On the second day of Christmas, Santa blew a smoke ring and asked me to tea in a very nice hole...

The Hobbit #1-3 adapted by Chuck Dixon with art by Dave Wenzel; published by Eclipse 1989-1990;



adapted from the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien



I love David Wenzel’s fantasy illustrations, which is a long way from the way I felt about him when I first saw his art when he replaced George Perez on the Avengers in the middle of the Korvac Saga. When I saw the first issue of the Hobbit on the spinner rack in a Walden Books in Copley Square in Boston while I was at university, I jumped all over it and then hunted down the next two as they came out. I adored Wenzel’s art and couldn’t believe it was the same artist I loathed a decade earlier (of course the fully painted art versus comic line art inked by someone else was a big factor). Wenzel captured the feel and tone of the Hobbit that I always imagined, sort of a synthesis of the Hildebrandt’s Tolkien art, the Rankin-Bass animated feature, and the illustrations from the oversized annotated of the edition that was my first experience of the book, but yet distinctive and uniquely Wenzel’s work. Dixon’s adaptation is faithful, my only complaint is that he is a bit wordy (not that Tolkien wasn’t) but the caption boxes and dialogue take up far too much real estate on a lot of the panels and pages obscuring Wenzel’s gorgeous painted artwork, but overall, a wonderful adaptation of one of my favorite stories of all time.

-M

Sold! I will now be tracking this down.

YES! never thought of that, but very true.

Maybe because Shadow stories lend themselves to a film noir/ Warner Brothers crime story look and mood. Doc's stories are basically Challengers of the Unknown adventure team fare. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that type of story is far more common in comics and depends far less on atmosphere than Shadow stories do.

My number 11 (or two, depending on which way we are travelling) is Jim Steranko's adaptation of the movie Outland, for Heavy Metal.



This was 1981, and Steranko hadn't done too much in comics, since he left Marvel. There was the Byron Preiss Fiction Illustrated book, Chandler: Red Tide, somewhere around here; but, Steranko had been doing book covers and other commercial work, plus his own Supergraphics projects and magazines. Here, he was turning the Peter Hyams film, starring Sean Connery, into a visual experiment. The film loosely adapts the plot of High Noon, on a mining colony, in the near future. It's a realistic future, as technology is within recognizable boundaries. Several miners have had psychotic and violent episodes, as well as suicidal ones. There are drugs running around, used to increase productivity and for recreational purposes. Connery is the marshall, keeping the peace, and he finds himself up against corrupt executives, a disintegrating marriage, criminals; and, in the climax, a team of assassins.

Steranko threw out the traditional approach and treated each page and chapter as a graphic design experiment, as he presents us with central panels, capturing some key moment, with linking images below. It was almost like a film run through a viewer, that suddenly stops on a single frame.



The story was serialized across 3 or 4 issues of Heavy Metal (at the same time that chapters of Howard Chaykin's Cody Starbuck were appearing), so, unlike their Alien adaptation, from Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, you had to pick up all of the issues. It's an amazing piece of graphic artistry, though it also reveals a flaw in Steranko's work: the importance of the style of the story over the substance of the plot. Steranko had always been more about his flashy images and page designs, rather than telling the story in its best manner. Sometimes it worked well, sometimes it seemed more for his personal enjoyment (like Todd McFarlane's panel borders, in Infinity Inc). Here, it is an odd, yet compelling mix. You get the sense of the story, yet it isn't the most dynamic presentation. It's more an impression of the story. Thing is, the movie itself is a bit of a mixed bag. It has the lived in look of Alien, and a nice mystery; but, the performances are uneven and Connery seems to phone it in, in scenes, while others are tense and gripping. At least Steranko is able to keep you interested all the way through, even if the story is a bit muddled, as a result.

11. Casey at the Bat from Mad Magazine, 1953. (Sneak Preview of Everyone Else's List Dept.)



Every panel is funny. Every panel. This is one of the absolute crown jewels from the earliest days of Mad Magazine. The text is a completely straight reprinting of Ernest Thayer's ALREADY satirical 1888 poem. But while the original is slyly tongue in cheek, Jack Davis drawings are aiming for wet-yourself hilarious. Jack Davis gives us cartooning that's so far over the top it borders on grotesque. His style is slightly disturbing NOW, I can't imagine how much of a shock it woulda been for the Leave it to Beaver generation.



(That Hoo! Ha! gets me every single time!)

#11  Conan the Barbarian  Marvel, 1970 Series 

Another no-brainer: Conan. hondobrode has already waxed poetic about Conan (as I'm sure others will, as we move further along here) so I'll just say the big draw for me is John Buscema's art. Yes, I know BWS wasn't too shabby himself and there were some other excellent artists, but in my book Big John's well-thewed Cimmerian is the definitive Conan.   

A favorite cover