When my “Tony’s Tips!” columns began appearing in the weekly Comics Buyer’s Guide, I was prohibited from reviewing actual comic books. That was co-editor Don Thompson’s domain. I had to get creative to find non-comics but comics-related items to review each week. I’m not sure when the prohibition was lifted, but, at some point, with Don’s blessing, I was allowed to review comics books. I think Don was a much better reviewer, one of the best in comics history. By way of a sports analogy, which I know Don would have hated, if you are Babe Ruth, you don’t mind if someone else gets their at bats.
Don and co-editor Maggie gave me incredible leeway in what I wrote about it. I did several columns berating lawyers. I did a six-part series detailing the Vicious Coalition - my name for my home town’s branch of the Christian Coalition - churlish and dishonest attempts to take down our award-winning library because it didn’t conform to its narrow view of what was appropriate for our city. We beat the VC so bad at the polls that the branch crumbled.
My favorite memory of that time was hearing that the VC picketers would leave their unsupervised children in the library while they marched around the library. Faux-Christian hypocrites.
Just as a side note, the VC have recently re-branded themselves as the equally phony Concerned Citizens of Medina County. Bigots one and all, they’ve been working to overturn a Medina City LGBTQ+ non-discrimination ordinance. They ran one-issue candidates against the council members who voted for the ordinance and lost every one of those races, mostly by large numbers. They’ve been trying to get a referendum on the ballot in the hope fellow bigots would overturn that ordinance. Because of numerous problems with the signatures on the VC petitions, the Ohio Supreme Court just shot them down again. I’m sure they’ll be back - haters gotta hate - but it won’t be in this election cycle.
When Comics Buyer’s Guide switched to its monthly magazine format, I adopted a regular format for “Tony’s Tips!” Each column started with a little something like the little something you’ve just read, followed by three reviews. When CBG was cancelled and the columns moved to online publication for various websites, I kept the format intact. I think it works for this feature.
Moving on to this week’s reviews...
My top pick of the week is Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love: Unpublished ‘70s Stories by the King of Comics [TwoMorrows; $43.95]. This was a book I knew I needed to have on my bookshelf. As fascinated as I was by Kirby’s work on Jimmy Olsen, Mister Miracle, Forever People, The New Gods and his other DC Comics creations, I was bowled over by his efforts to create magazines that would appeal to the general reading public.
In the Days of the Mob and Spirit World may have been modern takes on time-tested comics genres, but, even in formats that didn’t live up to Kirby’s expectations, they were amazing and riveting. Die-hard comics buff than I am, I still think there’s a place for new crime comics in today’s marketplace. Just look at the plethora of “true crime” shows on TV and streaming services. And, though Kirby never got to see his new romance comics in print, there are entire TV networks devoted to romance stories.
The big attraction for me in this book was the material from True-Life Divorce and Soul Love. Kirby had one of the happiest marriages in the history of comics. He wasn’t Black. But, as great creators have always done, he found a way to do characters and stories that could have resonated with the readers of the ‘70s. Yeah, maybe his actual scripting was a bit quirky, but what I love about it is that is unmistakably his voice. I prefer that kind of individuality to the cookie-cutter writing of too many 2020 comics.
TwoMorrows presents this material beautifully and includes ground-breaking history on their creation. For the Soul Love stories, they even cobbled together a facsimile of what that magazine might have looked like. Wonderful presentation.
I don’t mean to give the two unpublished Dingbats of Danger Street stories the short end of this review. The Dingbats were a grittier take on the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Newsboy Legion comics of the ‘40s. I enjoyed these tales and was mightily impressed by all the TwoMorrows crew had to do to collect all the pages and bring them to their readers. But it was the romance material that brought me the greatest delight.
Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love is a must-read book for so many different groups of comics readers and scholars. I recommend it to everyone who loves comics and the masterful work of Kirby.
ISBN 978-1-60549-091-5
As my interest in interminable event-driven super-hero comic books continues to wane, I’m having a great time exploring other kinds of comics from all around the world. I’ve been taken by British comics since before I was hired to work on The Mighty World of Marvel in 1972. I have longed to write for a British-style weekly magazine, though that seems unlikely given that the British market seems to have been reduced to just 2000 AD and The Beano. Nevertheless, I’m loving the reprints of material from classic British weeklies that are being published by Rebellion.
Misty Vol. 3 [$16.99] features “Wolf Girl” by artist Eduardo Feito and an unknown writer. This 64-page serial explores the young adult life of Lona. As a baby, when your parents died, Lona was literally raised by wolves. When discovered a few years later, she was taken from the wolves and adopted. Several years later, the call of the wild and the things she learned from the pack threaten to destroy her otherwise normal life. It’s a gripping tale in which Lona tries to leave human life behind, only to face challenges with the wolf pack she has joined and now leads. The ending is bittersweet, but satisfactory. I could see a movie from this one.
Backing up “Wolf Girl” are four short comics stories with similar themes. The writers are unknown, but two of the tales are drawn by Jordi Badia Romero. There are also some classic Misty covers and a prose piece on werewolves.
Misty won’t be to every comics reader’s taste, but I’ll keep buying the books as long as Rebellion keeps publishing them. And if they ever decide to revive this weekly, I know a Yank writer who would love to contribute to the magazine.
ISBN 978-1-78108-651-3
My final recommendation today is the most educational and hilarious Constitution Illustrated by R. Sikoryak [Drawn and Quarterly; $14.95]. It’s educational because it presents the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the other amendments to the Constitution in an easy-to-read format, complete with additional notes, chronology and a selected bibliography.
It’s hilarious because Sikoryak, a master of comics pastiche, has illustrated every clause and amendment with send-ups of legendary cartoonists ranging from Alex Raymond to Gene Luen Yang with dozens of other favorites in between. John Romita. Marie Severin. Chester Gould. Carl Barks. Amanda Conner. Jack Kirby. Steve Ditko. Marge. Just to name a handful. I had a blast trying to identify all of the artists. I got most of them, but, thankfully, the digest-book also has a “Comics Index” that names the artists and the works spoofed.
I recommend Constitution Illustrated to one and all. Let’s brush up on the law of our land before Trump and his totalitarian henchmen start ripping pages out of it.
ISBN 978-1-77046-396-7
That’s all for today’s bloggy. I’ll be back soon with the list of things that made me happy in August.
© 2020 Tony Isabella
Don and co-editor Maggie gave me incredible leeway in what I wrote about it. I did several columns berating lawyers. I did a six-part series detailing the Vicious Coalition - my name for my home town’s branch of the Christian Coalition - churlish and dishonest attempts to take down our award-winning library because it didn’t conform to its narrow view of what was appropriate for our city. We beat the VC so bad at the polls that the branch crumbled.
My favorite memory of that time was hearing that the VC picketers would leave their unsupervised children in the library while they marched around the library. Faux-Christian hypocrites.
Just as a side note, the VC have recently re-branded themselves as the equally phony Concerned Citizens of Medina County. Bigots one and all, they’ve been working to overturn a Medina City LGBTQ+ non-discrimination ordinance. They ran one-issue candidates against the council members who voted for the ordinance and lost every one of those races, mostly by large numbers. They’ve been trying to get a referendum on the ballot in the hope fellow bigots would overturn that ordinance. Because of numerous problems with the signatures on the VC petitions, the Ohio Supreme Court just shot them down again. I’m sure they’ll be back - haters gotta hate - but it won’t be in this election cycle.
When Comics Buyer’s Guide switched to its monthly magazine format, I adopted a regular format for “Tony’s Tips!” Each column started with a little something like the little something you’ve just read, followed by three reviews. When CBG was cancelled and the columns moved to online publication for various websites, I kept the format intact. I think it works for this feature.
Moving on to this week’s reviews...
My top pick of the week is Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love: Unpublished ‘70s Stories by the King of Comics [TwoMorrows; $43.95]. This was a book I knew I needed to have on my bookshelf. As fascinated as I was by Kirby’s work on Jimmy Olsen, Mister Miracle, Forever People, The New Gods and his other DC Comics creations, I was bowled over by his efforts to create magazines that would appeal to the general reading public.
In the Days of the Mob and Spirit World may have been modern takes on time-tested comics genres, but, even in formats that didn’t live up to Kirby’s expectations, they were amazing and riveting. Die-hard comics buff than I am, I still think there’s a place for new crime comics in today’s marketplace. Just look at the plethora of “true crime” shows on TV and streaming services. And, though Kirby never got to see his new romance comics in print, there are entire TV networks devoted to romance stories.
The big attraction for me in this book was the material from True-Life Divorce and Soul Love. Kirby had one of the happiest marriages in the history of comics. He wasn’t Black. But, as great creators have always done, he found a way to do characters and stories that could have resonated with the readers of the ‘70s. Yeah, maybe his actual scripting was a bit quirky, but what I love about it is that is unmistakably his voice. I prefer that kind of individuality to the cookie-cutter writing of too many 2020 comics.
TwoMorrows presents this material beautifully and includes ground-breaking history on their creation. For the Soul Love stories, they even cobbled together a facsimile of what that magazine might have looked like. Wonderful presentation.
I don’t mean to give the two unpublished Dingbats of Danger Street stories the short end of this review. The Dingbats were a grittier take on the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Newsboy Legion comics of the ‘40s. I enjoyed these tales and was mightily impressed by all the TwoMorrows crew had to do to collect all the pages and bring them to their readers. But it was the romance material that brought me the greatest delight.
Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love is a must-read book for so many different groups of comics readers and scholars. I recommend it to everyone who loves comics and the masterful work of Kirby.
ISBN 978-1-60549-091-5
As my interest in interminable event-driven super-hero comic books continues to wane, I’m having a great time exploring other kinds of comics from all around the world. I’ve been taken by British comics since before I was hired to work on The Mighty World of Marvel in 1972. I have longed to write for a British-style weekly magazine, though that seems unlikely given that the British market seems to have been reduced to just 2000 AD and The Beano. Nevertheless, I’m loving the reprints of material from classic British weeklies that are being published by Rebellion.
Misty Vol. 3 [$16.99] features “Wolf Girl” by artist Eduardo Feito and an unknown writer. This 64-page serial explores the young adult life of Lona. As a baby, when your parents died, Lona was literally raised by wolves. When discovered a few years later, she was taken from the wolves and adopted. Several years later, the call of the wild and the things she learned from the pack threaten to destroy her otherwise normal life. It’s a gripping tale in which Lona tries to leave human life behind, only to face challenges with the wolf pack she has joined and now leads. The ending is bittersweet, but satisfactory. I could see a movie from this one.
Backing up “Wolf Girl” are four short comics stories with similar themes. The writers are unknown, but two of the tales are drawn by Jordi Badia Romero. There are also some classic Misty covers and a prose piece on werewolves.
Misty won’t be to every comics reader’s taste, but I’ll keep buying the books as long as Rebellion keeps publishing them. And if they ever decide to revive this weekly, I know a Yank writer who would love to contribute to the magazine.
ISBN 978-1-78108-651-3
My final recommendation today is the most educational and hilarious Constitution Illustrated by R. Sikoryak [Drawn and Quarterly; $14.95]. It’s educational because it presents the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the other amendments to the Constitution in an easy-to-read format, complete with additional notes, chronology and a selected bibliography.
It’s hilarious because Sikoryak, a master of comics pastiche, has illustrated every clause and amendment with send-ups of legendary cartoonists ranging from Alex Raymond to Gene Luen Yang with dozens of other favorites in between. John Romita. Marie Severin. Chester Gould. Carl Barks. Amanda Conner. Jack Kirby. Steve Ditko. Marge. Just to name a handful. I had a blast trying to identify all of the artists. I got most of them, but, thankfully, the digest-book also has a “Comics Index” that names the artists and the works spoofed.
I recommend Constitution Illustrated to one and all. Let’s brush up on the law of our land before Trump and his totalitarian henchmen start ripping pages out of it.
ISBN 978-1-77046-396-7
That’s all for today’s bloggy. I’ll be back soon with the list of things that made me happy in August.
© 2020 Tony Isabella
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