Ron Goulart's The Great Comic Book Artists from 1986 is probably the first book of straight-up comic book history that I ever got. Sort of. As you might surmise from the title, it's actually a series of profiles of comic book artists. Each of the 60 artists has a one-page write-up opposite a sample page of their art.

I was probably initially attracted to it by the John Byrne cover. He was working Fantastic Four at the time, and I had been loving it since I discovered the book a couple years earlier. But what I recall striking me after I started reading it was the number of creators I hadn't heard of. There were a lot of guys I recognized: Jack Kirby, Joe Shuster, John Buscema, Neal Adams... basically a lot of big names in the superhero genre. (I was barely a teenager at the time; that was all I knew.) There were some other names that I was kind of passingly familiar with: Harvey Kurtzman, C.C. Beck, Alex Toth, Jack Davis... but these were guys whose style was so distinctive that it was easy to spot.

But then there were a bunch of guys I'd never heard of. Matt Baker, Reed Crandall, Lou Fine, Fred Guardineer, Mac Raboy... Mostly guys from the '30s and '40s. (And I should probably point out that, sadly, it is pretty much ALL guys that Goulart wrote about here. The only woman mentioned is Wendy Pini.) As I had no real concept of comics' history at that point -- the entirety of my knowledge of comics history was basically: 1938, Superman; 1939, Batman; 1941, Captain America; 1961, Fantastic Four -- the book proved very insightful. Even though each artist got only a single page, that was far more than I was aware of at the time. I daresay that, for some of those creators, it was the most that had ever been published about them up until that point.

I was, however, sadly disappointed with the art. The selections were interesting and not always what you might think would be obvious choices. The Shuster sample was a Mr. Mystic page, for example, not Superman. But the reproduction quality left a lot to be desired. The pages were all printed in black and white, but a good number of them were just taken directly from published comics. The colors all became grey tones, and the bad color registration got reprinted. Several pages wound up looking so muddied as to be almost unreadable. The Neal Adams, Alex Schomburg, and Berni Wrightson samples look especially terrible. I could understand in the cases of some of the older art not being available, but even the then-recent images from Walt Simonson and Bill Sienkiewicz from only a year or two earlier were taken from the published books.

Goulart was probably the first comics historian of any sort that I read, and from that perspective, I appreciate that he helped usher me into thinking about comics as more than the end product. But I've found that much of what he has written (at least with regards to comics) to be pretty superficial, and rarely gets to any real depth. But, as I said, he was the first historian that I really read and his overviews still came as welcome beacons for the mostly empty comics knowledge-base I had at the time. So while it's been decades since I really checked out any of his books, they are worth a look if you can't tell a Charles Biro page from a Jack Cole one.

I've been reading comics as long as I can remember, but it wasn't until 1979 that I read what might be considered my first graphic novel. It was actually a "video novel" that told the Hulk's origin story, as it was shown on the 1978 television show. (Well, technically, it tells the story from the two-hour pilot which aired in late 1977.)

Rather than re-work the story and get a house artist to draw, however, author Roy Thomas took about 150 still images from the show, cropped them vertically to fit a standard TPB format, and added dialogue balloons and caption boxes. Much of the text is lifted directly from Ken Johnson's screenplay. (At least, I believe it's lifted verbatim; I haven't done a line-by-line check of the entire book.)

Even though I was a kid at the time, and I was extremely excited to get the book, there were a few things that struck me as a bit odd, even back then. The actual still images chosen generally made sense and followed what was shown on screen, but some of the specific frames didn't quite work. The actors' expressions wouldn't quite match the dialogue in several cases, and others are blurred from the actors' movements. Looking back on the book now, it seems as if Thomas selected all the images himself. And while it's common to have video software on a computer now that can advance a single frame at a time that would allow you to select the perfect shot, I'm sure Thomas was considerably more limited in what technology he had available to him. I expect he would have had to have watched the show using an early VCR, jotted down the time-stamps of the frames he wanted, and requested those specific images from Universal Television, who produced the series.

Another thing that bugged me was that some of the images were re-used. There's one head-shot of Susan Sullivan, who played Dr. Marks, that's used three times. I get that it might be necessary to do that in some cases because a line of dialogue wasn't accompanied by a usable image, but it was noticeable even by my younger self.

One final thing of note that didn't really bother me back then, but kind of does now, is that all of the text is typeset in Helvetica inside perfectly rigid dialogue balloons that seem to have been created using only two ellipse templates. I'd guess that Thomas presented rough sketches laid out on Xerox copies, and one of Pocket Books' in-house typesetters did the actual work. It's very crude by lettering standards, and certainly was not the work of a professional comic book letterer.

In any event, it's an interesting approach to capitalize on the show's success, despite being a bit removed from the normal comic production process. It highlights, I think, the significance of having everyone involved with a comic being familiar with the creation process. Thomas certainly had more than enough experience crafting great comics by 1979, but he was probably the only one who touched this book that did.

There's a blurb at the top of the book cover of Framing Emmett Till that reads, "The story of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley can never be told enough. With the help of [Christopher] Benson's and [Eric] Battle's riveting books, it will never be forgotten." Honestly, I don't know that I can say anything more poignant than that with this review.

The book relays Till's story through a series of flashbacks as we see Benson himself talking with Till-Mobley and various witnesses from the time. It's structued a little like Citizen Kane in that regard, but without the conceit of having a Rosebud-style MacGuffin. Benson seems more than aware that most of the book's readership is already at least nominally familiar with Till's story, so there's no need to force a pretense like that. But the structure allows him to showcase different elements of Till's story and why/how there were contradicting accounts at the time.

What the structure also does is allow Benson to point out contemporary discussions of Till's story, and how various groups -- mostly large media outlets -- try to frame the story to fit whatever agenda they have. Movie studios, for example, talking about buying the rights to the story, but then brainstorm how they could present it through the eyes of a white activist. Or setting up Carolyn Bryant as the true victim. (These scenes, I believe, are based on actual conversations Benson had, and I can only hope he was exaggerating for dramatic effect. But somehow, I doubt he did more than shorten an hour-long conversation to a few panels.)

Benson walked a tight line in that regard, I think. By putting himself into the story and framing the book as his trying to tell the story, he runs the risk of doing precisely what he criticizes others of doing. Particularly in those scenes when he's talking with movie studio executives and publishers about getting the story out. By framing the story around his telling of the story, doesn't that pull an outsized narrative focus away from Till himself? Doesn't it make the central conflict about Benson getting the story out and not the story itself? I'll admit that I found myself going back and forth on this point throughout much of the book while I was reading it. Ultimately, there are enough discussions shown between Benson and Till-Mobley that I think it lands on the side of making sure the complete and true story gets on the record. And unfortunately part of that complete story involves decades of various third parties holding up Till as almost a mascot for their 'team.'

There's even a very pointed discussion in the back half of the book where the question is flatly asked: how much of the trial was being sought out as justice for a mother's son and how much was being sought to prevent the need for another such trial in the first place? And is there a difference? Till-Mobley had to wrestle with this because the only thing she really wanted was something she couldn't have any longer: her son.

Regardless of how familiar you are with Emmett Till's story, I think it's worth your time reading this book. The setup and framing of the narrative makes it interesting from a strictly technical perspective even if you've spent decades studying Till's life and death, and the framing of the story makes for some compelling and fascinating commentary on how the story's been told and sold over the years.

Framing Emmett Till by Christopher Benson and Eric Battle came out from Abrams' Megascope imprint just last week and should be readily available from your favorite bookseller. The hardcover retails at $27.99 US.

Today in the United States, we are having our federal elections. The Presidency is (sadly) not up for a vote this year, but 35 seats in the US Senate and all 436 seats in the House of Representatives are. So for... reasons, I am opting to re-run my review of The Day the Klan Came to Town today.

---

I think there are a number of prevalent myths surrounding the Ku Klux Klan. I think a lot of people believe that they limited their activities to the Southern US. I think a lot of people believe the only group of people they acted on was the Black population. I think some people believe stories about the Klan killing people pretty indiscriminately are overblown. I think some people STILL believe the Klan to be a benevolent, civic organization comprised of "many fine people."

All of those beliefs are bullshit. The Day the Klan Came to Town rips up every one.

Back in 1923, the KKK held a 30,000 person rally in Carnegie, PA for the express purpose of slaughtering the minorities that largely populated the area. (The total population of Carnegie at the time was around 11,500.) Blacks, Italians, Hispanics, Jews, Irish... pretty much anyone not deeemed sufficiently Ayrian was fair game. The Klan had police members on their side who steadfastly refused to protect the citizens of Carnegie, directly opposing the orders the local Burgess. The town's various ethnic groups banded together to try to halt the Klan's march through town, but that quickly led to a full-scale attack. Several people were injured, and it only ended once one of the Klansmen was killed and the group retreated.

That's the story that's told here. It focuses primarily on Primo Salerno, an Italian immigrant who fled to the United States after having been conscripted by the Italian governmnt to fight in WWI. His wife, Gianna, came over some time later (as we learn through some flashbacks) and at the time of the main story, she is heavily pregnant with Primo's child. Because of his time in the war, Primo is reluctant to fight but he readily understands the stakes involved and doesn't hesitate to join forces with the others. But while Primo and the other men of the town gather in the streets, the women move to the rooftops. Including Gianna and the elderly Irish woman, Marta, who's helping to look after her. They mostly fight with clubs and bricks, but once Primo fires a dropped pistol to help his friend Marcu, the Klan flee in fear. And while Marcu rejoices in what others will remember they managed to accomplish, another reminds him that "Americans love forgetting." The book closes with a single image of a contemporary "ethnic" woman, handcuffed, in an ICE cage noting that she was actually born here.

Writer Bill Campbell is upfront with the fact this account has been fictionalized. It to be because there are so few contemporaneous accounts of what actually happened that weren't expressly from the KKK's perspective. But the rally and subsequent attack on the "Irish and others" happened, and was soon swept under the rug as KKK-sympathizers skimmed over details that made them look bad. Which is to say, they skimmed over virtually everything. Campbell also notes that he actually grew up in Carnegie and never learned of any of this until many years later. That makes telling the story now even more important, to ensure everyone knows just how awful and racist shitbags Klan members are.

Artist Bizhan Khodabandeh does a good job with the storytelling, and ensuring characters are distinct and identifiable even among larger groups and even minor characters that have little, if any, dialogue. The drawings aren't overly detailed and tend to fall on the more cartoonish side, but I don't know that's an issue. In fact, having the more simplified figures probably helps for readers to identify with the characters.

The echoes between the events in this book and today are impossible to miss. I haven't checked, but I think Campbell even swiped some dialogue from people talking about the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville where Heather Heyer was deliberately run over and murdered. This is the history we're never taught in school. (Campbell calls what we are taught "American fanfic" -- a term I am totally going to use myself in the future!) And that we're never taught this is why so many bullshit myths get generated. It's only by confronting our own history honestly and directly that we even have a hope of overcoming its ongoing legacy.

I was actually surprised yesterday in going through some comics that a few newspaper strips -- historically ones that are famously apolitical -- used concern about this year's US elections as a topic. It was a Sunday after all, two whole days before the election, and most strips will save topical subjects for the day of an event, unless they're able to make some week-long story about it. So I thought, "OK, if several newspaper cartoonists are talking politics, then tomorrow I can start running them as a collection on my blog summarizing where their collective head is at regarding this election."

And when I got up and started checking the comics early this morning to start collecting them, I got... well, not exactly nothing but not a whole heck of a lot. And most of what I did see was more evergreen political discussion like references to the number of political ads we're bombarded with or how mainstream media is talking exclusively about politics instead of something sophomoric like celebrity gossip. So the idea for my planned blog this morning kind went up in smoke.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Pizzazz!
https://ift.tt/elaKMrJ

Kleefeld on Comics: Javins = Shooter ?
https://ift.tt/j8dLyqt

Kleefeld on Comics: Marketing Terminology
https://ift.tt/s3HRakz

Kleefeld on Comics: Whither Zombies?
https://ift.tt/swVD5rZ

Kleefeld on Comics: Old Tom Fagan Interview
https://ift.tt/lLHC6pP

Since we're on the cusp of Halloween, I thought I'd run a piece on Tom Fagan, comic fan extraordinaire and founder of the Rutland Halloween Festival. This is a 2007 interview that ran in the Rutland Herald and, since it seems to have since fallen off the internet, is why I'm posting it here. It's more about his interest in Halloween than his work in comics fandom, but still touches on that as well. The interview was conducted by Sarah Hinckley...

Tom Fagan, 75, could be called a star among superheroes, a fan of phantoms or a heathen of Hallows Eve, but for many years most called him Mr. Halloween.

"I think if I pass over around Halloween time, I'll be riding in a casket in the parade," said Fagan outside his ghoulishly decorated room at the Loretto Home. "I'd be all for that, too."

It was Fagan's love of the October holiday that made the Rutland Halloween Parade into one of the most coveted costumed carnivals in the country. A couple from England is scheduling a visit to Vermont just to see the parade, according to one Shrewsbury inn owner.

Legendary tales of comic book characters caravanning past the marble and brick edifices of downtown were born from Fagan's passionate pen. Annually he would write a letter to [DC Comics*], creators of Batman and the like, but it was the first that got the ball rolling.

"They printed that letter and that really kicked things off," said Fagan. "I was getting letters from all over the country. Each time they printed it we would get more people and more people."

Not only did his letters draw comic book character enthusiasts to the Vermont city, it also got Fagan and the parade featured in a number of strips. In 1972, [DC Comics'] Justice League of America, made up of Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Phantom Stranger, featured the group battling a demon incursion at the parade in Rutland.

Fagan's inspiration came from the first Rutland parade he watched with his daughter, in which William Ciofreddi, son of John Ciofreddi, then superintendent of the Rutland Recreation and Parks Department, dressed in a comic book costume. "I maintain that he has to be the first comic book character," said Fagan about the start of the theatrical theme.

According to Fagan that first parade consisted of a couple of high school bands and an assortment of costumed children. But the man who had grown up loving Halloween wanted more and approached the elder Ciofreddi after the parade.

"That was good, John," Fagan remembers telling him, "but it could be better." So, Ciofreddi handed the ball over to Fagan, appointing him parade general chairman. Fagan recollects the theme of the 1960 Rutland Halloween Parade was "Creatures in the Night."

"You could come as you wanted," said Fagan. "The parade was very well received. That was supposed to be the night that people could be who they secretly wished to be."

As it grew, there were floats from comic book companies such as [DC Comics], Marvel Comics, Comic Crusader. Even Madd [sic] magazine had representation. Fagan recalls at one point there being as many as 181 different comic characters represented at the parade and celebration.

"You'd be going down the street and you'd see Aunt Jemima standing next to Ronald Reagan," he said.

Not only were the characters coming to town, but those within the comic book industry who penned their fates also joined the fun. Writers and artists arrived in Rutland for the parade and an adjoining party thrown largely in their honor for a number of years.

"All sorts of great things happened," said Fagan. "We kept building it up and building it up. I don't know how many bands at one time… You had bands that were nothing but Batman… All I know is that the parade grew and grew and grew. I certainly hope it will continue for a long, long time."

Fagan was given a seat in the judge's station at last year's parade. More than 10,000 people attended the event last year; a record number of floats have registered this year.

"I was just amazed at the crowd last time," said Fagan, who has yet to miss the Rutland Halloween Parade. "I've always seen 'em one way or another."

With less than a week to go before another cast of characters parades through the streets of downtown, Fagan watched a classic horror film in his room. Bats hung from the ceiling, a wolf posed to howl at the full moon perched upon a table. Other colorful decorations seem to scream out that this man is haunted with a love for Halloween.

"I've been collecting decorations since grammar school," said Fagan. "I used to leave them up (longer than the holiday), much to the consternation of many."

Fagan, hunched with age, wore a pair of black jeans and an orange T-shirt with the words, "Sleep all day, Party all night," framing a human outline sporting batwings.

Fagan's love for the holiday goes back to when he was two or three years old. He had attended a big Halloween party at the Colony House in Rutland for children of low-income families, according to Fagan.

"I even got permission to stay up until midnight because that's when the witch was going to fly across the face of the moon," he said. "I love it when it's close to full-moon time."

He slept through the witch's journey that night and remembers being upset.

When asked if that child's curiosity has ever been quenched, Fagan replied, "Out of the corner of my eye I've seen her fly."

* Hinckley repeatedly refers to DC Comics throughout the piece as "Detective Comics." I suspect this was a misunderstanding on her part; the letters "DC" do indeed come from the name "Detective Comics" but the company hasn't actually been called that since 1939. I've replaced all instances here with the company's formal name of "DC Comics."