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At the tail end of last year, I pulled out a few old comic book scripts I found sitting in my archives, but I forgot to include this last one.

This is the script for Fantastic Four #51 circa 2002. This one's a little less inherently interesting than the others I presented, in that there's no real backstory behind it. This is the just the original plot treatment by Carlos Pacheco and Rafael Marín, from which artist Mark Bagley drew the story. It was then passed to Karl Kesel to script. It was originally provided to me by Marín and, at the time, he noted, "Carlos and I are amazed at how Mark intepreted [sic] the plot... and how well Karl scripted it!" Fascinating to see work like this, though, and how it progress from an idea to execution.

Fantastic Four volume 3 #51 by Rafael Marín and Carlos Pacheco
Every year on Martin Luther King Day, various comic fans trot out some of the comic biographies about him. I've either talked about or included scans of them myself. And even though we're still a few weeks away from Black History Month (when it would be more "appropriate" to bring this up) I'm wondering why we don't have more comic book biographies of great Black leaders. I started a list of them last year, and even off the top of my head, there's a lot of holes.

As far as I'm aware, no one's ever tired a comic book biography of Huey Newton, James Baldwin, Frederick McKinley Jones, Octavia Butler, Mae Jemison, the Tuskegee Airmen, Pam Grier, George Washington Carver, Serena and/or Venus Williams, or any of a million other notable Black people of importance. Most of the biographies we do have are either from Golden Legacy or Bluewater, neither of which are especially well done. Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled that someone did a biography of Matthew Henson in comic book form, but it's not exactly a great piece of work.

I get that biographies of all sorts can be a harder sell. Most people don't live a life that's absolutely so amazing all the time that it can be a complete page-turner from start to finish. I'm sure people would get bored with Indiana Jones if we spent any more than a few minutes among all of the movies with him teaching in the classroom.

But at the same time, the biggest on-stage production success in years has been a biography of Alexander Hamilton. Indeed, it's already broken more than a couple sales records. Why can't a comic biography be done the same way?

Well, they can, in fact. My Friend Dahmer by Derf earned more than a few critical accolades and sold very well, eventually being turned into a feature length movie that also did very well. John Lewis' March trilogy likewise earned both critical and financial success. It's not that people are opposed to biographies; it's just that they're opposed to dry, tedious ones that are little more than a regurgitation of facts. Read up on any of those biography-less individuals I mentioned above and see if they don't all have (or have had) interesting lives. You're going to tell me the first Black woman in space is boring?!? One of the founders of the Black Panthers?!? Fighter and bomber pilots from World War II?!? Hell, I think you'd have to work hard to make these people even start to sound boring!

Again, I know that, historically, biographies are a hard sell and most people don't want to touch them because they're not guaranteed to make money. Most of the Kickstarters that I've backed and ultimately failed were biographies. But, despite the stigma, that's not because they don't sell. It still boils down to telling a good narrative; it's weak storytelling that doesn't sell, not biographies.

So, come on, people! Get your work together and put out some good biographies in comic form! There's plenty of fantastic subjects that have never been touched, just waiting for the world to hear about them!
Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: On Business: Looking for Dredd Experts

FreakSugar: Fanthropology: Black Panther Excitement

The Comics Alternative: Webcomics: Reviews of The Shaderunners, Binary Star, and Nautilus

Kleefeld on Comics: On History: Valiant Comics, 1994

Patreon: MTV Geek Classic: Kleefeld on Webcomics #61: Going Mainstream https://t.co/geK7cq5sNS

Kleefeld on Comics: Weekly Comics Links
http://ift.tt/2AMTi6W

FreakSugar: Webcomics Wednesday: Networks & Platforms
http://ift.tt/2qOR9rP

Kleefeld on Comics: On -isms: The Stan Lee Allegations
http://ift.tt/2AQ5ZxR

Patreon: MTV Geek Classic: Kleefeld on Webcomics #62: An Unseen Division https://t.co/geK7cq5sNS

Kleefeld on Comics: On Strips: From Trees to Tribunes
http://ift.tt/2D7pyqu
The Chicago Tribune was one of the behemoth newspapers back in the day. It's still known and respected, now, but it (along with newspapers more generally) carried a lot more clout in the days before television. Of course, it also had several local rivals -- there were eight local daily papers in 1910 -- so they actually had to do a bit of advertising to get buyers' attention.

One of the things the Tribune did was hire their own cartoonists. Little Orphan Annie, The Gumps, Gasoline Alley, and others started there. But then, of course, they had to TELL people that as well!

Which leads me to From Trees to Tribunes. It was a 1931 silent "documentary," about a half-hour long, that relayed how a newspaper is made. I use quotes because, really, it's just a long ad. They did this a few times -- there's another version with the same name from 1937. But, notably, they spend a decent amount of time showcasing their cartoonists. I found someone who had edited down the footage to just the cartoonists' part and added a period soundtrack over it, so I thought I'd share the video here.

The featured cartoonists include: John T. McCutcheon, Gaar Williams, Carey Orr, Sidney Smith, Frank King, Frank Willard, Carl Ed, Martin Branner, Walter Berndt, and Harold Gray. Judging by the strips that are shown, this appears to have been filmed in February 1931. Also worth noting is that, while most of the cartoonists simply sit and draw, Frank Willard gives us a bit of a neat sight gag.
Earlier this week, The Daily Mail ran an article that alleged Stan Lee had sexually harassed and even assaulted some of his nurses. You can click over to the article itself if you want to read all the details on that. Not surprisingly, Lee denies the allegations.

I don't know Lee. Never met him. But I have seen a good amount of video featuring him, and I immediately recalled one of the last extended pieces of video I saw of him, from about five years ago, when he had an extended discussion with Adrianne Curry, I believe, for her Super Fans show. (I'd link to it, but it seems that episode has been removed.) While Lee didn't do or say anything overtly wrong, I do recall getting the sense that Lee came across like a 1940s GI ogling topless dancers in France or something. He wasn't expressly condescending, but you very much got the sense that he came from an era where women simply weren't respected as much, if at all.

As I was looking for the video I referenced above, I came across his brief "Cocktails with Stan" series that I had forgotten about. It was an unfortunate series, in that he clearly wasn't interested in or even knowledgeable about most of the guests people had lined up for him, but I recalled the episode where he hosted Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson (also, apparently, now removed) in which he had this air of objectifcation towards her, even though she wasn't in her deliberately sultry Elvira costume. Again, he seemed somewhat out of his time and was leaning on social mores of decades past.

As I sit here thinking why I hadn't really caught that type of attitude previously, it occurred to me that I've seen very little footage of Lee interacting with women. Beyond those two clips, and the occasional snapshot with a fan, I don't think I've seen him talking or interacting with any women aside from his wife and daughter.

Scanning through social media, a lot of people who are defending him are doing so based on one of two things...
  1. He's 95
  2. He wrote some really awesome comic books a half century ago
You'll note that neither of these things have anything to do with the allegations. Neither of these are even excuses for bad behavior. The second is actually even ironic since Lee, who is being held up on a pedestal like some god-like hero who can't possibly have feet of clay, put his mark in comics by giving god-like heroes feet of clay.

While Daily Mail does tend towards more seedy "news", it also legitimately broke the Anthony Weiner scandal. It's not Pulitzer material, by any stretch, but it was also a legit story that eventually led to Weiner pleading guilty to sending obscene material to a minor for which he is currently serving jail time.

Look, I'm not here to condemn Lee. But despite this being reported in The Daily Mail, which is not the most reliable bastion of journalistic integrity, I'm inclined to believe the allegations. Lee comes from a time when it was perfectly acceptable to smack a woman on her ass as she walked by, and he's displayed (to me at least) enough dismissal of women that I find the allegations credible.

Which was kind of the point of the whole #MeToo movement -- to believe women when they say they've been harassed or assaulted. Because if you're a woman, you probably have been.
  • Comics creator and indie publisher Ken Eppstein asks, "How Do We Save Comic Books?"
  • Comics historian Ian Gordon talks about some of the research he was able to do at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
  • The Comics Studies Society recently announced several prizes available for scholarship (both academic and not) in the field of comics. (I think, technically, my work would be eligible for the Gilbert Seldes Prize for Public Scholarship, but I'm not about to nominate myself. I think it's pretty much all crap, so I don't think I could select three pieces that would be worthy of judging. But, hey, I'll fully cop to my own biases. If there was anything I wrote last year that you thought was particularly insightful, feel free to let them know! I might not think my stuff is that great, but if someone wants to put me up for a $300 prize, I won't say no!)
After a failed bid to buy Marvel Comics, Jim Shooter and Steven Massarsky formed Voyager Communications in 1989. Almost immediately, they launched their first imprint: Valiant Comics. They brought in some name creators, notably Barry Windsor-Smith and Bob Layton, and tried to launch a direct competitor to Marvel.

Part of their problem was trying to create something like Marvel wholecloth. Marvel, as we know it, evolved over the course of at least a decade and grew organically. Valiant tried to hit the ground running with a full-fledged universe right from the start. It wasn't a bad idea per se, but I think they tried to push their line too quickly and didn't allow it to grow more naturally.

After only a few years, video game developer Acclaim Entertainment became interested in the company and discussions to purchase Voyager began. I think that's where this video comes from. It's a half-hour look at Valiant, and acts as a combination "Comics Creation 101" and "Sales Pitch for Valiant as a Company." But, a few decades on, it makes for a unique snapshot of comics creation (that isn't from Marvel, DC, or Image) in the mid-1990s.