It's the Blue Moon Special(s)!

 Remember how I just posted about some comics from independent publisher "Blue Moon Comics?"

Yeah, get used to that.

Last time, I wrote about "Diversions," BMCG's flagship anthology series. This time around I'm going on about three of their "Special Editions."

I ordered these in print from Indyplanet.com, as I have with all of these Editions. They often include colored versions of stories already featured in Diversions or elsewhere, and if I have the B&W version, I figure the main reason to buy them again is to have the "enhanced" version in its physical form.

There are other additions to these editions (heh), of course; text pieces, pinups, and other original content, depending. 

Up first, however, is Blue Moon's first-ever double-sized crossover "Event" special:

In this first meeting between Blue Moon's debut superhero (Night Spider) and their own grim spectral avenger (Midnight Stranger), the two protagonist's find themselves at odds over their individual morals and methods when it comes to fighting crime and stopping evil.

The Spider aims to bring the bad guys to justice. The Stranger prefers to send them straight into the grave.

The story is set up and played out well, with street-level crime combining with a supernatural threat in order to give both heroes a place in the unfolding struggle.  The 48 pages go by quickly, but not so much so that things feel padded. 

As for the art, JW Erwin is one of the better artists working on the indie scene these days. His figure work is impeccable, his spage designs are creative, and his sense for action is dynamic.

His allergy to drawing backgrounds, however, is pretty noticeable. It always has been, in my exposure to his work, and the fact that this issue is in color does help to alleviate the sense of "floating in emptiness" that many of his panels can convey in B&W.

I don't mean to be overly critical, here, but it is a "thing" in this issue, especially on pages 2 and three, where even Lloyd Smith's coloring can't keep things from feeling a bit too sparse.

That being said, this isn't as prominent elsewhere in the issue, and is largely obfuscated by action and color-work throughout. As I said, Erwin IS one of the best who's doing it these days, but everyone has their "quirks," eh?

In no way did any of that ruin my enjoyment of this issue. It was fun, entertaining, and the art is, quirks aside, head and shoulders above most other "truly indie" work out there.

Two "Fact Sheet" profiles of the protagonists wrap up the affair, which is a very cool and welcome touch.

Next up, we have:

 

This issue features stories all written by the legendary Steve Skeates. There is a nice tribute piece by Robert Flood that you can read when you open the cover, and an extensive interview with Mr. Skeates by Mark F Davis (remember him?) that is spaced out between the three stories before wrapping up on the inside of the back cover.

Speaking of the three stories, they are semi-self contained sagas, but they also follow each other directly, with a subplot that develops a brand new archenemy for our submarine superhero.

Ken Johnston's art is simple but effective in the first 5-pager, but the second panel on page 4 features no less than EIGHT thought balloons running down the length of it. I guess that page limit has its price, eh?

"Madness Beyond" follows up on the opener nicely, with some more polished art by Ron Stewart, and the story benefits from an extra page being allotted to its length. I guess I COULD level some of the same "lack of backgrounds" animus at this art, but the underwater setting lets Stewart use "swirls, bubbles, and currents" to keep things from actually looking/feeling "empty," so I won't. 

Depthon (our hero) develops a new power in this story, too, an event that surprises (and kind of disturbs!) even him. It's a nice touch, adding a new element to the tale even as it continues the previous one.

Speaking of new elements, this is the chapter where we meet our new bad guy: WHO IS NEVER NAMED, as far as I can tell. 

Still, it's a fun and engaging six pages that not only contains all of that action, but also a peek into our hero's origins, too boot. Good stuff.

Another story, and another page is added to the closer, which is called "Eels on a Ship!" A "Snakes on a Plane" reference? Well, hey, not everything is timeless.

The art in this 7-pager is the best in the issue, and perhaps the best in the three issues we're looking at this time around. Brad Olrich is the creator of "Commodore Dinosaur," a new title that's coming out from Blue Moon, and his work here is just straight up stunning.

In fact, the opening panel of the tale is a master class on how to USE empty space to illustrate a scene, and especially how to convey a sense of "lighting" in a B&W image.  Buy the book and check it out!

As the story goes on, Depthon discovers yet another new power, thinks back more on his past (and what he doesn't know of it), and we revisit our still sadly nameless villain, in a well-drawn but essentially redundant sequence that pretty much just restates what we heard in his previous appearance.

I know, I know: I nit and a I pick. However, I really enjoyed this Special, and I am sad, not just that this story will never be continued by Mr. Skeates, since he has passed, but that such a enthusiastic and unique voice in comics has been forever silenced.

I will say, though, that Mark's interview was kinda hard to get through, since Skeates was the type to go on and on and ON when asked the simplest of questions. Maybe it was a text/email situation? I cannot imagine someone rambling on like that in person or on the phone, but hey, who knows? :P

Wrapping this all up, let's take a look at:

 

Another tribute issue, this is one is dedicated to and features the excellent artwork of Donnie Page, who lost his battle with cancer in 2019.

I'll get this out of the way first: Lloyd Smith mentions in his editorial for this issue that he had his disagreements with Donnie, and I had one, too.

Donnie had commented on a post in one of our mutual FB groups that he didn't want "any of that gay shit" in his stories. I think the (crappy, yes) "Rawhide Kid" mini from the 2000s was somehow mentioned, but whatever. I took him to task for what he meant by his comment, knowing full well that it meant he was a homophobe, and then I was asked by Mark Davis to back off, as Donie was dealing with cancer.

So, I backed off. I even donated to Donnie's eventual crowdfunder for this struggle. But I'd be lying if I said I don't think about his shitty homophobic attitude every time I look at his work.

Which is too bad, because his art is GREAT. In his own words, Donnie fashioned himself "the world's greatest Sal Buscema clone," and he was not far off in saying so.  There's a lot of John Buscema in Donnie's style, too, and all of that is no mean feat. It's one things to SAY you want to draw like the Buscema brothers, it's another thing to DO it.

As for the stories on display here, the opener is a 12-pager featuring Blue Moon's Captain America and Bucky stand-ins "US Flag and Liberty Flag." The patriotic pair faces off directly against a Nazi Hulk and Hitler himself in an entertaining and supremely well illustrated tale that does nothing new (there is no real reason to set these two heroes apart from those that they evoke, here), but keeps things rockin and rollin nonetheless.

Next up is a 5-page sci-fi chiller called "King of the Hill" that, again, Donnie draws incredibly well. This one would have fit in really well with some of Marvel/Atlas's classic 5 pagers by Ditko and company back in the day.

Closing the issue out is the return of Depthon in "Personal Matters." It's another classic Marvel-style "misunderstanding melee" with a nice twist at the end, but it lacks any of the insight or introspection that you might have gotten used to in the Skeates special. Still, it's a fun one, and it's perfectly suited to Donnie Page's talents.

A bittersweet bonus comes next, in a pencilled page from a "Kragor the Savage" story that Donnie never got the chance to finish. Beyond the obvious, it's too bad, as I think this barbarian setting would REALLY have let Mr. Page strut his stuff.

In the end, this is a fitting, nicely put-together to one of the great lost talents of this indie comics scene.

And yes, all people are flawed, but I don't think that even death is a reason to avoid mentioning it entirely. If anything, we should mention these kinds of these even more loudly after someone passes, as it just might get people to think about fixing their own heads and hearts before their time comes.

I think about it a lot, and I work hard to try to do something about it.

Anyway, kids: Comics!!

Til next time.

DC Comics Millennium Editions or "The Mystery of the Plop Police!"

 On a recent trip to the awesome comic shop that is The Outer Limits in Waltham, MA, I picked up three "DC Comics Millennium Editions" that were languishing on a bookcase near the back of the store.

Apparently, DC published 62 of these things back in the year 2000, but I just have these three...for now!

The first one I grabbed was the second one I referenced in this posts oh-so-creative title:

Yes, it's a reprint of "Plop!" #1, a title that my good buddy Rich and I have mentioned at least once on our own "Weird Warriors Podcast" which you no doubt already listen to and adore.

Anyway, anyone who's been around for me for any length of time knows that Sergio Aragones is my favorite cartoonist, and "Groo the Wanderer" is my favorite comic book series. However, I've never bothered to collect any back issues of this particular series.

Why? Back issues of it have always been hard to find, and damned expensive when I've found them. I love Sergio Aragones' work, but I am not, nor have I ever been, independently wealthy.

So, I grabbed this modestly priced unbagged comic off the shelf and figured I'd see what I'd been missing all these years.

The 5-page Sergio effort called "The Plague" was as entertaining as I'd hoped, and most of the short one-panel gags sprinkled throughout the issue were worth at least a smirk or a chuckle. "Kongzilla" by George Evans and Frank Robbins was a higher production value affair than I expected, even if the "gag" at the end jas aged a little poorly in this era of increased diversity in our understandings of sexual orientations. "The Message" was a cute, and very well drawn mostly "silent" two-pager by no less than Sheldon Mayer and Alfredo Alcala, and yes, even with the presence of Senor Aragones, the star of this issue is probably "The Gourmet" by Steve Skeates (more on him in my next post!) and Berni(e) "Freaking" Wrightson! 

So, am I interested in acquiring the remained of the run? Yer darned Ploppin' I am.

Up next, is the final comic referenced in this post's title, and the meatiest of the three overall:

"Police Comics #1" had an original cover date of Aug 1941, and it featured the first appearance of Plastic Man, even if he is relegated to the role of "second banana floating head" on the above cover.

The great pink hope of this issue, and the cover feature as well as the first story contained herein, was "The Firebrand," he of the diaphanous (look it up, kids!) shirt and jaunty bandana/mask. As with the majority of the stories reprinted in this issue, the actual writer of the opening tale is unknown, but the artist is one Reed Crandall.

Whether Mr. Crandall designed FB's outfit or not, he certainly took on an unenviable task, having to effectively draw our hero's shirt AND his unclothed torso at the same time whenever some crime-fighting action was afoot.

And what kind of crime was being so diaphanously opposed, you ask? Why, it's a Window-Washing Racket! Sends shivers down your spine, doesn't it?  To be fair, there's also some high-price burglary going on, and the 11-page affair is kept snappy and entertaining throughout. 

Firebrand has no super-powers at all, but is a heck of and athlete, and he truly excels at beating the stuffing out of bad guys. Part of that is due to his being trained by his butler/confidant/sidekick,  an ex-prize-fighter named, you guessed it, "Slugger," and the other part seems to be that Firebrand is one of the luckiest people that has ever lived on the face of the Earth.

Ironically, the police in Firebrand's city see him as a menace, and even suspect him of being behind the very crimes he's so snazzily stopping. For a comic with the word "Police" used for half of its title, the boys in blue aren't looking too great at the start of things.

Next up is "711," featuring what just might be the shakiest setup for any hero I've ever read about in a comic book, and folks, that is REALLY saying something.

Let me try to sum this up: Daniel Dyce takes the rap for his friend Jake Horn. The two men look so much alike that Dyce simply goes to court and stands trial as Jake. Given a life sentence, and an inmate number of, say it with me, "711," Dan settles in and prepares to wait for Jake's new baby to be born, after which ol' Jake has promised to turn himself in and come clean.

As if that plan wasn't shaky enough, Jake goes and gets himself run over by a car (and killed, too!) in his way to see the newborn babe in question. 

But, okay, let me clear my head.  Here we go: Jake Horn is identified in the newspaper as the person who was killed in the accident. This does NOT, however, trigger an investigation into just who the heck the local prison system has in custody under that name. Instead, Dan Dyce is simply screwed for life.

Dyce does use his time to tunnel out of prison, but he decides to STAY in prison because Daniel Dyce is surely "forgotten" by now.  Long story longer, Dan then goes about engaging in a life of crime-fighting.

Yep. You heard me. But wait: it's dumber than you think! As simply "711," and wearing that very number on the back of his vigilante outfit's shirt, Dan Dyce escapes from prison through his tunnel, beats the bad guys, gets them sent to prison, and then he...returns to that same prison as Jake Horn, inmate #711.

How. HOW. How does this work, I ask you? I can accept a lot of things in my comic books. I mean, one HAS to. But this...this is pure madness.

Up next is "Eagle Evans, Flier of Fortune," an airborne ace hero type thing that is so forgettable and bland that its like they knew our poor logic centers needed a rest after that "711" insanity.

"Chic Carter" is mildly more interesting, if only due to its being credited to Will Eisner himself.  The story is pretty much dishwater, though: Carter is a reporter who puts on a domino mask and a yellow shirt when he feels like calling himself "The Sword" to fight (and "accidentally" kill) the bad guys. It's not great, save for the art.

But, hold on, folks, we have finally reached the REAL reason for the reprinting of this issue: the debut of "Plastic Man!" In six brief pages, Jack Cole introduces one of the best characters in comic books, and does so in pages that feature charmingly kinetic artwork even with most of the pages sporting 9-10 panels each! I've never actually read the original Plastic Man adventures, but I really want to now.  I bet most if not all of them are up on comicbookplus.com....

Up nest is "Steele Kerrigan," with really nice art by Al Bryant. Maybe the reason we don't know the name of the writer has something to do with the fact that this story pretty much stinks. 

Kerrigan is just some seventeen year old kid that in the space of six pages gets imprisoned twice by some pretty mentally deficient and/or lazy cops. He escapes the second time, gets tangled up with the bad guys, and proves his innocence, kinda. The end. YAWN.

Another six-pager features "The Mouthpiece," a young D.A. who routinely interferes in police business in his civilian ID, and when he isn't breaking the law enough for his tastes, puts a mask on and for some reason calls himself "The Mouthpiece."

If it wasn't for this story featuring an "illegal immigrant smuggling" operation (timely!) run by an actual PEG-LEGGED PIRATE, there'd be nothing to recommend giving this one a read. Sorry, Fred Guardineer.

Well, okay, the pirate does at one point resort to hiding his alien cargo inside the corpses of freshly killed sharks, so there's that.

I didn't read the two-page text story that follows, but it apparently features a character called "Dick Mace," and DC Comics is just letting that name sit around and collect dust.

A six-page "Phantom Lady" story comes next, and it's nothing to write a blog post about, either.

A one-page "hillbilly humor" gag follows in the form of "Dewey Dripp," a "Li'l Abner" rip-off that is about as cringe-worthy as you might imagine, but the art by John Devlin is quite nice.

"The Human Bomb" wraps up the issue, and perhaps in an attempt to make up for only getting 5 pages to work with, features 11 to 12 panels on all but the first of those pages! HB's origin is pretty crazy, too, but it merely involves him swallowing a super-deadly explosive capsule in an attempt to keep thugs who are standing right there from "ever using it." It's no "711," but it's up there.

Most of the stories in this were duds, but I ended up being entertained by the read overall.

The same cannot be said for our third and final contender, which is the first comic mentioned in this post's title:

 

This one hurts, because the "House of Mystery" I grew up with was a favorite member of the "horror anthology" comics lineup that I so adored back in my "Yoot." 

This, however, is a reprint of HOM #1 1951, and it sucks.

Every page of every single story is simply smothered in blocks and blocks of narrative captions, thought balloons, and speech bubbles that all but crowd the art completely out of existence.

This is even more of a shame since what we CAN see of the art is quite good.

None of the writers are credited, and I think that's for the best.

Okay, folks, that was a long one!

Do you have any of these Millennium Editions? If so, what do you think of 'em?

Diversions #18 & #19 (Blue Moon Comics Group)

 I've followed Lloyd Smith's Blue Moon Comics Group for a little over 5 years now, and the imprint's flagship title has been a favorite of mine for that entire time.

For those interested in catching up, you can get (cheap!) digital copies here:

Blue Moon Comics on DriveThruComics

And (also cheap!) digital copies as well as print-on-demand copies here:

Blue Moon Comics on IndyPlanet

However, as the title of this post implies, I'm here to talk about the two most recent (at the time of this writing) issues of "Diversions."

So, without further ado, here's the cover to issue #18:

Even though one feature is very prominently featured on the cover, you can guess from the exclamations above the main title that this is an anthology-format series, with this issue focusing on three tales.

The "cover story" is "Sideral: The Last Earthman," a character created by Chris Malgrain of Oniric Comics, who writes and draws the feature as well. 

This is the most recent chapter of an ongoing tale, but the gist is this: Sideral is "The Last Earthman" because he basically caused the destruction of our planet and is the sole survivor. He also received seemingly unlimited cosmic power in the process, and now wanders the cosmos in search of some sense of purpose in the face of all this existential happenstance.  

It's kind of a "reverse Silver Surfer" idea, and I really like it. 

In this installment, Sideral convinces an alien race to stop worshipping him as a god, and then finally encounters an alien woman whose image has been haunting his dreams.

It's a very well done space opera, with introspective themes, but with plenty of action as well. Malgrain's original "Oniric Comics" like this is great stuff, but his imprint tends to vastly get by on restorations/repackagings of public domain comics, which I have basically no interest in. Comicbookplus.com and other sites let us read pretty great scans of all those old PD comics for free, ya know. But hey, if it sells for him, what do I care?  :)

Next up is "Skyblazer," a pulp-era rough-and-tumble ace pilot character type in a story called "Smoke on the Water." It's a brief, kind of shallow story, but it goes like this: Mark Mason (the "Skyblazer") is approached by a woman who calls herself "Danger," who offers him $10,000 (in 1940s money, remember) to deliver some apparently very sensitive documents to Washington. As they fly off, the tiny island that Mark was operating from is completely destroyed by what modern eyes will easily identify as an atomic explosion. So much for that supporting cast we were introduced to in the opening pages, eh? On the other hand, you can't get a much better cliffhanger than that! Evan Driscoll's art suits the genre perfectly, too, so that also helps. Also: "Smoke on the Water" ends with what we could call "A Fire in the Sky?" Hah? Hahhh?

Wrapping up the affair is a combination of two regular Diversions features "The Vault of Shadows" and "Other Worlds," for a short chiller thriller featuring sci-fi sprinkled with old-school "Charlton/Gold Key" style horror. 

In "No Trespassing," Mister EEEE! (horror host in residence) introduces us to a tale of Max Tuna and Sondra Starr, two ne'er-do-wells who hijack a vacationing star cruiser and leave the passengers to their deaths. Escaping to the planet below, the two scoundrels are quickly attacked by prehistoric creatures (coutrtesy of "Jurass, Inc" who recently bought the land). Max uses his blaster to easily defeat all comers, and even shoves Sondra into some quicksand to avoid sharing the loot. Apparently, though, Max never learned how to count his shots, and runs out of ammo at a very inopportune moment.

It's a fun, classically-styled "twist-ending" horror story, bolstered considerably by JW Erwin's fantastic artwork.

And so! On to issue #19!

You know the drill now: Look above the title (and at the portraits in the corner box!) for a list of this issue's features: Night Spider! The Glass Guardian! Skyblazer!

Night Spider is our "cover story" feature this time out, with art by a recent addition to the Blue Moon Bullpen: Dana Black. Dana's a fantastic artist that I've been FB friends with for years, and from whom I've purchased several original pieces, so it's been really cool to see him join the ranks of one of my favorite modern day comics publishers.

Night Spider is perhaps Blue Moon's flagship superhero, having debuted in the first issue of "Diversions," and created by Lloyd Smith and artist JW Erwin. This issue opens with the Night Spider tale, and its a really cool one, to boot.

"In a Moment's Time" is written, drawn, and colored by Dana Black, with lettering by Lloyd Smith. It's a story told mostly in splash pages, with some pages formatted as splash panels aside smaller insets, and a pair of double page spreads. It's a daring experiment in format for Black's first "solo" comic story, and perhaps more so on the writing side of things.

The entire narrative of the tale is told in captions, telling the tale of a man who loses a loved one that he feels Night Spider could have saved. The mostly "off screen" narrator details his growing hatred, culminating in the moment just before his plan for ultimate vengeance is carried out.

However, as well know, things can go wrong at ANY moment in time...

As "daring" as these creative choices are, they pay off pretty much perfectly. Each page is beautifully and engaging rendered, with "watercolor"-like coloring giving things a very distinct look and feel. The narrative flows well, and brings things to a tragic conclusion in just the right amount of time.

Dana Black has several more project planned with Blue Moon, and I cannot wait to see them.

And now, with the unenviable task of following THAT story up, we have:

"Skyblazer" in "Don't Fear the Reaper!" I wonder how long 'blazer will keep up with the "song titles" trope for these chapters, eh?

Speaking of "chapters," nowhere do I see any indication that is "chapter two" of the story from Diversions #18. Not only would this help new readers figure out what they're getting into, but it would maybe sell them on buying the previous issue, ya know?  Anyway...

In this chapter, Mark Mason lands his plane (at gunpoint, courtesy of the femme fatale named "Danger") in Arizona (not Washington0, and is quickly ushered into a meeting with...President Truman! (Guess it is kind of a meeting with "Washington" after all)

Truman and co. inform Mason that his island was not destroyed by an A-bomb (as this does apparently take place after Hiroshima and Nagasaki), but from a weapon based...in outer space!

Looks like the nefarious "Dr. X" is somehow connected, and soon enough, Mason is trained to fly an experimental rocket plane to go up and pay the not-so-good Doctor a visit. The story ends with Mason (and "Danger's") new ride approaching a orbital base bristling with gun posts, guarded by at least one rocket and several flying saucers!

One again, the quick-and-carefree pulp tone is captured perfectly, and I'm really hoping that Lloyd and Evan have lots of interest in continuing with the Skyblazer saga.

The final full-length story in the issue is called "The Glass Guardian vs The Drone Master!"

The Glass Guardian was created by Mark F. Davis, another creator I've followed and been FB friends with for several years. Mark and Lloyd Smith have both been in the indie comics game since at least the 1990s, and Mark's recent revival of his own "Golden Era Comics" title was another big fave of mine from the past 8 or so years. 

Unfortunately, Mark has dropped GEC back into hibernation for now, but several of his creations live on in the pages of Blue Moon Comics these days. "The Unbeatable Brick" and "Depthon of the Deep" are already faves of mine, and it looks like GG is bound to join 'em.

So! In this actual story! Written by Mark Davis and Ray McKay with art by Brad Olrich (creator of another great Blue Moon comic, "Commodore Dinosaur"), GG intervenes in a bank robbery being carried out by...little robotic drones!

The drones kind of look like something Gyro Gearloose from Duckburg would have created, so GG can be forgiven for taking things lightly at first. 

However, the drones surprise our hero by combining into one massive robot, and GG just barely manages to stay on top of the situation. 

Tracking the sole surviving drone to its home, GG confronts their Master and...accidentally knocks his head off!

Turns out, the "Master" is really a six-inch tall, very bitter little man who was hiding in the "head" of the robot body that answered the door!

This felt very much like a modern take on a Golden Age style superhero story, briskly paced and nicely crazy in just the right way. I know Mark is in "semi-retirement," but I'm hoping form more GG adventures sooner rather than later.

Remember how I mentioned Mark Davis's "Unbeatable Brick" a few paragraphs back?  Well that very character caps off this issue in a one-page "Snazzy Snack Cakes" advertisement in which he faces "Dr. Robotx." If you recall the classic Hostess ads in Bronze Age comics, you'll love this, and it's a more or less regular feature in Blue Moon comics.

See how long it took me to type all of that?  And that was only two issue's worth! There's seventeen more issues of Diversions (so far) and many more Blue Moon offerings to enjoy for wicked cheap out there, folks.