Dan Didio clarifies the whole Captain Marvel/Shazam name thing at NY Comic Con

I was finally able to get to Dan Didio at New York Comic Con after his discussion panel and ask him a few quick questions about the name of the superhero who says "Shazam!"...

Artists and Heroes...thanks to Dan Didio (Part 2)

When last we left our story, I was at a panel discussion with Dan Didio and some DC artists and writers and he was asking questions of the audience and panelists. One of them was a very interesting question to which I had what I thought was a brilliant, insightful answer, and even had relevance to the ostensible reason for me being there:

“Who was the first artist you started following and did you start following comics for the character or the artist?”

Funny thing about that…

Of course, growing up, I saw Archie and Casper the Friendly Ghost comics and superhero comics, and I was aware that the art was different for Archie and Casper than it was for Batman. However, the first time I actually noticed a specific artist’s art as being distinctive of of other artists was when I saw the original Captain Marvel.

Though I was not yet sophisticated enough to tell the difference between C.C. Beck and Kurt Schaffenberger, I did realize that the Big Red Cheese, in both reprints of old stories from Fawcett Publications and the contemporary stuff from DC, was not like what I saw in Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and other superhero comics (which was what most of my other comics were).  It was simpler, clearer. One might say it was more “cartoony,” but the simplicity disguised the mastery of the medium that Beck and Schaffenberger had. The storytelling was always clean and concise. The anatomy was proportionate and believable.

However, in 1981, DC decided to give Captain Marvel a makeover. Out went that simple style of Kurt Schaffenberger (who was drawing the hero at the time) and in came the slightly warped but realistically detailed work of Don Newton. I actually avoided reading those stories in Action Comics because I did not like seeing that art for Captain Marvel. I spent hours trying to think of which artists would be able to draw the World’s Mightiest Mortal in the appropriate style, and did not understand that calling for such a change back was a lost cause. DC wanted to update the look, and there it was.

Now, of course, I recognize the quality and skill of Newton’s art. I also see how he was able to realistically distort faces and features for comedic effect. Captain Marvel always was a quasi-comedic character, and one of the challenges faced by DC when they revived him was how to keep the lightness and whimsy in the character while making him relevant and appealing to the modern world. It was a shame I did not read too many of those stories, either, because some of them were quite good, and some of them actually went into the hero’s past and explained aspects of his origin, powers, and backstory that had not been explored before.

So that would have been an interesting thing to share with Dan Didio and the lineup of artists, writers, and editors on stage. It would have also been interesting to see his reactions and hear his thoughts, considering what DC has done with the character and the concept under his watch at DC.

Outlaw Heroes...thanks to Dan Didio (Part 1)

At NY Comic Con last month, I attended Dan Didio’s panel in which he has a semi-informal discussion with some of DC’s top talents and the audience. I was ostensibly there to ask him questions about Captain Marvel, but I didn’t want to be a dick and hijack the panel, so I listened and participated in the spirit of it.

He asked some interesting questions and invited the audience to share their answers. Again, not wanting to be a dick, I did not raise my hand every time and beg to be picked, but upon reflection, those questions inspired me to come up with some interesting answers, so I would like to share them with you here now.

One of the first questions was “What was the first comic you ever read?” I can’t remember which comic book was the first I ever read, specifically. Comics have always been a part of my life. However I can remember how some of the first few superhero comics I read gave me a very specific impression of a superhero that was probably unique to the time.

The time was the early 1970’s, and between Vietnam, Watergate, and the rise of the various youth counter-cultures,  in the popular mainstream it seemed that governmental authority was not infallible, and the hero maybe the hunted. I may have been vaguely aware of this dynamic from other elements of culture and media that I absorbed, but it really came home to me in superhero comic books.

The three comics in question were issues of Batman, Spider-Man, and Tales of Suspense featuring Captain America.

The Batman story was part of a storyline in which Batman was accused of the murder of his adversary Ra’s Al Ghul. When the story began, he was already being hunted by the police, and unearthed the dead man’s grave to find it empty. At that moment, two cops found him. He fought them and dragged one of them to the grave, only to find the body or Ra’s in it, where it had not been before! The story ended with Batman still on the lam ad Commissioner Gordon continued to direct the manhunt against him.

The Captain America story involved an imposter with a ray gun on his wrist leading high-profile bank raids. This, of course led to Captain America being a hunted man. Cap ultimately defeated the crook, but not before there were serious doubts as to whether or not he was still n the right side of the law.

Finally, the Spider-Man story was the famous first appearance of the Punisher. I don’t have much memory of this story, as the comic disappeared from my life not long after I acquired it. Lost or stolen, I imagine. I do remember that the Punisher was trying to hunt him down in the belief that he was a bad guy, and the police didn’t seem to like him much either. There was an air of desperation about his life that impressed me well.

So with these three stories, I was of the mind that to be a superhero was to be outside the law. That wearing a mask and costume to fight crime was a thing that the police and authority did not like. But since these characters were the sympathetic characters of the story, that meant that rebel fugitives were the good guys and law and authority were the bad guys.

This sort of view of things was only reinforced as I started to learn about the American Revolution (this being the bicentennial decade) and read about folks like Paul Revere doing things under cover of night to avoid the redcoats.

Next:

Artists and heroes.