UTTER TRASH

UTTER TRASH

Meet the Comix of the Future

Mike Boron

It is impossible for the comic fan to anticipate the vicissitudes of the industry on the basis of industry publications themselves. When Marvel or National announce big changes and forthcoming titles in their own pages they are usually as reliable as a White House press release. Consequently, a fan might have a problem with a title such as Marvel's Master of Kung Fu, an excellent effort by Jim Starlin and Steve Englehart, two of Marvel's most consistently rewarding artists. Despite some halting publicity in other Marvel titles, this mag hit the stands in almost perfect secrecy.

Which brings us to an interesting publication called The Comic Redder, edited and published by Paul Levitz. TCR is available in subscriptions of six issues for two bucks from TCR Publ., 393 E. 58th St., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11203. TCR is to comics what Publisher's Weekly is to books. Each monthly issue previews virtually every professional mag to come for the next six weeks, including such vital data as cover art,' artists and writers, recent editorial shifts, and the day tne title is scheduled to hit the stands.

Levitz, who recently graduated from high school, put the magazine together, almost single-handedly with the cooperation of the industry. The TCR is most valuable as a checklist, containing pertinent data for Marvel, National, Charlton, Gold Key, Warren, undergrounds, and whatever else he can unearth. The addition of Charlton to the information roster was quite a feather in two caps; TCR's and Charlton's.

Unbeknownst to most fans, Charlton is releasing some highly satisfactory titles these days, the most rewarding of which is Midnight Tales, a charming book in every sense of the word. Midnight Tales is the brain child of Wally Wood-trained artist Wayne Howard and writer Nick Cuti. The book, a bi-monthly, revolves around the whimsical adventures of the Midnight Philosopher and his stunning companion, Arachne. Writer Cuti has achieved a fine balance of humor in these stories, exquisitely complemented by some of the nicest children's art ever assembled. Midnight Tales is mostly children's stories of a very high order. No garish murders or mutilations, thanks; these stories incorporate the classic shortstory structure with an economic buildup and characterization taking place oyer six or seven pages for a final panel revelation.

Howard's art is always charming, particularly his covers. Charlton covers seem to have deeper color than the others, perhaps because they use a higher weight paper. The other Midnight Tales artist is Joe Staton whose style is different — hard outlines with a gentle impact. He is a cartoonist with a strong, sense of symbolism. His work on the first E-Man was pleasing although where Cuti can take this, the first of Charlton's new wave of super-heroes, remains to be seen. In any case, Midnight Tales is not to be missed.

Now a word about Jim Starlin7s Captain Marvel feature. Starlin is an innovative artist whose talents include' an uncanny layout ability. Since taking over the writing chores on the title, Starlip has been freed to lay the thing out however he pleases. which translates into several Escher oops per issue, plus at least two three-panel series beginning with a close-up and advancing to an extreme close-up, as in the first appearance of Boris Karloff in Jim Whale's Frankenstein (a movie). Issue Ho. 28, advancing the great Thanos/Mar-Vel showdown which has been building for almost a year, contains some of the freakiest art to appear in a Marvel comic since Nick Fury tossed an LSD bomb at some Hydra agents. One page, depicting, according to Starlin, the life history of a mysterious avenger known as The Destroyer, is broken down into thirty-five panels because the artist wished to break the world record for number of panels per page.

The story is not as engrossing as the art. Issue No. 29 finds Mar-Vel undergoing a bogus "metamorphosis" while indulging in the usual Marvel; pseudophilosophical claptrap about life and meaning. But a banal, confusing storyline is a small price to pay for Starlin's marvelous artwork. A1 Milgrom's inking is sensitive and just right.

Another Starlin/Milgrom collaboration is the above-mentioned Master of Kung Fu, the first of what promises to be a small wave of kyng-fu books from the various houses. It will probably remain the best because of the felicitous teaming of Starlin and writer Englehart, who takes his job seriously.

The art, not as spacey or elaborate as Captain Marvel's is solid, if a;bit too stylized. Starlin has his hero, Shang-Chi, engage a giant Sumo in handjto-hand combat. Since the Sumo " appears to outweigh the hero by about three hundred pounds the fight descends into two pages of unsuccessful filler, renTURN TO PAGE 79.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 52. dered unbelievable by the ridiculous match-up. This is too bad sin^e Starlin actually knows a thing or two about judo and can therefore draw more realistic fight scenes than most.

The underground market is biting the dust due to recent Supreme Court decision on community standards and pornography. Craven distributors, who for years have constricted Warren and similar titles because of their fear of anything controversial, refuse to carry all underground titles regardless of their content.

Therefore, despite the fact that there are more interested readers than ever before, the companies can't get the titles before the public. Newsstand space is at a premium and undergrounds

were suffering even before this bewildering development. But now* with thousands of books stacked in warehouses in Milwaukee and San Francisco, with a public eager to digest new material, virtually every major undergournd publisher is in big trouble: stuck with printers" fees and unable to distribute, liiis could mean a drying-up of undergrounds altogether, or a return to those simple days when the only way you could buy a copy of Zap was out of R. Crumb's car trunk.

This has meant the cancellation of some glorious books, including an adaptation of Michael Moorcock's "The Dreaming City" by Steve Grant and John Adkins Richardson, a beautiful sword and sorcery artist whose work has appeared in Fever Dreams. Hopefully, something like the Moorcock story can be picked up by The Comic Reader or Wonderworld who are eager to spotlight new material. Hi