SUPERHEROES OF THE 70’s
Jeff Jones’ SUPER HUMAN’s soul sifts from substance, sails, soars, slips up. It sho’. ain’t easy being a superhero, competing with so many muscle-bound morons gleaned from the bargain basement of Vic Tanny’s Gym. One needs a new shtick, like maybe mystical daydreams and paranoiac fantasies and fear of the dark.
Wrightson’s REDNECK rollickingly rides, raids, rips-off and runs. REDNECK bears out his own claims about how hard it is to tell the boys from the girls of this Tong-haired generation. He smacks in the face of a girl. We trust it was an accident on REDNECK’s part. You know how it is…
BY C.M. RICHARDS
Esquire Ogles Monsterdom
Esquire Magazine finally got hip! Ne knew it would happen sometime. Gosh knows Eskie has been trying hard enough to be “with it” for so long; ever since Playboy grabbed their audience back in the ’50’s and Marvel Comix arrested the development of the college market Esquire’d hoped to get in the ’60’s. So in what appears to be a last-ditch attempt to assure itself of some segment of the magazine buying public, Eskie (as it’s called) has gone Monster Comix mad.
Horror and fantasy comix artists Berni Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Mike Ploog, Barry Smith, Ralph Reese and Alan Lee Weiss wrote and drew their own Eskie-commissioned conceptions of Superheros of the Seventies. The visions wax from sharp satire (anti-establishment, and anti-disestablishment), to grotesquely poetic and mystical. All deal with the “Counter-Culture” the news media always talks to death.
Berni, the baneful Wrightson presented the adventures of RED-NECK! … obviously Archie Bunker’s fondest dream; able to beat tall children in a single bound. Armed with only his fists and a “crime-stopper grenade” (in the shape of a pop-top beer can), extremist RED-NECK definitely belongs lumped into the “Counter-Culture” mob.
Then there’s REDNECK’S counterpart, COMRADE BROTHER, THE PEOPLE’S HERO, by Ralph Reese. COMRADE BROTHER is a screeching revolutionary who takes as much pleasure in killing policemen as REDNECK enjoys in breaking laws and hippies’ noses. BUT! sans his two-day growth of beard & his beret & his tommy gun, slogan shouting COMRADE BROTHER stands revealed as nothing more than a frustrated 3rd-class Madison Avenue copywriter.
But the fellow who really operates the Pop Culture Counter is PHIZGINK who really works at being “IN-ane, MUND-ane, INS-ane” a “Creature of the Ridiculous” wearing the most garish super-hero costume ever, brandishing a button labeled “VIVA DADA”, and screaming “WHAT HAS REALITY DONE FOR YOU LATELY?” (The Incredible) PHIZGINK was created by artist Alan Lee Weiss.
THE RAIDER is Mike Ploog’s satirical superhero spoof; an Afro-American Ralph Super-Nader RAIDER who loftily declares: “I’ve had it! I’m going to fight injustice, corruption and inflation, and the sewer will be my headquarters!” Mr. Ploog was described by Esquire only as being 31 years old. We’d like to know more of him, as his drawing style is very reminiscent of Will Eisner, who created THE SPIRIT, one of the eeriest and most action-filled detective comix characters of all time.
On the more poetic side of the “Counter-Culture” is the SUPER-HUMAN by Jeff Jones (whose magnificent horror feast GNAWING OBSESSION graces our pages this ish). Jeff, in a very straight (tho we suspect tongue-in-cheek) fashion, depicted the adventures of a person who delved in the hair-brained mysticism of the “Counter-Culture” … performing that old chestnut of the Black Magic shtick, Astral Projection; the soul leaves the body … but before it can return, the body dies. Which is Marvel Comix’ DOCTOR STRANGE Plot Device Number Two. Only this time it’s supposedly for real. This is Jeff’s subtly satiric comment on the mental health state of the “Counter-Culture’s” fun-filled folk.
Ralph Reese’s satire of COMRADE BROTHER, who’s like so many other “People’s Heros” … that is; semi-literate. They don’t know there’s a “c” in the alphabet and spell words like “America” with a “k”… no doubt COM. BROTHER’s related to the same morons who first spelled “clan” with a “k”.
Mike Ploog’s THE RAIDER has a dollar sign on his belt buckle … a symbol of the cause he fights for! The money we paupers shell out to those who gouge us on food and rent and public transportation (which only kings can afford these days). THE RAIDER is one hero we’d support. Maybe we already do!
Alan Weiss’ PHIZGINK is truly incredible. As his story sez, “He don’t know the answers, but he sure can make you forget the question!” PHIZGINK is about the nobly costumed hero who really is aware he’s wearing a costume. He calls himself a creature of the Ridiculous. Aren’t costumed heroes that anyway?
Last, but by far not the least, is the SOLDIER HERO. the last soldier on earth. Also, the last person on earth. But not for long. With nobody left to fight, he’s got only himself upon whom to take out his aggressions … and so he swiftly does. This disquieting thought was executed by Barry Smith, the superb sword & sorcery fantasy illustrator of the CONAN comic book.
As avid MONSTER TIMES readers know, some of these horror artists are already contributors to TMT. Others we’ll definitely be displaying in future issues. And we don’t doubt that in no time at all, we’ll have acquired work from the rest of them. THE MONSTER TIMES doesn’t consider any other monster pub to be competition, cause none of them is in our league. Excepting perhaps ESQUIRE … and we’ll soon be out-monstering! them. Just you wait and see. If Eskie ceases to do horror-monster articles in the future, it’s only because they couldn’t take OUR competition! And you know that’s true. If it weren’t true, we wouldn’t be allowed to say it in a newspaper!
Kidding aside, the March ish of ESQUIRE is well-worth the dollar it costs, for the 6 full-color pages of horror-comix artists’ work. Or so this reviewer feels. Besides, you also get some great candid shots of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy-Onassis-?-Whomever, and a great quiz on President Nixon. Monster-buff’s bonus! We highly recommend it!
C.M. Richards
Barry Smith’s SOLDIER HERO struggled since The Start. Slays slew. Ceases, Barry Smith, master of sword and sorcery comix demonstrates his versatility in portraying a stylized cinematic science fiction. Barry and the other horror illustrators did something with printed form that no movie can hope to do…