Music and Comics: Alan Moore - More "Vile" stuff - Roscoe Moscow - Who killed Rock n Roll?

Long before Alan Moore became the comic book superstar that he is today he slaved away in underground and alternative fanzines before moving into the music press where he created a couple of excellent weekly strips including “The Star my Degradation“ for “Sounds” in 1980 (see my previous post ). However, before this in March 1979 Moore created the underground comix type private eye known as Rosco Moscow under the pseudonym Curt Vile. Although on the face of it Roscoe Moscow’s was a fun character whose only role was to find the “killer of Rock n’ Roll” the strip also dealt with darker subject matter including, mental illness, the occult and Nazi iconography. Below is the first episode of "Roscoe Moscow" from Sounds, 31 March 1979.

In the strip Moore deals with the music industry through the use of three parodies of major artists at the time: Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and the Sex Pistols. In the strip Iggy Pop becomes Wiggy Pulp, a subservient figure to Bowie who is called David Boko - the “Master” and a many tentacled monster. The Sex Pistols become the “Stick Pimples.”

In other areas Moore deals with superheroes where he ruthlessly parodies numerous characters including The Human Torch (The Human Safetymatch), Plastic Man ( Plasticene Man), Batman (Wombat Man), The Silver Surfer (The Silver Sufferer), The Green Lantern (The Green Latrine) and Dr. Strange (Doctor Marginally Abnormal). Other comic book references inluded Archie, Will Eisner and Dr Sivana and the Marvel family.

At the end of the strip we find out that there was no Wombat Man or Iggly Pop and David Bowie was not a many tentacles monster, instead we realise that Roscoe was undergoing a complete mental breakdown and it was all in his mind. Roscoe Moscow was a sad dark comedy expertly written with compassion, anger and a lot of humour by a man that would soon take British comics by storm before moving onto the US.

Episode 57 & 60: Images taken from "The Sounds Project"

Page Turners: Gene “The Dean” Colan

Gene Colan’s (1926-2011) career in comics started back in 1944 when he began working for the US publisher Fiction House before moving onto Dell, Charlton, Quality and others. Three years later in 1947, he was hired by Stan Lee at Timely (now Marvel of course) before heading over to DC. Fast forward to the 1960’s and Gene was once again contacted by Stan Lee to work for his new Marvel comics company on the Sub Mariner and Iron Man titles. However, as Colan was concerned about the longevity of this new company he also continued to work for DC and signed his name on his early Marvel work as Adam Austin, a rather futile action as his style is so distinctive that anyone at DC would have known it was Gene Colan. Of course Marvel was a success and Gene started to sign his full name when he began working on Doctor Strange and Captain America. In 1966 he began a 7 year stint on Daredevil and the rest is the stuff of comic book history.

I first became aware of Gene Colan’s art when I saw the above advert in a Marvel comic for various artists profile protflios in 1970. Later that year I picked up Captain America issue 121, “The coming of the Man Brute!” (dated January 1970) my first Captain America and Gene Colan comic (which I will bore you all about later). I have been a fan of his work ever since. Below are some of my favourite Gene Colan pages:

Stan Lee considered Gene Colan's style to be so distintive that he was the only artists that Stan did not ask to draw in the Jack Kirby style. Of course that would have been silly Jack's art was all about shapes and power and Gene's art was about shadows and cinematic expression which can be seen in the above stunning splash pages from Daredevil (issues 90 and 93).

Captain America issue 116.

The Avengers issue 59.

Marvel Spotlight isssue 19

Doctor Strange (Vol 1) issue 38

Tomb of Dracula issue 30 - below Howard the Duck (magazine) issue 2

Although Colan was best known for his long run on Daredevil, his most critically acclaimed work came in the 1970's when he was assigned the Tomb of Dracula title (where he co-created Blade, the vampire slayer with Marv Wolfman). Later in 1976 he started work on Howard the Duck taking over from the excellent Frank Brunner with issue 4. Initially Colan was reported as saying that he felt he had been demoted to working on a “funny animal" comic, but he soon began to understand this was a different type of comic and relished and excelled at humour.

Monsters Unleashed issue 1

In 1981, feeling unable to work under Jim Shooter Gene moved to DC where he was assigned some of their top characters including Batman (see splash page from Detective Comics issue 517 at heading) Wonder Woman, Superman, the Spectre and various mini series and one off titles (Legion of Super Heroes Vol 2 isssue 311 above). Sadly at this time I wasn't reading or buying many US DC or Marvel comics so I missed a lot of Colan's work at DC only picking a few of these titles in the last few years.

Finally, one of my favourite US humour pages from “ Not Brand Echh” issue 4 showing Gene's humour take on the Avengers.

Bring on the back-ups: "A dream of flying" by Stan Saki (with a nostalgic superhero ending)

The Rocketeer was one of the more successful of the independent comics that were published in the early 1980’s. The character, created by Dave Stevens in 1982, was influenced by the pulp stories and Saturday matinee movies of the 1930s and 1940’s and featured Cliff Secord a down on his luck stunt pilot who discovers a mysterious jet pack that allows him to fly. The Rocketeer proved successful enough to spawn a movie in 1991 which received generally positive reviews but didn’t take enough at the box office to provide a sequel. Sadly Dave Stevens passed away in 2008 at the tragically young age of 52. Since his death the character has been picked up by various publishers who have created some really good comics. One of my favourites was IDW’s “Rocketeer Adventures” which featured short 5- 10 page stories by some of comics best (modern) creators including Chris Samnee, Bill Sienkiewicz , Bruce Timm, Darwyn Cooke and Art Adams. Adams provided the above pin-up from Rocketeer Adventures issue Vol 2 Issue 1 which also featured the endearing strip below by Stan Saki which has a lovely twist ending that any comic book fan would surely appreciate.

Rocketeer Adventures (vol 1 & 2) comics are worth seeking out even if like myslef your days of reading new(ish)comics are long behind you. There is bound to be at least a couple of strips that will hit that "nostalgia nerve" and many will simply make you smile.

Cover to "Rocketeer Adventures" (Vol 2) issue 1 (2011) by Dave Stevens.

Favourite comics: Justice League of America issues 100

Published in June 1972 (with a cover date of August) the above issue of Justice League of America (cover by Nick Cardy) was my first and the tenth JLA/JSA “crossover” which as luck would have it also coincided with the 100th anniversary issue of the JLA. The story “The Unknown Soldiers of Victory” written by Len Wein and drawn by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella was the first part of a 3 part story arc that would take place over issues 100-102. JLA issue 100 has remained one of my all time favourite US comics since the day I first purchased it in my local newsagents after school on a rainy afternoon in November 1972. After all these years I can still remember the excitement of seeing that cover on the spinner rack sporing the banner "33 heroes" many of them being characters I had never seen before. I was in fanboy heaven!

The story itself revolves around the 100th meeting of the JLA where the members are holding a special gathering. However no sooner does the meeting start than they are summoned to Earth 2 by the Justice Society of America to assist them in battling a giant hand that is about to crush their planet. Struggling to win the batttle Dr Fate contacts Oracle, a cosmic entity who informs them that the only way to defeat the giant hand is for them to find the Seven Soldiers of Victory as only they can defeat the menace. As the Seven Soldiers of Victory have been disbursed over various time periodsof Earth’s pasts the Oracle transports the JLA/JSA in teams of three to find the members of the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

This was a pretty special issue packed with golden age heroes many of whom I had never heard of before but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them illustrated by (then) modern artists.

The story would continue in issues 101 and 102 which to this day I have still not managed to read. One day I will track down those 2 issues and find out how it all ends. I do know that the Red Tornado plays a major role having read JLA issue 106.

Covers from DC Wiki

Top Tens: Earl Norem

Earl Norem (1923- 2015) made his name creating hundreds of covers and interior art pieces for Men’s magazines like Stag, Complete Man and Action for Men (cover example below). As far as I am aware (never having seen a copy of any of these magazines) these weren't soft porn mags but were adventure story magazines with some pretty sexist type male fantasy storylines. Of course it was his work for Marvel where I first became aware of his awe-inspiring cover paintings for titles including Savage Sword of Conan, The Hulk, Tales of the Zombie, Planet of the Apes and Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. I purchased many a magazine /comic based solely on Norem's stunning cover art including the above Dr Who cover for Marvel Premier issue 60 (I am not a big Dr Who fan). Below are some of my favourite of his many stunning cover creations:

Cover taken from American Archives.com

Hulk cover illo taken from Marvel Wiki