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Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Guest Writer - In Appreciation Of Weird Heroes






Edo Bosnar: This is another one of those great 1970s projects tailor-made for us comic geeks. Dubbed the “New American Pulp” by writer/editor Byron Preiss – a big fan of the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s – this was an attempt to spur a pulp revival in the 1970s. However, he didn’t just want to produce pastiches of the work by the old pulp writers; instead, he wanted to create something very modern (well, 1970s modern) and forward-looking.

In some of his introductions to the various volumes of the series, Preiss pointed out that unlike the older pulps, this new series would encompass, or perhaps better stated, emphasize other genres outside of the standard action tales best typified by the Doc Savage and Shadow stories. Thus, there’s more fantasy and science fiction in WH. Also, at several points he stressed that he wanted his heroes to resolve their problems and/or overcome their adversaries without depending too much on violence (and surprisingly, some – but not all – of the contributors did seem to make an effort to adhere to this dictum).
What makes these books particularly interesting to comic fans are the illustrations, often done by fan-favorite artists, like Jim Steranko, Neal Adams, Estaban Maroto, Alex Nino, P. Craig Russell, Tom Sutton, Howard Chaykin…
The series consists of eight books, which all came out from 1975 to late 1977, i.e., periodically, like the old pulp magazines. Four of them, volumes 1, 2, 6 and 8, are anthologies featuring stories by a number of different writers, while the other four are full-length novels. Some of the contributions were made by notable writers in the SF field at the time, like Philip Jose Farmer, Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, Ted White and Ron Goulart, as well as a few names familiar to us comic fans: Archie Goodwin, Steve Englehart, Elliot Maggin and Marv Wolfman.

Back in the day (as they say), I only had one of these, the first volume, which I bought for about 50 cents at our local church’s charity flea market in 1980 or so. The cover caught my eye immediately, and I recognized a few of the names listed on it, like Archie Goodwin and Jim Steranko. (By the way, my favorite story in that first volume, then and now, is Goodwin’s contribution, almost the only one in the entire series that features a character most like the old pulp heroes: Adam Stalker, a scruffy Vietnam vet who works as a PI in Tulsa, OK.) I recall coming across one or two of the later volumes in used bookstores when I was a teen (I specifically remember seeing volume 8), but I never bought them, mainly because – quite stupidly – I thought I had to have the intervening volumes (yep, the completism bug to which us comic fans often succumb can be a rather silly and limiting disorder).

I apologize for the quality of these images, and for the lack of any of the illustrations found inside. Most of my current copies of these books, while intact and not falling apart are nonetheless pretty old and well-read, and I worried about doing any additional damage to the spines by shoving them into a scanner. However, Pete Doree, over at the Bronze Age of Blogs, did a post on volume 6 earlier this year which includes some of the excellent interior illustrations.
 
Like so many of these experimental projects undertaken by Preiss in the 1970s, this one never really got wings to become a long-term, sustainable venture. And for the most part, none of the characters that were introduced in these volumes ever took on a life of their own, with the notable exception of Ben Bova’s Orion, who appeared in an entire series of novels – the most recent one came out just a few years ago.


Other, less successful spin-offs included J. Michael Reaves’ Kamus of Kadizhar, a detective on a world where science doesn’t work but magic does, who appeared in a book called Darkworld Detective, which collects the two stories from vol. 8 of Weird Heroes, plus two new ones, and then in a later novel that wasn’t written by Reaves; Preiss also published an illustrated novel called Guts, starring the character of that name from the first volume.Besides that, Philip Jose Farmer’s three rather humorous stories about modern-day zeppelin pilot Greatheart Silver were later collected and published in a separate book, and the novel from volume 5, The Oz Encounter (featuring Ted White’s character Doc Phoenix – introduced in volume 2 – but written by Marv Wolfman), was reprinted in what I’ve been told is an attractive hardcover edition in 2005.


Otherwise, in the early 2000s Preiss reprinted the first volume in a new edition, apparently with plans to republish the entire series. Unfortunately, his untimely and tragic death in a traffic accident in 2005 basically put an end to this.



Some characters who never appeared again, but definitely should have, include Goodwin’s Adam Stalker, as mentioned above, as well as Ron Goulart’s Gypsy and the wonderful Nightshade, from volume 4. Gypsy is a mysterious character – a cyborg or possibly even an android – who time-shifted from the mid-‘70s to the early 2030s (in a dystopian, anarchic Europe) and knows nothing about his past, his true identity or why he has some amazing powers. He appears in two novels (in volumes 3 and 7 – beautifully illustrated by Alex Nino) and the second has a bit of an ambiguous ending that leaves a lot of questions unresolved.



Nightshade is very much like a classical pulp character in the tradition of the Shadow, the Domino Lady or the Green Ghost. She’s a brilliant stage magician, who, as a master of disguise and skilled martial artist and so forth, secretly goes on missions to fight evil-doers – although instead of dealing with mob bosses or evil scientists like her pulp-era predecessors, she takes on a multi-national corporation bent on world dominance by manipulating politicians and events in other countries (a topic as relevant today as it was back then). When I finished reading that book I was clamoring for more, but authors Beth Meacham and Tappan King never revisited her.



Needless to say, I highly recommend these to everyone here: they’re fun, light reads for the most part, and in some cases just the lovely illustrations make these worth tracking down.



17 comments:

  1. Thanks for the great review Edo! I'd never heard of these books, but I'll keep my eyes open for them. I'm a fan of pulp heroes, and I like some illustrated stories like the Conan novels illustrated by Maroto.

    I can relate to the "completist bug" when it come to comics, but I'm getting better. That could be a day's topic for BAB.

    The Gypsy stories intrigue me.

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  2. My completism is usually with artists rather than titles. It's easier now that there are so many reprints out. I picked up most of John Buscema's work, including the rare 1950s comics like Hercules and Sinbad. I have a desire to get everything they do, including the lesser stuff--then a few years later, I'll pare it down and just keep the best examples of their art. The last couple years I've been into Kirby, and discovered his wonderful 1940s stuff. The completism bug does have an advantage, in that you discover the hidden gems that others may overlook.

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  3. A fine review, Edo, on a series of which I was not familiar. I did have several Byron Preiss publications back in the day, but not these. I , like Garrett, will have to look for them. Especially the anthologies: a form dear to this aging reader's heart...

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  5. While I really liked some of the old pulp revival comics for the artwork - all that art deco stuff in, say, Kaluta's Shadow made it really stand out - I could never get into the stories.
    So I passed on Weird Heroes back then, because it seemed primarily a collection of text pieces. Don't get me wrong, I read stuff with just words - sometimes even whole books! - as well as comics, but.... the thought of something like Chandler with only a few illustrations,even by Steranko, just didn't grab me.

    But I must have only seen one or two of them on sale, as I had no idea the mix included Philip Jose Farmer, who I really like, and Michael Moorcock who... is a bit more of a mixed bag, but he's usually good in retro mode.
    So I might well investigate further. Thanks Edo. Keep feeding the ducks.

    -sean

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  6. Following Garett and Redartz, the completist in me demands I leave a second comment....

    -sean

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  7. Hmmm, these sound cool...I love that pulpy stuff; I'll have to see if I can find them someplace.

    Mike Wilson

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  8. Inker Bob Wiacek has suffered an injury and is asking for help at GoFundMe:
    http://www.gofundme.com/zr3ap9xj
    A donation of $40 or more gets a drawing of any comic character. I always liked Wiacek's inks.

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  10. As with a lot of the Preiss books, the concept seemed more compelling than the execution. And there were some peculiar choices, such as reprinting a story from a feminist literary magazine to demonstrate the "heroism" in the daily life of a senior citizen.

    I always appreciated Preiss' interest in playing with the physical package, producing digest comics and pulp-themed paperbacks. Aside from Kurtzman's Jungle Book and Kane's Blackmark, original comics done for the pocket-sized (as opposed to the trade-sized) format haven't really been explored to their full potential, though the digest size has certainly thrived in Italy and Europe in general.

    The first two volumes of Weird Heroes have the added attraction of Steranko's dynamic production work.Every character got a title page with a beautiful custom logo,adding to the feeling that a new form was being discovered.

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  11. Thanks for the comments, guys. Garett, man, that news about Wiacek sucks - seems like we've been reading about a lot of these kinds of cases in recent years (i.e., comic creators now getting on in years and needing help to pay medical bills and so forth).

    Anyway, as to completism, as noted in the post, it worked both ways: the more standard version of having to get everything, i.e., every issue of a title, every book in a series, etc., or avoiding certain titles and foregoing later issues, volumes, etc., because you don't have the ones in between...
    Sean, the Farmer stories in these volumes, while entertaining, really didn't grab me as much as the others mentioned in the post. The Moorcock story, a bit of a grim dystopian tale, was pretty strong, though. And alas, I haven't had any ducks to feed since sometime just after the Bronze Age in the 1980s; duck husbandry would appear to be HB's gig now...

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  12. Oh, and Russ, that contribution you mentioned, by Joann Kobin, was indeed an odd choice, but it's a good story nonetheless.

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  13. Don't want to let this one slip by without declaring my affection for these wonderful tomes. It is really by way of these books which blended the worlds of comics and pulp that I found my way into pulps way back then. The blend of art and story is always outstanding and these are keepers for sure. I'm startled that they've never been reprinted completely, because as much as I cherish my copies, I'd love to have comfortable reading copies to revisit. I need to dig these out and give them a go.

    Rip Off

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  14. I must declare my love for Weird Heroes as well. Got in on the ground floor with the first volume, kept getting them because they were the perfect "midway" for me between comics and "real books" (I was in the 7th-9th grades when these came out, just to make that make more sense...) My favorites were the Gypsy novels, hands down, but I dug Kamus, Orion, Greatheart Silver, and Doc Phoenix. I still re-read the Gypsy novels ever so often. I wish Ron Goulart would finish the series...

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  15. Man, seems to me we need more guys like this Byron Preiss cat! He obviously loved the pulps and wanted to reintroduce the genre to a whole new generation.

    It just sucks to hear about Bob Wiacek's troubles. When you hear about a creator who brought so much joy to you as a kid experiencing difficulties, it makes you wonder about life's ironies. It's a sad world where baseball players and rappers are millionaires but comic book artists, especially older legends have to live on very modest incomes. Not that I have anything against baseball players or rappers, but comics creators should be paid the big bucks too.

    - Mike from Trinidad & Tobago.

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  16. Great post, Edo!

    I still remember seeing that first Weird Heroes volume in the bookstore. It was so unique for the 70's, and really stood out. As of now, I still have volumes 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and the Greatheart Silver collection. Ron Goulart and Harlan Ellison were two of my favorite authors in junior high, so I gravitated to their stories the most. I also discovered Ted White and Phillip Jose Farmer, thanks to WH. Inspiring comic kids to move on to novels was probably part of WH's mission statement, and it worked in spades for me.

    As far as other Priess projects go, I've also got Empire and the first three Fiction Illustrated paperbacks. I know I had some of his other books back in the 70's-80's. Priess, along with Mediascene and Heavy Metal, represented a bridge to me for going from DC/Marvel into more sophisticated forms of graphic storytelling. Priess was the most exciting out of all of them, because you never knew what direction he was going to pursue next. Not everything Priess did worked, but that was part of the fun of it. Like any true innovator, he took risks.

    James Chatterton

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  17. Wow, I hadn't thought about this series in years. I had volume 6, which began a years-long Ron Goulart craze for me. And although I didn't appreciate it then, P. Craig Russell would become nearly my favorite artist when I started reading the Killraven series.

    Wonder if Thriftbooks has 'em . . .

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