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Thursday, January 17, 2019

Guest Writer - Thoughts on Eerie 9, with Simon


Doug: We're in for a treat today, friends. Going back several years, the Bronze Age Babies regularly featured guest writers. When I started this new blog, I knew there would be times when I wouldn't be able to meet my goal of publishing twice weekly. So right from the top, in pre-blog publicity to friends who'd stood by us at the BAB, I made an offer to all writers with an idea - bring it, try it, I'll make it happen. Today I'm quite pleased to feature the thoughts of Simon, he of The Glass Walking Stick. Simon's been a contemporary and friend of ours for many years. We now interact primarily on Twitter, and I think you'll find him thoughtful and right in line with the love of Bronze Age comics we all share.

Doug: In one of the stories featured below, you'll see a Holocaust-era tale by Archie Goodwin and Gene Colan. That story is reprinted in a book I purchased in the spring: We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust, by Rafael Medoff, Neal Adams, and Craig Yoe. It's a wonderful collection - quite thought-provoking as you'd imagine. It's also an effective survey of just how that event has been handled from shortly after the War to the near-present. Simon has inspired me to give my own spin to "Experiment in Fear!" at some distant time.

Doug: Now, enough from me - let's get to the work of today's guest writer.



Eerie 9 (May 1967)
Warren Publishing

Simon: Hello. First of all, many thanks to Doug for kindly inviting me to do a guest post here at Black & White And Bronze! One of the most significant aspects of the B&W comics of the Silver and Bronze Ages is that they allowed artists to break out from the restrictions of the four-colour comics. The lack of Comic Code approval meant stories could be more adult (or adolescent at least...), while artwork could be presented on larger pages (typically 11" x 8.5" instead of 10" x 6.5") and the B&W format allowed for more artistic experimentation. The leader in the larger-format market was Warren Publishing who struck (monochromatic) gold with their horror mags Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Although Marvel, Skywald and Atlas attempted to replicate this success they never came near to Jim Warren's creepy creations. I'm going to spotlight an issue of Eerie, #9 from May 1967, which may be stretching the definition of the Bronze Age, but which is a great example of the artistic delights of the format. Behind a suitably, er, eerie cover by Dan Adkins, this issue contains some sterling work by top comics creators Archie Goodwin, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan and Adkins himself. We'll start with Sturdy Steve...


Simon: "Isle Of The Beast" is a self-aware twist on that hoary old chiller, "The Most Dangerous Game", in which a hapless shipwrecked sailor finds himself pursued across a desert island by a sadistic big-game hunter. For those familiar with Ditko's super hero and fantasy work for Marvel and Charlton this must have been a revelation as the artist used the freedom of the B&W format to work in a beautiful "wash" style, with varying shades of grey and black achieving masterful effects. This painterly approach is evident on this splash page as Ditko creates wonderful three-dimensional landscapes with nary a "hard" inked line in sight. See the contrast between the dark, devilish form of the villain, the delicate impressions of jungle foliage and the Eisner-esque folds and creases in the sailor's clothes. These effects simply wouldn't have been possible in a colour comic, given the printing capabilities of the time.


Simon: By contrast, Gene Colan's artwork for "Experiment In Fear!" shows how these techniques could amplify the realism of Archie Goodwin's hard-edged script. Colan was an artist who always worked superbly with light and shade in his pencil work - something many of his inkers struggled to convey in the finished product. As seen on this splash page, Colan inks his own pencils here and also adds wash tones which give the faces of the main characters a palpably three-dimensional feel. This is suitably ironic as these characters are Nazi officers whose cruel experiments on Jewish prisoners mark them out as more inhuman than any of the supernatural antagonists in the rest of the magazine. The realism of the artwork makes this story, for me, the most chilling piece in this issue.


Simon: Finally in this trilogy of terror, we meet "The Wanderer" in a moody fantasy from Goodwin and Dan Adkins. This eerie, eschatological tale of a man's soul trapped between life and death takes us on a journey through a black and white limbo. Adkins' work was often oddly static but here it seems appropriate as the main character floats helplessly through a hellish afterlife. The interplay of light and shadow on the unnamed man's face perfectly conveys his wonder and horror, while the final panel beautifully evokes the heat and turmoil of the fiery pit... and all in monochrome.

Doug: My thanks to Simon for his analysis and presentation today - all images are scans of the magazine itself. And it looks to be in great shape, even 50-some years later! Now for your part - please feel free to leave a comment with your own impressions.

13 comments:

  1. If you're stretching definitions Simon, who cares? As someone for whom Warren magazines were mainly about Spanish and Filipino artists and Spirit reprints (nothing wrong with any of that of course) this was much appreciated.
    The Gene Colan splash in particular looks promising; pretty much all his solo artwork I'm familiar with is from after the 70s, reproduced from pencils, so I'd love to have seen a bit more of the story here. A good starting point to investigate further, thanks.

    -sean

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  2. Nice post, sir! Like Sean, my Warren is the Spanish & Filipino Warren, but Archie Goodwin's era is rightly celebrated too. Funny how Colan signs himself Eugene at this early stage, and, though you can't tell from that splash, when you read the rest of the story, it's obvious that Gene used himself as the model for Dr. Strasser. I've seen photos of the young Colan and it very definitely is him.

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  3. I mean, I know he used photo reference all the time, but I didn't know he started that young.

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    1. Pete, my understanding is that it was as a young artist - that Colan used photo reference a lot, not so much later... is that mistaken?

      -sean

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    2. I dunno actually, Sean. I'll have to do some research...

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  4. Ah classic Warren greatness! Whether it was Eerie, Creepy or my fave Vampirella, these comics gave writers and artists license to do stories which were not possible under Code restrictions. They really captured lightning in a bottle when they made these stories. While I'm more familiar with Ditko's superhero artwork, it's refreshing to see him employ a different art style here. Kudos to all the great artists and writers of the Warren era!


    - Mike 'knows some real life uncle Creepys' from Trinidad & Tobago.

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  5. *Donning geek police cap*: I'm sorry, but the BRONZE Age began in 1970 and I can't abide by any deviations from the generally-accepted standard and won't be party to any post tha-----ha! kidding, of course.
    Actually - and not to sidetrack too much - there's really no hard and fast rules about where these so-called comic 'ages' begin and end (and the topic has come up more than once at both the BAB and BitBA. My personal view, which I've shared before, is that the Bronze Age already began at Marvel in the late 1960s (pretty much when Roy Thomas began taking on an increasing number of writing assignments and the Buscema brothers and Colan doing more of the art). To me, Warren magazines always seem sort of Bronze Agey, even if they're from the early 1960s.

    This is a really good choice of issue to review, to say nothing of the stories you chose to highlight. Goodwin was simply a mater-storyteller, and I've always love seeing any of the Ditko-drawn stories from b&w magazines (has some kind of visionaries-type book collecting this Ditko material even been published?). The story with Colan's art is a revelation to me. Great stuff, Simon.

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    1. ...and as soon as I clicked 'publish' I remembered that there is, indeed, a volume of Ditko's b&w Warren work, called Creepy Presents Steve Ditko (published by Dark Horse in 2013). Just did a search, and remembered why I never bought it - all available copies are pretty pricey.

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  6. Hi Edo, I've got a collection called Creepy The Classic Years published by Harris Comics which features a couple of those Ditko strips, alongside Toth, Adams, Colan, Williamson et al. Might be worth scouring ebay for that...

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  7. It's got a new ( 1991) Kaluta cover if you're looking.

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  8. Thanks for all the comments, everyone. I really enjoyed putting this guest post together and hopefully I may do some more in the future. Many thanks again to Doug for letting me spout my random drivel on his otherwise-excellent blog :-)

    -Simon ( cerebus660 )

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  9. Very nice post, Simon! I was particularly interested in the Ditko page. That wash effect is quite a departure from his regular 'comic style'. Also very impressed by the Goodwin/Colan story. Going to have to find one of those collections referred to above...

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  10. Thanks Redartz!The Ditko artwork is indeed lovely and a reminder of what a talented, innovative artist he was.

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