Potrzebie
Friday, April 15, 2011
Ralph Reese self-portrait
Successive enlargements reveal the incredible detail Ralph put into this drawing.
Ralph and Jay Lynch cleverly satirized Harvey Kurtzman in Bijou Funnies #8 (1972) with this underground comics variation of the Mad imitators page in Mad #17, which I posted on March 23. To see the Mad version, go here. I asked Jay about the creation of this page, and he responded, mentioning Art Spiegelman as a possible contributor:
Jay Lynch: I wrote it, I think. Art was staying at my pad for a while during the time I was putting the mag together, so he might have had some input. I think I did crude roughs. But it was Ralph who decided to make the character look like me, and it was Ralph who came up with the titles of the mags shown on the newsstand in the background. I wrote and did roughs for the Bodé parody in that ish; Pat Daley, a woman who did storyboards for ad agencies in Chicago did the final art on that one. Everything else in that ish was written by the cartoonists who drew their own strips.
Click on label for previous posts on Reese.
Successive enlargements reveal the incredible detail Ralph put into this drawing.
Ralph and Jay Lynch cleverly satirized Harvey Kurtzman in Bijou Funnies #8 (1972) with this underground comics variation of the Mad imitators page in Mad #17, which I posted on March 23. To see the Mad version, go here. I asked Jay about the creation of this page, and he responded, mentioning Art Spiegelman as a possible contributor:
Jay Lynch: I wrote it, I think. Art was staying at my pad for a while during the time I was putting the mag together, so he might have had some input. I think I did crude roughs. But it was Ralph who decided to make the character look like me, and it was Ralph who came up with the titles of the mags shown on the newsstand in the background. I wrote and did roughs for the Bodé parody in that ish; Pat Daley, a woman who did storyboards for ad agencies in Chicago did the final art on that one. Everything else in that ish was written by the cartoonists who drew their own strips.
Click on label for previous posts on Reese.
Labels: art spiegelman, jay lynch, kurtzman, ralph reese
¶ 3:45 PM 0 comments
Friday, July 16, 2010
When I worked at DC Comics during the 1990s I used to walk down a hall where the framed cover of that comic book was displayed. I would stop and study the faces in the crowd scene. Some people, such as Flo Steinberg (#5), Archie Goodwin (#15), Vince Colletta (#113), Ralph Reese (#137) and Larry Hama (#138), I had met before I began at DC. Others, such as colorist Bob LeRose (#77), Julie Schwartz (#81), production head Bob Rozakis (#121) and Trevor Von Eeden (#139), I met while working at DC. One day I turned over my stapler and was surprised to see a typewritten name taped to the underside. The stapler had once belonged to DC editor Murray Boltinoff (#119).
The code with numbers was a fascinating device, and it gave me the idea of doing something similar when I edited the DC/Skybox Cosmic Teams trading cards (1993). To identify the individual characters in the various teams, I designed the card backs to show outline drawings with a match-up of identifying names and numbers. Further, these cards employed a triptych effect in which three cards could be butted together to frame one image. Of all the triptych cards, the best was the Justice Society of America. With remarkable atmospheric perspective, Joe Kubert drew the Justice Society winning World War II with what appears to be the entire Allied invasion of Normandy in the background.
The Potrzebie restoration of the Galaxy Science Fiction wraparound cover with the outline names/numbers map brought some favorable reactions, so I thought I would try this again. This time the problem is not only the huge size necessary to see all the names, numbers and faces but how to see faces/names/numbers simultaneously. It's awkward. One solution would be to open multiple windows. Another would be to print out the sheet with the names and numbers. At any rate, keep clicking. A series of three clicks will eventually expand these images so they are very large and legible.
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Labels: cosmic teams, dc comics, galaxy, ident maps, kubert, larry hama, neal adams, ralph reese, skybox
¶ 3:08 PM 1 comments
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Someone asked me if I thought my story "Bugged!" had inspired the recent Orkin commercial. I doubt it, but the doorway shot in the commercial is almost identical to the last panel of "Bugged!" Although credited to Jack Younger, the pseudonym frequently used by Russ Jones, the script is entirely by me, and Alfredo Alcala did a remarkable job of illustrating the story exactly as I had envisioned it. I regarded it as a horror story, but Marvel put it in their humor title, Arrgh! (February, 1974).
Bills arrived in the name of the previous tenant. I didn't pay the bills in an effort to get rid of an unwanted roommate, thinking he would leave when the power was turned off. He didn't. There was a period when I would go downtown weekly to pick up an unemployment check during mid-morning. Trash bins were filled with newspapers discarded as everyone headed for offices. I would select every NY newspaper from the trash and then go to a coffee shop, deserted except for the busboy cleaning up after the morning crowd. One morning he stared at the stack of newspapers on the table and said, "This isn't a library."
In the late 1960s I lived on West 12th Street. The building's superintendent lived directly below me. Drugs and gambling debts prompted him to flee the city in the middle of the night, and soon cockroaches from that empty apartment began to crawl up one flight. One visitor commented that my place had more cockroaches than any New York apartment he had ever seen. Evidently some even traveled with me when I moved to Boston. The address on page seven is 18 Lee Street, roach-free and where I was living in Cambridge when I wrote the story.
Labels: alcala, arrgh, disch, ralph reese
¶ 9:15 AM 2 comments
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Ralph Reese #3: Screaming Metal
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Our Ralph Reese Festival continues. By the way, if you want to purchase Reese artwork directly from Ralph, write to him at reeseralph@gmail.com
"The Toughest Town West of Chicago" was scripted by Carl Sifakis and appeared in The Big Book of Hoaxes, published in 1996 by Paradox Press, Andy Helfer's imprint at DC Comics. Ralph also contributed to The Big Book of Freaks, The Big Book of Losers and The Big Book of Little Criminals. For a detailed listing of Ralph Reese stories, go to the Comic Book Database.
In Ralph's notes below, he recalls Matty Simmons, who was the publisher of the National Lampoon. He also mentions the French magazine Metal Hurlant ("screaming metal"). Heavy Metal was launched in 1977 as the American edition of Metal Hurlant. Ralph continues...
Paul Kirchner comments: "The Big Book that I wrote most of was The Big Book of Losers, and Ralph's art on the story of Custer was stunning."
Our Ralph Reese Festival continues. By the way, if you want to purchase Reese artwork directly from Ralph, write to him at reeseralph@gmail.com
"The Toughest Town West of Chicago" was scripted by Carl Sifakis and appeared in The Big Book of Hoaxes, published in 1996 by Paradox Press, Andy Helfer's imprint at DC Comics. Ralph also contributed to The Big Book of Freaks, The Big Book of Losers and The Big Book of Little Criminals. For a detailed listing of Ralph Reese stories, go to the Comic Book Database.
In Ralph's notes below, he recalls Matty Simmons, who was the publisher of the National Lampoon. He also mentions the French magazine Metal Hurlant ("screaming metal"). Heavy Metal was launched in 1977 as the American edition of Metal Hurlant. Ralph continues...
"An Afternoon Cocktail with Heather and Feather" was in Harpoon, a short-lived Lampoon clone. Dennis Lopez was the editor and also wrote the story. I did one more page, and then Matty Simmons called me and told me to cease and desist or else. I shoulda used a false name. The robot hooker painting was on the cover of Metal Hurlant. I originally did it for a portfolio of robosex drawings sponsored by Mark Rindner who used to run a comic art gallery. The Vampirella-Martians piece was a private commission by a Vampirella fan. The other story is from one of the DC Big Books... like The Big Book of Scams or something. They were like 150-page anthologies with stories illustrated by a hundred different artists and usually all written by the same author. Paul Kirchner wrote a couple of them. Kind of similar in theme to the other books that he's written since, all filled with weird facts.
--Ralph Reese
Paul Kirchner comments: "The Big Book that I wrote most of was The Big Book of Losers, and Ralph's art on the story of Custer was stunning."
Labels: big book, custer, harpoon, helfer, kirchner, lampoon, metal hurlant, ralph reese
¶ 8:38 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Ralph Reese #2: Ashcan angst
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Recent Ralph Reese artwork (2009) resusitates the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents characters.
When I lived on West 12th Street during the 1960s, there was a garbage strike. On West 12th between Hudson and Greenwich, huge piles of trash bags stacked up just outside the nursing home facing Abingdon Park. The fetid odor increased daily, and I had to look alert when I walked by because large rats were crawling around inside the bags and suddenly darting out across the sidewalk. There was a rumor that the rats were multiplying, and the longer the garbage strike stretched out, an army of rats could take over the city, marching in a massive parade up Fifth Avenue. Some recalled Dick Gregory's warnings about covert government labs for the breeding of super-rats.
Once I went to an American-International Pictures press luncheon at Danny's Hideaway, where I asked James Nicholson if he would ever produce film adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft stories such as "The Rats in the Walls" to expand beyond what AIP had done with Poe. "No," said Nicholson, "because rats don't sell movies." (That was six years before Willard was released in 1971.)
Tom Sutton and Ralph Reese reigned as the rodent royalty of comic books, the Grand Vicars of Vermin, and Ralph was equally adept at fashioning festering panels with close-ups of cockroaches crawling into the foreground. Many who read his adaptation of Thomas Disch's "The Roaches" have never forgotten the story. I asked Ralph for some background on those memorable pages, and here's what he told me:
Recent Ralph Reese artwork (2009) resusitates the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents characters.
When I lived on West 12th Street during the 1960s, there was a garbage strike. On West 12th between Hudson and Greenwich, huge piles of trash bags stacked up just outside the nursing home facing Abingdon Park. The fetid odor increased daily, and I had to look alert when I walked by because large rats were crawling around inside the bags and suddenly darting out across the sidewalk. There was a rumor that the rats were multiplying, and the longer the garbage strike stretched out, an army of rats could take over the city, marching in a massive parade up Fifth Avenue. Some recalled Dick Gregory's warnings about covert government labs for the breeding of super-rats.
Once I went to an American-International Pictures press luncheon at Danny's Hideaway, where I asked James Nicholson if he would ever produce film adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft stories such as "The Rats in the Walls" to expand beyond what AIP had done with Poe. "No," said Nicholson, "because rats don't sell movies." (That was six years before Willard was released in 1971.)
Tom Sutton and Ralph Reese reigned as the rodent royalty of comic books, the Grand Vicars of Vermin, and Ralph was equally adept at fashioning festering panels with close-ups of cockroaches crawling into the foreground. Many who read his adaptation of Thomas Disch's "The Roaches" have never forgotten the story. I asked Ralph for some background on those memorable pages, and here's what he told me:As a native New Yorker, I had a good deal of first-hand experience with cockroaches, garbage cans and urban blight. As a kid, my parents were the supers in an old tenement building, and we had a little apartment in the basement. My brother and I had to collect all the garbage from the building, pack it into cans and haul it upstairs onto the sidewalk before we went to school in the morning. So I grew up poor on the streets.
When I got into doing comics, I wanted to bring a little of that ashcan realism to my work. In the world of comics at the time, there was no trash on the streets, no bums sleeping it off in the gutter. Super heroes never had an attack of diarrhea or just felt too depressed and hung-over to go to work that day. Throughout my career I tended to shy away from super heroes in favor of stories that had more to do with real life. Perhaps this worked to my detriment in the end, since that sort of thing never attracted much of a fan base and now has pretty much ceased to exist.
--Ralph Reese
--Ralph Reese
Labels: disch, ralph reese, rats, roaches
¶ 6:13 PM 1 comments
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Hero Initiative
The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. It creates a financial safety net for comic creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life and a path back into the comics field. Since it launched in 2000, the Hero Initiative has benefited 40+ creators and their families with more than $400,000 worth of aid and assists.
Here's an excerpt from John Horn's article on the Hero Initiative in today's Los Angeles Times:
A recent Ralph Reese page for DC's revived House of Mystery (May 2009).
The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. It creates a financial safety net for comic creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life and a path back into the comics field. Since it launched in 2000, the Hero Initiative has benefited 40+ creators and their families with more than $400,000 worth of aid and assists.
Here's an excerpt from John Horn's article on the Hero Initiative in today's Los Angeles Times:
Gene Colan, a renowned artist best known for his work on Batman, Daredevil and The Tomb of Dracula, said that like many freelancers in comics he usually worked without insurance and retirement coverage. "There was very little support -- there was nothing in terms of benefits," Colan said from Brooklyn. "Artists have always been oblivious to this kind of stuff -- all we needed was enough to support our families." That changed, however, when Colan's health began failing 10 years ago. In addition to suffering a heart attack, the 83-year-old artist had glaucoma and then liver disease.
"I looked like a prisoner of war," he said of losing 40 pounds to his illnesses. He had some insurance, he said, "but it couldn't possibly cover what I needed." Gifts of several thousand dollars from Hero Initiative to Colan and his wife, Colan said, "helped pull the two of us out of a big mess."
Bill Messner-Loebs was in an even deeper hole. A writer and illustrator whose credits include The Flash and Wonder Woman, Messner-Loebs and his wife lost their home to foreclosure in 2001, and after another housing setback were moving from cheap motel room to cheap motel room. Soon thereafter, essentially homeless, the couple was living in various Michigan church shelters for weeks at a time.
"In the midst of all of this, I was contacted by the Hero Initiative, and they gave us money a couple of times to pay for some hotel stays and build up our savings," the 60-year-old Messner-Loebs said from Brighton, Mich. The organization was also able to drum up some work for Messner-Loebs, who said he is now working on a "secret project" for DC Comics. "We are doing much better than we were before," he said. "But I really can't imagine where I'd be without their help."
Ralph Reese, an illustrator for National Lampoon and Mad magazine and the Flash Gordon and Magnus, Robot Fighter comics, worked steadily until the comic book business consolidated in the 1990s. "I had nothing -- there was no retirement plan, no pension, no healthcare benefits. That's the life of a freelancer," the 60-year-old Reese said from Staten Island, N.Y. "After 30 years in the business, I couldn't get any work. I had a wife, a six-year-old daughter, and I eventually had to go out and drive trucks to make ends meet."
By 2005, Reese could no longer work because of a back injury, and his unemployment benefits didn't cover his medical bills. On welfare, Reese said he couldn't afford his prescription drugs or doctor visits. A $3,600 gift from Hero Initiative has allowed Reese to enroll in Medicaid. "I dedicated my life to something that ultimately didn't pay off and left me high and dry," Reese said. To supplement (and pay for) its grants to artists in need (Hero Initiative handed out some $40,000 in June alone, president McLauchlin said), the nonprofit conducts regular live and online auctions of donated artwork, some from the strapped artists needing help (there are works from Reese now for sale).
The organization also helps curate tribute books, for which active illustrators contribute artwork to honor a specific artist in financial distress. The next such book, focused on Green Arrow and Batman writer and artist Ed Hannigan, is due in December and its proceeds will go to the 58-year-old Hannigan, who has multiple sclerosis.
Labels: bill messner-loebs, comic books, comics, dc comics, ed hannigan, gene colan, hero initiative, ralph reese
¶ 3:11 PM 4 comments
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Topps #3: Pee-wee's Big Adventure
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In 1966, at the request of Art Spiegelman, I submitted gags for Topps' Insult Postcard series. The first freelance gag I sold to Topps was part of that series: "Come alive! You're in the Monster Generation!" spoofed the familiar Pepsi Generation commercials. Wally Wood and Ralph Reese illustrated the series.
.In 1966, at the request of Art Spiegelman, I submitted gags for Topps' Insult Postcard series. The first freelance gag I sold to Topps was part of that series: "Come alive! You're in the Monster Generation!" spoofed the familiar Pepsi Generation commercials. Wally Wood and Ralph Reese illustrated the series.
Cover: Esau Andrews
Although Ralph took an extended leave from illustrating, he returns this month with a wild DC Comics tale, "The Thirteenth Hour," featuring monsters crawling over buildings a la Cloverfield. Look for it in issue #13 (May) of editor Angela Rufino's revival of House of Mystery for Vertigo.
As I explained previously, I began working with the Topps Product Development staff in December 1967. By then, Art had taken off for San Francisco, and when he returned a few months later, we would take sketchpads down the hall to the Topps cafeteria, which was deserted during the hours before and after lunch. While the kitchen staff prepared lunch, we would drink coffee and toss gags back and forth.
Others in the Product Development department, run by Woody Gelman, were the cartoonist-designer Rick Varesi, Len Brown (now a classic country DJ in Austin, Texas), Mad writer Stan Hart (who only came in once a week), the clever, creative Larry Riley and the secretary, Faye Fleischer. Riley was a terrific raconteur with hilarious tales of his years working on Paramount animated cartoons, and I regret never tape recording his stories. When he left Topps, he worked as an animator on Ralph Bakshi's movie, Fritz the Cat (1972).
Although Ralph took an extended leave from illustrating, he returns this month with a wild DC Comics tale, "The Thirteenth Hour," featuring monsters crawling over buildings a la Cloverfield. Look for it in issue #13 (May) of editor Angela Rufino's revival of House of Mystery for Vertigo.As I explained previously, I began working with the Topps Product Development staff in December 1967. By then, Art had taken off for San Francisco, and when he returned a few months later, we would take sketchpads down the hall to the Topps cafeteria, which was deserted during the hours before and after lunch. While the kitchen staff prepared lunch, we would drink coffee and toss gags back and forth.
Others in the Product Development department, run by Woody Gelman, were the cartoonist-designer Rick Varesi, Len Brown (now a classic country DJ in Austin, Texas), Mad writer Stan Hart (who only came in once a week), the clever, creative Larry Riley and the secretary, Faye Fleischer. Riley was a terrific raconteur with hilarious tales of his years working on Paramount animated cartoons, and I regret never tape recording his stories. When he left Topps, he worked as an animator on Ralph Bakshi's movie, Fritz the Cat (1972).
The inventive Larry Riley at Topps
Occasionally, other people would arrive and briefly take a crack at gagwriting. However, a special knack was required, and these wannabe humorists usually had odd and puzzling notions of what constituted humor.
One day Woody Gelman explained to us that the Topps execs were sending in a crackerjack humor writer to work on creating cards with us. I don't think Woody was too pleased about the situation of a newcomer crashing his party. Rick, Len, Larry and I were sitting in Woody's office waiting for the new guy to arrive. Expectations were high, because why was he being sent over unless he was a funny fellow? Indeed, he came in wearing a plaid jacket, a bowtie and big, confident grin. In retrospect, he looked sort of like Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman.
After a round of introductions and handshakes, Pee-wee took a seat, and Woody asked him to go right into his presentation. Pee-wee pitched a very strange concept. He said, "Okay, picture this. You show the world as it looks from a dog's point of view." Dead silence... as we all tried to comprehend just what he was describing.
I said, "So in other words, the dog is looking up, and there's a drawing of what he sees in an up-angle from ground level?"
"Yes," said Pee-wee with a big smile, obviously proud of this idea.
I continued, "So if that's the first card in a series of 44 cards, what would you do for the other 43 cards? Would card #2 be a cat looking up? Then maybe a hamster?"
He had no response. His smile faded. He began to twist slowly in the wind. And after that meeting, we never saw him again. In the bubble gum universe, another bubble had burst.
"Cowpoke in Africa" is another Krazy TV card with gag and color rough by me. John Severin drew the finish. The card caricatures Chuck Connors in the short-lived TV series Cowboy in Africa (1967-68). Coincidentally, Chuck Connors grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, within walking distance of the Bush Terminal where Topps offices were located.
One day Woody Gelman explained to us that the Topps execs were sending in a crackerjack humor writer to work on creating cards with us. I don't think Woody was too pleased about the situation of a newcomer crashing his party. Rick, Len, Larry and I were sitting in Woody's office waiting for the new guy to arrive. Expectations were high, because why was he being sent over unless he was a funny fellow? Indeed, he came in wearing a plaid jacket, a bowtie and big, confident grin. In retrospect, he looked sort of like Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman.
After a round of introductions and handshakes, Pee-wee took a seat, and Woody asked him to go right into his presentation. Pee-wee pitched a very strange concept. He said, "Okay, picture this. You show the world as it looks from a dog's point of view." Dead silence... as we all tried to comprehend just what he was describing.
I said, "So in other words, the dog is looking up, and there's a drawing of what he sees in an up-angle from ground level?"
"Yes," said Pee-wee with a big smile, obviously proud of this idea.
I continued, "So if that's the first card in a series of 44 cards, what would you do for the other 43 cards? Would card #2 be a cat looking up? Then maybe a hamster?"
He had no response. His smile faded. He began to twist slowly in the wind. And after that meeting, we never saw him again. In the bubble gum universe, another bubble had burst.
"Cowpoke in Africa" is another Krazy TV card with gag and color rough by me. John Severin drew the finish. The card caricatures Chuck Connors in the short-lived TV series Cowboy in Africa (1967-68). Coincidentally, Chuck Connors grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, within walking distance of the Bush Terminal where Topps offices were located.
Labels: gelman, krazy tv, memoir, monster, pee-wee, pepsi, ralph reese, reubens, topps, varesi
¶ 4:55 PM 4 comments
Monday, July 07, 2008
Dirge for Disch
I met Tom Disch only briefly, but I'm saddened to learn of his suicide. Deleted on July 4 by God's red, white and blue pencil, he truly ranked as one of the past century's magnificent imaginative writers. This photo by Beth Gwinn is remarkable in that it is instantly evocative of his fiction, with walking-on-water joyfulness set against a rising tide of impending darkness. He did it all: novels, short stories, poetry, non-fiction, criticism, blog entries and a text adventure game (Amnesia). His work was adapted to both animation (The Brave Little Toaster) and comics (Ralph Reese's "The Roaches"). The great horror tale of "Descending" on an escalator to sub-levels where there is no escalator ascending was followed by the future world of "Concepts," in which he foresaw webcams, social networking, cyber romance and lifecasting. On the Wings of Song (1979) is a novel that soars.
"In Defense of Forest Lawn" and other poems by Thomas Disch.
Interview: Thomas M. Disch by David Horwich.
Disch liked this powerful poem by Bret Harte (1839-1902), told first-person by a bullet. It prompted him to write his own follow-up:
What the Bullet Sang
O JOY of creation,
To be!
O rapture, to fly
And be free!
Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love—the one
Born for me!
I shall know him where he stands
All alone,
With the power in his hands
Not o'erthrown;
I shall know him by his face,
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space
All my own!
It is he—O my love!
So bold!
It is I—all thy love
Foretold!
It is I—O love, what bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! what is this
Lieth there so cold?
--Bret Harte
l
Tears the Bullet Wept
We know that bullets sing.
Bret Harte transcribed their song.
But give them this: they weep as well,
And theirs are the most precious souvenirs
That venders hawk on the streets of hell.
What is so tragic as the lethal blast
Of thunderbolt or .38
That turns what had been present
Into past? There he stood
And here he lies at last.
Will you not shed a single tear
For any such? Is that too much to ask?
Here is a tear. Weigh it,
Please, Sir, on your scale--
And I will tell you the whole tale.
But only when your job is done.
Kill all the rest first. I will wait.
I met Tom Disch only briefly, but I'm saddened to learn of his suicide. Deleted on July 4 by God's red, white and blue pencil, he truly ranked as one of the past century's magnificent imaginative writers. This photo by Beth Gwinn is remarkable in that it is instantly evocative of his fiction, with walking-on-water joyfulness set against a rising tide of impending darkness. He did it all: novels, short stories, poetry, non-fiction, criticism, blog entries and a text adventure game (Amnesia). His work was adapted to both animation (The Brave Little Toaster) and comics (Ralph Reese's "The Roaches"). The great horror tale of "Descending" on an escalator to sub-levels where there is no escalator ascending was followed by the future world of "Concepts," in which he foresaw webcams, social networking, cyber romance and lifecasting. On the Wings of Song (1979) is a novel that soars.
Photo © Beth Gwinn
"In Defense of Forest Lawn" and other poems by Thomas Disch.
Interview: Thomas M. Disch by David Horwich.
Disch liked this powerful poem by Bret Harte (1839-1902), told first-person by a bullet. It prompted him to write his own follow-up:
What the Bullet Sang
O JOY of creation,
To be!
O rapture, to fly
And be free!
Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love—the one
Born for me!
I shall know him where he stands
All alone,
With the power in his hands
Not o'erthrown;
I shall know him by his face,
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space
All my own!
It is he—O my love!
So bold!
It is I—all thy love
Foretold!
It is I—O love, what bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! what is this
Lieth there so cold?
--Bret Harte
l
Tears the Bullet Wept
We know that bullets sing.
Bret Harte transcribed their song.
But give them this: they weep as well,
And theirs are the most precious souvenirs
That venders hawk on the streets of hell.
What is so tragic as the lethal blast
Of thunderbolt or .38
That turns what had been present
Into past? There he stood
And here he lies at last.
Will you not shed a single tear
For any such? Is that too much to ask?
Here is a tear. Weigh it,
Please, Sir, on your scale--
And I will tell you the whole tale.
But only when your job is done.
Kill all the rest first. I will wait.
--Tom Disch (June 17, 2008)
Control click heading at top for Tibetan mantra.
Control click heading at top for Tibetan mantra.
Labels: death, disch, harte, ralph reese
¶ 10:17 AM 1 comments
Friday, August 31, 2007
The animated Wally Wood
“See you in the funny papers.”
—1930s catchphrase
“See you in the darkness.”
—Gary Gilmore, January 1977
Worlds were created while the radiator clanked. On crescendo streets below, junkies trudged beneath crimson neon toward Needle Park, but in the silence of the Wood Studio on West 74th Street in 1968, the ink flowed in perfect curves with no ragged edges.
One night I broke the silence: “Why do you do this?” I saw Wood’s back twitch, startled, as he realized what I was getting at, but he continued to ink Superboy and didn’t turn around. Ralph Reese remained silent, delicately bringing up the backgrounds on another page.
“Why do I do what?” asked Wood.
“This super-hero crap. My God, you’re as great as any of the world’s greatest humorists. No one can do what you do the way you do it in your writing and your art. It’s your own. So isn’t this inking job just a waste? What does it have to do with you?”
The truth of this hung in the air and then spiraled away. There was no prolonged response or discussion because there was, we all knew, no answer that quite fit the circumstances. Later, a country music station played “Streets of Laredo.” The ink flowed into the night.
Wallace Wood would have loved the headline the Los Angeles Times ran above his obituary: “Gut Level Characters Made Him Famous,” a pun referring to his ad for Alka-Seltzer. I can imagine him clipping this obit, leaving it on the upper left corner of his drawing table and squinting at it occasionally while continuing to quietly ink panel after panel after panel. Someone leaning over his shoulder to glance at the headline and remark on the importance of such media attention would prompt only a smile and a muttered, “Yeah, but they got that part about the TV commercial wrong.” Later, the clipping would vanish from the drawing board into one of the dozens of file folders of work by and about Wood—all labeled “ME”—in his filing cabinets.
I remember the week Wood sketched the storyboard for that commercial (which LA Times writer Dana Kennedy cited as his “best known work” while confusing it with the print ad). The full color “Stomachs get even at night” ad, showing angry vegetables preparing for a midnight attack inside a stomach, had caused a sensation at the ad agency after publication. Had Wood picked that moment to acquire a top agent, possibly he could have ridden the wave all the way in—but even when the surf was up, what he sought was that perfect, impossible wave.
For TV, the agency wanted the vegetable characters to do something, despite the frozen moment of anticipation that gives the print ad its tension And so the storyboard—which looked like he had whipped it together in an hour—introduced a human character, a shocked guy in striped pajamas leaping off the sheets as vegetables march across the bed. The dark strangeness of the original concept had been sanitized for TV. The difference bothered me, but I didn’t remark on it.
“Are you going to follow through on this?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, are you going to protect it? Make sure they animate it in your style?”
“No,” said Wood. “Why bother?”
I was baffled by this attitude but said nothing. The board was delivered to the agency, and Wood moved on to other projects. Months later, at an impromptu party in Washington, I glanced at a TV set flickering the opening of the commercial I had not yet seen. I quickly explained to everyone present that it was by Wood, and we all watched. No one reacted. Whatever was artful in the storyboard, already a dilution of Wood’s original imaginative concept, had now dissipated completely.
Many of Wood’s projects were like this—a brilliant flash of intensity that soared and skyrocketed before arcing downward to sputter into nothingness. Compared to the famous R.O. Blechman Alka-Seltzer commercial of the talking stomach and the other popular Alka-Seltzer commercials of that period, this one was disappointing and forgettable. The animation was TV routine, and the characters had lost Wood’s comic malevolence, replaced by mere cuteness and silliness. Did Wood, I wondered, know the battle was lost even before he drew the storyboard? He once said to me, “An editor is someone dedicated to destroying the work of a creator.” His interest in self-publishing developed out of a genuine feeling that he was being victimized in the commercial world.
Wally Wood's colorful Alka-Seltzer print ad, "Stomachs get even at night," was a huge success, winning a 1967 Art Directors Club Medal. The ad received such a favorable response that Wood was hired to convert it into storyboards, and this 1968 commercial was the result.
Sketches ©2007 Wood Estate
“See you in the funny papers.”
—1930s catchphrase
“See you in the darkness.”
—Gary Gilmore, January 1977
Worlds were created while the radiator clanked. On crescendo streets below, junkies trudged beneath crimson neon toward Needle Park, but in the silence of the Wood Studio on West 74th Street in 1968, the ink flowed in perfect curves with no ragged edges.
One night I broke the silence: “Why do you do this?” I saw Wood’s back twitch, startled, as he realized what I was getting at, but he continued to ink Superboy and didn’t turn around. Ralph Reese remained silent, delicately bringing up the backgrounds on another page.
“Why do I do what?” asked Wood.
“This super-hero crap. My God, you’re as great as any of the world’s greatest humorists. No one can do what you do the way you do it in your writing and your art. It’s your own. So isn’t this inking job just a waste? What does it have to do with you?”
The truth of this hung in the air and then spiraled away. There was no prolonged response or discussion because there was, we all knew, no answer that quite fit the circumstances. Later, a country music station played “Streets of Laredo.” The ink flowed into the night.
Wallace Wood would have loved the headline the Los Angeles Times ran above his obituary: “Gut Level Characters Made Him Famous,” a pun referring to his ad for Alka-Seltzer. I can imagine him clipping this obit, leaving it on the upper left corner of his drawing table and squinting at it occasionally while continuing to quietly ink panel after panel after panel. Someone leaning over his shoulder to glance at the headline and remark on the importance of such media attention would prompt only a smile and a muttered, “Yeah, but they got that part about the TV commercial wrong.” Later, the clipping would vanish from the drawing board into one of the dozens of file folders of work by and about Wood—all labeled “ME”—in his filing cabinets.
I remember the week Wood sketched the storyboard for that commercial (which LA Times writer Dana Kennedy cited as his “best known work” while confusing it with the print ad). The full color “Stomachs get even at night” ad, showing angry vegetables preparing for a midnight attack inside a stomach, had caused a sensation at the ad agency after publication. Had Wood picked that moment to acquire a top agent, possibly he could have ridden the wave all the way in—but even when the surf was up, what he sought was that perfect, impossible wave.
For TV, the agency wanted the vegetable characters to do something, despite the frozen moment of anticipation that gives the print ad its tension And so the storyboard—which looked like he had whipped it together in an hour—introduced a human character, a shocked guy in striped pajamas leaping off the sheets as vegetables march across the bed. The dark strangeness of the original concept had been sanitized for TV. The difference bothered me, but I didn’t remark on it.
“Are you going to follow through on this?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, are you going to protect it? Make sure they animate it in your style?”
“No,” said Wood. “Why bother?”
I was baffled by this attitude but said nothing. The board was delivered to the agency, and Wood moved on to other projects. Months later, at an impromptu party in Washington, I glanced at a TV set flickering the opening of the commercial I had not yet seen. I quickly explained to everyone present that it was by Wood, and we all watched. No one reacted. Whatever was artful in the storyboard, already a dilution of Wood’s original imaginative concept, had now dissipated completely.
Many of Wood’s projects were like this—a brilliant flash of intensity that soared and skyrocketed before arcing downward to sputter into nothingness. Compared to the famous R.O. Blechman Alka-Seltzer commercial of the talking stomach and the other popular Alka-Seltzer commercials of that period, this one was disappointing and forgettable. The animation was TV routine, and the characters had lost Wood’s comic malevolence, replaced by mere cuteness and silliness. Did Wood, I wondered, know the battle was lost even before he drew the storyboard? He once said to me, “An editor is someone dedicated to destroying the work of a creator.” His interest in self-publishing developed out of a genuine feeling that he was being victimized in the commercial world.
From "There Are Good Guys and Bad Guys" ©2007 Bhob Stewart
Labels: advertising, alka-seltzer, commercial, dc comics, ralph reese, stomach
¶ 8:56 AM 7 comments
