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Post by shaxper on Feb 2, 2015 13:10:44 GMT -5
Pre-History, and Starting at Warren: 1948-1973Pre-HistoryDouglas Moench was born on February 23, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois ( 1). He was a comic fan from the moment he knew how to read, first enjoying Uncle Scrooge ( 2) and soon moving on to pre-superhero Brave and the Bold, to EC, to war comics, to Batman and Superman, and finally to an obsession with Marvel, leading him to publish an amateur Marvel fanzine ( 3). He was known on his block for having the largest comic book collection ( 4). He was also a massive fan of old horror films that he caught on television rebroadcasts ( 3). Moench moved out of his house to live with his girlfriend at the age of 18 and, shortly after, got a job running the teletype machine for the Chicago Sun Times ( 3). Starting at WarrenPrior to this time, Moench had already established a long-running friendship with fellow comic fan Don Glut. Glut had contacted Moench after seeing a letter of his printed in a Marvel book. Both enjoyed writing ( 2), especially sword and sorcery stories ( 3). In 1970, Glut had a story of his printed by Warren publishing. Moench decided to try his hand at it as well, submitting five scripts, all of which were purchased and published ( 4). Moench included stick figure breakdowns and layout with his scripts, and was upset when, in his first published story ("Snow Job!", from Eerie #29), artist Jack Sparling completely ignored these breakdowns in favor of his own interpretation of the script. ( 4) Moench kept his day (or rather night) job running the teletype machine for the Chicago Sun Times and writing his stories while on the clock there ( 3). He initially submitted all stories he wrote to Warren, and then resubmitted any scripts that Warren rejected to Skywald and, occasionally, other publishers as well, including DC ( 2). An amusing anecdote from Doug's time at the Chicago tribune: "In the early 1970s, Doug Moench worked the graveyard shift at the Chicago Sun-Times handling the teletype machines from one am to nine in the morning. As the clacketing machines churned out copy, filling the floor with teletype paper, Moench wrote his scripts for Creepy and Eerie, beginning with "Snow Job" in Creepy #29 (September 1970). Not long after dawn, he would distribute the teletype stories to the news desks and then go home to sleep. When Moench saw Roger Ebert in the hall, he told him a piece he had written about the Warren magazines had speculative guesswork and was somewhat off the mark. Ebert said, 'Who are you?' Moench said, 'I write those stories!'" Ebert then introduced Moench to Richard Takeuchi, the editor of the Sun-Times' Sunday magazine, Midwest, and suggested to Takeuchi that he have Moench write a piece about scripting for Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Moench's article, "Confessions of a Ghost Writer", appeared in the June 25, 1972 issue of Midwest..." ( 5) ("Confessions of a Ghost Writer" was also reprinted in Eerie #45) Moench went on to write several more articles for the Midwest, as well as for the Chicago Sun Times itself, while also freelancing for Warren. One of these, a "stream-of-consciousness reflection on violence in the Chicago subway system," was nominated for a Chicago Newspaper Guild Award. ( 5) Doug had no relationship with most of his artists at Warren and never knew who would be given his scripts. He had major anxieties about the Spanish speaking artists not understanding his scripts. His favorite artist to see do his work was Richard Corben. His least favorite was Esteban Maroto, not for the quality of the artwork, but because he struggled with following the story correctly ( 2). Evidently, writing comics was not Moench's only interest. In fact, at various points, he has also written novels, short stories, newspaper feature articles, weekly newspaper comic strips, film screenplays and teleplays ( 6), but writing horror comics was living out a dream of sorts, even if it wasn't doing a great job of paying Doug's bills. Sources: ( 1): Miller, John Jackson. "Comic Industry Birthdays." Comic Buyer's Guide. N.p., 10 June 2005. Web. 09 June 2016. ( 2): Cooke, Jon. "The Peruvian Connection: Confessions of a Horror Writer." The Warren Companion. Vol. 1. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2001. 118-125. Print. ( 3): Cooke, Jon. "Doug Moench's Memories." Comic Book Artist Collection. Vol. 3. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2005. 22-36. Print. ( 4): "Conversation with Doug Moench." Deemer, Brian. Comic Geek Speak. 16 Sept. 2005. Podcast. ( 5): Stewart, Bhob. "(untitled)." POTRZEBIE. Blogspot.com, 13 May 2011. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. <http://potrzebie.blogspot.com/2011/05/in-early-1970s-doug-moench-worked.html>. ( 6): "Doug Moench." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 13 July 2004. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Moench>.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 18, 2015 20:35:52 GMT -5
"Bright Eyes!" (from Eerie #43, November 1972) art by Richard Corben my grade: A  Plot synopsis: The story is told from the point of view of a barely cognisant zombie working on a cotton plantation among many other zombies for a master it worships and affectionately refers to as "Bright Eyes." The master is a cruel profiteer, but something about the zombie enchantment causes the narrator to view him as a benevolent god, even when sent on an errand to murder the master's competitor. Complications arise when the narrator's long lost brother shows up from out of the blue, seeking him out and discovering what the master has done with him. The brother ultimately kills the master, causing all the zombies to decay into corpses, leaving the brother horrified.This is, by far, my favorite story in this thread yet, and yet it absolutely does not feel like a Moench story. The final twist ending isn't much of a surprise, there's absolutely no visual premise (unless you count the master's bright eyes, I suppose), and it just doesn't feel like Moench's style at all, especially having the story narrated by a character with limited awareness. Moench's protagonists are almost always inordinately intelligent and verbose.  In fact, this story is far closer in tone and approach to the "Child" stories which Richard Corben will begin penciling about two years from now. Now, it's been my understanding all along that Moench is living in Chicago, Warren publishing is in N.Y., and Moench is working freelance. Thus, I've assumed that collaboration between writer and artists should be pretty well impossible in this kind of a situation, and Moench has confirmed that he rarely, if ever, communicated with his artists. But it sure seems like Corben might have had a hand in co-plotting this story. On to the story itself, there's so much that's brilliant about it. For one thing, I can't get enough of stories that are told from the perspective of a being with limited understanding and, at the same time, tremendous innocence. It's exactly why both one of Corben's Child stories and one of Steve Gerber's Simon Garth stories topped my list of all time favorite horror stories for the CCF Long Halloween list last year. This is very much on that same level of quality.  And yet, the story doesn't stop and rest on its laurels there. It goes so far as to draw a heavy allegory about slavery, in which one brother being made into a cotton picking zombie, contrasted against his successful and career-minded brother from the North, clearly has a deeper subtext. The most upsetting part of this allegory is that the zombie brother doesn't want anything more than he has; completely unable to comprehend that he can be any more than he is.  In the end, it isn't his tragedy; it's his successful brother's, forced to look upon this life that could have been his if not for his endless drive and tenacity because, as the story makes abundantly clear, though slavery is legally gone, it still exists economically in parts of the country (especially the South). Talk about true horror. This was only 1972, after all. Martin Luther King Jr.'s march on Washington was a mere nine years in the past.   There are really only two things I don't adore about this story: the boring panel arrangements after the first page (Moench MUST have abandoned providing layouts at this point) and a single panel in which far too much tries to be explained, ultimately making no sense at all. We didn't need to know that the Northern brother ran away from home when he was only ten, but if you're going to throw that in to the story, and also explain that the zombie probably wouldn't recognize him because it's been that long, then we have to wonder how in the heck he immediately recognized his southern brother in a dark closet full of zombies. Oh well. No script is perfect. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on May 18, 2015 21:41:50 GMT -5
I think you're right in thinking this story feels more in line with Corben's work than Moench, in fact I've often wondered if Moench meerely came up with the concept of the story and let Corben just run with the ball.
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Post by MDG on May 19, 2015 11:23:38 GMT -5
I think you're right in thinking this story feels more in line with Corben's work than Moench, in fact I've often wondered if Moench meerely came up with the concept of the story and let Corben just run with the ball. Or Corben came up w/ the story and Moench provided dialog. This is one of the few Corben Warren stories i don't think I've seen... |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 19, 2015 15:02:22 GMT -5
I think you're right in thinking this story feels more in line with Corben's work than Moench, in fact I've often wondered if Moench meerely came up with the concept of the story and let Corben just run with the ball. Or Corben came up w/ the story and Moench provided dialog. This is one of the few Corben Warren stories i don't think I've seen... Also possible that Moench was given the finished art, along with notes, and told to script it. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on May 19, 2015 19:24:50 GMT -5
I think you're right in thinking this story feels more in line with Corben's work than Moench, in fact I've often wondered if Moench meerely came up with the concept of the story and let Corben just run with the ball. Or Corben came up w/ the story and Moench provided dialog. This is one of the few Corben Warren stories i don't think I've seen... That's possible as well, and I was in the same boat as you until a few years ago when I read the big Creepy and Eerie Present Richard Corben hardcover which had all kinds of gems like this story. |
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Post by shaxper on May 22, 2015 19:45:12 GMT -5
"A Plot of Dirt" (from Psycho #9, November 1972) art by Felipe Dela Rosa my grade: A-  plot synopsis: Two hippies are hanging out on top of a grave when a zombie bursts up from the ground beneath them, summoned by an unknown master. On his way to the master, he stops to admire a flower and realize how, like himself, it has been plucked from the ground. The zombie master orders him to go kill a women which he soon recognizes as his wife, only to then realize the zombie master was his rival for her affection who swore revenge on them both and murdered him. The zombie rebels against his orders and kills the master, only to be destroyed by policemen bearing flame throwers. We then return to the site of the now empty grave, where an attendant comically assumes the hippies did it.There's little doubt that Moench is doing some of his best work for Skywald right now. This one has it all, from a striking and tragic visual premise (a zombie stopping to admire a flower as an emotional and thematic centerpiece for this entire story, in which he rebels against his orders for the sake of love), an unexpectedly comic framing device (the hippies), and, yes, a bold new experiment for Moench. I'd assumed with "Bright Eyes!" (also published this month) that the concept had not come from Moench because, while he didn't write stories from the perspective of unintelligent beings, Corben was later known for collaborating on such stories. Yet here is Moench writing the same kind of tale without Corben. It's possible he was simply inspired after working with Corben on "Bright Eyes!", but it's also possible that Corben was inspired by him. Whatever the case, this tale is nearly as good as "Bright Eyes," lacking some of the meaning, but conveying so much in that symbolic moment with the flower. I kind of wonder if Moench had been watching Frankenstein around the time that he wrote this.  There are problems, to be sure. Moench is still struggling with his characterization. The big flashback that explains who all these characters are not only fails to paint them as feeling authentic in any way, but the dialogue also comes off forced and abrupt.  The rich guy then inexplicably goes on to become a zombie master. So characterization and plot are not the strong points here, but the narration is eloquent as ever, and the visual premise is breath-taking. |
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Post by shaxper on Aug 23, 2015 17:45:37 GMT -5
"The Slipped Mickey Click Flip" (from Creepy #54, July 1973) art by Richard Corben my grade: A  Plot synopsis: Uncle Creepy is on strike, lamenting being temporarily replaced by a Mr. Diment; a character who wastes no time revealing that he's so psychologically disturbed as to be completely confused between what is good and what is bad, brutally stabbing his assistant as a reward for pleasing him. He then goes on to introduce a doctor who once tried to cure him of his insanity and then discusses the nonsensical supernatural means he used of enacting revenge -- first murdering the doctor, then his wife, then his faithful dog, and the utterly twisted ways in which he did so. Ultimately, realizing that the rant makes little sense, he decides to be offended by the reader not enjoying the story and then threatens to get us next.When Richard Corben first took on a Moench script with "Bright Eyes" (Eerie #43, Nov. 1972), I noted that the story felt far more like tales Corben would go on to co-author than anything Moench was writing at the time. Now, in their second story together, we once again have a tale that feels nothing like anything Moench had written previously or would go on to write after. The extent of the non-sensical derangement, delivering shock and absurd humor with no regard for narrative craft whatsoever, just isn't Moench at all. It leaves me wondering if, in fact, these were both Corben stories that Moench merely scripted. In "The Peruvian Connection: Confessions of a Horror Writer" (2001)*, Moench acknowledged having phone contact with Corben around this time (he never spoke to most of the artists who did his scripts prior to Marvel), but Moench remembers them only discussing his submitting a story for Corben's Grimwit publication (coming soon in this thread): But he in no way suggests Corben was plotting or co-plotting these scripts. In fact, earlier on in the same interview, he suggests just the opposite while discussing artists who would bungle his vision when penciling: So that leaves us with four distinct possibilities, here: 1. Moench is badly misremembering, and these stories were, in fact, at least partially conceived by Corben. 2. Moench is badly misremembering, and these stories were significantly altered by Corben. Moench either didn't mind or saw the changes as improvements. 3. Corben was picking and choosing the stories he would do and was particularly drawn to the two Moench stories that felt the least like Moench stories. 4. Moench wrote these, Corben drew them, and it's an utter coincidence that they don't feel like Moench stories at all. You decide. Anyway, if we can put aside the fact that there's little Moench to be found in this script, the story is utterly awesome, as Corben appears to infect it with all the nonsensical sadism of the underground comix scene. Sure, there's a little bit of Poe to be found in the rambling narrator bragging about the twisted revenge he formulated, but beyond that, it's all just strange and perverse for the sake of strangeness and perversity. Here's the doctor getting run over by Thomas the Tank Engine:    Yay! And then there's the sheer lengths that Mr. Diment goes to in getting revenge on the family dog for the sheer sake of having been the doctor's faithful dog:   One thing I always love about Corben is how soft and rounded his edges are. For most artists, you'd use such an approach to indicate safety and simplicity, but Corben seems to purposefully thrive on the mismatch of tones his style elicits and, in this case, there's almost a perverse eroticism at play in those soft edges as Mr. Diment seems to nearly get off on his revenge fantasy. Really supremely twisted stuff. Bold content for something as mainstream as Creepy. * Cooke, Jon. "The Peruvian Connection: Confessions of a Horror Writer." The Warren Companion. Vol. 1. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2001. 118-125. Print. |
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Post by shaxper on Nov 7, 2015 8:14:15 GMT -5
"Damsel in Dragon Dress" (from Grimwit #2, September 1973) art by: Richard Corben (as "Gore") my grade: B-  Plot synopsis: An evil knight is about to have his way with a fair maiden when a dragon comes to her rescue. Revealing himself to be a man under a curse, she kisses him in order to lift the curse, finding herself turned into a dragon instead. They both seek out a wizard who, himself, has managed to turn into a dragon, and he promises them a spell that will make them like everyone else. Of course, it magically whisks them away to a world full of talking dragons. They then meet a hippie who promises to transform them via another kiss and then cut to another Hippie, waking up to discover all three as dragon toys on the bed he has been sleeping in.Okay, so Moench's strong point might not be humor, but this is a fun contrast from the bulk of the work he has been turning in thus far. Corben was last paired with Moench on The Slipped Mickey Clip Flip" an incredibly strange, deranged, and (yes) silly piece that no doubt inspired Corben to seek out Moench for this, his own publication. We see a lot of that silliness again here, though (for once) there's no expectation to apply any aspect of horror to the story. Instead, Moench goes with two other topics that are of interest to him: fantasy (his favorite genre to write for prior to getting freelance work with Warren) and making fun of Hippies (something he's now done on three separate occasions in his stories).  The entire fun of the piece lies in inverting expectations. The knight is the bad guy and the dragon is the hero, kissing the monster should turn him human, but instead it turns the damsel into a monster too, etc etc.  But I think the most fun element in this story is the contrast in dialects. Sometimes, they speak in some garbled mockery of Elizabethan court-speak, and sometimes their dialogue is just plain earnest. The contrast is quite endearing.  Not a great story in any respect, but a fun break from the heaviness that permeates the bulk of Moench's work at the time. Perhaps a fitting conclusion to Moench's freelancing era. |
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Post by shaxper on Dec 6, 2015 21:27:00 GMT -5
"The Low Spark of High Heeled Noise!" (from Creepy #57, November 1973) art by Richard Corben my grade: D- for Moench's contributions, C- overall  Plot synopsis:
A traveling salesman's car breaks down in the rain late at night, leading him to an old house on a high hill. There he meets a couple that clearly doesn't want him there. He goes to bed and senses someone standing over him with a hatchet who quickly vanishes. He leaves his room to overhear the couple arguing. They murdered the male's wife and now accuse each other of standing over the other's bed with a hatchet. The male kills the female, at which point the salesman confronts him with a gun. The male charges, so the salesman shoots and kills him. He then grabs a drink offered to him earlier in the evening and drops dead of poison, at which point the murdered wife shows up with a hatchet.Moench gets the honor of having his work featured in one of Warren's first ever Full Color centerfold stories! And yet, this is, by far, the worst thing I've seen Moench turn out. The Old Dark House trope is generally Moench's weakest horror sub-genre. He always populates those stories with detestable and jaded uni-dimensional characters, a double-cross, and nothing else all that exciting to go with it. This time around, the twist he offers about the murdered wife is so predictable that you know it's coming halfway through the story. So Moench throws in a second twist, stealing directly from his own "I am Dead, Egypt, Dead", having the protagonist drink the beverage offered earlier on after having killed the double crossers, only to learn it was poisoned after he has drank it all. It wasn't brilliant then, and it isn't brilliant now. But really, all of this would have just made it a C level story. No, the real problem is the narration. It seems like just about every Moench run I've ever read has one all-rhyming issue, and the rhyming is always terrible, utilizing a rhyme scheme no more complex than what you find in "Roses are Red; Violets are Blue" only the number of syllables per line varies wildly, making the whole thing a total mess that is actually painful to read. Moench is a master of a writer; I wish I could write prose like he does...but his poetry is dreadful, and it utterly drowns out this story. Fortunately, Richard Corben is firing on all cylinders here. His art is positively breathtaking:     I'd gotten the impression in the past that Corben was picking and choosing which scripts he drew, as the previous two Moench scripts he did were so thoroughly up his alley, but I'm frankly surprised he would have chosen this one. Perhaps it was because he had a fondness for Moench in general at this point? After all, (and the timing gets weird here since this was backlog that may have been written several months ago) Corben invited Moench to write for his own Grim-Wit publication a few months back. I love Moench, but I think your reverence for a writer or artist is only sincere if you can also concede that some of their output has been less than great. I think my praise of Moench's better works comes off as more powerful and sincere if I can admit that...well...this was not good. And what's with the title? Titles are rarely Moench's strong suit, but I'm utterly lost on this one. |
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Post by MDG on Dec 7, 2015 10:23:44 GMT -5
In an interview somewhere, Bill DuBay spoke about how labor intensive it was to do Corben's color stories--the art was B&W and Corben and DuBay hand-created color separations in pencil, with a lot of print test back-and-forth. But they were very popular and usually look great (though they could look like hall if the registration was off, like on at least one issue I had).
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Post by shaxper on Dec 7, 2015 20:42:00 GMT -5
In an interview somewhere, Bill DuBay spoke about how labor intensive it was to do Corben's color stories--the art was B&W and Corben and DuBay hand-created color separations in pencil, with a lot of print test back-and-forth. But they were very popular and usually look great (though they could look like hall if the registration was off, like on at least one issue I had). I had no idea the process was so involved. It really looks like Corben painted on water colors and Warren just photo reproduced them. Did magazines (Life, for example, which was photo intensive) have to do a complex color separation process when they printed color photos? There's still so much I need to learn about the history of color reproduction. |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Dec 7, 2015 22:03:09 GMT -5
Corben's color printing techniques were the most advanced and most complicated ones of the 70ies and 80ies. He basically gave nightmares to printers and spent more time on technical details than on actual drawing and coloring. When you read his letter pages in his self published comics from the eighties, he gives ample details on the process and often on the failures. Many of his stories have seen multiple printing with multiple color works.
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Post by shaxper on Dec 8, 2015 2:02:05 GMT -5
Corben's color printing techniques were the most advanced and most complicated ones of the 70ies and 80ies. He basically gave nightmares to printers and spent more time on technical details than on actual drawing and coloring. When you read his letter pages in his self published comics from the eighties, he gives ample details on the process and often on the failures. Many of his stories have seen multiple printing with multiple color works. It was worth it, though. Truly, his work never looked better than when colorized like this. Anyone know the story behind why and how Warren began adding these full color inserts, by the way? Was Corben instrumental in that, or did he just happen to be one of the first artists to receive this treatment who then worked hard to rock it? |
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Post by MDG on Dec 8, 2015 10:11:31 GMT -5
Corben's color printing techniques were the most advanced and most complicated ones of the 70ies and 80ies. He basically gave nightmares to printers and spent more time on technical details than on actual drawing and coloring. When you read his letter pages in his self published comics from the eighties, he gives ample details on the process and often on the failures. Many of his stories have seen multiple printing with multiple color works. It was worth it, though. Truly, his work never looked better than when colorized like this. Anyone know the story behind why and how Warren began adding these full color inserts, by the way? Was Corben instrumental in that, or did he just happen to be one of the first artists to receive this treatment who then worked hard to rock it? I don't know why--the first color story, I believe, was drawn by Esteban Maroto, so may have originally been printed in Europe in color, though Corben got the color spot pretty regularly after that. Was this around the time that Marvel and Skywald started flooding the stands with B&W books? Warren might've been looking to differentiate the line and assert being the leader in that market. |
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