Goofy 60’s Comics Roundup

As I mentioned recently, the bulk of what I’ve been reading recently has been comic books. I’ve always been a fan, but something about the medium is especially pleasing when the rest of my time is spent reading scholarly texts for school (although I do enjoy those). I actually just gave up on the book I was reading, Sir Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward, and have instead racked up quite a few more comics. (Although I am also, finally, reading Frankenstein, but that’s neither here nor there.)

In the last few weeks I read two big collections of fun, silly comics from the 1960’s–each incredibly corny and imaginative in its own wonderful way. So a couple of short reviews are in order, first up:

DC Showcase Presents: The War That Time Forgot written by Bob Kanigher with art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito

Now, I did write about this waaaay back near the conception of this blog, but only recently did I finally get my hands on the blasted thing. To be honest, I haven’t yet read all of its 500+ pages, but I doubt that that’s necessary to get the basic drive of the narrative. Each story goes:

WWII soldiers arrive on uncharted island, soldiers are attacked by dinosaurs, (9 times out of 10 this begins with a submarine being grabbed like a toy) the few surviving/free soldiers wander around island and make wisecracks as they’re attacked by prehistoric (but in no way accurate) creatures, soldiers use luck and American know-how to survive and escape.

There’s generally some strange wrinkle like the soldiers in the story being brothers, or acrobat brothers, or being allied with a robot, but it generally comes down to the same thing. And it generally ends with the island being destroyed, so clearly there is no real continuity at play here. (Gasp!) Generally speaking the soldiers figure out that an earthquake must have loosed the dinosaurs from suspended animation deep in the Earth after just a page or two–at the point where most people would still be in shock so deep that speaking would be impossible. It really is ridiculously enjoyable.

Now, some negative reviews of the book have mentioned, and maligned, the incredibly repetitive nature of the stories. It is my humble guess that this being such a big problem is due in large part to the same mentality that insists upon describing every large book of comics as a “graphic novel.” The War That Time Forgot Showcase book is not a graphic novel, it is a collection of stories that came out individually over a period of years. Yes, they adhere to a strict formula, and yes at times it does get tiresome, but nowhere near as much so if you read an issue now and then, as opposed to just sitting down with the whole thing.

In a nutshell, this book is overwrought, silly fun that makes no goddamn sense. And at about $17 cover price, and $10 at most online retailers, you’re getting an awful lot fun for very cheap. The stuff of happiness.

Russ Manning’s Magnus, Robot Fighter 4000 A.D. Volume Three by Russ Manning (clearly)

As opposed to DC’s black and white, affordable Showcase books, Dark Horse Archives books are hardcover and printed beautifully. They are also expensive. I got this out of a library, you better believe.

Anyway, as the introduction to this book says, Magnus, Robot Fighter is a comic book that is entirely about a man in go-go boots and a chainmail miniskirt fighting robots. That’s it. It’s great. Manning walks that wonderful Forbidden Planet, Lensman, etc.-esque line between incredible imagination, visuals, and ideas… and some really corny shit. And I mean that in a good way. Even when laughing at Magnus… one can’t help but be drawn in by the stories, the continent-spanning city of North Am, and the art.

Good Lord, the art! Magnus… was originally put out by Gold Key Comics, who were famous for their painted covers. A pity, then, that those painted covers were never anywhere near as good as what Manning himself drew on the inside. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find examples of the interior art online, so what you see here is the best I could do, and it’s not even from the right book (there are three volumes in total). Rest assured the art gets far more impressive than this little tidbit, but at least here you can get a slight feel for it.

The art isn’t all that’s worthwhile though. The world that we’re shown is a very fun one. Yes it’s very, very 60’s in some bad ways as well: but female characters aren’t worthless, and non-white people show up fairly regularly without being stereotypes (with the exception of one ridiculous Fu Manchu-ish villain) so all in all it does pretty well for itself. Manning even tries to get across a message about humanity’s increasing reliance on mechanized help in all things, and while that does hit the reader over the head, it usually doesn’t do so for very long. Despite a rather disturbing bit of classism in the book’s second issue, the author’s heart seems to be in the right place throughout.

Unlike alot of books/movies/etc. that can be laughed at, reading Magnus… never felt like a chore for me (something that did crop up during The War That Time Forgot, but never for very long). The stories flash by with exciting abandon, and the incredibly visceral and kinetic fight scenes may have been the only ones to give Jack Kirby a run for his money back in the early 60’s. The fact that this book was so much fun only served to make me angrier, though, that apparently this original run of the series, now collected in three volumes, ended with something of a cliffhanger.

No fair! Ah well, now that you are warned of that, there is little to stop you from enjoying Magnus’ adventures… except the price. So, until next time, I’m off to see if the library has the first two books.