The much anticipated home video release of the 1966-1968 Batman teleivsion series has been confirmed by Warner Home Video. A complete box set of the trend-setting 104 episodes will be out later this year in a date to be determined.
The announcement was made on the Conan O’Brien Show complete with a breaking news tweet.
Last year, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox reached an agreement to allow licensing from the ABC series to begin which spawned action figures, Barbie & Ken Collector’s Set, the well-received comic book Batman ’66 from DC Entertainment, and related merchandise. There were high hopes that the DVD announcement would be made at last summer’s Comic-Con International but it was not to be.
No details have yet been released regarding how this arrangement was completed but it has been long understood that there were legal entanglements between DC, 20th Century Fox, and Greenway Productions, the latter being William Dozier’s production company which actually created the pop series.
Dozier had been asked to turn some comic hero into a television series and after attempts with others failed, they settled on Batman, whose sales had been slipping for years as the static art from co-creator Bob Kane and his ghosts failed to keep up with the maturing look of comic books and the writing had gone down hill, mired in science fiction concepts unbefitting the world’s greatest detective.
He decided to play it as straight as he could and with Lorenzo Semple, Jr. at the typewriter, they came up with an approach that worked. The story would be split in two, with the first thirty minute part concluding on a cliffhanger with Dozier’s own narration promising results if fans merely tuned in “same bat time, same bat channel”. One show split up ion this manner had not been done before but ABC, then a distant third in the ratings, was desperate to try anything.
The series arrived on January 12, 1966 after being in development for less than a year. However, it shattered the ratings charts and became an instant smash success, spawning countless forms of apparel, books, records, and other collectibles. It turned journeyman actor Adam West into a superstar and newcomer Burt Ward into a youthful sex symbol. All manner of actors, actresses, and celebrities clamored to play villains on the series or make cameo appearances during the famed climbs up buildings.
The series arrived at a time when pop culture was enjoying a colorful renaissance, inspired in part by an art movement fronted by Andy Warhol and a renewed interest in super-hero comics. It used odd camera angles, a bright colorful palette (at a time when color TV was still considered something new), and had jazzy music. Kids adored the action sequences while adults cackled at the corny jokes and seemingly ludicrous plots. There was something for everyone.
The show quickly spawned a big budget film which arrived in August 1966, between the first and second seasons, allowing the producers to add a Bat boat and Batcopter to the growing arsenal of bat-themed weapons. It also pitted the Dynamic Duo against a quarter of foes, something heretofore untried on the series.
By that fall, though, the bloom had quickly faded and ABC was scrambling to find ways to sustain interest in the series. They asked DC for a Batgirl and rather than resurrect Kathy Kane, editor Julie Schwartz and art director Carmine Infantino created Barbara Gordon, who was introduced in Detective Comics #369 that November. Yvonne Craig, a dancer turned actress, nabbed the role and became an object of lust for young boys everywhere when she arrived the following September.
Even though ABC reduced the series to a single night, the ratings continued to plummet and the show was canceled, airing its final episode in March 1968. Soon after it went into syndication and it has been playing on some channel, somewhere ever since.
I won’t lie to you… I never thought this day was coming.
I never thought Marvel Comics would be able to untangle the legal Gordian knot that was the history of the character originally known as Marvelman when they announced they’d secured the rights from creator Mick Anglo nearly five years ago. With all the people involved, all the hands through which the rights had passed, actually and allegedly, it seemed insurmountable. But Marvel took its time, with the patience of a father untangling the box of Christmas lights, and now here we are, a couple weeks after Christmas, but given a wonderful and shiny present.
Crime has a new enemy, and justice has a brand new face. Fans of visionary director Sam Raimi (The Spider-Man trilogy) know well the story of Dr. Peyton Westlake and his tragic transformation into the action hero known as Darkman. Based on Raimi’s short story “The Darkman,” the popular crime-fighting master of disguises comes to life in the 1990 film adaptation DARKMAN, starring three-time Golden Globe® nominee Liam Neeson (Taken) and Oscar® winner Frances McDormand (Fargo). Directed by Sam Raimi, this explosive, action-packed thriller also stars Colin Friels (Dark City), Larry Drake (Dr. Giggles), Dan Hicks (Evil Dead 2) and Nicholas Worth (Swamp Thing) and features soundtrack by award-wining composer Danny Elfman. On February 18, 2014, SCREAM FACTORY™ will release DARKMAN COLLECTOR’S EDITION Blu-ray, featuring all-new interviews with Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake, Danny Hicks, make-up effects artist Tony Gardner, production designer Randy Ser, art director Philip Dagort and much more! This definitive collector’s edition also contains a collectible cover featuring newly rendered retro-style artwork, a reversible cover wrap with original theatrical key art. A must-have for loyal fans, movie collectors and pop culture and comic book enthusiasts to complete their entertainment library, DARKMAN COLLECTOR’S EDITION Blu-ray is priced to own at $29.93 SRP.
Avid fans and collectors please take note: those who order DARKMAN COLLECTOR’S EDITION Blu-ray from ScreamfactoryDVD.com will receive the exclusive 18”x24” poster featuring the newly commissioned artwork! These are only available while supplies last.
In the darkest hour, there’s a light that shines on every human being, but one….
Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand star in this explosive, action-packed thriller from director Sam Raimi. Dr. Peyton Westlake (Neeson) is on the verge of realizing a major breakthrough in synthetic skin when his laboratory is destroyed by gangsters. Having been burned beyond recognition and forever altered by an experimental medical procedure, Westlake becomes known as Darkman, assuming alternate identities in his quest for revenge and a new life with a former love (McDormand).
UNIVERSAL PICTURES presents LIAM NEESON FRANCES McDORMAND “DARKMAN” COLIN FRIELS LARRY DRAKE
Music by DANNY ELFMAN Make-up Effects by TONY GARDNER and LARRY HAMLIN Production Designer RANDY SER
Director of Photography BILL POPE Line Producer DARYL KASS Story by SAM RAIMI
Screenplay by CHUCK PFARRER and SAM RAIMI & IVAN RAIMI and DAN GOLDIN & JOSHUA GOLDIN
Produced by ROBERT TAPERT Directed by SAM RAIMI
Special Features:
Interviews with Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand
MY NAME IS DURANT – interview with Larry Drake
THE FACE OF REVENGE – interview with Makeup Designer Tony Gardner
HENCHMAN TALES – Interviews with actors Danny Hicks and Dan Bell
DARK DESIGN – interview with Production Designer Randy Ser and Art Director Philip Dagort
Audio Commentary with director of photography Bill Pope
Vintage “Making of” and interview Featurettes featuring interviews with Sam Raimi, Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand and more…
Vintage full-length interviews, not used in the featurettes, with Sam Raimi, Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand
Theatrical Trailer
TV Spots
Still Galleries – Posters & production stills, Behind the Scenes, Make-up Effects and Storyboards
1080p High-Definition Widescreen (2.35:1)/ DTS Master Audio 5.1/1990/Color/96 minutes/Subtitles: English/Special Features are Not Rated.
Milestones, the new exhibit at Geppi’s entertainment museum in Baltimore premiered last Friday night with a gala that presented the collection in grand style.
The exhibition, assembled and curated by Michael Davis and Tatiana El-Khouri, showcases both the work of not only black creators, but black characters in comics, Such as Storm and Black Panther, rightly described as one of the most iconic black characters in the medium. Don Mcgregor, classic writer of Black Panther (and co-creator with Paul Gulacy of Sabre) was a guest of honor for the evening, along with a broad selection of comics creators.
It features art from both major publishers and independents, well-known and cult characters, and a wide array of black writers and artists. Artwork includes Ken Lashley’s covers for Justice League of America, Shawn Martinbrough’s work on Thief of Thieves, and the Black Dynamite mini series Slave Island. Kyle Baker’s contributes art from his graphic novel King David, and Denys Cowan‘s careers is prominently featured, including some of Cowan’s initial designs for John Henry Irons, AKA Steel.
The work of the eponymous Milestone Media is included, including a tribute to the late Dwayne McDuffie; a portrait by Davis and an essay by Milestone President Derek Dingle.
A video presentation features interviews with Orlando Jones, Wayne Brady, Reginald Hudlin and more, all discussing the historic and modern contribution of black creators to pop culture.
“What can brown do for you?” Was the once massively successful slogan for United Parcel Service (UPS) that’s been replaced by “We Love Logistics.”
If you ask me both slogans suck.
“Who can Brown screw for you?” Now that’s truth in advertising.
Instead of writing about the fantastic opening of Milestones: African Americans In Comics Pop Culture & Beyond last Friday the 13th at The Geppi Entertainment Museum I’m writing about a devastating lost to superstar artist and my best friend Denys Cowan.
Thursday the 5th of December 2013 Denys Cowan and I sent, via UPS, our artwork for the Milestones show. The work was to be shipped for overnight delivery. That was the plan but Brown screwed that up. When called the UPS location where the work was sent from gave the wrong cut off time for east coast overnight shipments. So the art was scheduled to arrive on Saturday instead of Friday the following day.
There was an omen if ever there was. It was two packages but one shipment. My assistant James was smart enough to request two different airbills to make any tracking easier.
Bad stormy weather on the east coast was headline news much of the week so the art was wrapped in plastic, sealed with tape, then placed in size related cardboard boxes and that was sealed with at least 3 layers of packing tape. Professional artists KNOW how to ship their art.
Denys sent 28 original pieces of not just art but history. Included were irreplaceable work from original Milestone concept drawings to Batman #400 pages other works from both before and after those career highlights.
My work (some of it) arrived at the Geppi on Saturday. Denys’ did not. On Monday UPS says it tried to deliver Denys’s package but the Geppi was closed because of a snowstorm.
On Tuesday Denys’ box arrived. In that box was some damn fine art. Problem was 27 pieces of Denys’ 28 pieces of art were NOT in the box.
Gone. Perhaps, forever.
For some reason that has yet to be explained to me Denys’ package sat for two days in the UPS Kentucky hub. BOTH boxes left and arrived at the UPS location in Kentucky at the same time. My box was scanned and arrived in Baltimore on Saturday.
I’ve placed numerous calls to UPS and have made it crystal clear what was missing was the art of the man whose idea it was and from which the Milestones show sprung. I made it extremely clear that if this was a show on cubism they had ‘lost’ Picasso’s art.
The woman I said that to didn’t get it. “The Jackson Five exhibit without Michael.”
THAT she got.
Didn’t matter.
I spoke to 11 different people during the week. All were extremely nice; all were as useless as a condom worn on an ear.
What was made clear to me was the repeated UPS reason why 27 of 28 works of art were not in the box. The package was somehow sealed wrong and the art, ‘fell out.’
Really?
So, the packing tape (used by professional MOVERS among others to keep boxes SEALED-hence the name PACKING TAPE) somehow came loose, every layer simply came apart the plastic sealed art then fell out, the plastic opened 27 pieces of art with it but one somehow crawled back in the box and was able to make the trip from Kentucky to Baltimore.
BULLSHIT.
When arriving at the Geppi the box was sealed (badly) when opened both the art and the plastic around it was gone, say ONE.
HOW can that be? How can 28 pieces of art wrapped in plastic become ONE piece of art?
The art was either stolen or ‘fell out.’ I’m sure it was stolen, someone opened the box, opened the plastic took the art except for one, resealed the box, badly and sent it along it’s merry way.
I can’t say that for a fact because I was not there when it went missing. I also can’t say for fact slavery is bad as I’ve never been a slave but I’m pretty sure it is.
As of today, Monday Dec. 16th nothing has been done to find the artwork of Denys Cowan.
The last thing I was told was NOTHING could be done to expedite the ‘process’ because UPS treats every single ‘lost’ package the same they are all of equal importance.
UPS is Johnny on the spot when someone shoves a TV camera in their faces.
Every package is the same my ass. You mean to tell me UPS would not move any faster if the Academy Awards were to be broadcasted on a Friday and the Oscars statures ‘fell out’ of a box Tuesday?
BULLSHIT.
The artwork of Denys Cowan deserves a lot more respect than a ‘tablet’ and to that end UPS is about to get a lot more than a TV camera shoved in their faces.
If by some chance you are Ms. Darvin from Beach Channel High, my name is Michael Davis and I was at Beach Channel the VERY first year, I transferred to The High School Of Art & Design at the end of that year.
I was in your art class, I was black (still am) wickedly funny ( still am) and had a running rivalry with another student named Robert Stein.
Long story short-I’m now a huge success on so many levels ( and modest) and I’m reaching out to you because today I was being interviewed (told you I was a success) by CNN and they asked me who was the most influential teacher in my life.
I said Renee Darvin.
So, if you are that Renee Darvin please contact me so we can catch up. You told me once you would never forget me and I said the same to you…see I kept my promise.
If you are not THAT Renee Darvin…never mind.
Nah– I kid, I joke! if you are not THAT Renee Darvin I wish you well and please know that Columbia is one of the few schools (and I’m REAL picky) I respect.
Have a wonderful new year!
12/13/2009
Michael,
I am indeed THAT Renee Darvin, who remembers you fondly and very well for all your sass and talent. How bittersweet that your email came on the heels of the news that the city is closing Beach Channel as a failing school! It was my Camelot, in so many ways.
I am delighted that you are a success on many levels, and even more so that the success has not affected your modesty. I would love to catch up with you. Shall we plan coffee/lunch/dinner/telephone/hugs???? Its your call…..and thank you for remembering me in your personal art history. It warms an old teacher’s heart.
Let me know when the CNN interview airs …. I hope I havent missed it. I look forward to hearing from you.
Renee
12/5/2013
Ms. Darvin,
I’m sorry if this is reaching you late or if you are receiveing it twice. Hard copies were to go out some time ago it seems some did most did not. I’m not taking any chances, not with the single greatest teacher I’ve ever known.
I know it’s a trek if this is short notice but you played an VERY important part in my life and perhaps in a very real way if not for you my career and this show would simply not be.
“Michael, if you go to (the high school of) Art & Design, you may become a very different artist, just don’t forget what makes you, you.”
Ms. Darvin, I beg of you from the bottom of my heart if there is ANY way you can join me please, please do.
Lastly-yes I’m still an artist. I’ve attached two works of mine, hope you approve. Take care and I hope to see you soon…like in a week. ;-)
Attached to the last email, along with the two pieces of art, an invitation to the opening gala of Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture And Beyond. That’s the show I’m curating for the Geppi Entertainment Museum. The opening is this coming Friday the 13th.
The email bounced back, no big deal I thought. It’s been a while since she and I reconnected so I just figured she moved on from Columbia’s teachers college. I was too lazy to look up her personal email she had given me when we spoke so I figured I’d look her up on Facebook since it was already open.
No luck there, so I Google her name and with a quickness realized it was more than a while since we talked.
It was a lifetime.
Published in The New York Times on May 21, 2010
DARVIN–Renee, 80, passed away on May 19, 2010. Beloved wife of Jerry, loving mother of Debbie, Michael and Peter, mother-in-law to Mark, Linda, Marisol, grandmother to Michael, Liza, Emily, Theo, Henry, Mariana and Julia, sister of Marcia and Barbara, sister-in-law of Neil. Devoted over 60 years of her life to teaching Art and Art Education, most recently at Teachers College at Columbia University. Former Director of Art for the Department of Education of NYC.
Former Chair of Art Department at Beach Channel High School. Former Art Teacher at Tilden High School. President of the Student Art and League.
As her former students and colleagues would attest, teaching was a joy and a privilege she cherished. She leaves behind a family, large circle of friends and colleagues and students who will forever be graced by her legacy.
We will always love and miss you. Funeral services May 21st at 10 am Riverside Memorial Chapel.
I read the first few lines and had to stand up. Then I couldn’t stand and fell back into my chair, hit by a wave of sadness so intense I didn’t just start to cry I wailed like a wounded animal.
Even now, days later as I write this tears just won’t stop pouring from my eyes.
I’ve mentioned my love for the High School Of Art & Design on many occasions. Ms. Darvin was the only thing that gave me pause to apply and if admitted not go.
She taught me a lot more than art, she taught me to always be who I was.
My hood, Edgemere Projects, my address 434 Beach 58th, Far Rockaway, Queens was as far away from my school located at 100-00 Beach Channel Drive, Rockaway Park.
Another city. Another world. Another place.
The distance between the upper middle class white people of Rockaway Park and the poor Black people of Far Rockaway was great. The distance may have been great but travel time was around five minutes.
It’s a straight shot right up Beach 58th until around Beach 90th street. Magically Beach Street changes to Beach Channel Drive!
Just like that? Just like that. Why the change in the names?
No poor Black people could afford to live pass Beach 75th so I guess 90th street was a good a place any to let you clearly know you were no longer in Kansas, welcome to OZ.
Far Rockaway, far away where the poor black people were. Rockaway Park, a park where the rich white people were.
No idea if it’s still liked that but was when I lived there.
The grass was not just greener there it was ONLY there.
Grass in the projects was brown dirt with small pockets of dandelions that every kid in the hood thought was beautiful.
Beauty in Far Rockaway was atypical at best, yet in Rockaway Park they had splendor to spare. So much so our beautiful dandelion if seen was killed for fear it would overrun and destroy the entire garden.
Sound familiar?
Hopefully not.
But that’s exactly what I thought and felt as a black teenager now going to school in Rockaway Park. Then I met and fell in love with the one and only Renee Darvin.
I will always remember the day Ms. Darvin helped make me who I am. I was asked to open my locker by the school cop. No reason. None. He simply came into the class selected me (one of 6 Black kids not in the class but in the school) and had me open my locker. I did-he found nothing so I walked back into Ms. Darvin’s class pissed but said nothing-what was the point? I was a Black kid in a Rockaway Park High School.
He came in told me he was not done with me and for me to come with him.
I was done, screw him. I let loose with a relentless series of ‘your mother so ugly’ jokes and ended with a ‘fuck you I’m not going anywhere.’ I was freaking hilarious. The only person not laughing was the cop.
He came for me.
Didn’t get within a dozen feet of me. Ms. Darvin blocked his path and told I was NOT leaving with him. PERIOD.
From the front of the room, the cop’s path still blocked by her small frame she said in a loud PROUD voice so everyone especially the cop could hear; ” Michael if you go to (the high school of) Art & Design, you may become a very different artist, just don’t forget what makes you, you.”
I never did.
I’d just made a fool of and screamed at a policeman two words, which could STILL get you shot TODAY and because of the injustice of his actions my teacher who at the very moment became my life long friend validated who and what you see today of that I have NO doubt.
As a teacher there is no doubt I’ve done good work but compared to my 10th grade art teacher and lifelong friend Renee Darvin?
I’m not the Master Of The Universe, I’m not a badass teacher, I’m humbled and proud, very, very proud to have been and will forever be, a student of hers.
To Ms. Darvin’s Family my deepest LONG over due sympathies. I guess I thought Ms. Darvin would always be around because I’d always need her to be. She was everything I ever needed in a teacher a mentor and a friend.
Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture and beyond is as much Renee Darvin’s show as it is mine. She guided me, she saved me, she taught me and she helped make me. I dedicate the show to her and pity the fool who has a problem with that.
There you go, Ms. Darvin, there’s that ‘sass’ you loved so much. I hope (I KNOW) I still make you laugh.
When we reconnected you asked me to do something and I said ‘one day’ I would. It just felt funny to me (still does) regardless today is that day.
Never for as long as I live will I ever forget you and will always love you, Renee.
Once again, closing windows on my computer so you can open them up on yours.
The Literary Darknet of Independent Publishing: “The invisible, generally unregulated ocean of written content coming onto the market from the self-publishing community is, in some ways, a literary equivalent of the Darknet. This tremendous volume of content is far greater than any current social-based review system can handle, not only from a sexual content standpoint, but from a review and discovery standpoint.”
This past week I was honored to be invited back to my alma mater, the Herron School of Art, to give a lecture on my journey “From Starving Artist to Comic Book Publisher.” I spoke for about 45 minutes and afterwards took a few questions, and then sold a few dozen books. All in all, it was a humbling experience, and perhaps the turning of a page in my book of life.
Artistically speaking, my prowess has always been largely introspective. In high school, as much as everyone was self-absorbed, I excelled at it. I took the angst and strife of not getting a date and watching my best friends dry-hump in the hallways and made haute art out of it. Come to think of it, I could have really amped my game up if I’d done a piece commemorating the near-daily visual of dry-humping.
Alas, I chose self-portraiture as my joie de vivre. The idea being that my life – that of a typical, mid-western, suburban, Jewish in name and Bar Mitzvah boy only – could be regurgitated lovingly on board and canvas as such to eventually be called fine art.
Moving on to college, as much as I continued to have aspirations of becoming a comic-book maker, the story of my life continued to be what I presented. In a manner of speaking, my art started to resemble an auto-mockumentary, turning my existence into high entertainment based solely on the fact that I was in fact that awesome. People got a kick out of it, and so did I. It was only after I graduated when the trough of life-events grew emptier, that I finally had the wherewithal to look beyond my very Jewish nose.
Here of course is where you know the-rest-of-the-story. Unshaven Comics is commissioned to make a book by a Chicago publisher. We do it. We learn from it. We decide to break out on our own. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Here’s the thing. In the time between when I formed the company to the time I commemorated it in a lecture in front of a packed auditorium, I got married, bought a house, and became a father. If ever there was a time for me to return to fine art, this would be it, no? Now, I have the glorious content my life was devoid of only years prior! But alas, dear reader… it is not.
Perhaps it’s the wisdom of the years passed that has granted me the maturity enough to know that my legacy will be far more than a worthless collection of portraiture denoted a life lived as many others before and after will lead. Instead, I realize my legacy is very much within the pages and panels of Unshaven’s pure fiction. It’s in my offspring. It’ll be in the heads of those I’ve touched in my time on this mortal coil. John’s piece this past week dealt beautifully with the complex emotions of life and death. I’d be remiss to that much of the reason I chose the arts was to deal with my own near-paralyzing fear of death.
So, it was there in the semi-darkened Basile Auditorium of Eskenazi Hall that I reached a catharsis. So much of my life story has been celebrated – in jest and in reality – such that here, some 10 years after I hung up my woodcut tools for a dayjob, I have in fact lived a third of my life without rampant documentation. I think it was the philosopher Bueller who said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Truer words may never have been spoken, Ferris.
It’s good to know in the next chapter of my harrowing tale, the best is truly yet to come. With my brothers-from-other-mothers, I will be able to continue to tour our country and make new friends and fans. With my ComicMix cohorts, I will glean sage advice in both publishing, and barbeque. With my son and wife, I will find joy in parts of my life relived through new eyes. And with you kiddos? I’ll continue to pretend I’m that damned awesome.
So there they were on the small screen, Oliver Queen and his main man, knocking back vodka shots and there I was, riding the couch and being maybe a bit befuddled, remembering that an MD once told me that vodka was the alcoholic’s libation of choice because it didn’t have much telltale odor. (As you lurch into the china cabinet, mom thinks you’re having a little inner ear problem.)
Ollie Queen and John Diggle were drinking vodka.
Of course, plenty of people devoid of drinking problems know the taste of vodka and scotch and brandy and absinthe and beer and the rest of the barman’s wares, and booze has been a part of civilized culture for millennia, even part of religious ritual. But I have a question for which I don’t have an answer and its this: Should heroes drink?
Consider: heroes are, among other things, role models and they appear as such in the fiction of everyone from Ayn Rand to Aesop. We seek other humans to admire – ask Evolution why – and that search leads us to heroes, both fictional and the real life versions: Athletes and musicians and actors who perhaps acquire a bit of the mystique of the stalwarts they portray. (And so life imitates art imitating and amplifying life and does anyone have a headache yet?) Our ad men know this, which is why they write checks to celebrities willing to smile at the camera and just love the living heck out of a product that you, yourself, can buy and thus, in some tiny way, emulate the objects of your admiration. It’s an old ploy and it must work because they keep doing it. Should they do it to promote alcohol? Or, more insidiously, should boozing be promoted outside advertisements by showing the good guys doing it?
If there’s a line to be drawn, I don’t know where it is.
One of the problems with alcohol is that when you take that first sip, you don’t know if every subsequent sip will be taken only on holidays in extreme moderation, or if someday you’ll find yourself puking in a gutter.
We know, from our nation’s horribly failed experiment with prohibition, and our more recent disastrous “war on drugs” that banning the citizenry’s recreational intoxicants is not wise. And there’s the matter of that pesky First Amendment, which, in effect, forbids censorship of anything spoken or written and surely that includes the words and actions of televised performers.
But to persuade some bonny young person that the gateway to sophistication, wit, and devastating attractiveness is found inside a bottle is to tell a seductive and potentially ruinous lie. Some will content themselves with that taste of holiday wine, sure, but others will find their way to the gutter.
In the end, I guess, creators must decide for themselves where the danger begins – with booze and tobacco and drugs and, hell, even with certain combat techniques. Sometimes, storytelling can be a bitch.
The Art of Archie, edited by Victor Gorelick and Craig Yoe, Archie Books, hardcover, 158 pages (oversize), $29.99 retail
O.K. I won’t mince words. This is one hell of a book.
Over the past 72 years there have been perhaps a dozen definitive Archie universe artists: Archie’s co-creator Bob Montana and teammates Bob Bolling, Dan DeCarlo, Joe Edwards, Al Fagaly, Harry Lucey, Dan Parent, Fernando Ruiz, Harry Sahle, Samm Schwartz, Bill Vigoda and Bob White. Unless you’re a dedicated fan it’s easy to take their work for granted, but each has his own distinctive style, a style that usually relates to the time of his tenure. If The Art of Archie: The Covers does nothing else, it teaches us each artist’s individual style and that goes a long, long way towards giving credit where credit is due. Which it is.
But the name of this book is The Art of Archie: The Covers, and as such these artists were challenged with a task that American super-hero artists really don’t have. Sure, sometimes they sell a story that’s inside the comic – although most “golden age” comics sported generic poster covers, a trait since imitated in the direct sales era of multiple, variant, gimmick covers. The Archie guys had to sell the comic by attracting the attention of the newsstand browser. Of course poster covers rapidly wear thin, and so the Archie artists usually had to sell a strong gag as well. The situation almost always had to be funny, often without dialog, and for the initial decades their space was limited by the largest banner logos in the history of the medium.
Of course, if they didn’t do a brilliant job of this the Archie line would have gone the way of the publisher’s super-hero line. You can open up to any two-page spread in The Art of Archie: The Covers (designed by co-editor Craig Yoe) and see wonderful examples of how the artists met this task. To any fan of the form, it is breathtaking.
There’s copy here, good stuff explaining who’s who and what’s what. But the overwhelming majority of space is devoted to the covers: full-page reproductions, quarter-page reproductions, and uncolored shots from original art. Whereas the entire panoply of Archie titles is not covered (it’s amazing how many individual Archie universe titles there have been; possibly even more than Richie Rich), many of the more obscure titles are represented. I would have had a serious attitude problem if they hadn’t included Archie’s Mechanics.
Reproductions run from the feature’s initial appearance in 1941 all the way though this year, and include a number of variant and hard-to-find covers. This is truly one comic book book where you can simply stare at the pictures. Any comics fan worthy of the label should have this one on his or her shelf.
Last year, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox reached an agreement to allow licensing from the ABC series to begin which spawned action figures, Barbie & Ken Collector’s Set, the well-received comic book Batman ’66 from DC Entertainment, and related merchandise. There were high hopes that the DVD announcement would be made at last summer’s Comic-Con International but it was not to be.
