by Chris Ryall
NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR COMICS © 1940 DC COMICS. SUPERMAN™, BATMAN™, ROBIN™ & © DC COMICS.
There is a shot near the end of Kurosawa's Stray Dog, in which the young police detective played by the great Toshiro Mifune has run to ground the desperate and tragic young thief who stole his revolver: and they flee out into a vast flowering field, and all you can see for some time are the beaten-down paths of their passage. Years after that summer afternoon in Shelby, North Carolina, I saw Stray Dog for the first time, and as I sat in the theater, it was the nostalgia of smelling the perfume my mother wore when she lifted me from the crib; it was the memory of the first pomegranate seeds that exploded on my tongue in some far place I cannot name; it was going back sans time machine, to that astonishing idyll.
And remembered it again, in 1993, I'm almost sixty years old, and I remember that day, and it comes back to me another thought I had, lying there agape at Zatara and Sandman and Batman in my 15¢ cardboard-cover window on the world. There are dreams to be had as a child which, if realized in adult terms, mean you have made a success of your life. If you loved to play cowboy, and you grow up owning a cattle ranch, you're a success. If you liked playing doctor or nurse, and you wind up a brain surgeon, you are a success: I wanted to have my own comic book.
Lying there, like Mifune's Officer Murakami; like Bradbury's young Douglas Spaulding, imbiber of dandelion wine; like the spawn of Siegel and Shuster I've been, and never knew it, I hungered for a kind of adult success that included my own comic book, my very own, with my name on it.
HARLAN ELLISON'S DREAM CORRIDOR : © 1996 THE KILIMANJARO CORPORATION.
Along about 1992 or '93 — in a tangential anecdote too long and interesting to be told in précis here — but I've told it in detail in one of my books — my friend Mike Richardson of Dark Horse Comics said yes to an endeavor to be titled Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor. And for the next decade-and-a-half (with abysses here and there, through no one's dilatory behavior but mine own) we put together such wonderful comic books you wouldn't believe! I worked with three sensational editors, Anina Bennett, Bob Schreck, and the glorious Diana Schutz. We published the last pages ever done by Curt Swan and Doug Wildey. My stories were adapted by Big Names like Len Wein and Tony Isabella and Mark Waid, Mike Gilbert and Steve Niles. We were in at the beginning of Mike Deodato the Younger, Teddy Kristiansen, Gene Ha, David Lapham. Hundreds of writers, letterers, colorists, great pencillers like Gene Colan and gallery artists like Michael Whelan, Steve Hickman, Leo & Diane Dillon. The list goes on and on. I will have to omit dozens. But that's acceptable, at this reading, because this is the answer to the question that was asked of me, “What was your favorite Creative Time on a title?”
Harlan as one of his current favorite comic characters: Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse.
COURTESY OF WORMWOOD CREATOR BEN TEMPLESMITH.
It was the Dream Corridor.
It was the sweet fulfillment of the sweet dreams a six- or seven-year-old kid had while supine under the North Carolina sun, thousands of miles from Painesville, Ohio, hungering to exist as an equal in the grandiloquent world of Superman and Sandman and Will Eisner and Julie Schwartz, even if (at that childhood moment) he had only met two of them.
That non-spandex comic, at its bestselling number, never came anywhere close to the tsunamis of last month's Spider-Man or Star Wars or Batgirl, frankly broke my heart. It was such a nice comic. So good, so smart, so interesting, all Eric Shanower interstitial. And apart from the few thousands who loved it, across fifteen years, it is slightly less case-hardened steel forged in the memories of comic-book geeks than, say, Brother Power, the Geek.Yet, on sum, the best I had in me, and the sweet dreams memorialized. You could look'm up.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
SCOTT TIPTON
Scott Tipton, founder and editor-in-chief of Comics101.com, writes the weekly column of the same name, the site's most popular and highly trafficked destination. In recent years, Scott has crossed over from comics historian to comics creator, writing such series as Doomed, Angel: Auld Lang Syne, Klingons: Blood Will Tell and Star Trek: Mirror Images for IDW Publishing. Scott currently serves as editorial services manager for a Santa Monica ad agency, and communications director for a Sherman Oaks-based toy company. He lives in Los Angeles, California, with his high school sweetheart, Jenny, and more comic books and action figures than a grown man has any right to have.
THE FIRST ISSUE I EVER READ
I think it was an issue of Spidey Super Stories, the 1970s Electric Company tie-in kiddie book, with Spidey and guest-star Iceman helping to save Easy Reader from some super-villain, maybe the Beetle.
THE BEST CREATIVE TIME ON A TITLE
Justice League International, the first two or three years. After the Justice League books had been unremarkable for years with characters like Vibe and Gypsy shoved into the limelight, here was a League book with big guns like Batman, J'onn J'onnz, Captain Marvel and Green Lantern again. With the addition of great new characters like Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, every issue was exciting, and at the same time rip-roaringly funny.
THE BEST COVER
Animal Man #5 (1988). The sight of Buddy Baker symbolically crucified while an unseen Chuck Jones-like hand continues to paint him in is a startling one, and it perfectly conveyed both the contents of the issue and the thematic design for the remaining two years of Grant Morrison's expertly planned storyline. Pure genius, and gorgeously executed by Brian Bolland.
THE BEST STORYLINE
Starman by James Robinson, Tony Harris and Peter Snejbjerg. Robinson introduces us to Jack Knight, a young man thrust into the family business of being a superhero, and over the course of a little more than eighty issues, we watch him resent it, learn to love it, become really good at it, and then decide to walk away. Beautifully written and drawn.
THE GOOFIEST STORYLINE
Batman #92 (June 1955), the first appearance of Ace the Bat-Hound. Even when I read it as a child in Batman: From the 30s to the 70s, I recall thinking, “Wow. Batman puts a mask on his dog. That's really weird.”
CHRIS RYALL
Chris Ryall has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of IDW Publishing since 2004. He is also an Eagle- and Eisner Award-nominated comic book writer of such series as Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show, Zombies vs. Robots, Groom Lake, Doomed, George A. Romero's Land of the Dead and dozens of others. Chris also served as chief content provider and editor-in-chief for filmmaker Kevin Smith's Web venture where Comics 101 got its start; a corporate speechwriter for American Honda; a creative executive with Dick Clark Communications; and an advertising copywriter. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, Julie, and daughter, Lucy.
THE FIRST ISSUE I EVER READ
Fantastic Four #130 (January 1973). I was five years old; the comic belonged to my neighbor. The cover image was a Jim Steranko gem showing a giant, stretchy arm, a guy made of rocks and a villain made of sand. Did I mention I was five and therefore powerless before those kinds of visuals? I made off with the comic and was started on the path before I even fully knew how to read.
THE BEST CREATIVE TIME ON A TITLE
Chris Claremont and John Byrne on The Uncanny X-Men. There were so many other great teams before and after that time, but as an impressionable teen, reading their clever, beautifully illustrated and ultimately tragic storylines changed what I'd come to expect from a comic.
THE BEST COVER
The Amazing Spider-Man #39 (August 1966). John Romita's depiction of the cackling Green Goblin capturing Spider-Man in civilian guise — but with identity clearly revealed — has resonated since I first spied it in my older brother's collection as a kid. This one proved much harder to boost than that first Fantastic Four issue, so it still holds the top spot on my wish list. Spidey's arch-nemesis attacking him where he lived? That was chilling stuff and perfectly captured by Romita's linework, which was all the more impressive because it was his first issue as regular artist on the title.
&nb
sp; THE BEST STORYLINE
Daredevil's” Born Again” storyline (1986) by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. Only this team and this storyline could supplant Miller's first run on Daredevil in my head. The brilliant, mature but fully accessible superhero storytelling earns it this spot, but Mazzucchelli's art elevates it to comics godhood. Even without ninjas.
THE GOOFIEST STORYLINE/ISSUE
Secret Wars II (1985). Goofy doesn't have to be bad, but in this case, it definitely is. When a perm-haired, godlike character being taught how to void his bladder by Spider-Man and then celebrating the feeling afterward is the most — and only — memorable part of a much-ballyhooed miniseries sequel, you know something has gone seriously awry.
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