DC in the 80s: Sequart

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Introducing new contributor Michael Campochiaro

We're very proud to add Michael Campochiaro to our ranks of regular contributors. Michael is a seasoned veteran of retro pop culture journalism and has written for Sequart, The After Movie Dinner, Spectrum Culture and his own blog, Words Seem Out of Place. Typically we don't expect new contributors to provide an essay on why 80s comics were so influential to them, but Michael was so enthusiastic about it that we just couldn't refuse. Alright, that's all you really need in the way of introductions. On to Michael...

As often happens with obsessions formed at a young age, a friend's older sibling played a key role in kick-starting one of mine. By the early to mid 1980s I'd been reading comic books for several years already. I was just a wee lad though, content to read Super Friends, Batman, Amazing Spider-Man, and Justice League of America, mostly, plus whatever other books looked cool on the spinner rack at the local convenience store. Then, somewhere around '83 or '84, my friend's older brother introduced us to his prodigious comics collection. Now, he was a teenager and had his own bedroom/bachelor pad in their finished basement. It was filled with cool comics, movie posters, and art he'd drawn of his favorite characters. For the two of us, who were around eight or nine years old, this made him a God.

We spent countless hours on the floor in his room, completely engrossed in comics. This was also during the real independent comics boom of the early '80s, so he had plenty of issues of American Flagg!, Nexus, Whisper, and Badger, from upstart companies like First Comics and Capital Comics. We were like kids in a candy store, only our candy store stocked comics.

One day my friend's brother mentioned the local comics shop. When I expressed no knowledge of its existence, he implored me to check the place out. When I got home I immediately asked my parents to take me there. They knew comics had inspired my burgeoning interest in art and drawing, so they were fine with encouraging this growing obsession. Off I went, usually with my father, every month (sometimes twice monthly) for the rest of my childhood and on into my teen years. My father was the most patient man I've ever know This patience was on full display every time he'd wait quietly for me at the LCS, while I perused the new issues and dug through the back issue bins, lost in the four-color wonder of it all. Even the shop itself was like heaven to me: it was small and cramped and packed so tight you could barely squeeze around people in it. It was complete sensory overload for a kid like me: posters, toys, memorabilia, and of course thousands of comics.

Nexus meets the Badger: Nexus #7 (1985, First Comics)

I came of age at the exact right time to be a comic book nerd. Shortly after discovering my LCS, a succession of groundbreaking comics were released. One of these was Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in early 1986. I was ten. It astounds me now to think of a ten year old not only reading, but absorbing, the brutality and despair in those pages. Yet I did, and it changed me, made me see not only comics but literature and art differently. Batman had been my favorite character up to that point and would remain so for several more years. I'd never read a Batman story like this before, though. Afterwards, it felt like I'd graduated to the next level. The next level of what, I had no idea, but some small step in the transition through adolescence was occurring.

Another book that changed my life during those years was the graphic novelization of "The Dark Phoenix Saga", collecting Uncanny X- Men #129–137. This released in '84 and I can still see it on an endcap at our favorite local bookstore. The stunningly painted Bill Sienkiewicz cover art, commissioned specifically for the collected edition, beckoning to me: "Buy me!" My mother saw how much I was drooling and said, "Let's get it." These stories had originally been printed a few years earlier, but here, in one gorgeous package was the meat of the saga. A perfect volume for a young reader like me to experience the eye-opening epic grandeur of Claremont and Byrne's Uncanny X-Men. At nine, I was hooked again, this time on the X-Men. To this day, "The Dark Phoenix Saga" remains my single favorite comic book story. I've written about it at my blog before, if you're interested.

This being a blog about DC Comics, I'll refrain from pining any further for the great Marvel Comics of my youth. I'll say this though, during those heady days of collecting as a kid, my go-to titles were always a mixture of DC and Marvel: the various Batman titles, Justice League, Green Lantern, Captain America, Uncanny X-Men, the assorted Spider-Man books, and on and on. I quickly learned that comics nerds liked to choose sides in the eternal DC vs Marvel debate, but I usually played Switzerland because I absolutely adored so many comics from both publishers. Now it's clear to me that I was attracted to DC because their heroes were so iconic, so out of this world and inspiring. They were like living myths, or at least as much as four-color characters on a page can be considered living. Marvel, on the other hand, both satisfied and encouraged my taste for outsider, marginalized characters. They were loaded with characters who reflected my own adolescent awkwardness. They were extremely relatable.

Comic books were the fuel I needed as a kid to explore my own imagination, to encourage my own artistic talents, to take things farther than I'd known was possible before. I was awestruck at the gloriously expressive art in those pages, hooked on characters that I quickly grew to see as inspirational totems (I'm looking in your direction, Rogue and Green Arrow), and constantly amazed at the fantastic adventures that comics took me on. If my comic book origin story sounds familiar, that's probably because it closely mirrors your own.

-Michael Campochiaro

We're looking forward to more Michael Campochiaro submissions in the future. In the meantime, here are some previous articles he's written on various comic book properties:

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Review of Sequart's The British Invasion: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and the Invention of the Modern Comic Book Writer by Greg Carpenter

I recently had the privilege of reading an advance copy of Sequart's The British Invasion: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and the Invention of the Modern Comic Book Writer by Greg Carpenter.

I'm a big fan of the early 90s Vertigo-era of DC comics, so I read this book with a very critical eye. I feel like I know a lot about this era of comics and it's main players, so when I'm reading a book like this I'm looking for NEW information — either via interviews with the creators discussed in the book, anecdotal stories about said creators or simply new research the author themselves have unearthed.

Here's a little secret about me: I'll usually start reading a book before I'm ready to go to bed. I find reading relaxing, and reading tends to help me fall asleep. I figured it would be the same deal with this book. Much to my dismay, ten pages in and I could not put this book down. So much for sleeping. I nearly powered through three quarters of this book in one sitting.

What really kept me engaged with this book was that it wasn't a dry recounting of the biographies of three of DC's most prolific writers, it was an examination of everything that was going on in that era. Greg Carpenter creates a wonderful balance of 1) providing context as to why said creator is a genius, and then demonstrating it by deconstructing his work and explaining it's significance in relation to that time in history. There's a bit of a background about what the creators were doing with themselves before they hit their stride, and I find this refreshing as it adds a bit of context and allows us to realize that, once upon a time, they struggled just like the rest of us aspiring writers.

This book covers the entire gamut of early Vertigo genius: Swamp Thing, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Sandman, The Books of Magic, Kid Eternity, Sebastian O, The Mystery Play, Hellblazer, Flex Mentallo, The Invisibles, Black Orchid and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch. (These were almost all of the titles that made me keep collecting Vertigo comics and watching with eager anticipation for any new releases on the horizon.)

Something I really appreciated was that Carpenter gave special attention to said creator's earlier works, as well. Thanks to this book, I will now be hunting down copies (or collected reprints) of Violent Cases, St. Swithin's Day and various issues of the UK's Warrior and 2000 AD magazines.

This book was not simply Vertigo-focused. Yes, it did speak in great detail of Arkham Asylum, The Killing Joke, The Watchmen and Moore's more famous mainstream DC works (ex: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Superman Annual #11), but the author gave a lot of attention to the earlier, lesser-known works that made these creators the renowned writers they are today. These included Zenith, Marvelman/Miracleman, From Hell, Big Numbers, V for Vendetta and the aforementioned Violent Cases. I was previously unaware that Alan Moore had written stories for the Star Wars Marvel UK series — one more thing I'll need to check out. The author even devotes a whole chapter to the 'Dr Who connection' among the three creators (and yes, inevitably, there is one).

The book doesn't just stop at the history of Vertigo — it also delves into what became of the creators after the early 90s. It details Moore's falling out with DC. It examines the Morrison/Moore feud (and yes, inevitably, there is one). This book also covers a lot of smaller press material that may have flown under our collective radars the first time they were published (i.e., Lost Girls, A Small Killing, and Signal to Noise). Later on we read about Moore's contributions to Image Comics and Morrison's reworking of the DCU in Final Crisis.

Interview snippets and anecdotes from Karen Berger were intermittently dispersed throughout the text (in a relevant fashion). The book concludes with the author's interview with Berger in it's entirety. I am quite fascinated with Berger and often feel like she is one of comicdom's 'best kept' secrets. Thankfully, this book succeeds in pointing out how instrumental she was in the creation of the Vertigo imprint.

If I had to make one change to this book, while the cover of the publication was good, I feel that it should've been something more epic. Maybe it's because I kept reading references to Bill Sienkiewicz, but I really think this book was deserving of a painted cover. That's just my opinion, however.

If you're a Vertigo fan, I'd fondly recommend this book. I'd also recommend this book if you're interested in comic book history and are especially interested in what was going on in the comic book industry during the 1980s and 1990s. This book is incredibly well-written and something I can see future essayists citing as a research reference.

-Justin

Two interviews with the author worth checking out:

For more information about the book (such as ISBN number and where to order it), check out the Sequart page.

Other Sequart articles by Greg Carpenter: