The Comics Detective: September 2011

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Michael T. Unleashes Rich E.!

Not only am I getting older; I'm getting luckier.

Once again Michael T. Gilbert has dug into his personal files, reached across the ether and made me an offer I can't refuse:

Hi Ken!

I just remembered another unpublished DC short story. It was originally supposed to be a three-page section of Keith Giffen's 1992's very funny AMBUSH BUG: NOTHING SPECIAL. However it turned out to be too hot to print!

At the time I wrote this, the 1989 ARKHAM ASYLUM graphic novel was still making waves. Old-school Luddite that I am, I pretty much hated the whole package. When Keith Giffen invited me to contribute to his comic, (which included a roast of editor Julie Schwartz), I jumped on it and decided to do a send-off of Vertigo. In the decades since, I've found a number of their titles that I really admire, but my initial reaction was that the line was depressing, negative and pretentious. I also felt that fully-painted comics like Dave McKean's ARKHAM ASYLUM and Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz's ELEKTRA:: ASSASSIN, beautiful as they were, were just hard to read.

Interestingly, ARKHAM ASYLUM illustrator Dave McKean later came to a similar conclusion, saying "overpainted, lavish illustrations in every panel just didn’t work. It hampers the storytelling."

Anyway, my idea was to do a Vertigo version of Harvey's classic kiddie comic, Richie Rich. Unfortunately after I handed it in, despite protests by my editor and Keith, some higher-ups at DC nixed my three-pager. They claimed there were worried about a possible Harvey lawsuit. Personally, I've long suspected that my Vertigo parody hit a little too close to home, but I'll let you decide.

On a technical level, I drew hand-separated color for the Rich E. Rich section, followed by full color art for the Ambush Bug part. It would have been very striking, and I always felt bad that the strip never saw print.

I guess the joke was on me!
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Text and art scans by Michael T. Gilbert
© 2011 by DC Comics
[all text and artwork is presented for not-for-profit historical purposes only and no further use is allowed or implied]

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Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Unexpected Michael T. Gilbert

      It's not always a matter of hard-nosed sleuthing. Sometimes a gumshoe just gets lucky. This is one of those times.

      Michael T. Gilbert--famous comic artist, writer, historian, creator of Mr. Monster, and all-around swell guy--has gifted me with an unseen story pulled from his own personal files. Being the good buddy that he is, Michael T. is allowing me to share that story with you!

      "Ken: I was recently going through my files and found color roughs for an unpublished Superman story I wrote and drew. The full story behind the story is below, along with scans. I think you'll find it amusing!"
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Text and art scans by Michael T. Gilbert
© 2011 by DC Comics
[all text and artwork is presented for not-for-profit historical purposes only and no further use is allowed or implied]

Subject: Tales of Kryptonite!

In 1997 DC wanted to revive Tales of the Unexpected. Their idea was to do EC style stories featuring the DC superheroes. Naturally it was right up my alley, and I got the OK to write and draw (and color) "Second Story Man!"

I used a hunk of Kryptonite named Mort to tell my story. I figured it would work as a play on the French word for Death, as well as a tip of the hat to good ol' Mort Weisinger---the editor who popularized so many forms of Kryptonite.

There were some kind of convoluted legal problems with the book (don't ask!), and the whole project was scrapped. My story never appeared, and probably never will. But here's scans of my color roughs so you can enjoy it.

I tried to imitate the old EC Leroy lettering here, and I made the story the standard 7 page length of an EC story too.

I did this just before my "Mann & Superman!" Superman graphic novel which came out in 2000, so it's my first Superman story.

Hope you enjoy it!