From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Subject: Retrospecting.
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:51:15 GMT

So thinking about how this group has history, and that history is all about to 
be wiped out in a single day, here's a few comix from the last 20 years that I 
don't see mentioned around here very much & would like very much to suggest you 
all consider finding copies of.  I don't believe any of 'em are expensive, and 
some of them (being undergrounds) may still be in print. . .

#1.  BINKY BROWN MEETS THE HOLY VIRGIN MARY, by Justin Greene.  An 
autobiographical novel in comix form, describing How The Roman Catholic
Church Made Me Neurotic.  See!  Binky helpless before the crushing logic
of the Sisters.  See!  the incredible Penis Rays emerging from his fingers
-- his toes -- finally even his head.  See!  the final desecrative act of
iconoclasm.  Warning:  not for the weak of stomach or the orthodox of mind.

#2.  The first five years or so of DOONESBURY.  Like so much of the Good
Stuff from the Counterculture, DB went to hell after Nixon resigned, but
the first few years -- up through the collection GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY or
so -- are still among the funniest political humor I've ever run across.

#3.  THE FANTASTIC FOUR ROAST.  Fred Hembeck's first full-length comic,
and frankly his best.  (Ben Grimm, faced with an evil ice cream dessert,
deduces the best way to defeat this threat: "It's slobberin' time!")  Sort
of a "Reed Richards. . . THIS IS YOUR LIFE!" on nitrous oxide.

#4.  Walt Simonson's run on THE MIGHTY THOR.  In which it was proved that
the Marvel Universe was not dead, just very very ill.  Singlehandedly made
everything that had come out from the House Of Only One Idea in the previous
five years look exactly as pathetic as it was.  Alternately funny, moving,
and startling, under Simonson THOR took on for the first -- and only -- time
the real feel of Norse mythology.  (And LSH fans might note that this run
contained the original "all splash-page-and-text" issue, Thor's battle with
the Midgard Serpent, done in a good imitation of alliterative saga meter.)

#5.  SOMERSET HOLMES.  A comic that felt like a Hitchcock movie.  A woman
awakes with no memory and wonders who she is, and why all these people are 
out to get her?

#6.  Valentino's self-titled collections of short pieces.  All wonderful
stuff, mostly autobiographical; the ones about John Lennon and his grandmother
both made me cry.

#7.  Jim Starlin's original runs of CAPTAIN MARVEL and WARLOCK.  "Comix Cozmik"
at its very best, a bit dumb when I look back on it, but what isn't?  These were
the first comix to make me aware of the art as an integral part of the story-
telling.  Ignore everything that's been done with the characters since.  It's
all lies.  (And, yes, Virginia, the scene with the clowns building a tower of
rubbish *is* a slap at the comix industry at the time -- but not Marvel.  D.C.
The clown who's being pied to death for trying to do something "real," is a
caricature of Denny O'Neill, and the reference is to DC's cancellation of the
GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW series.)

#8.  Speaking of which -- Denny O'Neill's and Neal Adams' series of GL/GA
comix, from NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT-- on.  As good as the Mike Grell
GA may have been, I've never forgiven it for being a sell-out of the character
I got to know and love back in the early '70s.  This was the first extended
attempt to deal with "issues" seriously in a mainstream comic, and some of the
stories (particularly the first and the last -- "Isaac" predated the Monkey-
Wrench Gang and EarthFirst! by a good decade, and nonviolently into the bargain)
are still relevant today.  

#9.  I can't leave this list without mentioning Jim Shooter's run on THE
LEGION OF SUPERHEROES.  Damn, that kid had a fertile imagination -- and if
the stories seem a bit naive now, well, they were written for kids at the
time, and as such were more intelligent than pretty much anything else that
was being foisted off on us.  And the things he gave us -- Mordru, the Dark
Circle, the Controllers -- were good enough to grow into some reasonably
"adult" stories over the next three decades.  Good stuff, Maynard.

#10.  Surely I'm not the only person out here who remembers with fondness
a comic called IT'S MIDNIGHT -- THE WITCHING HOUR!  Three kooky ladies (more
recently retconned by the indefatigable Neil Gaiman into the Fates and the
Furies all at once), telling way cool stories in something not far off the
E.C. tradition.  And, honestly, I had the pre-teen hots for, uh, the young
one.  You know, the blonde with the gazongas.  Cynthia was it?  Oh well. . .

Go thou and do likewise.


		The Pavlov dog and the Schroedinger cat
		Side by side in my forebrain sat
		With Shakespeare's monkeys crowding in behind. . .
		. . . it's all in your mind.
			-- Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.