, in the long run, I'll use a bunch of single-issue comics to do a Rose Hobarth kind of comic. Totally lawsuit worthy, I bet. Anyhow, here are three juicy panels from House of Mystery 277 (in a new order, obviously):

Seems like a bizarre coming out narrative, eh?

Impending experiment

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Today is the first work-day after the first of the month, so I get to stop at the comic shop on the way home. I'm starting a new experiment today. I'm going to go into one of the numerous old-back-issue boxes and pick a comic out based entirely on its cover/art. I'm going to try and ignore the title if it has any meaning for me and concentrate on getting something cool. Then that comic will be about art-supplies rather than about narrative (which is why I buy most comics). We'll see how it goes.