This Is Bugging Me (Eisner v. Swan)

I just finished grading a set of very short papers that contrast A Contract with God with an issue of Superman that was also published in 1978. A couple of my undergraduates' frequent generalizations are really sort of throwing me off.

When they talk about the books' different visual styles, they frequently say that Eisner's drawing ...



... is much more detailed than Curt Swan's.



(This panel is less than half the size of the Eisner panel above.)

I think what they're trying to say is that Eisner generally makes more marks per panel, because he's cross-hatching. But I think we have to agree that cross-hatching isn't the same thing as detail. A vast field of cross-hatching, by itself, reveals no details. And it's true that the background in Superman 331 drops out a lot in favor of a field of solid color, but I don't think the difference with Eisner is really all that distinct, once you account for the cross-hatching.

So, clearly, one of the things I'll have to talk with my students about, in the weeks to come, is the difference between shading and detail.

This other generalization really baffles me, though.

My students keep saying that Curt Swan's characters are much more cartoony...



... and Eisner's are drawn much more realistically.



What do you think they are talking about, here? The best guess I can come up with is that they mean the character designs represent a more realistic variety of body types—pretty much all of Swan's male figures have the same build in this comic, and Lois's face looks a lot like Lana's. But can that really be what they mean when they say Frimme Hersch looks less cartoony?

My other hypothesis is a bit dispiriting: the students had already decided what they thought a superhero comic looked like, or what a "sophisticated" comic would look like, and they didn't really look at what Swan and Eisner had drawn.

Any other theories?

They also keep saying that Eisner's writing is more sophisticated that Marty Pasko's—that it uses more advanced vocabulary (and, presumably, more complex sentence structures?). That's not a note about subject matter, as far as I can tell, but about diction and style. That claim really has me perplexed. Is it merely coming from Yiddishisms like "tsimmis" that the students probably had to look up? I don't think any of the students noticed that most of the individual panels in Superman have more words in them than most of Eisner's pages do.

Help me out here.

HATE -- HATE -- DESTROY!

I had originally thought I'd put this together as a "One-Panel Critics" post...



... because in many ways, that image stands just fine on its own.

At some point when I was talking comics with Mike, years ago, I growled out this line of dialogue, which I had read for the first time when I was five years old. It lodged in my head over the subsequent years of re-reading. Superman #304 was one of the first comics I ever owned, and before I stash my minuscule collection of crappy 1970s Superman comics back in its place, I thought I'd quote you a few instances of the story's refrain.



Yes, even Jenet Klyburn, rocking a short skirt with her S.T.A.R. Labs science coat, gets supercharged and aggro enough to take a piece out of the Man of Steel.

And young Jon Ross, the kid who knows who Clark Kent really is, rages so hard he kicks Supes in the breadbasket.



One of the things I've always liked about the Curt Swan and Wayne Boring versions of Superman (this one is by Curt Swan) is how awkward both of them sometimes make him look, as if there's something kind of uncomfortable about living in his thick-chested, balloony physique.

And that's when he isn't getting Keds in his solar plexus.



This moment in the story gives the comic its cover image, by the way. But for some reason they replace the awesome Hulkstyle refrain with a much more patient explanation of cause and effect.



The cover also does away with the dynamism in Jon Ross's tantrum rage:



... But in return it gives us a playground full of kids cheering to see the Last Son of Krypton getting his butt whooped by a ten-year-old.



Of course, Superman does eventually figure out what's behind all the "HATE -- HATE -- DESTROY!," and as you might expect, it involves moonlight passing through the power prism that the Parasite has been wearing.



But that's not what I remembered about this comic for more than thirty years.

Won't you join me in the chorus one more time?

The One-Panel Critics: How Much Does Kryptonite Cost?

The first assignment I'm giving my students in this year's iteration of the graphic novel course is to read A Contract With God alongside a comic book that could have been on the stands when Eisner's book was first published. And this time, because I have seventy students in two section of the class, I can't rely on the Joe Stinson Collection, so I'm having everyone read a single issue of Superman published late in 1978.

In Superman #331, we visit a jail that has been specially designed to house super-villains (the Atomic Skull, the Parasite, and Metallo, possibly with Terra-Man on his way). Each of them dwells in a small box (with a cot and a few vaguely delineated furniture-like objects). Each cell is specially engineered to prevent the escape of that specific villain. (Also, the boxes are draining the villains' powers into special devices that another super-villain will use, but that's neither here nor there.)

Here's Metallo, chillin' in his crib, as it were. Aren't cyborgs cute in slacks?



And why does he still have a chunk of Kryptonite powering his robot body?



... Well, since Kryptonite is harmless to humans, I'm sure that it won't pose any sort of problem in the future.



Oh, and also KRYPTONITE IS CHEAPER THAN RADIUM.

(Radium, by the way, currently costs something like $25,000 per gram. That's expensive, sure, but it seems to imply that you could incapacitate Superman for about the same price as a year's tuition at some snooty colleges.)

The radioactive fragments of an exploded planet light-years away from us cost less than $25,000 per gram.

This is the sort of thing you would only write if (a.) you didn't think your audience was paying very close attention, and (b.) you didn't care what kind of mess you were leaving for other writers who might arrive after you. Thank you, Martin Pasko.

Actually, I suppose it's also possible that Kryptonite is just more efficient, as a power source, than radium — or that Kryptonite lasts longer and therefore needs to be replaced less frequently. But that's not quite what our jail warden seems to be saying.

I don't have much else to say about this. But let's just mark it as another entry in the "comics are dumb" file.

Of Droog and Doggerel

It seems only appropriate, after yesterday's post, that I speak to you about the sensational character find of 1975, Droog. According to this encyclopedia page Droog did appear one other time, but thanks to Joe Stinson and Wilkey Wong...

...I've read pretty much his entire history in Marvel Comics.

Apparently, Droog is a mutated dog belonging to the Gremlin, that Soviet son-of-a-supervillain descended from the Gargoyle, who was Hulk's first foe. He looks a lot like a Triceratops, and he talks a lot like Len Wein writing doggerel couplets. Everything that Droog says is in rhyme, and actually it's kind of endearing.


Like most poets, Droog is strong enough to smack the Hulk around.

I love this panel. It hits at least three of my childhood nostalgia centers: dinosaurs, superheroes, and Dr. Seuss.

Seriously, isn't that beautiful? Who needs Stegron?

Writing dialogue for the Hulk around this time was a piece of cake, I'd bet. As long as he got in one "Hulk is the strongest one there is!" per issue -- and maybe "Smashing is what Hulk does best!" -- you'd be all set.

But I imagine it'd get a little dull, which might explain the completely ridiculous Yiddishisms of Sidney E. "Gaffer" Levine elsewhere in the issue (I'll post those later), or the ridiculous smugness of a SHIELD agent named Clay Quartermain. Writing a monster that speaks only in rhyme seems like a nice counterpoint. That's probably what Alan Moore was thinking when he made Etrigan and Alexander Pope speak only in rhyme.

Anyone who has a passing familiarity with the Hulk knows that he's stronger than a sturdy wall, Droog. Are you throwing him at it just to complete your couplet?

No, wait, I'm sorry. I call shenanigans. I don't care whether it fills out the meter of your line nicely, Droog. If there's one thing the Hulk isn't, it's fragile.

And, as it turns out, it's the walls that give way, crumbling around Hulk and Droog. Wein takes the opportunity to turn out a couple of narrative captions filled with quatrains. This leads to a panel that shows three things: smoking rubble, a footnote from the previous panel, and a footnote on the footnote, attributed to none other than Smilin' Stan himself.

Probably Whitman is rotating because he was never much for rhyme himself.

As near as I can gather, after they rise from this rubble, Hulk and Droog get hit with some kind of bomb, and Hulk gets knocked under the surface of the earth. Droog is almost never seen again. I'm not sure what brought him into a single issue of Daughters of the Dragon, or who "Megacephalo," his new master, was.

But I got to thinking: brightly colored dinosaur, talks in rhyme ... Did Droog get some cosmetic surgery in the '90s and resurface with a new and even more friendly identity?


The only way to determine the truth, of course, is to have Barney fight the Hulk. Then we'll see who is the strongest one of all.

Special lettercol bonus: Just for Mike, from this issue's "Green Skin's Grab-Bag":

...And people wonder why we include a letters column in our comics.

The Mike Grell Extreme Stance

So, okay: last week I was complaining about some of Mike Grell's figure work in an issue of Superboy from 1975. Wikipedia tells me that Grell was in his late twenties when he pencilled this issue, but it still shows some of the quirks of an incompletely developed style.

First, as I mentioned, the men in their spandex have zero body fat, and their outfits look uncomforatbly clingy. I know that hyperfitness is a common trope in superhero comics, but I also know that drawing a figure as pure musculature is easier than putting realistic cloth garments on the same figure. I've often suspected that Superman's skin-tight suit was originally as much an effort to assist Joe Shuster's then-underdeveloped drawing ability as an effort to evoke circus strongmen. But I digress. My point is that Grell's figures are all lanky, taut, and anatomical to the point of awkwardness. Show the readers what I'm talking about, Superboy.


But the thing I want to show you, really, is the weird way that Grell has these guys stand with their feet a yard or more apart when they're trying to look impressive (or surprised). It's all over this story, and it's a pretty weird tic. Here's the opening splash panel, in which Superboy (in his pajamas) is menaced by two ghosts of dead Legionnaires. (This scene does not appear in the plot of the story.)

I hope he hasn't pulled a muscle, jumping out of bed into that pose! (This raises an issue: is Superman strong enough to tear his own ligaments or to strain his own muscles? Surely there's a webforum where people discuss this sort of thing.)

Later in the comic, a mysterious interloper destroys a building (by slamming into it at high speed), then rises from the rubble:


Still later, a second mysterious interloper rescues a sky-diver whose parachute didn't open:


,,, And the crowd below is simply agog:


Hey, that one guy is Clark Kent! And he's managed to assume a pose even more exaggerated than the one in the introductory splash! (To me, this actually looks sort of like "What if Steve Ditko drew The King Canute Crowd?" Because I'm sure that young Clark Kent has been replaced in this panel with the young Alec MacGarry.)

Wow, that's gotta hurt. He "look[s] like [he] saw a ghost," indeed! Apparently, that's the way someone stands when he sees a 30th-century ghost:

(Although, you know, it occurs to me: Superboy has seen these guys die, in the 30th century, but he also knows they're time travelers. Why doesn't he just assume that they've traveled back to his time from a time before they died? Instead, he's all, "But -- you're dead!" ... Couldn't that cause some kind of time-paradox? Ah, Cary Bates: you've done it again.)

Fortunately, Superboy assumes a different stance in the story's final panel, after he and the genetic mockeries of actual life destroy a robot that Superboy built just to test their willingness to die all over again. In this last panel, he casually reveals that he already knew that the interloping Legionnaires were merely auto-destructing 48-hour-lifespan clones.

Chillin' in a secret room in his parents' basement, talking on the "Time-Telephone," without a care in the world, and still looking like he has every single muscle in his body tensed to the point of explosion: that's how a Super-Teenager ends a night of self-imposed robot-fighting.

Flash Science

I'm sure I'm not the first to point this out, but the Silver-Age Flash had a peculiar rogue's gallery. With the exception of Gorilla Grodd, I think that every one of them was a genius inventor who had come up with a handheld device that defied the rules of physics. These ingenious weapons or other specimens of strange science (or possibly magic) were then used to rob banks. The Weather Wizard could control the weather with a little wand, but he couldn't come up with a better career idea than robbery (something that can be done with a pistol).

It's hard to believe, I know, but have a look at the cover of Flash #288, featuring Dr. Alchemy.

That's the Philosopher's Stone in Dr. Alchemy's right hand. It can transmute any element into any other. In his left hand, we see a briefcase full of money. Dr. Alchemy could change that stately tree into solid gold (or solid Californium), so I'm not sure why he bothers carrying that much cash. But I'm not Cary Bates, and it's not 1980, so I don't get to write this issue of Flash.

Despite the written emphasis on chemicals and elements, Dr. Alchemy is really a magical foe, not a scientific one. The Philosopher's Stone doesn't really transmute elements; it does whatever the comic's writer wants it to do. Here, for example, Dr. Alchemy invents a new element that makes people more susceptible to hypnosis.

I was eight years old when this comic was on the newsstand, and I think I could have told you that was ridiculous. I wouldn't have been able to say then that the problem has to do with the sorts of chemicals that usually are psychoactive, or the fact that a "new" element was almost certain to be radioactive... But I think I'd have known that we were looking at wishful writing and not real science or reasoning.

And this, in my opinion, is the real disappointment of Silver-Age Flash comics. Barry Allen was a scientist, and so were a lot of his supervillain foes. A writer with a decent sense of scientific reasoning and a decent knowledge of how physics and chemistry work would have been able to make the book genuinely educational for the kids who read it. I can imagine a comic that regularly featured ingenious high-speed solutions to intractable problems, based on real physical principles—or detective-work based on the scientific method. (The current All-New Atom written by Gail Simone gets pretty close to this sometimes, but of course that's a book for today's comic-reader, not for the eight-year-olds of 1980.) Anyway, I can pipe-dream about a scientist superhero who thinks like a real scientist, but Barry Allen is emphatically not that superhero.

Consider the sequence the front cover foreshadows: Dr. Alchemy catches Flash in the park and turns him into a human cloud:

I'm not sure, but it sounds like Dr. Alchemy has just used the Philosopher's Stone to turn water into water.

Or maybe he has changed all of the Flash's other component parts into water. How will our scientist resolve this dilemma? Well, fortunately, he still seems to be able to think, even though his brain is made of water vapor.

...And he seems to be able to control the movement or the agitation of his molecules. He can even create friction between individual water molecules. He heats part of his water vapor here, so that it's even warmer, then somehow propels his "warmer upper half" toward his "drifting, uncontrollable lower half"...

... and precipitates.

Since something about this strictly physical process returns Flash to his normal chemical makeup, he's free to run off and look for Dr. Alchemy.

Probably he isn't going to search all of the caves near Central City, because if you could use magic to alter and reconstitute matter, you would have your hideout in a penthouse or a lab or something, right? You probably wouldn't shackle your "astral twin" to a cave wall in front of a TV (plugged in to a magic outlet, probably) and a life-sized cardboard cutout of the Flash.

But let's not ask the comic to work logically now. And let's not bother to ask what an "astral twin" is. My head is already hurting.

The lesson learned from this comic: superhero comics about scientists are no place to look for scientific reasoning.

Pile of Crazy Old Comics

So: I'm planning for the first few weeks of this semester's course on the graphic novel now. I'm changing the course slightly, asking the students to write a few short essays for me instead of only taking exams, because I want to get them thinking critically about their reading from the very beginning of the class.

The first of these essays is going to be a very brief paper contrasting A Contract with God (which is their first assigned reading) with a mainstream comic book published around the same time. Long-time Satisfactory Comics supporter Joe Stinson, the owner of Alternate Universe (the comics shop nearest to Yale campus), very graciously sold me a pile of old comics from the 1970s and early '80s that are, well, not all in very good shape. And some of them are not very good at all. But he sold me the whole stack for a dollar, and I think they're going to work very well for this assignment.

Before I hand them over to my students, though, I'm going to skim them and scan a few pages, to offer a few points of my own about the differences between comics then and now.

For example, here's World's Finest #237, which is dated April 1976. (I was buying and reading comics by this point, but I don't remember this comic or its selection of ads.)

Notice the speech balloon on the cover. You don't see that very much any more. And notice the recurring theme of Superman threatening his friends or ranking their safety below that of a stranger. Also notice the red bulbs at the end of the tails of those Giant Metal-Eating Space Locusts. They become important later...



...When Superman is explaining why his father Jor-El sent this weird Giant Space Bird-Mantis-Dragon to Earth (without a rocket, just in a big irregular hunk of metal), and why Superman's powers aren't any good against the locusts.

The lesson we may learn from this issue: weird stuff used to happen in superhero comics, and it happened for some weird reasons. By the way: the author of this particular opus? Bob Haney.

Satisfactory Comics #3 (Dec. 2002)

The third issue of Satisfactory Comics is a goony maritime adventure starring a harpooneer, his boatswain, a cook, a candy salesman, a kraken, a magpie, and a few cannibal mermaids. It's probably the silliest issue of Satisfactory Comics, and in some ways also one of the simplest.

Of course, you might not think it's so simple when you hear how we made it. The project started with sixteen people (including Mike and me) working together on the story that would become the script, using Nick Beauchamp's amazing Democratic Writing website. Every chunk of the story could be voted up, voted down, revised, or expanded, and everyone got an equal voice in the final draft. (You can view the final draft, and link through to the project page with all its voting, from here.)

From there, of course, Mike and I tried to tell the story in twenty-fours hours, in the time-honored tradition of the 24-hour Comic invented by Scott McCloud. (This is the first of our three attempts at a 24-hour comic so far, and it's also the shortest: we drew sixteen pages in sixteen hours, then called it finished. I think this had something to do with the premiere of The Two Towers that evening. Well, and also the story was finished by the end of page 16.)

Most of that process is pretty much invisible if you're reading the comic, which is by turns silly, stupid, violent, and punny. Here's a glimpse of the story's climax, which occurs after Herman the Harpooneer and his companions are swallowed by the Kraken:

(You can click on that image to see it a little larger.)

This issue also marked the first appearance of the cannibal mermaids, who quickly took on a life of their own, and have made cameos in a number of our subsequent comics. Here's one, buying out Autolycus's Bratwurst & Pilsner stand, leaving nothing for the two of us (in our own cameo appearance):

As I said, it's a pretty silly comic. But it can be yours, if you want it, for the low price of $1.75 (postpaid) by Paypal (using the button below), $1.50 by check, or $1.00 if you pry it from my paws in person. Here's the button:

Contributors to the story for this issue included Laura Bajor, Rachel Trousdale, Tara Prescott, Catherine Rockwood, Zina Deretsky, Jacob Edwards, Shawn Cheng, Erica Merchant, John Leslie, Becca Boggs, Shawna Ryan, Liza Graham, Sarah Cates, and Scott Koblish. Don't blame them for the fact that we have never used this collaborative method again -- writing the story with them this way was really a blast!