Tuesday 16 October 2012

HARDtalk: The Virtual Tour #25

Excluding Cerebus, are there any other classic comics that you’d like to see reprinted in an archival format by Fantagraphics or another publisher, that aren’t already in the works?

You know, I doubt that there's a classic strip that isn't being reprinted or discussed.  The only one I can think of off the top of my head is DAVID CRANE during the Creig Flessel years.  I used to read it in the KITCHENER WATERLOO RECORD and thought it was pretty good.  Then someone sent me a couple of issues of CARTOONISTS PROFILES with Stan Drake material in them and one of the other strips they covered was DAVID CRANE and they had a couple of good examples of Flessel's work that made me think I'd really like to have at least a couple of volumes on my bookshelf.

Flessel had one of the longest careers in comics. He did a lot of the early pre-Batman DETECTIVE COMICS covers and some of them are miles beyond anything else being done at the time.  He later became one of the Johnstone and Cushing artists. So he always had his hand in. He did the logo for Robin Snyder's THE COMICS just a few years before he died.
Now, we're off to MILLAR WORLD for another question from James L. Sarandis. My arch-nemesis! Actually, that's not true.  I just like the sound of "arch nemesis". Hi James. What's your question?

Comics have gone through quite a few changes over the years in style, tone, and technology. What do you think are the best and worst things to happen to comics over the years?

Hit the link to MILLAR WORLD for the answer to that question... and I'll see you back here tomorrow for more HARDtalk.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

At Millar World, Dave says Cerebus wasn't the type to pull wings off flies. But in Church & State, as pope, Cerebus uses that as an analogy to a horrified Astoria, which seemed to imply he did it as a kid.

I think Cerebus was a little more sadistic than Dave is giving him credit for. He did mellow as he aged it seemed, perhaps especially after reading The Torah.

Cerebus is pretty simple minded but as a character he's surprisingly complex. He always learns just a little at every big moment in his life that you start to root for him to make the changes to become a better person. And then he'll piss it all away by doing something terrible.

Eric Hoffman said...

Who is asking these questions? There used to be a name or two involved, myself, Dominick Grace, Stephen Holland, Tim Webber . . .

Slumbering Agartha said...

@ Eric:

Dr. Knudsen Flippe Aus Wodenhammer VI, the greatest fisherman in all of Norway (not to mention the country's premier badminton player). He is a noted reproductive biologist and the celebrated host of the popular amphibian mutation trivia show, "Tale of Two Tails".

Steve said...

Hey! That's one of my Cerebus head sketches, cool!