Comico Complete

Robotech Masters (1985) #1-23 by Mike Baron, Neil D. Vokes et al

To recap: The US TV series “Robotech” was put together by appending two unrelated mecha series to the Macross series (because they needed 85 episodes to do syndication). This is the first of these “appended” series, and was originally called Southern Cross. Which was, in itself, the third section of a different series.

Confusing? Sure. How on Earth are they gonna pull this off? I mean, how do they make a satisfying series within these constraints? Let’s find out.

This series has Mike Baron as the writer. In later issues he’s credited with “script”, and then “words”, so I assume that this series was made in the same way the Macross series was made: I.e., the penciller looks at the VHS, breaks it down into comic book form, and it’s then inked, and then the writer comes by to write the words. So while Mike Baron was pretty well-known by this point, it’s not like the writer has much of an influence on a series made this way.

(I’m not actually a Mike Baron fan, anyway — like everybody else, I liked Nexus just fine, but I discovered some years back (while reading the complete Nexus reprint) that I had no interest in reading any issues where Steve Rude didn’t do the artwork. So Rude’s artwork and storytelling was the main attraction there, and not Baron’s writing…)

This is supposed to take place about 20 years after the first series, and the main character here (Dana) was a baby in that series. No other characters cross over, which makes things easier.

Macross was, at heart, a romance with some mecha fights occurring with some regularity. This is very different — it’s mostly fights, and there’s little romance.

I haven’t seen the episodes this is based on, but from the letters pages, it seems like this is very faithful to the TV series.

Which, of course, means that they haven’t really tried to make it more Macross-like.

The second issue has tons of these lettering quirks — I guess they’ve changed the dialogue after the letterer was done?

Perhaps they changed their minds about some terminology — “attack ships” is consistently relettered, for instance.

The artwork doesn’t really look very much like Japanese animation — some of it looks a bit Archie like, but then there’s panels (like the above) that look more like Matt Howarth.

As cobbled-together messes go, this isn’t very convincing. When Macross ended, we left Earth as a pretty highly developed place (even if it had been devastated). In this series, even getting out into outer space is like a big deal.

Macross was pretty charming in many ways, but this is just a collection of clichés, including The Feisty Rulebreaker, etc.

Oh, I didn’t think about that — in this adaptation of the TV series, they can’t even refer back much to what happened in Macross, because that would be spoiling the ending of Robotech: The Macross Saga! Yowza…

So what are they left with here? I mean, they can’t refer to what background the had in the original Southern Cross series. And they can’t refer much back to the background of Macross, even if this has been retrofitted to be a sequel to Macross. What’s left?

Nothing! They have to do this series in an almost complete vacuum: They can’t do any world building, because it’s either been edited out, or is forbidden to refer to. That’s an impossible situation to be in — they can’t build on anything or go anywhere. No mysteries to hint at or ways of giving the aliens a deeper background. Just fights and squabbles.

Sure, sure… they’re electromagnetic.

I hate it when that happens.

Since there’s no world building possible, you can do scenes from other, better things instead — this is one of several Star Wars rip off scenes.

As with Macross, there’s tension between characters that want to try to negotiate a peace, and the military that’s very very stubborn.

A reader asks why they dropped the wraparound covers… and doesn’t really get a response, but I guess it’s because they went to newsstand distribution, and that means that they can charge serious money for back cover ads?

Then! Suddenly! They get help from Macross! How are they going to weave this into the series, then?

They aren’t — they only last for a couple of scenes, and then it’s “oh well, couldn’t do anything”. Which of course they couldn’t — they’re from a different animated series.

As opposed to on the Macross series, the art team is more consistent on this series, but they still get some guest artists. Sam Kieth did the pencil finishes here, and…

Yes, indeed, this looks quite a lot like Sam Kieth.

I’m now halfway through this series, and it’s really a chore to get through it. It’s so boring. Macross could almost make you believe that it was a huge, epic story in a real world, but this series has nothing — and that’s not really a surprise, because this series is nothing: They took a different series, changed the dialogue here and there to refer to “Protoculture” instead of whatever McGuffin they originally had, and then called it a day.

I had low expectations for this series, but boy — it’s just so much worse. There’s no charm, no interesting characters or plot lines, no depth. It’s just hard to not start zoning out while reading this, because it’s just so boring.

The artwork fluctuates a bit — even if it’s mostly the same penciller, the inkers vary… And things seem to become less and less Japanese-looking as the series progresses, really?

Schwing!

Is that a Mike Baron contribution, or did the Robotech editors put that in when cobbling the animated series together?

“What is ‘friend’?”

The computer says no — as valid an excuse in this reality as in that.

I can’t really adequately express how befuddling it is to read these issues — The Macross Saga was totally fine in that way, and I saw some letters expressing appreciation for how the writers on the Comico version added material to have things make more sense. The only thing letter writers commend Mike Baron for is how precisely the adaptation mirrors the series.

So I’m going to go ahead and guess that the Robotech animation editors messed up a lot of stuff while trying to fit Southern Cross into the Macross storyline, and then neither Baron nor the editors gave a flying fuck.

Schwing!

Did that mecha really look like that in the animated series?

I can’t really find any screenshots — I just see a gazillion illustrations. Hm… Oh, perhaps this one? Yeah, my suspicions seem to be correct.

And… Invid Fighter Bioroid? Er… the Invid are the aliens from the third (and final) unrelated series, right? So what was this originally, then?

Perhaps there was something in the air…

Hm, I think somebody should have invested in a couple more poses.

The last half of the series is mostly drama — several people fall in love with each other, and have the usual misunderstandings etc.

Neil D. Voke’s artwork keeps on regressing. Or perhaps he was just getting burned out, because his last issues look pretty awful.

Aha! Pen pals.

OK, the Invid Flower of Live must not be allowed to bloom, so they have to retrieve the Protoculture from Earth. They keep saying that… like… issue after issue…

Oh yeah, Vokes quit, and we have a new art team. So suddenly the artwork looks a whole lot more Japanese-ey, but is it good? Nope.

So… they have to recapture the Protoculture… Didn’t you just say that? I know that Japanese animated series can be pretty repetetive, but it’s just ridiculous propagating this into the comic book. Phoning it in, I guess.

So finally we get to the end, and as with Macross — the final fight sorta fizzles out…

… and we get a non-ending, because we’re being led into Robotech: The Next Generation. I mean New.

Wow. That was painful to get through. The artwork started off weak, and then got worse and worse. The writing was slapdash — the plot was wildly inconsistent, subsequent scenes seeming to contradict each other. There were attempts at humour, but they were not frequent, and they were not successful.

Protoculture Addicts #1, page #28:

The Robotech Masters series
began publication in July 1985. There
are 23 comic books released in this
series. Dana’s story was not released
at the beginning but was featured in a
special 40-page issue in May 1988.
Mike Baron has done all the scripts by
following very closely and without
major improvement the original
scenario. Moreover, there are no major
problems that I can recall.
Neil D. Vokes has done the
drawing for the first 19 printings. Let us
say that #1 to 3 were excellent. Issues
#4 to 13 are of generally fair quality.
With #14 to 19 there is a general
improvement of the quality; it is more
and more pleasing to watch. Issues #20
to 23, pencilled by Harrison Fong, were
quite good. Characters are good-looking
(though Zor is less alike) and the art in
general is very charming.

The Comics Buyer’s Guide #612, page #26:

The newest title from Comico
The Comic Company, Robotech
Masters #1, sold out its 64,000-
copy print run one day after
printing was completed, said
Sales Director Mark Hamlin.

Amazing Heroes #78, page #57:

ROBO TRASH

There’s a new secret to success in
comics today: If you can tie your
book in with an animated cartoon
series, you increase your chances of
producing a winner. That formula
seems to have worked with Trans-
formers and G.I. Joe. Comico appar-
ently hopes to triple the odds in their
favor by publishing three separate
series based on a syndicated cartoon.
Moreover, this is a Japanese cartoon,
of the sort that is enjoying a great
deal of popularity in this country at
the moment. Will this guarantee the
success of Comico’s line of “Robo-
tech” comics? The jury is still out.
After a lull of some 20 years, the
hostile aliens called the Zentraedi are
once again preparing to make war
against Earth. They launch their
assault by destroying a lunar outpost,
and then carry the fight planetside.
Earth is not completely defense-
less, having improved its war capa-
bilities in the intervening two
decades. One of its lines of defense
is formed by the men and women of
the 15th Squadron. The fighter group
is led by Lt. Sterling, a young woman
who starts the story by being thrown
into the brig for “disturbing the
peace, malicious mischief, insubor-
dination, and criminal damage to
property.” By the end of the issue, she
receives a promotion and a commen-
dation.
I wish the same could be said for
the story; but, alas, it’s a frightful
mess. To call the characterization a
bit shallow is like calling the Sahara
a bit dry. The main focus in on Lt.
Sterling, who is presented as being
an airheaded, unreliable Valley Girl
-not exactly the stuff of which
heroines are made. The other char-
acters are dealt with too briefly to
form any definite impression.
The emphasis here is on action,
most of which takes place between
roboid machines, while the people
behind them are more or less
forgotten.
What is worse, an entire plot ele-
ment appears to have been mis-
placed. In the middle of the book,
we are introduced to a Capt. Sean
Phillips, who is Lt. Sterling’s superior
officer, and who plays some role in
getting her released from the brig.
Following this three-panel appear-
ance, he disappears until the end of
the story. At this point we are sud-
denly informed that he missed the
big battle because he was in the
brig-presumably as a prisoner,
though we are never told why. On
top of that, when Sterling receives
her promotion, Capt. Phillips is
simultaneously de-moted, all the way
down to Private First Class! He must
have been guily of some monstrous
infraction, though you’ll find no clue.
as to what it might be from reading
the book.
The dialogue supplied for many of
the characters would seem more
appropriate in an Archie comic. I
don’t think this can be justified by
claiming that the books is aimed at
a younger audience either. The
Japanese cartoons I’ve seen have
managed to appeal to kids while
presenting stories and dialogue on
a reasonably sophisticated level, so
there’s no reason it shouldn’t be done
in the comics as well.
When I finished reading this story,
I had to go back and re-check the
credits. I found it hard to believe that
Mike Baron, who can lay claimcto
two of the best written comics
around (Nexus and Badger) was also
responsible for this horror show. He
must have written it during the com-
mercial breaks while watching the
cartoons.
It is rather hard for me to pass a
firm judgment on the art in this and
the other “Robotech” books. The
various artists involved have done
their best to emulate the style
employed in the cartoons, and for the
most part they have succeeded. I’m
just not sure whether that’s good or
bad.
One does not mind the simplicity
of the art in the cartoons so much,
because it is amply compensated for
by what is (by today’s rather limited
standards) fairly fluid animation.
They move. In the static medium of
comics, the simple art is not nearly
so attractive, though it is certainly
acceptable if it is accompanied by an
adequate script. The color in the
Japanese cartoons is also more
vibrant than that achieved here.
My nearest comic shop dealer tells
me that at this point the “Robotech”
books are selling quite nicely, and no
doubt they will do even better in
cities where the syndicated TV series
is being show. I honestly hope so, for
it seems to me that Comico has
placed a good many of its eggs in a
single basket. If the “Robotech” series
fail, it would deal a severe blow to
the company. And, while I would
have preferred they had hung on to
the Elementals and Evangeline rather
than cartoon robots, I would hate to
see Comico go down the drain.
There is also, of course, every
possibility that Robotech Masters
will get much better in time-espe-
cially with Mike Baron scripting.
After all, the third and fourth issues
of The Macross Saga showed a great
deal of improvement over that book’s
initial offering.
I will certainly keep an eye on this
title, and report on any such improve-
ment, but on the basis of this very
weak first issues, I cannot recom-
mend Robotech Masters.

– R A Jones

Here’s a review:

If you’re this far into reading these books, or at least considering it, you probably know what to expect. This is the first collection for Robotech: The Masters (of two that were planned, though the other never materialized, despite a release date and a cover advertised). This is my least favorite generation, so I picked it up as a completist, and as part of a planned re-read of every single Robotech comic (sadly, now I’m stuck tracking down floppies). Macross is iconic, New Gen is my personal favorite, Sentinels has sentimental value, and this one is a thing that also exists.

Heh heh heh. Good one.

So Titan reprinted the first half of Robotech Masters, but not the second half? I mean, I’m not surprised that nobody bought Volume 1, really, but…

As for the general story, it’s ok. Despite Mike Baron writing it (which I had much higher hopes for), it’s just ok. It can be a bit disjointed, and feels phoned in. It was a paycheck for Baron, it seems pretty clear.
I will give Baron points for, perhaps more than any of the other Comico series, seeming to do his own dialogue and scenes based upon the animation, as opposed to just rehashing it, but that doesn’t actually always end up being a good thing. A lot of it is just not good, and he seems to forget what he’s doing sometimes (for example, issue 10 has Carpenter return from the Expeditionary mission, but then issue 11 says he’s coming from Moon Base Alice, which is a silly gripe, but it was kind of the entire point of that issue). This is not Baron’s creator-owned writing by any stretch.

OK, so I wasn’t the only person who found Robotech Masters to be incoherent. But read this review in full, it’s very good.

This is the only other review I was able to find:

Well at least the art is charming; so charming, in fact, that it’s the only reason this book got any stars. The plot was kinda all over the place, you’d get some conversation going on between characters but then the next page would cut to some other random seemingly inconsequential conversation followed by another followed by another, repeat ad nauseum. A lot of the dialogue was really simple too, and felt unnatural and robotic coming from these soldiers. I didn’t really care about any of the characters either, no one in particular stood out.

Next up is Robotech: The New Generation. After reading Robotech Masters, I’m rather dreading that. But according to the person on Goodreads up there, it’s a favourite, so perhaps it won’t be so bad.

*dunn* *dunn* *dunn*

Next Man (1985) #1-5 by Roger McKenzie, Vince Argondezzi et al

Hm… Roger McKenzie… Oh, he wrote Sun Runners, which wasn’t very good. And it was creepy. But he’s mostly known for his work at Marvel in the early 80s, I think. Yup. And he left comics a couple years after this series.

And when I saw “Next Man”, I thought of John Byrne’s Next Men, but that was apparently done after this series?

Oh, there’s apparently some story to be told of how he was booted from Marvel? I mean left.

Well, OK, this seems extremely standard — some dastardly military organisation took a soldier semi-killed in Vietnam and made him into a super soldier. And Argondezzi seems like he’s a mega Kirby fan — I mean, at least as far as inking male faces go. It looks like he’s concentrated on copying that, and then just ignored things like “learn how to draw”.

Well, OK, that’s original — there’s an… er… alien running the agency?

Oops! The dastardly organisation shouldn’t have used a camera that goes WHRRR whenever soldier/super guy is going SCHWING, I guess. I mean, is getting into a romantic mood! Live and learn! Use WHRRR-less cameras, dudes!

OK, they’re sending him to space? Makes sense.

But the dastardly organisation is going to destroy the Earth first?! Because of reasons. And the science woman/love interest gets up in her feelings when confronted. Next Man is rude. No consideration.

Fortunately there’s a comedy sidekick — a green floating computer cube.

These issues are quick reads — I guess these days we’d call it “decompressed storytelling”, so McKenzie was ahead of the curve on that point. It’s just that these scenes lean so heavily on familiar scenes from movies that they read like if they’re parodies, really. A scene like this, where you take a beat for the hard-as-nails general to give a callous order, works in movies because you can enjoy the actor playing the general chewing up the scenery while lighting that cigar, but the artwork here is so basic that there’s basically nothing for the reader here to do but go “oh, I recognise the scene they’re trying to do; OK”.

There’s page after page of… “thrilling action”… but the storytelling is inept, and the artwork takes some scrutiny to try to find out what’s supposed to be going on.

And, as with Sun Runners, it’s pretty creepy to boot.

Hey, that’s a good Kirby pose. I assume that it’s been copied directly from some New Gods splash page?

Scenes like this feel like they should work, but instead it reads like an oddly humour-less parody.

T. M. Maple writes in to note that the setup seems really familiar.

Beat beat beat.

Well, OK — this page works, I think?

Hey! I’m not the only one that felt like the book seemed really off. “If the idea isn’t new, then the execution should be. Is Next Man a Kirby parody? Where’s the humour?”

McKenzie says that the vignette feeling is intentional.

Next Man is apparently dead, so his friends take the change to get romantic.

And then the series ends in the traditional way for indie comics: A panel saying “Next”. Man.

So… I’m not surprised that this book was cancelled, because it’s really bad, man. The artwork was getting better over the course of the run, but I see that Argondezzi left comics a few years later. I appreciate what they were trying to do, storytelling wise, but it just didn’t work: The decompressed style, along with material that was so familiar that it felt like a parody, made it hard to pay attention while reading these books. I’m surprised it lasted for five issues.

The Comics Journal #103, page #12:

The Next Man, one
of Comico’s newer books, will go
homeless with the publication of
the fifth issue. According to
Giovinco, the reason was poor
sales. “It was selling lower than
our other books, and it was
losing money,” he said. “If it had
been breaking even, we would
have stayed behind it.”
According to writer Roger
McKenzie, The Next Man did
have an erratic sales history. He
cited his royalty statement from
Comico, which said the first issue
sold 43,375, the second issue sold
18,480, the third issue sold 21,050,
and the fourth issue sold 20,860.
While McKenzie didn’t deny that
sales were low, he said he was
surprised at Comico’s decision,
because it came out of the blue.
We seemed to be going along
quite well,” he said. “They had
just commissioned Vince (Argon-
dezzi, the book’s artist) to do a
poster, and we never heard that
they were even thinking about
cancelling it.”
Both Argondezzi and McKenzie
were dissatisfied with the
promotion and publicity that the
book received. “They really
didn’t care about the book,
McKenzie said. He said that
Comico sent him and Argondezzi
to the 1985 Dallas Fantasy Fair,
but armed them with posters and
other promotional material for all
the books in Comico’s line except
for The Next Man. “They
shouldn’t have signed us if they
weren’t going to get behind us,
Argondezzi said. “If they had
told us the book was in danger of
cancellation, we could have tried
something to save it-but they
didn’t say anything to us until
they had made up their minds to
cancel it.” Giovinco disputed this,
though, saying that he had talked
with the creators about various
ways of pumping up sales, such
as changing the book’s frequency
from bi-monthly to monthly.
‘When we got the final cost-
analysis in for the book, though,
we decided it wasn’t worth it to
try to save the book,” he said. “It
was losing too much money for
us.” Giovinco declined to divulge
the amount Comico was losing on
the book
Both McKenzie and Argon-
dezzi, as well as Giovinco, said
that the creators wre originally
signed up to do 18 issues of The
Next Man. However, the creators
said they wouldn’t try to hold
Comico to the contract and the
remaining 13 issues. Even if they
did try to hold Comico to the
contract, Giovinco said it would
be futile. “Any publisher is smart
enough to leave himself an
“escape valve” if he gets stuck
with a complete dog,” he said.
However, Giovinco refused to
discuss the actual “escape valve’
he said the contract contained.
Argondezzi said that while he
wasn’t aware of a loophole
Comico could slip through, he
said it didn’t matter if there is
one. “We’re not going to try to
stay at Comico, that’s for sure,”
he said.
Although the final issue of The
Next Man will be issue #5, the
plotlines won’t be tied together
until the sixth issue. McKenzie
and Argondezzi are talking with
new publishers, but neither would
discuss possible new homes for
the book.

This didn’t happen, I think? But a weirder thing happened:

In 1993, Comic Company A released a special that reprinted issue #5! And then added some illustrations and an interview. Very odd.

The series has never been reprinted.

The Telegraph Wire #20, page #13:

On the other hand, NEXT MAN marks Vince
Argondezzi’s first regular comics series, but
the young artist has already begun to display
the kind of professionalism required by the
field. Heavily influenced by the “King of
Comics, ” Argondezzi brings a definite Kirby-
esque flair to the adventures of the Next Man.
This interview took place in December ’84
at the Comico offices in Norristown, Pennsyl-
vania. It was transcribed by Eric Yarber,
copy-edited by Roger McKenzie and Vince
Argondezzi, with final edits by yours truly.
Special thanks are due to Vince and to
Gerry Giovinco and Phil Lasorda of Comico
for all their help in coordinating the Next
Man cover for this issue of THE TELEGRAPH
WIRE.

DIANA SCHUTZ: The first thing I’m interested in is
why you chose to bring NEXT MAN to Comico.
ROGER McKENZIE: Easy. Because nobody else would give
us the time of day. No, not really. I had originally
approached Pacific with this idea and they said, “Fine,
we like it, let’s do it.” A year and a half went by,
and we never did it.
VINCE ARGONDEZZI: At the time, I was just starting
to get a little foot into Pacific by doing two or
three VANGUARD stories for Dave Scroggy and I sent
Roger a sample page for NEXT MAN and he said, “Let’s
get together and do it.”
DIANA: When Pacific suspended operations, why did you
move specifically to Comico?
VINCE: We’d talked to other companies, but they were
dragging their feet. Comico was there and they really
wanted it.
ROGER: And I was ready to go with it, having waited
a year and a half already and having had this idea
originally back in high school–and we won’t even go
into how long that’s been!
VINCE: I think Comico has the best attitude. They
have the smarts to let the creators do what the crea-
tors want to do. What seems to be wrong with comics,
at least in the mainstream, is that the mainstream
companies keep the same feel to all their products.
And some of the other alternate publishers are good,
but they don’t have enough commercial sense. So, on
the one hand you’ve got really crass commercial stuff,
and on the other hand you’ve got nice material with
the alternatives, but it’s so far out that the com-
panies can’t survive because they’re too creative.
Comico’s right in the middle. They’ve got beautiful
commercial stuff like ELEMENTALS, they’ve got really
sharp creative stuff like MAGE, and they’ve got work
like NEXT MAN that’s kind of in the middle. Plus
they’re branching out into stuff like MACROSS and all.

[…]

DIANA: So, what makes NEXT MAN different from all
the other superhero books that are already out on
the market?
ROGER: I think what makes it different is the way
we’re treating the concepts. We haven’t yet said,
“Here’s a superhero.” We haven’t yet said, “Here’s
a big bad villain who’s out to beat up the superhero
for no reason in the world.”
VINCE: That comes in issue #3! [Laughter]
ROGER: Yeah!
VINCE: The good thing about NEXT MAN is there’s so
much potential in the character. Basically you have
a guy who does not fit in. He has no real identity.
His father’s dead. He’s alienated.
ROGER: But he’s got so much going on that he won’t
realize it for several issues, although 1980s cul-
ture shock will start hitting him soon. But he has
found out more or less what’s going on, and he says,
“No way will I help you destroy the world.” As a
matter of fact, he destroys his creators at the end
of the first issue, or so he thinks.

[…]

DIANA: What about the fact that there are words in
comic books, and fewer and fewer people are reading
at all these days?
ROGER: What I’ve tended to do to solve that situation
is not to write any words at all.

Diana Schutz did the interview here (for The Telegraph Wire), but she’d go on to work for Comico a couple months later, which is kinda interesting.

Amazing Heroes #73, page #55:

This newest title from Comico
(“the Comic Company”) has a lot
of rough edges…but I think it
shows a lot of potential as well.
One of the best things it has going
for is its scripter, Roger McKenzie.
McKenzie did an excellent job on
Daredevil several years ago, and
his Sunrunners is an enjoyable
book (whenever it appears).
He seems to have come up with
a fairly solid formula here, a com-
bination of science fiction and
super-hero fantasy. There are
weaknesses in this first issue, at
least partly due to the unavoidable
restrictions of an origin story. We
aren’t shown much of David
Boyd’s personality-the inner man.
This is ony a minor complaint, as
this will no doubt be fully explored
as the series progresses. The Next
Man should prove to be a strong
character, and in Dr. Cross he has a
worthy arch-rival comething every
hero needs.
1 think most of the gripes that this
first issue will elicit will focus on
the art, and not without some justi-
fication. One can point to ex-
amples of stiff figures, fuzzy im-
ages, simplistic layouts. But I’m not
going to give it a blanket condem-
nation.
Many will probably dismiss the
artwork as nothing more than a bad
imitation of Jack Kirby. Experience
has taught me to be cautious of
this; after all, such outstanding art-
ists as Barry Windsor-Smith and Jim
Steranko started out doing bad
Kirby. Also, I have an advantage
over some of you in that I have had
the chance to see more of Vince
Argondezzi’s pencils 4they are real-
ly quite good, and show every sign
of improving.
I think part of the problem here
has to do with the inking. That’s not
a rap against Bill Anderson; he’s a
good inker. It’s just that his style
doesn’t seem to be completely
compatible with that of Argondez-
zi. Thus, I don’t think the art seen
here is representational of what we
can expect from Vince. Future
issues should show a major up-
swing.
Comico itself has taken large
strides in improving its product.
While I personally don’t have
much interest in their upcoming
robot series, their other titles seem
to be growing stronger every issue.
If they can only solve the problem
facing every alternative publish-
er-that of getting their books out
on time every issue-Comico
could well join First and Eclipse in
the forefront of “downstream”
comics (no derogation in that
term-just coined to differentiate
them from the so-called “main-
stream” comics).
Next Man #1 shows enough
potential that I certainly intend to
give it a few issues to prove itself.
loin me.
– R. A. Jones

The Comics Journal #105, page #26:

The newest advertising campaign
by Lodestone Publishing has
raised the ire of three creators, all
of whom deny they are working
for Lodestone, despite the claims
of the ad, published in the
Comics Buyer’s Guide.
Co-owned: The ad claimed that
The Next Man, recently cancelled
by Comico, is surfacing at Lode-
stone. However, The Next Man is
copyrighted by both Roger
McKenzie and Vince Argondezzi,
respectively the writer and artist,
while the ad said the property
was copyrighted only by
McKenzie. Further, the text in the
ad said, “… we will boggle your
mind with the name of our super-
star artist who will be handling
the series with Roger.’
McKenzie said that while he
did discuss taking The Next Man
to Lodestone, one reason he
didn’t do it is Lodestone
Publisher Dave Singer’s resistance
to Agondezzi being the book’s
artist. “Way before Comico ever
saw the product, I showed it to
Dave, and he liked it very much,”
McKenzie said. “But Dave was
considering a new artist, and
that’s one of the problems I
had with him.” Eventually, though,
the legal problems that Singer
encountered with his T.H.U.N.-
D.E.R. Agents book at Deluxe
Comics (Lodestone’s sister
company) caused McKenzie and
Argondezzi to look for another
home for The Next Man.

The Encyclopedia of Superheroes, page #242:

Alter Ego: David Boyd.
First Appearance: 1985, The Next Man #1, Comico.
Occupation: None.
Costume: Purple bodysuit; silver helmet, gloves,
boots, trunks, bands on his wrist, legs, neck, and
shoulder.
Tools and Weapons: The Next Man’s belt is equipped
with a hose known as PAL (Pulse Activated
Laser), which is fired by mental commands; he is
frequently advised by a talking green cube known
as Cubit, a vastly superior computer.
Biography: Serving as a medic in Vietnam, Lt. Boyd
is caught in an explosion in the village of Lon
Pen. Airlifted to a hospital in Saigon, Boyd is near
death. Instead of putting him on life-support sys-
tems, the doctors ship the 25-year-old to Wash-
ington, where his is cryogenically frozen. Then,
in 1984, after being transferred to a facility in
California, he becomes a part of Project Stepping
Stone. Placed in a “heated silicon gene pool” and
subjected to “helix sculpting,” he is genetically
rebuilt and given super strength and reflexes.
Becoming a superhero, he turns on his creators
who, he learns, had planned to take over the world.
Quote: “You’re a madman, Cross. But the madness
ends here and now.”
Comment: This uninspired character is another of
the rebuilt-human school of superheroes pi-
oneered by Captain America.

Miaow!

Ah, so McKenzie had planned on bringing Next Man back in THUNDARR A.G.E.N.T.S., but I don’t think that happened…

The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide #2, page #470:

NEXT MAN
Comico: 4 issues 1985
Comic Company A: 1 issue 1993
A Vietnam soldier preserved after a near-fatal explosion is
revived twenty years later, having been genetically altered.
Minimalist plotting and artwork. The Comic Company A
issue was to have been Comico’s fifth issue.~FP

Some confusion here…

There’s little written about Next Man on the intertubes. Here’s something:

Next Man was not a “hit” for Comico but it was still a good book. Though the art was a bit raw it had a very Jack Kirby feel to it, which I would have liked to seen grow with the series.

They published an ebook version of… the fifth issue:

Comic Company A was the only successful publishing and media house to survive from Comico to be carried officially by the worlds major comics distributors, with sellouts like the Next Man Collectors Edition series, and well as the studio’s award winning work in the realm of Health Care and Commercial art…making these new first steps now in to the environment of online media is fitting, and the first volly in what will be a wholesale emphasis for development towards the future of this now reinvigorated medium.

The nowadays commonplace subjects like Euthinasia, and the aftermath of the Vietnam war were not talked about too much in the mid eighties in comics.

Er, OK.

You can pick up copies of the book at cover price still.

Macross (1984) #1,
Robotech: The Macross Saga (1985) #2-36 by Jack Herman, Mike Leeke and Chris Kalnick, plus Too Many People To List

I was curious to read this series (well, the three Robotech series — I guess I’ll do one post per series) because I have dim but pretty positive memories of watching random episodes of this on TV way back then. If I understand correctly, they edited together three different animated series into one, and then that was shown as “Robotech”? Since Comico is publishing three series, I’m guessing this means that they’ve gone back to the original Japanese series division?

I guess we’ll find out.

The edits probably didn’t make the series less mysterious, but since I saw only, like, every third episode, my impression of the plot was very, er, impressionistic. The only think I can say with certainty is that one third of the dialogue was “Rick! Minmei! Rick! Minmei!”

At least that’s what I remember.

OK, now I can start reading Robotech: The Macross Saga.

The first issue is called just “Macross” — I guess the Robotech thing hadn’t been established yet? Yup:

At the same time, Harmony Gold licensed the Macross TV series for direct-to-video distribution in 1984, but their merchandising plans were compromised by Revell’s prior distribution of the Macross kits. In the end, both parties signed a co-licensing agreement and the Robotech name was adopted for the TV syndication of Macross combined with Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross (1984) and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (1983).

One slightly confusing thing about that editorial is that it’s framed as a coup for Comico — but at this point, no major US companies had done adaptations of Japanese animated series yet, had they? So you wouldn’t think there would be much of a bidding war… On the other hand, Comico had a tradition of going rather hyperbolic in their editorials.

Well, that looks pretty good?

Hm… well, this looks very labour intensive. But the publisher explains:

Our vision was to produce the pages using images taken from the actual video. When this proved to be an impossible option we decided that we would create the pages using a technique similar to that of genuine animation cels.

Yeah, that’s labour intensive.

Unfortunately, the artwork is kinda wonky:

Carl Macek’s wife Svea Stauch provided the pencils. Phil LaSorda and I inked all of the main characters which included all of the aircraft, spaceships and robots. The inks were done on a separate overlay that was later lettered then photographed as a positive transparency.

I’m no expert in Japanese animation — or animation at all, really. I mean, I watched all the standards, but I’ve seen few of the TV series. And there’s (presumably) a billion sites out there devoted to Robotech analysis, so you should go read those instead if you want insightful analysis, but what struck me back when I watched this (and again now) is how fun the setup here is.

The captain has a Russian name, and everybody in his command structure are women. And while Japanese cartoons and comics have a tendency to draw presumably-Japanese characters as European (like we see with that long-haired female officer), the Black one sure isn’t. So it’s got a very international cast, and with a somewhat unusual gender division. Except that all the jet pilots are (of course) men.

But perhaps this was a standard setup at the time? I know naaathing.

Some of the artwork’s pretty good (like the guy in the foreground there), but it doesn’t really look much like Japanese animation, does it? And the people in the background there… eep.

It does have a certain charm — it just looks so odd! I like it.

I’ve read many a comics adaptation, and a major problem (especially in later years) is that they seem to be published more as souvenirs than actual comic books. That is, they illustrate a few of the major scenes that somebody who’s seen the original movie would want to see again, and then just basically don’t tell the rest: They’re meant for people who’ve already seen the original movie/tv series/whatever.

But this is pretty readable — I’m amazed at how much I recognise from watching those episodes in the 90s, and I think there’d be no problem following the plot even if you’ve never heard of this thing before.

Wow, $40 for a VHS (or Beta) tape? That’s outrageous.

With the second issue, the series is renamed to Robotech: The Macross Saga, and there’s also an announcement of two companion series (which will cover the other two series that were spliced together with Macross for the US TV market). And each series will be released on a 90 day schedule, meaning fans would get a new book every two weeks.

Seems like a pretty good plan to me.

But the way they created the first issue was obviously untenable, so they move to normal flat colours in the second issue.

And the artwork gets a bit more Japanese-looking.

Heh. Important information indeed.

And there were also ads for the Comico comics shown on TV?

Heh. Classic.

Oh, the plot — an alien ship (called SDF-1) has crashed on Earth, and other aliens wants it back. Lots of shooting ensues.

Many American cartoons around this time started off as toys, and the cartoons were there mainly to sell the toys. I don’t think that was the case with Macross? But there were lots of toys, anyway.

I think each of the four first issues have different art teams. With a 90 day production schedule, you’d think they’d be able to keep people aboard, but I guess it might take some time to shake things out. They had to scramble to find art teams for three series at once…

Yes… 10K people sound more important…?

This art team does better, but it’s still not quite on model…

Ah, yes, I remember this bit. Oh Rick! Oh Minmei!

This team overshoots completely and lands somewhere in Margaret Keane land.

But it wildly inconsistent.

There’s been so many TV series where we’ve been told that things are building up to something more — that there’s indeed a well-developed world we’re in, and that we’re slowly learning about. And then it turns out that the showrunners had absolutely no idea, and were just making things up episode by episode. “They have a plan” my ass.

With Robotech, I don’t actually remember whether things eventually made sense, but we get a constant drip of these rather incomprehensible nudges — the aliens (who call Earthlings for “Micronesians” I mean “Micronians”) apparently have a lot of stuff going on beyond waging space war… But is it going to pay off, or is this more of that “They have a plan” stuff? We’ll see, I guess.

Looks like the readers like the series, and so do I, really. Each issue seems to be adapting one episode — and they were like 20 minutes long, right? So the comics don’t feel crammed with stuff, but they move along nicely. No fillers.

Finally the team of Mike Leeke and Chris Kalnick takes over the artwork, and things get more regular.

Their first issue looks pretty stark, though. Very bold lines.

And as with earlier artists, they also have problems making the space battles look kick-ass — I think on the TV, there battles were pretty full on, right?

Oooh! The kids with these clothes were sure to be the most popular at school!

Especially combined with a real R.D.F. ID card!

The art quickly settles down, and many of the issues also settle down into a routine: We get the soap opera stuff between Rick and Minmei for half the issue, and then space battles for the other half. It works well.

The human’s behaviour is pretty unfathomable, though — they stage a beauty pageant on the space ship? In the middle of a war?

But it actually works well as a plot element — the aliens are so confused (and possibly horny) that this alters everything.

So much drama and so much plotting… I mean, this is an animated series for children, and the adaptation is too, but it’s got a pretty good flow.

Nitpicky readers, man!

We spend quite a lot of time with the aliens, slowly getting more of What Their Deal Is. But some of it feels pretty random — like they’re so confused about women mixing with the men (tee hee! tee hee!), but a couple issues later, we see that their very best fighter pilot is a woman. Is this going to make sense in the end!?

OK, you could buy VHS tapes of individual (20 minute) episodes for $10? Geez, that’s expensive.

Indeed! I like this storytelling style — always hinting at bigger mysteries.

Then we get to their weakness! KISSING!!! (Tee hee; yes indeed, this is a series for children.)

Comico went bankrupt after a few more years, despite having comics (like this) that sold very well. I’ve read some post mortems, and most of them seem to point towards what the above hints at as the problem: Comico didn’t only sell comics in the direct market, but also had newsstand distribution, which is much riskier; a much bigger gamble: You never know how many books you’re getting in returns, or whether you’ve greased the correct pockets (that’s the correct expression now). (Newsstand distribution used to be controlled by criminals for many years.)

So the text up there is presumably with newsstand readers in mind.

It is real funny, Ben!

Yeah, I’m going with my initial thought — that perhaps the writers of the animated series hadn’t really thought things through: If the aliens want to observe humans in their normal surroundings, there are several billions of them on a planet nearby. They don’t have to bother with the ornery ones on that space ship.

*gasp* They reproduce asexually! That’s why they all look the same! Except we’ve yet to see two aliens that look even remotely similar — there’s much more diversity in the alien characters than in the human characters, surely?

I AM CONFUSE!

But entertained — this series has turned out to be a much better read than I had anticipated.

But then the plot reaches a stand-still for several issues, while the comedy relief aliens try to integrate into society, and the military rejects the only information they have, as they do.

I mean, the comedy relief aliens are pretty much on point as comedy relief aliens go.

And then the inker quit, and we get a whole lot of new inkers — with varying results.

There’s one issue that’s all recap. This makes sense for an animated series, because they can just reuse previously made sequences, and add a voice-over. Voilá! Episode! Saves tons of money. But they don’t do that in the comic book, of course, so no money is saved…

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they did do a different thing to save money: They got rid of the wraparound covers a few issues ago, which were a standard at Comico. And they can also sell ads at a higher price on the back cover, presumably.

The inkers keep on changing, with radically different results between issues.

Oh, Comedy Relief Aliens. These scenes give off “what is friend?” energy.

Running this ad (drawn by publisher Phil Lasorda in a Don Martinesque way) in Robotech, of all places… “No cheap plastic parts to break.” THIS IS ROBOTECH!!1!

And finally both the penciller and the writer quit? But the old inker is back! What’s going on!

Yeah, that’s a radical change in the artwork, yet again. And it’s yet another budget saving episode: Rick is having a dream, and the entire issue is just that dream. So I would guess that the episode, once again, reused a lot of old elements? But the comic doesn’t, of course.

Wow, it took them this long to get “Officially Licensed Merchandise” up and running? What was all the other stuff they’d been advertising?

Wow, that’s some water damage on this copy… where did I buy these from?

Anyway — there was also a series of novelisations? Not written by the people who did the comics, though.

Well, that’s a motivation, I guess…

I like the way they hint at a bigger universe like this. The Invid? Sure. But it’s not like this makes any sense, anyway — they could have blasted the SDF-1 any time they wanted, but first the line was that they shouldn’t interfere in human development, and then it was that they needed Protoculture (i.e., the MacGuffin) which was on the ship. So how does a million (!) enemy fighters help with this, really?

Sure, OK, nitpicking a forty year old comic book based on an even older cartoon (I mean animated series) for children is, er, perhaps not the most productive way to use my fingers… But I’m going to, anyway!

There had been so many people being blown away in the daily battles that I found it pretty odd that none of the named characters had died yet. But then they go and kill off two of them within a couple issues! Well played.

Hm… Oh, I guess this is because of the newsstand distribution? So they want people to be able to find (older) copies…

Yes, a Tee-Vee is very useful! Everybody should get one.

Uhm… Joe Matt? As in Joe Matt!? He was an inker on this!? (And one later issue.) For one issue? Let’s see how he does…

Well, that’s totally OK? His only quirk is that he seems to be using tone, which none of the others really do…

Oh, and there’s a new colourist in town, too — and he’s not very good. There’s flat colours and then there’s flaaaaat colours. He seems to be concentrating on colouring inside the lines and then adds nothing else.

And he doesn’t really pay attention — people’s coats change colour from panel to panel (the guy in green is the same guy as the guy in blue).

Heh, I saw a guy on Twitter the other day moan about how much they hated this trope: Somebody seeing somebody else briefly kissing (or something), and then running away before it’s revealed that there’s nothing between them really. I.e., fake drama. I agreed so much!

Then somebody pointed out that if that guy were to stop reading books/watching movies made for children, the problem would fix itself. Ouch! Touché!

I wonder whether any of this is a reference to Japanese/US relations? Anyway, I guess it’s pretty standard for Japanese animated TV series to have an anti-war message in the middle of all the fighting, but it’s well done here.

But… Protoculture again: The aliens finally open lines of communication with the humans, and they naturally ask the humans for Protoculture (since that’s what they’re looking for). The humans just go “uuuur durr” instead of saying “well, perhaps we call it something else? Describe this Protoculture and what it’s supposed to do”, as I think anybody would have.

I guess that’s the nature of MacGuffins, though — nobody must ever probe into what it is, because the writers haven’t really decided.

The wait is over! Robotech: The Album! Can’t find it on Youtube, but there’s a lot of individual clips:

I’ve stopped mentioning it, but the penciller and inkers keep on changing, so things get quite off model between issues. Whoever drew this issue seemed to think they were doing an issue of Archie, apparently.

Is that really how the cover looked?

Well… sort of! It didn’t translate well to black and white…

Aww! How romantic.

There’s also a refugee angle to the storyline…

And then they get in a letterer that letters all weird! Waugh!

We’re mostly spared the thoughts of the characters, but once in a blue moon there’s panels like this. Was it like this in the original TV series, too, or did they just run out of room to depict it in a more natural way.

Humans are a cowardly lot!

Huh. “Almost all the Robotech back-issues are in stock and available to comic book distributors and retailers.” That’s pretty impressive, but also worrying — were they printing so many extras? Or is this because they got returns from newsstand distribution?

If it’s the latter, that’s sound like a sound decision, but if it’s because they were over-printing, then that must have been a liquidity drain…

(Looks like the newsstand experiment only lasted a year or so…)

But this explains why Robotech issues, in general, can still be had at cover price or less (if you buy a lot of them). The only issues that were expensive were the ones toward the end of each Robotech series. I think I paid $50 for #1-33 (in total), and then $50 (each) for #34 and #36. By that point, Comico was bankruptish, so I’m guessing not a lot of copies were printed?

Oh, they did, now?

As this is a Japanese series, they then go on to destroy the Earth and kill everybody. Well, except for a few survivors. Very efficient, finally, and makes my earlier musings about the writers not actually knowing where things were going when they were dropping hints about “not being allowed to disturb the Micronians” etc etc. You’d think they’d have plotted something like this out before they started animating it, but… perhaps not? (I’m assuming here that the adaptation here is loyal to the animated series. And perhaps the Robotech animated series was changed since they edited together three unrelated series into one?)

Sure, sure, why not.

Wow, that Jack McKinney guy writes fast… he’s whipped up five (!) Robotech: The Sentinels up now? Perhaps it’s one of those collective names that have lots of different writers actually writing…

Wow, I’m good!

In 1987, the Robotech animated series was adapted into novel form by authors James Luceno and Brian Daley and published by Del Rey Books. Having previously collaborated on the animated series Galaxy Rangers, the pair released the Robotech novels under the unified pseudonym of “Jack McKinney”.

But there’s only two of them, so still impressive.

I think I said at the start that Robotech had a kind of stasis going on? Well, that’s not really true after the initial dozen episodes — things really do develop, and things change hugely.

But the last stretch of the series is about life on Earth after the apocalypse.

There’s some rebel aliens running around, and Rick is now basically a cop. But he doesn’t arrest anybody! He just stops them after they’ve killed a bunch of people and lets them run away?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they stop running ads on the back covers. But most of the back covers aren’t wraparound — there’s just separate images there. Perhaps they originally meant to have ads there, but then that stopped when newsstand distribution stopped?

Huh — the book goes monthly? When they hadn’t really been able to keep the art team going on a 45 day schedule with any regularity? Well, OK, the other two Robotech series (being shorter, thank goodness) had ended by this point, so I guess it makes sense to step up the tempo. At least for the publisher.

The last stretch of the book really leans into the romance bits. But it’s like pulling teeth — it all revolves around Rick being obtuse.

*gasp* Now that doesn’t sound like a plot contrivance at all!!

Uhm… “The Masters”? As in “Robotech: Masters”? That’s the next series, right? This presumably wasn’t in the original series, but is added as a bridge between the series?

Robotech is famously edited together from three unrelated series, but skimming the Wikipedia article, it’s hard to say whether they just appended one after another, or really mixed up scenes from the three separate series in the same episodes? The article reads like you’re already familiar with everything… a common problem with nerdy culture stuff.

Huh. That’s one way of announcing that Comico has lost the Robotech franchise, I guess.

And… 65 episodes? Robotech II: The Sentinels was cancelled after three episodes, wasn’t it?

Scenes like this make me wonder whether Attack On Titan was influenced by Robotech at all — you have the obvious horror possibilities inherent in having one group of people being huge and the other small: Squish squish. But that’s not touched upon at all here — the huge people just shoot the small people instead. But I mean, this is for children, so…

On the other hand:

I know naaathing.

Oh. The writer died?

The editor explains, and also finally tells us how the adaptation has been done: The penciller looks at the video tape and breaks it down into comics form, and then the writer (billed as “scripter”, but that can mean anything) comes in at a later point (and adds the text). I had assumed that the writer did the adaptation, but that explains the wildly differing approaches from the different artists.

The artists discover a labour saving device.

The final issues are 90% Rick/Minmei/Lisa romance.

It goes on and on. Was it like this in the animated series, too?

Heh. “Elementals: What makes them so special?” “Bill Willingham… of course!” That’s amusing because Willingham wasn’t involved much during the final year of Elementals v1, but he’d back now as the writer for Elementals v2.

Did I mention the romance plot?

Oh, so now… the humans do know what Protoculture is? You could have told the readers, too, then.

And after a bit more shooting, they’re off to the stars!!!

Man, that’s a disappointing end to a sometimes entertaining series. I was pretty entertained for the first third of the series (while Jack Herman was the scripter), but then my enjoyment rapidly diminished: The series became more wordy and didn’t zip along any more.

The rotating cast of artists didn’t help much, but even the main artists had problems with making the space battles graphically interesting or exciting.

But the main problem with the series is that the world building was revealed to be pretty thin after all. Like I said before (days earlier for me, and what probably feels like many years for whoever is so unlucky as to be reading this), it’s a good trick to throw out titbits about the fictional world to make the reader believe that there’s some depth, but it’s an even better idea to actually have that depth. I was hoping that that would prove to be the case (what with this originating as an animated series that would presumably have been plotted out well in advance), but nope — not really.

So, OK, I’m not really the idea audience for this series in any way, and I know that there’s a gazillion fans that really like Robotech, but, man: Meh. I say meh!!

The Comics Buyer’s Guide #612, page #26:

The newest title from Comico
The Comic Company, Robotech
Masters #1, sold out its 64,000-
copy print run one day after
printing was completed, said
Sales Director Mark Hamlin.
“Robotech Masters #1 marks
the beginning of our bi-weekly
schedule,” Hamlin said, “mean-
comic released every two
weeks.” Masters will be put on
this rotating schedule along with
Robotech the Macross Saga and
Robotech the New Generation.
The creative team of writer
Mike Baron, penciller Neil
Vokes, and inker Rich Rankin-
have several issues completed to
date, Hamlin said.
“There is no re-order avail-
ability on Masters #1 from the
publisher,”. Hamlin continued,
“and anyone seeking more of
this issue should contact their
distributor or back-issue whole-
saler.”
The fourth issue of Robotech
the Macross Saga also has sold
out from the publisher, accord-
ing to Advertising and Promo-
tions Director Bob Schreck.
Comico only prints a small
percentage over its initial orders
for re-orders, Schreck said, and
in this instance the allotted re-
order quantity was bought out
from the publisher as the books
were shipping from the printer.

Even if they sold out, they didn’t seem to fetch a very stiff premium as back issues…

The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide #2, page #546:

Adaptation of a highly popular US animated series, itself a
combination of three Japanese animé, Space Fortress Macross,
Southern Cross and Mospeda. When a huge alien fortress
crashes on Earth during World War III it causes a cease-fire
and eventually comes under the control of a benign faction
that creates a World Government. When the giant humanoid
Zentraedi arrive, eager to retrieve their weapon and the
mysterious ‘Protoculture’ that makes Robotechnology
possible, they become foes and eventually allies in an
intergalactic conflict. It’s all told through the experiences of
three young people locked in a romantic triangle; reluctant
fighter-pilot Rick Hunter, career soldier Lisa Hayes and Lynn
Minmei, a cute and fluffy popstar whose singing causes
emotional breakdowns in the aliens. The scripts adapt and
embellish the TV episodes and the art, sadly, does likewise.
Whereas scripter Markãlan Joplin manages to work beyond
the Saturday Morning blandness of the teleplays when he
replaces Jack Herman in issue 17, creating a depth absent
from the source material, the illustration, slavishly following
the production style is unpleasantly fuzzy and lacks edge or
drama. The remaining episodes of the TV show are adapted
in Robotech Masters (Southern Cross) and Robotech The New
Generation (Mospeda).

Protoculture Addicts #4, page #16:

I will have to be brief this time with
this Comico review: there was only one series
still going and unfortunately it is now over.
I told you last time that issues #29 and #30
were less appealing than previous ones.
Fortunately I can’t say the same of #31 and
#32 which are much more in the real Leeke
style. Issue #33 is average but I must note
the effect on page 9: Lisa drowning her pain
very fast. Quite well done! Only one problem
with this ish: the mix-up of pages 4 and 5.
Hum, an overworked editor? Good work in
issues #34 and #35. The small modifications
to the original script by M. Joplin which I
found annoying in earlier issues now seem to
be quite well suited to these adaptations of
episodes 31-35. Diana Schutz has done a good
job, I cannot find the exact place where she
took relay in #35 script. Issue #36 is
brilliant; the art is very nice and clean,
pages 22-23 being gorgeous in fact; the
adaptation by M. Joplin is clever and moving.
A job very well wrapped up by Comico. Let’s
thank them for four years of hard work. Our
eyes must now be turned towards Eternity and
their Sentinels’ comic. Fortunately I’m very
happy to see that our good friends are doing
a fine job.
Alain Dubreuil

Amazing Heroes Preview Special #1, page #90:

Previously titled Macross, this book
has changed its name with its sec-
ond issue to keep in step with the TV
animated SF program, Robotech, on
which it is based. Robotech actually
consists of three similar but diffe-
rent Japanese TV cartoon SF adven-
ture serials which have been rewrit-
ten to make a single 85-episode
animated serial for the American
syndicated TV market. However,
each of the three component adven-
tures will have its own comic book.
Comico plans to issue the three
books on an overlapping six-weekly
schedule, so that a new isue will
appear every two weeks. The com-
ics will begin as straight adapta-
tions of the TV adventures but, it
they are successful enough, each
will continue past the TV saga into
original stories.
Robotech: The Macross Saga is
the first of the three Robotech
stories, comprising the first 36
episodes of the serial. A gigantic
alien spaceship, the SDF-1
(Macross), crash-lands on Earth at
the end of the 20th century. Ten
years later, a military/scientific
community has grown up around it.
The humans have just figured out
how to get the SDF-1 operational
when a fleet of Zentradi spaceships
arrives around Earth to reclaim it.
The SDF-1 unexpectedly starts fir-
ing automatically at them, the Zen-
tradi think that Earth is attacking
them and retaliate, and Earth is sud-
denly involved in a space war. The
story features many scenes of SF
battle action (gotta display those
spaceships and robots that Revell is
selling the models of). However, is is
basically a soap opera about seve-
ral of the young people caught up in
the action: Rick Hunter, a teenaged
pilot; Lisa Hayes, the lieutenant in
command of the bridge crew on the
SDF-1; Lynn Min Mei, a teen-aged
pop singer who becomes the focus
for morale among the humans; and
their friends.

Amazing Heroes #157, page #188:

January’s Robotech The Macross Saga
#35 will feature “Season’s Greetings,”
a holiday tale co-written by Markalan
issue #36 brings to a close Comico’s
popular adaptation of this celebrated
Harmony Gold animated TV series. In
“To the Stars,” Admiral Gloval com-
mands Lisa Hayes to uncover the roots
of Robotechnology, while Khyron
concocts some seedy plans for the SDF-1
and the SDF-2.
Fans of artists Mike Leeke and Mike
Chen will be happy to learn that they will
be introducing a dynamic new artistic
style on the soon-to-be relaunched
Elementals, debuting from Comico in
March; and Robotech devotees are
reminded to follow the adventures of
Rick Hunter and company in Eternity
Comics’ new Robotech II: The
Sentinels title.

Amazing Heroes #145, page #192:

ROBOTECH II:
THE SENTINELS

Eternity Comics, in an exclusive arrange-
ment with Harmony Gold U.S.A., Inc.,
has acquired the rights to Robotech II:
The Sentinels for a series of comic
books and related projects.
“Robotech II: The Sentinels is a
direct sequel to the original Robotech
series,” Eternity Editor-in-Chief Chris
Ulm explained. “It occurs 10 years after
Robotech (but before New Generation)
and features several of the same charac-
ters, particularly Rick Hunter and Lisa
Hayes from the first series.” According
to Ulm, the long-awaited wedding of
Rick and Lisa will finally take place in
Robotech II.
Robotech II was originally developed
as a 65-episode animated series. “Scripts
for all of the episodes were written but
production was halted after only three
were filmed,” Ulm said. Those first three
episodes will be edited together for a
feature movie to be released later in 1988.
Ballantine Books is also adapting and
expanding the Robotech story in a series
of paperbacks for mass-market release
this summer.
“Our comics should hit the stands at
the same time as the movie,” Eternity
Publisher Dave Olbrich said. The series
writer and artist will be announced
shortly.
The first Eternity Robotech II projects
are scheduled for release in September.

I guess if the series was halted after three episodes, it wasn’t very popular in Japan?

Back Issue #137, page #51:

Merrill concurs, although he’s rather blunt when
giving his opinion on where Harmony Gold’s biggest
success stands today. “Harmony Gold and Robotech are
definitely a part of Japanese animation’s success in the
US… I do think Robotech right now is a legacy property
that has failed to demonstrate any ability to move
forward in any sort of narrative fashion, in spite of
decades’ worth of attempts to do so. The brand’s
greatest value right now is as an ’80s nostalgia
property. New people are not getting into Robotech.”
While that might be true, the fact is Robotech itself
was and still counts as the first recognizable anime for
a whole generation, helping just as much as Astro Boy
did in the ’60s and Toonami and Pokemon did in the
’90s to bring about the world we have today, where
most anime airs at the same time virtually all around
the world. And that’s not nothing.

Amazing Heroes #75, page #28:

AH: What are the differences be-
tween Robotech and the original
Japanese programs?
MACEK: Very little. Macross was a
smash hit in Japan, and Tatsunoko
continued the same story trend when
it followed Macross with The
Southern Cross and Mospeada,
Genesis Climber. All three are about
space fleets of human-looking aliens
who invade futuristic human worlds.
The heroes are young members of
the human defense forces. The aliens
are looking for some secret that the
human have. It was easy to re-write
the scripts to give the aliens the same
name and turn the secrets into the
same secret. Differences in charac-
ters and costumes are explained by
making it three different attack waves
of the invaders, years apart. The on-
ly real change involved the second
story segment, The Southern Cross,
which we call The Robotech
Masters. In the Japanese programs
it’s not our Earth that’s being in-
vaded, it’s a human colony planet.
I had to go through the video tapes
carefully and edit out every scene
that shows two moons in the sky.

Geez.

Protoculture Addicts #3, page #33:

ROBOTECH: THE MACROSS SAGA
With issue 32, the Robotech comic
published by Comico is beginning to take more
liberty toward the original story, probably
under the influence of the novels published
by Ballantine Books. It is really good:
dialogues and
satisfactory. We find some winks such as on
page… (I hate non-paginated comics!) where
Khyron said “Macek’s Eyes!”. There is also an
homage to Markalan Joplin, deceased last May
before having finished issue 35 which had
been completed by the staff of Comico. By
chance, issue 36 was finished. It will be a
special issue “incorporating events from the
Ballantine Books adaptations and foreshado-
wing what was to come in The Sentinels”. The
last four issues are definitely not to
missed!

Manga Newswatch #3, page #11:

“Comic adaptations available through
Comico: the comic company,” That’s
what the closing credits of Robotech
said. And it was true. From 1985 to
1988, Comico published 86 individual
issues of Robotech comics plus a
graphic novel. With two exceptions,
these were adaptations of the actual TV
episodes, which were particularly useful
for fans who wanted a record of the
story, but did not have VCRs. They were
split into three series which ran
concurrently; Robotech: The Macross
Saga, Robotech Masters, and
Robotech: The New Generation. The
Robotech Special, titled “Dana’s Story”,
adapted the episode of the same name,
but also included additional material
from some of the Robotech novels by
Del Rey Books. It was released after the
Macross Saga books had concluded
their run, so as not to spoil the ending of
that story arc. Robotech Genesis: The
Graphic Novel, was an all new prequel
story written by Carl Macek set during
the global civil war and describing the
original landing of the SDF-1 on Earth
and its exploration by Gloval, Fokker,
Lang and Edwards. Comico also
published Robotech 3-D, a retelling of
the first episode of the Macross Saga,
complete with 3-D glasses.

Amazing Heroes #75, page #32:

AH: How closely will Comico’s
Robotech comic book follow the TV
program?
MACEK: There’ll be no story dif-
ference at all. Issue 1 of the comic
book is episode 1 of the TV show,
issue 2 is episode 2, and so on.
The only difference is that the
Robotech TV program will be told
in a single story sequence, while the
comic book will be published as
three overlapping sequences. The
first 36 episodes of the TV programs
are Macross, the saga of the first at-
tack on Earth. Then the story jumps
a generation and episodes 37
through 60 tell the adventures of the
cadets of the Robotech Military
Academy as they fight the renegade
Robotech Masters. Then the story
jumps again, and episodes 61
through 85 tell how the descendents
of the Macross cast return to Earth
to free it from the Invids, rivals of the
Robotech Masters who moved in
after the humans and the Masters
had weakened each other. Comico
is publishing this serial as three
separate comic books which will be
distributed at the same time. The first
story sequence is titled Robotech:
the Macross Saga; the second is
Robotech Masters; and the third is
Robotech: the New Generation.
Each title will be issued every six
weeks, and the three will be on an
overlapping schedule two weeks
apart, so there will be a new
Robotech comic book out every two
weeks. The first three issues of
Robotech: the Macross Saga are
already out. The first issue of
Robotech Masters is the next due
out; then the first issue of The New
Generation; issue 4 of the The
Macross Saga; issue 2 of Robotech
Masters; and so on.
AH: Does this mean that Robotech:
the Macross Saga will end after issue
36, and that the other two will end
after their 24th and 25th issues?
MACEK: Not at all. If they’re still sell-
ing successfully when they reach the
end of the TV episodes, I plan to go
on writing the continuation of the
adventures of Rick Hunter and his
friends; of Dana Sterling and her
friends, and of Scott Bernard and his
friends.

There’s really remarkably few articles about Robotech in the comics press at the time. Which is pretty odd — this was the first big adaptation of a new phenomenon — “Japanimation”, as it was called at the time — but nobody really seemed to pay attention?

Comic Shop News Special #1, page #39:

One of Comico’s most successful
titles were their Robotech books.
Comico was among the first Ameri-
can publishers to anticipate the
popularity of Japanese comics
and animation in the U.S.
Robotech was originally called
Macross: The Robotech Saga but
changed the title to Robotech with
the second issue when it was
announced that Harmony Gold
would be syndicating a half-hour
Robotech cartoon (translated to
English from the original Japanese)
to U.S. television stations. This result-
ed in quite a sales-success in areas
where the show was seen, and
precipitated a boom in reprints of
Japanese comics (called manga)
like First’s Lone Wolf & Cub, Eclipse’s
Area 88, Kanul and Mai the Psy-
chic Girl, Marvel’s Akaira, and
NOW Comics’ upcoming Speed
Racer manga reprint. It has also
made way for other successful
adaptations of popular Japanese
animated series like NOW’s Speed
Racer and Astro Boy, Comico
quickly expanded to three differ-
ent Robotech titles, issuing a new
Robotech comic every two weeks.
As the show was replaced on
many stations (a limited number
were made available for U.S. syndi-
cation) the sales softened. But
Comico continues to do a monthly
regular Robotech comic. “We really
feel a committment to the
Robotech fans who have stuck with
us from the early days,” says
Schreck, “we’ll continue the book
until the stories end, at least into
early 1989.”
Comico has been really lucky so
far to find that difficult blend of
aesthetic and critically appreciat-
ed material, while still trying, and
many times succeeding, to finding
commercially viable successes. So
when we look at new material
under consideration we have two
criteria. One, is it something we
can sell enough of to make some
profits that we can put back into
the project, and, two, is it some-
thing we can be proud of publish-
ing? Is it a quality series?”
Schreck says he feels this diversi-
ty of concepts with consistency of
quality is one of Comico’s
strengths.

Comics Interview #23, page #27:

And then, out of the blue, Comico asked
Rich and myself to come up there one day.
They were starting this whole MACROSS
comic series. MACROSS #1 was done by
Carl Macek, who is very established, and
Svea Stauch, and was inked and colored by
various members of the Comico Bullpen. It
took them a long time to do it. And I think
what they wanted to do was change the
whole process and make it more of a regu-
lar comic, flat coloring and everything, so
they wanted to do something a little simpler.
And if nothing else what Rich and I were
trying to prove was that we were reliable.
It was not necessarily that we were the best
artists that they could have hired, we were
reliable enough so that we could hopefully
get #2 done on schedule. We had about two
weeks to do the whole issue. It was good
practice, that was the way we looked at it,
we were getting paid for it, and we didn’t
have a helluva lot to complain about.
And then we were asked to do MAC-
ROSS #3 in about a week. Actually, I am
fonder of that one than I am of issue #2, even
though we had to do it a lot quicker. The
way they were plotting the book was like
page for page, word for word, and I can’t
say I was speaking from many years ex-
perience – but from reading them for as
long as I have, I just didn’t think it was
working as a comic. So, essentially, I re-
plotted it even though I had a script and
everything. I changed a lot of the premises.
I took it upon myself to change it for the
better, I thought.
DAN: I see.
NEIL: I used my own best judgement. I
used the basis of the story; following the
plotline. I just drew it my own way. I didn’t
sit in front of a video machine and watch
a scene, freeze frame it and study it, then
draw it shot-for-shot. I thought, “They
might as well put a book together that is just
frame blow-ups and print it up and just put
little word balloons on them, if they want
that. Why hire artists to draw if they don’t
want them to draw something?” So I just
went for it. The funny thing about this is
the two videos that I was given for MAC-
ROSS #2 and #3 were in Japanese. And if
you’ve ever had to plot something that was
in a foreign language and you didn’t under-
stand any of that language – it’s not very
easy. You have no idea what they are say-
ing in the dialogue…
DAN: There’s no possible way to do it.
NEIL: Well, there’s a possible way to do
it, but it doesn’t always turn out right in the
end. I was a lot happier with MACROSS
#3, because I did it with my own layouts,
my own pacing, I didn’t have to go by any-
body else’s work, and then Carl scripted
from that.

Wow. In the beginning, at least, the penciller had to adapt it using untranslated video cassettes, so he had little idea what was being said! Presumably the scripter got the translation, I guess…

Comics Interview #51, page #38:

BOB: If you really sit down and look at
ROBOTECH, particularly the MACROSS
and NEW GENERATION segments, com-
pared to Saturday morning cartoon
mindlessness, the plot lines are a lot more
intricate and interesting, even though they
have been altered for America. The nudi-
ty has been taken out, and a certain amount
of the violence has been taken out of it. A
good deal was left in, because America
loves its violence and hates its bodies!
But ROBOTECH is something we had
handed to us on a silver platter, and releas-
ing the three books on a six-week basis, we
had to get it out, we had to get it done. We
weren’t afforded what we’re doing on STAR
BLAZERS, which is full-process cel
animation-like coloring on a four-issue
limited series. So, you just do the best you
can.

The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide #2, page #405:

The original Macross was a Japanese animated series
featuring ‘mecha’ – planes and other equipment that
transformed into robots. The comic started as an adaptation
of that Japanese series (1), but then the Robotech TV series
was created as an English-language adaptation of Macross
and two other Japanese mecha series and the comic had a
change of title to Robotech: the Macross Saga, and also of style.
The story centres around the Macross battle fortress. This
was built by unknown aliens and crashed on Earth in 1998.
Humans put a lot of effort into mending it, and it repays
them by powering up its automatic defence systems when it
senses that its old enemy (the Zentraedi) are in range, and
then blasting half of the Zentraedi fleet out of the sky. This
means that the Zentraedi immediately wage war on Earth,
and the humans make no attempt to explain but simply
launch the Macross and pursue the battle out in space. This
launch drags most of the surrounding city along with the
ship, so the stories can feature a lot of domestic urban detail
(beauty contests and teenage recording stars, mostly) mixed
in with the heroic teenage fighter-pilots. This plot doubtless
seems really clever and cool when you’re about ten, and as
entertainment for children goes, it’s well crafted (apart from
1, which had ghastly artwork), though one hopes that any
girl-child who picks it up already has enough self-
confidence to shrug off the relentless undermining that’s
inflicted on the female characters. However, if your tenth
birthday is but a dim memory and you’re not in the
advanced stages of manga addiction, you can safely give this
one a miss.~FC

Ouch!

The Comics Journal #116, page #57:

The Robotech books also use
dreams a lot, but mostly as a
device to recapitulate their con-
voluted storylines. Robotech: the
New Generation #13, adapted by
Markalan Joplin, makes the best
use of “mind games,” as Harrison
Fong’s dynamic (if uneven) pencils
depict the dream-journey of one
alien-fighter (name of Rand) as he
learns the motives of Earth’s alien
invaders. Fong and Joplin also
handle the adaptation work on
Macross Saga #17, which is less
successful in that the dream is
merely the musings on previous
adventures by protagonist Rick
Hunter.

OK, that’s enough of that.

I can’t really find much chatter about the Comico Robotechs on the internet, bu here’s a review:

On the other hand even Joplin’s alterations last issue and this doesn’t make this romance rather rushed. Miriya sure switches from great warrior to struggling housewife rather fast and I don’t think she’s been around them long enough to have had the personality switch we saw in the show. The comic doesn’t have time to focus on it so it’s not as jarring a change. I know some marriages happen fast. My parents did and so did my cousin and her husband but this seems a bit too fast.

Nobody reprinted Robotech: The Macross Saga until 2018, when Titan reprinted it in full.

Here’s a review:

Before starting this, jaded by many comic book disappointments, I assumed this comic version wouldn’t live up to the show or that it’d be slow and I’d just have to slog it out. Not the case at all. I found it very difficult to put down. It was just as good as the cartoon in every aspect. The fast paced variety, humor, drama, romance.
I loved every page.

And another:

The bad news is that the artwork was B-level even by 1980s anime and comic book standards, and some of the gags and story lines were old-fashioned even then. While Macek tried to keep the combinations of serious drama and offbeat humor under control, the source material just had a lot of it, and that often worked against the series.

Heh:

They’re just ok. It would help if you watched the show first though. Just mute it whenever a certain teen idol starts singing…

And now I have two more Robotech series to read… I’m not really looking forward to that now.

Elementals (1984) #1-29 by Bill Willingham and a cast of thousands

Elementals was, by far, the most commercially successful book at Comico. Or perhaps I should say property — after Comico went bankrupt and then rose from the grave, it was the thing propping up the company. (I guess Macross may have sold more? I don’t know.)

But I’m not quite sure how to approach Elementals for this blog. With Airboy over on the Eclipse blog, I did all the various series and spinoffs in one super duper long blog post. And I could do that with Elementals, too — heaven knows that there’s enough spinoffs — but I don’t think I have the stamina to read all those Elementals books without something else in between.

So I think I’ll do one post per series… Although I might change my mind later. And perhaps lump Elementals Sex Special, Elementals Sexy Lingerie Special, Elementals: Lingerie and Elementals Sex Special volume 2 into one post?

I guess we’ll find out when this blog series reaches the 90s.

OK, so the Elementals were introduced in The Justice Machine Annual #1 published by Texas Comics. Hm… Texas Comics… that sounds familiar…

Nope. They only published one comic book, so I must be thinking of something else.

But if they were introduced in an “annual”, that sort of implies that there was a regular series?

Yes. From Noble Comics.

This sort of thing would go on to become a regular thing at Comico, I think — that is, Comico picking up a series that’s already been published somewhere else. And then not actually doing much of a recap of the previous issues.

The unusual thing here is, I think, that Elementals stayed with Comico to the bitter end (i.e., 1997). Many of the other series that flitted by (“flitted”? sounds wrong MUST REMEMBER TO CHECK BEFORE PUBLISHING BLOG) lasted for only a handful of issues before going on somewhere else.

Comico were very gung-ho about creator’s right, so this makes sense in that context, in a way: The creators own everything about their comics, so why not move around? But it also makes one wonder why some people bounced off of Comico so quickly, and why Elementals remained at Comico even after the bankruptcy and the resurrection by the new (villainous) owners in the 90s…

Time will tell! I haven’t done any research into that yet.

This reads very, very much like you’re supposed to have read that annual, though. We are, sort of, given a introduction of these characters, but nobody’s sitting down with the “as you know, Bob, after you died, you were given these powers by some Gods that we’ll talk more about later”. Which is a good thing! But there’s a wide chasm between infodumping and just assuming that the reader knows everything already, and this is more on the latter side of that gorge.

The storytelling is bumpy. There’s more than a few pages like this where it’s not very clear what reading order the panels (or speech balloons) are supposed to be in.

And strange things like the upper right panel there… OK, the er space ship is on a downward trajectory, so the speech balloons are, too? Well, OK?

In the Zombie Comico years in the 90s, many of the Elementals minis seem to be porn based (I haven’t actually read any of them yet, but names like “Elementals Sex Special” seem to, er, give a hint), and I wondered why a super-hero franchise would take that turn.

But… I think the fetishistic thing seems to be part and parcel of the series from the very start? I mean… just based on the line work here? Is it possible for a pencil line to be porny? I guess a little Michael Golden goes a long way… Hm…

Willingham, of course, went on to do porn himself (with Ironwood and Time Wankers, for instance) in the early 90s.

“Let’s assume that all of you did die.” “There are times — when I wonder about that myself.”

Yes, if I had died and been brought back as a super-hero, I would have wondered a bit about that myself, right?

Elementals is just so oddly put together! Reading this book is a pretty head scratching experience: Is the oddness because there’s stuff that’s going to be explained later, or just because Willingham isn’t a very good storyteller? (Spoilers: It’s the latter.)

Speaking of fetishistic — one fat bad guy in a thong and one female hero in frilly lingerie are certainly choices…

Since there’s been previous issues, we even have a letters column in the first issue.

I surmise from the editorial in the second issue that somebody told Willingham that the lingerie costume (I assumed that wasn’t her costume but just what she happened to be wearing when she lost her dress) is a bit “eh”, so she’s getting a new one. “I was lucky to have friends who made me see that, in spite of myself.”

Oh, OK, the lingerie wasn’t her costume? It was that thing with the micro mini skirt, I guess.

And… we’re being informed that the first issue was done over a number of years, but from now on all the material is new. That could certainly help explain the weird storytelling.

Professionalism, FBI agents. Professionalism in the office!

OK — here’s the in-story explanation for the new costume: “Now they’re in costume!” Well, OK then!

And, yeah, the er 12-year-old kid who turns into the big earth monster turns naked every time he shifts back into human form? Makes sense.

That’s the villain — and he knows the traumatic backstory of all of the different Elementals. One is a Vietnam vet, one is angry, and one is a frightened “Jewess” (I quote). The evil guy ends up giving Monolith a costume made of ectoplasm later, which isn’t very evil of him, I have to say.

And then we get their origin stories all of a sudden! But again, it really feels like Willingham is reminding the reader of something the reader is supposed to have read before — it’s just weird. I don’t think that’s what’s going on, but that’s what it feels like when reading these pages.

See, they had tied him up in his super-duper-strong big earthy form, but now that he’s a child again, he’s free! D’oh! Why didn’t the villains think of that!

And viola! Here we get character building — her Jewish identity is shown by her use of Yiddish words like “tookas”, which is perhaps not the most common spelling of that word. And I think that is the only kinda-sorta Yiddish word we get? Perhaps Willingham just forgot…

–

T. M. Maple writes in to say that he thinks the book is perhaps touching on looking a bit porny, but Willingham makes a striking defence by pointing out that he also has a naked boy in the book. And besides: “Being hyper-aware of the state of undress of women in comics has quickly become the most fashionable Shibolet [sic] of “enlightened” comic readers.”

Well, that’s an ad, certainly…

A writer needles Willingham by rolling his eyes at all the violence in the book — in particular the earthy guy (who’s really a twelve-year-old) squeezing people to death. Willingham offers the standard defence that the real problem is unrealistic violence where nobody dies.

OK, we’re getting more background info on the evil bad guy, but I can’t express enough how this still reads like we’re being reminded of something we’re supposed to already know. It feels like having a mild brain aneurysm.

Yuck!

Hey, that letter must have really needled Willingham…

With the fourth issue, Willingham brings in a person on “script”, which I guess means that Jack Herman writes the words based on Willingham’s plot? That’s what it usually means, but people use these words differently sometimes…

The bad guy is given a really elaborate background (he’s two thousand years old, and he, too, was dead at one point, but he was resurrected by the guy on the lower right hand panel, which I think is Jesus (no names mentioned)). Which is original — we know nothing about the main characters, but we get a lot on the villain…

And… remember all that talk about this not being a comic book, and people die? All of a sudden the guy that the earthy kid squoshed to death is alive again!?

I don’t think there’s any followup of that, so I dunno…

On pages like this, you can totally see what Willingham is going for. But again, it just doesn’t work — that “split panel” at the top there is supposed to be a dramatic shapeshifter scene, but it doesn’t really read that way.

Four years!? I thought they’d just been reanimated!?

*sigh*

Again, a typical scene: You can certainly deduce what’s happening here, but so many of these pages read like “eh? oh”: There’s no flow or natural progression to the events.

And this is how the first storyline ends — with the villain that has been given all this build-up just being popped into a hell dimension egg. And he was presented as being super duper powerful. It’s just weird — like Willingham hadn’t quite achieved object permanence.

Apparently the first handful of issues were published very irregularly, but Willingham informs us that “the publishing irregularities have been resolved”. Diana Schutz was brought aboard as an editor and Bob Schreck took over as “director”, so perhaps that explains it. More research needed.

Eep! Willingham is really good at these creepy scenes…

NOOO! NOT HIS WHOLE ARM!!!

The more things change…

So with the villain gone, Elementals turns into more of a normal super-hero comic, with the heroes saving people from burning buildings, and Learning An Important Moral Lesson and stuff. Which is preferable to whatever that first sequence was, really.

Hey, that’s a more stylish Mage ad.

Willingham presents most of the cops and the military as somewhat bad people, but I think that FBI agent is supposed to be one of the good guys? And still he shoots that rat-faced guy just because he’s been double-dared to do so…

That’s a kinda striking wraparound cover… Quite a few of them are pretty good, really.

I’m not sure what I expected from this series. While reading other super hero/action series for various blog series, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how entertaining they turned out to be (again, take Airboy as an example). This series attempts a lot… or perhaps, is just written by somebody with a low attention span. Some parts feel like a silly super hero team comic book, while other bits insist on being All Serious For Grown Ups, and these shifts don’t come off as intentional.

I think what he’s saying here is that he didn’t have time to pencil this issue, so we get a whole lot of people. Steve Bissette? Mike Mignola? The Pander bros? Huh! Sounds interesting.

Heh, Schulz and Schreck show up, but are brushed off.

Oh deer. That’s a Bissette page. Not his finest work, but I guess the inker perhaps didn’t quite… er… do the right thing?

Huh, a submissions guide… I guess they wanted to expand the line?

Here’s Mignola… I guess this was before he became famous?

Nobody seems to have told the Pander brothers that Monolith (the guy in brown) was supposed to be twelve?

Here’s a reader that finds the recurring nastiness interesting.

Oh, so that’s why her costume changed. Makes sense!

Willingham is frequently off model himself. Yes, that is indeed Monolith again.

Oh, there was an Elementals Special published that dealt with child abuse? I guess we’ll see what that’s about when I get there… let’s see…

Yeah, in a week or two (or three), I guess? I do these blog posts “chronologically”, but depending on the date when the first issue of a series was published. For long-running series, I find myself peeking into the future a lot, so to speak.

I’ve done a few of these blog serieses (that’s a word) now, and at one point I started wondering whether it would be more fun to do a publisher strictly chronologically. That is, one post per issue, in the order they were published. Then I told myself not to be stupid, and then I got angry at myself for dismissing my ideas, and then I went to bed.

PROBABLY.

Eep. Willingham’s forté just isn’t drawing children…

He’s getting quite good at this sort of stuff, though.

How the turntables!

Keith Wilson comes aboard as inker (and Willingham apparently scripts this one himself).

It’s a dream issue where we learn about Monolith’s childhood, which is very traumatic indeed and involves his father physically abusing him.

Wilson’s inks seem to work better for Willingham than the previous one, and it being a dream issue, Willingham can easily drop doing backgrounds. Which he doesn’t like to do, anyway.

Even as dream issues go, it’s pretty weird. But… he’s fifteen now, or is that just in the dream? Oh, I guess… He was twelve when he died (I think it was stated somewhere; I may misremember), but it’s been a few years, and he’s now fifteen? But since they’re dead, they don’t age? I dunno.

Oh yeah — I remember reading Giovinco’s blog post about this, which is pretty interesting.

Read more here — Giovinco says that he came up with this colour chart that then became something of an industry standard…

We then start getting special guest pencillers — I think Willingham drew less than half the issues from now on…

Jill Thompson is famous and stuff now, but back then, her artwork looked pretty basic.

Wow, that’s a lot of comics. I guess 1987 was their Imperial Moment. They were pushing out a lot of stuff, most of it commercially successful, and some of it even pretty good, I think? I guess I’ll find out when I get there.

Then! Suddenly! Special recap issue! That explains everything.

Grant Miehm started out as a special guest penciller, but would go on to be the regular penciller for a while…

Oh, but what’s going on in the stories? Well, it’s still the same odd mix of team comics tropes, like Super Power Training Scenes That Turn Serious, and various conspiracies that seem to be brewing… but without really gelling. Which isn’t strange, because I guess you shouldn’t brew jello.

Things in general are just… off.

It’s not that these are boring or anything — they’re not — but it’s hard not to keep an eyebrow permanently arched.

Diana Schutz writes an editorial explaining why they didn’t help Fantagraphics defending against the ridiculous suit by Michael Fleisher. And… it’s because they were busy, and besides, they felt Gary Groth was a “muckraker”. I’m paraphrasing slightly!

War is hell! I mean… Being a super hero is hard!

That’s a very mysterious ad… Oh! I guess it’s for the Comico Black Book? Which was something they released to celebrate their fifth anniversary. We’ll cover that much later.

I think the issues that work best are when Willingham just let them be regular super-heroes. This arc, where they fight a vampire, was pretty entertaining, for instance. In typical Willingham fashion, it’s a disgusting incel vampire; a parody on the Dracula trope: Not only does he kill women and drink their blood, but he gets sexually excited and ejaculates on them.

“Fun for the whole family”, I guess, but it different, at least…

Is that an abnormally large staff for a company like this? Perhaps not? That’s a lot of publishers, at least, but perhaps they don’t actually work there.

Grant Miehm takes over as penciller permanently, apparently.

And remember that evil guy who was the main villain? He’s back all of a sudden! But then tells his co-conspirators that he’s not going to do anything until… a specific recently (prematurely) born baby dies, and then he’s gonna… do something… It’s unclear what.

So Willingham is setting up things that feel like are going to be long, complex story lines, but it’s hard to have much confidence: Perhaps this is going to pay off, and perhaps not?

Oh, that Fathom!

I guess the regular new penciller didn’t work out?

And we’re introduced to yet another cabal of characters — this time it’s a magician who’s also an assassin? Procurer? Is this going to go anywhere?

Well, Willingham is back on pencils…

… and we get more mysterious conspiracies set up. I lost count — I think we’re up to at least four? five? more or less secret organisations setting up things?

War is hell! I mean, being a super-hero is hard!

Oooh! An officially embroidered SATIN JACKET!!! Very cool, very cool.

And then Willingham sets up yet another secret evil organisation, apparently — centred around an eeevil preacher, this time around. (Or did he already do that? It’s taken me several days to do this blog post, so I’ve already started to forget stuff.)

I wondered whether Willingham had xeroxed that guy… and I guess he might have, but the inking looks done by hand (i.e., differently each time).

And the preacher’s plan was to torture 1,200 people to death in the most horrible way possible, and then count on God to ressurrect the worthy ones. (We’re shown some of the tortures, but since this is a family oriented blog (I’m not saying which family) I’m not showing those bits.)

And it works! Now the next issue is going to be an epic fight sequence between these dorks and the Elementals? Nope — none of this is mentioned again. (At least not for the duration of the first Elementals series — perhaps they’ll show up in the next volume?)

Similarly, a guy is covered in goo from villain called Chrysalis, so he’s transformed into… something. Which also seems like a setup for a storyline, but apparently no?

I guess you could read these issues as a totally normal Monster Of The Month series — it’s certainly not unusual to have lots of different villains to confront a super-hero team. It’s just the way Williams introduces these things — it’s difficult to read this introduction of a Thor-like guy (even if he’s sort of a parody) as being the start of something bigger, but again — nope.

So meta!!!!1!

Instead of dealing with any of the millions of things that have apparently been set up, the Elementals are brought to Peru by some Marxist revolutionaries…

… that turn out to be misogynistic and stuff! Oh the irony!

For the last few issues, Willingham is listed as “Creator” instead of “Plot” or something, so I don’t know what that means. Did he stop writing the book?

*gasp* Sudden backstory!

And in this world, Chicago has an annual night where they put everything to fire. Why not.

Now that’s a pretty bizarre complaint — a reader writes in to complain about Comico publishing collected editions of some of their comics. Because he collects everything Comico publishes, but he doesn’t want doubles! laughs in twelve variant editions forty years later

But I rather felt his pain while doing the shopping for this blog series. I mean, the gimmick here is to read “everything”, but what does that mean? I drew the line at collected editions, too, so I won’t be reading Magebook etc. And that hurts my CDO (that’s kinda like OCD, but with the letters in the correct order).

We finally learn something about the blond-haired one’s background… Er… Yeah, Vortex? He’s a Vietnam vet, and he apparently slaughtered an entire Cambodian village (children and all) because he’d been told there was a Russian agent there. Sure! The ironic twist is that he then learns (after this meeting) that the village had ejected the Russian agent before he arrived, so he killed an entire innocent village! Those children were innocent after all! Oh the irony!

The military is dastardy as always.

Yeah!

Heh heh…

They return to the old theme of it’s-hard-to-be-a-famous-super-hero, this time partly from the point-of-view of a girl who’s got a crush on Monolith.

Hey! That book sounds fun… I’ll be reading it later…

Oh yeah, the plot — she goes to Seattle to find Monolith, and she’s then immediately kidnapped by child pornographers… and then saved by Monolith after apparently having been abused. So above’s the immediate aftermath.

It’s like…

As meet-cutes go, that’s not a very cute one.

But apparently Willingham isn’t to blame for this one — Jack Herman is apparently solely responsible for writing this one?

Oh, and Willingham stopped doing any of the art several issues ago.

For the final two issues, we’re introduced (nooo!) to another conspiracy that’s trying to create their own elementals to do experiments with.

It breaks all the rules! Now I really want to read it.

And this is how Elementals (volume 1) ends — no announcement that it’s ending or nothing. Just “End”.

So I wondered whether this meant that Willingham was leaving or something, but according to comics.org, he continues on. So I don’t know why they renumbered — perhaps they just wanted a new #1? I guess I’ll find out (perhaps) when I get there, but it’ll be a while.

Perhaps all the unresolved stuff in this series will be dealt with in volume two? I have no idea, but if you take this series seperately, I feel some vindication for my scepticism throughout the series: So many conspiracies were introduced, and then none of them (if I counted correctly) had any followup.

Reading this book felt like somebody gaslighting you constantly. I think it’s just due to Willingham not being very good at what he was trying to do, but perhaps volume two will show me that I’m wrong? I’m not really looking forward to reading it, I must say.

But apart form the aneurysm inducing effects, I guess this series isn’t that bad, really? Lots of awkward artwork, sometimes risible storytelling, generally an icky feeling to the proceedings — but I’ve read worse, certainly.

It obviously had to have been a commercial success, considering how many issues of this stuff they would end up publishing. The appeal is rather elusive, though.

OK, what did the critics think?

Amazing Heroes #86, page #51:

It was a dark and stormy year for
Elementals. Contractual disagree-
ments between creator Bill Willing-
ham and Comico threatened to end
the series before its first storyline
could conclude. Fortunately for all
concerned, a mutual agreement has
been reached and the book is back
on the stands. Even better, there is
every indication the book will be ap-
pearing on a regular, possibly mon-
thly, basis.
Only three issues appeared over
the course of the past year, but they
were important in defining both the
Elementals and the world they in-
habit. Issue #3 revealed the demonic
source of the evil Lord Saker’s
powers. It also continued to show the
graphically realistic consequences of
violence-which is a trademark of
the book and the cause of some
controversy.
Issue #4 carried the “heroes in cap-
tivity” motif to its logical, yet seldom
seen, conclusion, as the Elementals
were held captive on Saker’s island
for a full year. A source of possible
new controversy appeared, in the
form of religious undertones. While
never explicitly stated, it is obvious
that Saker had been restored to life
by Jesus Christ, whom Saker consid-
ered to be an egomaniacal charlatan.
This issue also did the old Batman
stories one better by presenting the
most unusual and amusing escape
trick I’ve ever seen-in which Fathom
literally flushed herself to freedom
down a convenient toilet.
The climax to the “Natural Order”
story came in issue #5. Fathom again
took the spotlight, rescuing her
fellow Elementals with a giant tidal
wave that killed scores of Saker’s
mercenaries. Even as one plotline
ended, the threads of several more
were dangled before us.
There are some observers of the
comics scene who probably feel that
no book featuring super-heroes is en-
titled to be in any Top Ten. While I-
too am desirous of greater diversity
in comics, I feel that to simply
dismiss the entire super-hero genre
displays a snobbery that is every bit
as intolerant as that shown by those
who refuse to read anything that
doesn’t have a costumed character in
it.
Willingham is at least attempting
to tackle superheroics from a diffe-
rent angle, and take it in diverse
directions. I think that, for the most
part, he succeeds. I also agree with
his philosophy regarding the depic-
tion of violence. All of its deadly con-
sequences should be shown, rather
than glossed over. If we truly feel the
horror of death, perhaps we’ll final-
ly develop a respect for life.
Even with only three issues, Ele-
mentals is worthy of a spot in the Top
Ten, and if it truly succeeds in main-
taining a regular schedule I believe
it will become an enormous success
for Comico-possibly the rock on
which that company can grow and
flourish.

Well, it’s heartening to see R. A. Jones put Elementals on his top ten list of 1985 — I’ve never agreed with any of his reviews, I think?

Amazing Heroes #85, page #57:

ELEMENTALS #5

When last we saw the Elementals,
the heroine known as Fathom had
executed one of the most unusual
escapes ever seen. Now she returns,
in an equally unique manner.
Melding with the ocean and form-
ing a tsunami-a giant tidal wave-
she sweeps over Nacht Island, the
hideout of the evil Saker, where her
teammates are still held captive.
In the ensuing chaos, the other
heros make their individual bids for
freedom. Their villainous counter-
parts, the Destroyers, stand in their
way. Quarter is neither asked nor
given. In the island’s central tower,
Saker unleashes the rampant energy
cloud known as Shadow-Spear. He
has no time to savor his actions,
however, for he is then attacked by
the Elemental called Vortex.
The battle ends when Saker is
snatched by a demon he had inad-
vertently unleashed, and is pulled
into a dimensional netherworld.
Navy jets sweep over the island, cap-
ping off the victory. The story here
is ending, but-in the dark skies
above the island and in the dank tun-
nels beneath it-new stories are
beginning.
After a hiatus of several months,
1985 Bill Willingham
Elementals creator Bill Willingham
is back with a vengeance, bolstered
by a new contract and a restored
sense of enthusiasm. The story here
has some rough edges that may be
reflective of his extended absence.
Some scenes are simply not shown-
Fathom’s defeat of the Electrocu-
tioner, for example. Others are not
fully developed, and therefore not
fully understandable. The demon
that grabs Saker seems to come from
left field, its appearance as unex-
plained as it is unexpected (though
part of my disorientation here may
come from the long passage of time
since I read the last issue).

No, the storytelling just sucked.

By and large, though, Willingham
delivers a rousing finale to this multi-
part epic. He presents the dark side
of superheroics; people bleed and
die. (Remember those charming but
unbelievable days when superpow-
ered free-for-alls always convenient-
ly took place in neighborhoods that
were “due to be torn down anyway,”
and therefore deserted?)
Willingham gets strong support
from his writer, Jack Herman. The
script is lean and tight. In fact, it may
be too lean in spots; a little more
exposition may have shed much
needed light on the aforementioned
scenes that were left in the dark. This
is a minor complaint, offset by the
generally fine dialogue. The best
example of this comes when Rat-
man, standing in the path of the on-
coming tidal wave, says only “Becky!
You came back!” before a wall of
water engulfs him.
Likewise, Willingham’s art is of
high caliber. It is marred slightly by
occasional illustrations that seem
somewhat lacking in detail, but these
are the exception rather than the rule.
He seems to be at his strongest in the
application of shading, producing art
that is as impressive in black-and-
white as it is when it is fully colored.
Having Elementals back is good
news indeed. The book captured the
attention of fandom when the first
issue hit the stands. That attention
has been diminished somehwat by
the strip’s erratic schedule. When it
did appear, it brought with it an
added dimension of its depiction of
the superhero that is the staple of the
industry.
All parties concerned now seem
confident that the book will appear
on a regular, consistent basis. If this
proves to be the case, I feel certain
that Comico will have a bonafide hit
on its hands. If you have not yet
sampled Elementals, I heartily rec-
ommend that you do so now.

That’s R. A. Jones again…

Gene Phillips in The Comics Journal #116, page #56:

Bill Willingham’s Elementals
uses the dream-sequence concept
to better effect. Issue #12 journeys
through the mind of Tommy
(Monolith) Czuchra, a fifteen-year-
old whose dreams detail the abuses
he suffered at the hands of his
father, his ambiguous relationships
to the other Elementals, and a con-
voluted prophesy by an old enemy,
suggest that in the future the
Elementals may become corrupt
rulers of Earth. I still perceive a
looseness in Willingham’s line-
work, but, with the departure of
inker Rich Rankine, new inker
Keith Wilson gives a greater sense
of tone and weight to bodies and
finer delineation to backgrounds
(pages seven and 13 are particular
knockouts). At this point it’s dif-
ficult to say whether or not Will-
ingham’s cosmic scenario will
touch on any philosophical profun-
dities, but it sure looks nice.

That’s an unexpectedly positive review.

Fantasy Advertiser #87, page #4:

THE ELEMENTALS #1 sold its 50,000 print run within 3
weeks, to put it second only to AMERICAN FLAGG in the
independent comics sales charts. From #2, Rich Rankin
joins creator Bill Willingham as inker, with scripting
chores taken over by Bill; from #3, Bill Willingham is
taking over as letterer, as well.

Wow! 50K copies!

Andy Mangels in Amazing Heroes #137, page #89:

Elementals #23, ‘Mad Gods and
Englishmen’; Bill Willingham,
writer; Jill Thompson, penciller;
Keith Wilson, inker; Comico; $1.50

The Elementals has always been one
of my favorite titles, ever since the
Comico guys gave me a free copy of
#1 at the 1984 San Diego Trade Show,
days before it was to hit the stands. It
still remains high on my list, although
it tends to fluctuate more lately.
This issue finds the Elementals in
Canada fighting giant bugs mutated by
the ShadowSpear (When is that plot
device going to end? Yawn.), while on
the moon, Thor watches a broadcast
about them on TV (?). He decides that
they herald the dawning of a new
heroic age, so of course, he must
engage them in battle. He heads for
Earth, engages them in battle, but
when they win, takes his toys and goes
home, leaving the Elementals in a very
precarious position.
A short plot, and a large amount of
the story is spent on fight scenes, but
what has always made the Elementals
so good is the character interaction.
All four of the heroes share something
basic in common (they’re all dead, for
starters), and interact like a family.
They usually realize the basic absur-
dity of the situations they face. For
instance, when Monolith figures out
who the man they’re fighting is, he
thinks: “The magic hammer, the
strength, the red hair—it’s got to be
him! But the Superman suit—and the
fake English accent? It doesn’t fit. It’s
straight out of a bad comic book!”
It is this self-aware humor that
makes this book so enjoyable. It seems
that the new Justice League Interna-
tional crew took their cues from
Elementals, because the two books are
traditionally so close in tone as to
seem to be by the same creative teams.
Still, Elementals has tackled some
fairly adult issues, and some “mature”
things as well (what do we call sex or
violence since they sometimes aren’t
adult or mature?).
The art this issue is by Jill Thomp-
son, whose work is not anywhere near
the level of regular penciller Bill Will-
ingham, but she manages to convey
the script well. She would do well to
work on her page design, panel lay-
outs, and storytelling though, as many
of the pages are confusing to read. Bill
Willingham’s script is (as usual) good,
with a few rib-nudging fanboy jokes
thrown in. This issue however would
probably not appeal to non-comics
readers as much as diehard super-hero
fans.
Elementals is almost always one of
the more entertaining books around.
It is not a suberb example of the craft,
but it is an enjoyable read. An a no-
risk way to spend $1.50.
What I really want to know is why
they don’t call Thor “Thor” anywhere
in the whole issue. Marvel may have
a copyright on the logo, but you can’t
copyright a myth. That’s why both DC
and Marvel can have a Hercules.
And why does he speak in a British
accent?
Grade: Mint

Fantasy Advertiser #92, page #7:

ELEMENTALS AND EVANGELINE CANCELLED
One of the best-selling of all independent comics,
The Elementals by Bill Willingham, will be cancelled
after #4, and Evangeline by Chuck Dixon and Judith
Hunt ends after #2. In both cases, disputes of unre-
vealed type has been given as the reason, but this
must be considered a very serious blow for Comico.
Hints and rumours suggest that First Comics, whom
Willingham has just joined as new penciller on Amer-
ican Flagg, may well take up the Elementals series,
but this is unconfirmed at present.

This must be about those “production issues” that Willingham was talking about. At one point they announced the cancellation of the series?

“Disputes of unrevealed types” — well, the Evangeline disputes were pretty clear, but I’ve yet to find any details about what problems Elementals had…

The Comics Journal #278, page #81:

DEPPEY: The Elementals also struck me as a
series that was very explicitly not written for
kids, which again, is standard almost today,
but for superhero comics at the time was al-
most unheard of. I mean, I suppose, aside from
the more thoughtful approach to superheroes
in general, there was also the addition of sex,
which … eventually culminated in “Sex Spe-
cials” in the book.
WILLINGHAM: If I’d known that that’s what they
were gonna do with it after I left, I probably
wouldn’t have laid those seeds early on, but
yeah.
DEPPEY: Can I assume then that those Sex Spe-
cials were not your idea?
WILLINGHAM: Well, yes and no. What ended up
being the first Sex Special was actually just
going to be one of the regular issues, I forget
which number it was, but it was just gonna
be put in the numbering along with every-
thing else. And there were people stretch-
ing the boundaries of comics then. I mean,
Chaykin had just come out with his Black
Kiss and stuff that said, “Here’s more things
you can do with comics than just what you’re
getting.” And, you know, that sort of inspires
the rest of us to see where we can go with the
same material. But Comico, when they got it
in, they said, “This is great. We might have to
bag this issue.” I said, “Fine.” But at the same
time, Comico was very visibly going out of
business without mentioning it to us, and the
fellow Andrew Rev, who took over Comico
and started it up again, this thing was already
completed. It was ready to be published,
printed. He was adamant that it not be just
part of the regular series numbering and
made the first Sex Special out of it, which
got some attention. I guess it sold more than
the regular issues, so that decreed that there
would be a second and a third and fourth
and so on. All of which I thought was pretty
ridiculous. It’s almost like they take one ele-
ment of the story, “Oh, it’s sex, so we’re hav-
ing a Sex Special.” And, you know, if there
were others that had, like, the kid Tommy’s
ugly cereal recipe for what he liked to eat in
the morning, it made as much sense to me to
just put that out as the first Elementals Food
Special, because there’s an actual recipe you
can follow in there if you wanted to.

The Comics Journal #103, page #11:

Negotiation, cancellation, and
arbitration have combined to
produce changes in Comico’s
publications. Bill Willingham,
creator of The Elementals, and
Comico have come to terms on a
new contract. Judy Hunt and
Chuck Dixon have won the right
to take Evangeline to a new
publisher, and Roger McKenzie
and Vince Argondezzi’s The Next
Man has been cancelled.
Transmuting contracts:
Publication of Willingham’s
Elementals was suspended after
the fifth issue because
Willingham and his lawyer were
no longer satisfied with the
contract he had signed, and he
wanted it renegotiated. According
to Gary Green, Willingham’s
lawyer, the original contract was
too vague, and it no longer
accurately reflected Willingham’s
currency in the comics market-
place. “The first contract was a
real boilerplate deal,” Green said,
adding that the contract appeared
to be an amalgamation of portions
of contracts that Comico liked.
The attorney also said that the
contract was outdated, because it
treated the high-selling Elementals
as a “speculative” property,
“and we all know that’s no longer
necessary,” as Green put it.
“It’s not necessary for Comico to
patronize Bill any more.’
As far as any dispute over
copyright that existed, Green said
that the only question was
whether Comico was being
vigilant enough in protecting
Willingham’s copyright, such as
timely in filing copyright papers
on Willingham’s behalf with the
Copyright Office. “And, in case
Dave Singer [publisher of the
embattled T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents] is reading this, the
Elementals are not in the public
domain!” he said.
The new contract also gave
Willingham a better percentage of
royalties, although both Green
and Willingham declined to
discuss the actual figures.
Willingham also said that the
contract was not as well-written
as it should have been, calling it
a “cut-and-paste” job. “When it
came to the attention of my
lawyer, he had trouble decipher-
ing it,” he said. “But both
Comico and I were learning to be
businessmen back when it was
written, so it’s understandable.”
Both Green and Willingham
said the new contract is much
more professional, and it specifies
the duties of all the involved
parties much more clearly.
Willingham indicated that items
such as the payment schedule,
royalty reporting, and publishing
frequency were not specific in the
first contract. “But there’s no
room for misinterpretation in the
new contract,” he said.
As to the specifics of the
contract, Willingham, Green, and
Gerry Giovinco, co-publisher of
Comico, all declined comment,
saying that the contract contained
a confidentiality clause that
forbids discussion of figures in
the contract.
The next issue of the Elemen-
tals, issue #5, will be out toward
the end of the year, after a lapse
of nearly a year. Willingham said
he wasn’t working on the book
while negotiations were
proceeding, and it was during
this time that Willingham made his
abortive effort on First Comics’
American Flagg! [See Journal
#102]. Plans for the Elementals is
a bi-monthly frequency through
issue #8, due out around June
1986, and then monthly thereafter.

So they had a contractual dispute that led to Elementals not being published for a year…

Amazing Heroes #161, page #30:

Bill Willingham’s Elementals. Ask any
seasoned comics fan about it, the gen-
eral consensus will be: “It was a great
series.” Published by Comico, this
series about four people who died and
returned to life with super-powers sur-
prised and impressed people with its
original approach to super-heroes.
In those pre-Watchmen days, the
Elementals lived in a real world where
their actions had real reactions. Most
notable was its graphic presentation of
violence. Bodies broke as buildings
did in those battles between super-
beings, just as we suspected they
should. Luckily, the Elementals could
heal from virtually any injury, given
time.
Readers responded favorably to
Fathom, Monolith, Morningstar and
Vortex and their respective mastery
over water, earth, fire and air. They
were taken by plotter/artist Willing-
ham’s and scripter Jack Herman’s tales
mixing hard-edged supernatural con-
flicts with some serio-comic situa-
tions. Fathom even received a solo
mini-series.
Then something happened. More
and more issues were drawn by guest
artists. Finally, after two rather in-
spired issues, Willingham’s involve-
ment seemed to end altogether. To
make matters worse, those last two
issues initiated a storyline that was
begging to be completed. Meanwhile,
Elementals continued for a few more
months with fill-in quality stories
which disenchanted readers until it
was eventually put on hiatus.

What Happened?
Elementals suspended publication be-
cause, according to Willingham, he
and Comico were “kind of on the
outs.” But mostly, it was “just because
I was a little bit burned out on the
Elementals. I was not all that excited
about the book so I was thinking about
ending the contract with Comico” and
cancelling Elementals.
Instead, Willingham explained, he
and Comico discussed Elementals and
other projects and decided Elementals
would continue with Willingham writ-
ing, but not drawing it. Though he
doesn’t consider himself a slow artist,
drawing the comic regularly without
sufficient inspiration took too much
time.

Finding A New Team
During the hiatus, Willingham re-
charged his creative batteries and
commenced plans for the new Ele-
mentals. Once the contract for the new
series was signed, a creative team had
to be assembled.
For the art, Willingham made a
short list of talent that he’d like to see
handle his creations. Among his “fan-
tasy choices” were Paul Smith and
Kevin Nowlan. His first “real” choice
was Adam Hughes, who was pegged
for Comico’s detective series, The
Maze Agency, before Willingham
could nab him. His second choice was
an old friend of his, Mike Leeke,
whom he knew when he lived in
Philadelphia.

OK, so that was why Elementals volume 1 ended? Willingham wanted a break? The final issue of v1 was in September 1988, and the first issue of v2 was in March 1989, according to comics.org, so it wasn’t a very long break.

You could easily tell that Willingham had lost interest in the book, though…

Superhero Book #1, page #223:

Independent publisher Comico the Comic Com-
pany picked up Willingham’s creator-owned
superteam shortly after the Texas Comics debut.
and issued Elementals #1 in 1984. Erratically
released at first, Elementals gamered a loyal fan
base, largely due to Willingham’s provocative cre-
ative voice. As a writer, he stretched with each
installment-over time, he addressed occultism,
child abuse, sexual identity, religious obsession,
immoral ministers, depression, and suicide, all
while delivering well-paced, solidly scripted super-
hero stories. A disciple of folklore, Willingham also
introduced fantasy themes into Elementals, with
storybook and mythological characters appearing,
territory he later continued to cover by writing the
critically acclaimed series Fables (2002-present)
for DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. As an artist, Willing-
ham matured with each issue, starting as a compe-
tent copycat (while popular Batman and Micronauts
artist Michael Golden’s influence is quite obvious in
his early work, Willingham commands a firm grasp
of storytelling) but blossoming into a remarkably tal-
ented illustrator.
But Willingham came and went, and Elemen-
tals issues written and drawn by others lacked his
magic and verve. In early 1989, Comico devised a
“best of both worlds” scenario to keep Willingham
on the title and publish what had become a strong
seller for the company on a monthly schedule: Ele-
mentals was relaunched with vol. 2 issue #1, with
Willingham scripting and providing cover art, but
with Mike Leeke and Mike Chen on interior art.
(superstar artist Adam Hughes, then an up-and-
comer, guest-penciled Elementals #12). This plan
worked well-until bankruptcy forced Comico to
close its doors in the early 1990s.

Amazing Heroes #159, page #50:

“When is Bill Willingham coming back to do more Elementals
stories?” “When is Comico going to drop those fill-ins and put
continuity back into Elementals?”
Recently, Comico has been deluged with mail asking those
very questions, and, after months of preparation, we’re doing
something to answer them-something exciting!
Bill Willingham is back at the creative helm of comicdom’s
most provocative super-team, now as the writer and cover artist
(and interior artist of occasional Elementals Specials, like Special
#2, now on sale), reintroducing the much lamented issue-to-issue
continuity to the series.

OK, I’m not the only one noticing the lack of continuity…

Back Issue #24, page #83:

Writer/artist Willingham’s stories didn’t shy from
shining the spotlight on televangelistic hypocrisy,
transgenderism, the rewards and penalties of celebrity,
contemplated suicide, and other issues that would still
resonate with today’s reader. Team members fought over
both moral and business matters and they sometimes
worked for the public good, not just because it was the
right thing to do, but for the publicity. Death became
a very real component in the characters’ lives, sometimes
discussed not as something to be avoided, but as an
expeditious way to stop an un-imprisonable enemy.
Not every good deed met with success nor every evil
act met with punishment.
But by issue #23 (Mar. 1988), Willingham lost
interest in the series and stepped away from his creation,
leaving it to writer Jack Herman, who had worked as
intermittent scripter since issue #4, and artists Jill
Thompson and Keith Wilson, who guided the first volume
to its final issue, #29 (Sept. 1988). However, what father
could stay away from his child?
[Editor’s note: Despite numerous contact attempts,
BACK ISSUE could not reach Bill Willingham to procure an
interview for this article. We hope to schedule an interview
with Mr. Willingham in the future, at which time we will
afford the original run of Elementals a closer inspection.]

OK, so Willingham wasn’t involved with any of those issues where he’s listed as “Creator” only? Then things make more sense. But I mean, Jack Herman could have developed some of the plot lines anyway, and Willingham’s own storylines were already really disjointed…

The Comics Journal #102, page #19:

Bill Willingham off American
Flagg! due to missed deadline

Bill Willingham, recently hired by
First Comics to pencil American
Flagg!, has been removed from
the book because he missed his
deadline. Because of the deadline
problem, American Flagg! #28
did not come out in September as
it was scheduled, making this the
first shipping date that First
Comics has missed in 179 issues.
Cause and effect: Flagg! #28 was
to be the first issue by the new
team of Chaykin and Willingham,
with Willingham pencilling from
Chaykin’s plot. According to
Willingham, problems started at
the plot stage: the plot was three
weeks late, and First Managing
Editor Mike Gold called him to
ask if he could pencil the entire
book in a week. “By the time I
was asked to take over the book,
someone should have already
been well into pencilling it.
Willingham said. Gold said that
the plot to the issue was late, but
he denied that it was three weeks
late, and would say only that it was
“a little late.” He also denied that he asked Willingham to draw
Flagg #28 in a week, saying that
he only asked Willingham to send
in one-third of the pages in a
week.

[…]

Aftermath: Due to the production
snafu, Joe Staton will become the
new penciller on Flagg!,
beginning with issue #28, with
Barta remaining on as inker.
As for Willingham, he is still
negotiating to continue The
Elementals for Comico, and if the
negotiations turn out successfully,
he said he would like to continue
that book at Comico. He added,
though, that on the day he saw
the ad in CBG, he received a call
from Obadiah expressing an
interest in publishing the popular
Elementals. ‘I don’t think I
burned my bridges behind me at
First by being late,” Willingham
said. “But perhaps the bridges
were burned by them in pro-
ducing this fun advertisement.”

Wow. That’s some ad from First Comics.

Amazing Heroes #95, page #8:

SCHOLARSHIPS: Elementals creator BILL
WILLINGHAM and Comico the Company, in
association with the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon
and Graphic Art, have announced that they will
be awarding four annual thousand-dollar
scholarships to students at the school who are in
their second year. Two of the students will receive
the “Elementals Scholarship” based on their
pencilling skills, while two others will receive the
“Comico Sequential Art Scholarship” for their
storytelling skills.

Huh.

Hello? Hello? Anybody still here? Time to wrap this up…

Comico published collected editions of the earliest issues, but the rest have never been reprinted. So while it was commercially successful at the time, there isn’t any great clamouring these days to read these books? I guess it might also have to do with the rights situation — I don’t know who ended up owning it in the end…

Yeah, I’d need a citation for that:

Comico’s publisher, Andrew Rev, purchased the Elementals property from Willingham in the 1990s.[citation needed]

Willingham went on to produce a lot of books — first some porn stuff from Fantagraphics, as previously noted, but then a lot of stuff for DC. He hit the jackpot with Fables in 2002, which ran until recently:

He describes himself as “rabidly pro-Israel” and says that Fables “was intended from the beginning” as a metaphor for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, although he argues that Fables is not “a political tract. It never will be, but at the same time, it’s not going to shy away from the fact that there are characters who have real moral and ethical centers, and we’re not going to apologize for it.”

[…]

In September 2023, Willingham put his Fables series into the public domain after a dispute with DC Comics over publishing and media rights for Fables. DC has since responded that Fables is wholly owned by them and the company will take appropriate action to protect its intellectual property

I’ve read a couple of Fables collections, but I don’t remember much about them.

OK, before I go, I should do some googling to see whether there’s any reviews out there:

Here’s one:

A great series that is, sadly, hardly remembered.

Willingham—who today is probably best known as the writer of Vertigo’s Fables—draws and writes one of the best superhero books of the 1980s. It starts out strong here, and gets even better in the issues that follow (if you can find them.)

Oh, there’s a whole HobbyDrama thing devoted to its history:

As the comic continued, it quickly became clear that Elementals was more a horror story with Superhero elements rather than a traditional Superhero book. It contained scenes of violence and gore that were considered extreme for mainstream comics at the time, layered on top of some rather dark thematic elements. The first was establishing that the only way to get superpowers in the Elementals universe was to die traumatically, a fact that would inform the book going forwards.

[…]

It also introduced more and more magical and supernatural elements, including a council of wizards who aided in the rebirth of Saker as a part of a dark plan. This peaked with the introduction of Avalon, a parallel fantasy world filled with dragons, Elves, griffons, wizards and whatever else. Finally, the Elementals fought Thor, who was introduced as the literal Norse god of thunder.

And then it kind of stopped. Issues 23 to 29 of the first volume were all one-shot filler issues with little to no involvement from Willingham. While there were a bunch of ongoing plots; Saker, Avalon, the Faithful and so on, none of them were ever addressed.

[…]

Elementals survived the bloodbath, having been purchased by Rev. It was relaunched in 1989 with a second volume. Willingham was back at the helm, immediately picking up on many of those hanging plot points. At the same time, the events of issues 23-29 of volume 1 were basically ignored.

Ah, right.

This person likes the book:

Willingham’s pencils are beautiful, partly because he fills each panel with such detail. His fight scenes, particularly, do a very nice job accommodating all the characters while still managing to convey a sense of fluid motion. The battle scenes in issues #3 and 5 are especially stunning. When Shapeshifter changes into a snake to fight Morningstar, the transformation is almost erotic, due largely to Willingham’s clean lines and style. It’s not groundbreaking art, but he has such a good sense of composition that the art is elevated above standard superhero work. Although it’s detailed, it doesn’t feel cluttered, and his women are attractive while still managing to be anatomically to scale – they’re athletic, which is nice to see.

This one, too:

FINAL RATING: 8.0 (out of a possible 10) There are flaws, but the story is good, different from how fans of a mainstream super-hero comic would expect it to run.

Uhm:

Elementals #9 is a blast from the past that’s still relevant (and influential) today, and it’s easy to see this books’ themes and ideas in the comics of 2012, earning this one a lovely 4.5 out of 5 stars overall.

Yeah, I’m sure everybody doing comics today are using Elementals #9 as their template.

OK, now I’m done!!! What’s next? Eep! Robotech: The Macross Saga, 36 issues. I was aiming for a couple posts per week with this blog series, but it may take longer. Or perhaps there’s less to write about with Robotech, and I’ll have a post whipped up real quick? Stay tuned! If you can bear the excitement!