Supermen, Syphilitic Cowboys And A Surfeit of Batteries - The Early Years of Harvey Kurtzman

Harvey Kurtzman's curse was the curse of the true artist the curse of always, always thinking outside the box. His keen sense of the absurdities of life had been with him from the early days, when as a kid growing up in Brooklyn he had created his first comic "Ikey and Mikey" which he scrawled on a daily basis on the sidewalks of his neighbourhood.


He'd embarked on his comic book career upon returning from the war in 1945 working on a string of second banana superheros, but superheros were not Kurtzman's natural metier - too formulaic, too predictable for an ideas man like Harvey. But he needed work and in a fortuitous way it was Stan Lee at Timley/Atlas comics whose need to fill unexpected page gaps when advertising wasn't forthcoming that provided Kurtzman with a platform for his talents to shine. The brief was a gift to a man of Kurtzman's capabilities all he needed to do was create one page strips, which under the title "Hey Look" provided free rein for his take on a myriad of zany themes.

By the time that Lee tired of the idea of one page fillers, Kurtzman had created an impressive backlog of samples with which to trudge the streets of New York as he sought some degree of financial security for himself and his newly wedded wife Adele who he'd met at Timely.

One of his ports of call was 225 Lafayette Street, home of ; E.C. as in Entertaining Comics because the recently deceased Max Gaines' son Bill was now running the show. Trouble was that Kurtzman was trudging up the stairs with his folio of samples in the misapprehension that his destination was still E.C. comics as in Educational, the sort of publisher that would actually even want to publish such dire tracts as "Picture Stories From The Bible" or "Picture Stories From World History". So when Kurtzman was ushered into Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein's office he was a little taken aback to find complete regime change and comics with titles such as "Crime Patrol", "Saddle Justice" and "A Moon, A Girl, Romance" littering the desk.

Gaines and Feldstein looked at the contents of Kurtzman's folio, loved what they saw, laughed uproariously at the "Hey Looks" but just didn't quite know where to place Kurtzman, but being the helpful guy that he was and wanting to keep Kurtzman in the loop Gaines introduced him to his cousin David, who was a little bit more on message as regards the Max Gaines legacy and was producing a comic warning of the dangers of STDs out of the E.C. offices under the title "Lucky Fights it Through".

Kurtzman knuckled down and produced the sixteen page comic complete with "Lucky" song sheet. The story of the naive young cowboy and his battles with the dastardly foreman Handsome Hank and the ravages of a careless night with a saloon girl became Kurtzman's first comic production for the Gaines family. When Gaines and Feldstein moved their comics in the now familiar direction of horror suspense and science fiction, Kurtzman was invited on board with his first E.C. story "House of Horror" which appeared in The Haunt of Fear No. 15, other stories for The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt swiftly followed.

Kurtzman was never all that happy with his horror work but E.C.'s science fiction comics were another matter entirely and the following story that appeared in Weird Science No. 8 under the title "Man and Superman" shows both Kurtzman's desire to educate coupled with his delightful sense of irreverence, as we witness Charelmagne Farbish's self sacrifice at the altar of physical culture.

One can sense in these pages the first stirrings of Kurtzman's tour de force comic Mad destined to debut some two years later.

The definitive take on this artist's life and work is the recently published; "The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics" by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle. 

Cloud 109 - Episode 25

Here is the final episode that we're going to be posting from Gina, Cary and Rabby's adventures on Cloud 109. It's been a real treat to be able to share these with you and many thanks to all of you for being so supportive and encouraging, when all the usual self doubts attendant on any creative endeavours have assailed us, it's been your kind words that have spurred us on.

It wasn't our primary intention to make this blog as broad reaching in terms of comics as it has become, it's just that the serendipitous nature of a lot of what we do that has turned Cloud 109 into a meeting place for enthusiasts of illustration and comics in particular. We've now got links to blogs around the world (we're even talked about in Hebrew!) and one of our reviews was most recently used by the mighty Fantagraphics no less, for the promotion of the Tardi First World War classic, "It Was The War of the Trenches".

And talking of reviews, that is something that we'd like to do a little bit more of over the next few months, we love the stuff from times past but we don't want to lose sight of the present either, so we'll be looking at some of the new and exciting comics that we're passionate about and want to share it with you and even debate with you, so keep your comments coming - it's what keeps this blog alive and moving forward.

You guys are what makes this blog what it has become - seriously, so keep your comments coming so that we can mentally add you to the list of people we think of when choosing stuff to run on this blog; "Would Dave (Morris) I wonder have seen this one before?", "I wonder if Phil (Rushton) will enjoy some more Embleton?", " I wonder if Leeann has seen this artist before?", "Must run this one past James (Corcoran)".

You've all become friends and compatriots in our ongoing quest for sharing comics and keeping you updated with developments in the world of Cloud 109. And while we may be hanging you out to dry as regards what's happening next in Gina, Cary and Rabby's quest to uncover the source of the mystery virus that's assailing their virtual world, we're still going to tease you just a little bit with bits of artwork, a panel here a sketch there or maybe even a page or two from book 2 and 3 which David will shortly be putting into production.

But for the moment here's page 25:


Earlier episodes here:

and here:

Cloud 109 - Episode 24

We're now rapidly approaching the point where David and I are going to pull up the drawbridge with our serialisation of Cloud 109. Next week is the last sequential page we're posting for the moment, which is not to say that we won't be posting more pages but they will be out of context. There's a lot we can still do to keep up the momentum and as I mentioned last week we are putting up pages on the new dedicated Cloud 109 website - we'll keep you posted as to when the "opening night" will be.

Which brings me to yet more thoughts about the opportunities that are available for creatives in pushing their work out into the public arena. I cannot stress too often how important networking is for all of us, but if you're a creative then it's essential. Creatives are by nature extremely prone to huge swings of mood, one moment you can just about convince yourself that you are pretty good at your chosen field of self expression, the next moment you look at your work and the awful realisation that it's all crap descends on you with life sapping finality.

I've come to the conclusion that this is just a part of the whole creative process, just accept the mood swings, deal with it and move on, but the sense of kinship that comes with sharing your thoughts as many of us do on our respective blogs is truly restorative. Blogging for David and myself has been a truly enriching experience and without all the positive feedback and encouragement that you've given us over the last few months, the commitment to continuing work on Cloud 109 would not have been as easy to sustain.

This is beginning to sound like a farewell, but rest assured it is not, we continue and as I said earlier part of the next phase is the work we're committing to our website. And both David and I are viewing this as an opportunity to develop Cloud 109 in new areas and to this end we're just gently dipping our toes into the amazing opportunities that Flash animation presents us with. Our blog has been really exciting in allowing us to cybernetically hook up with other creatives but for the all important task of getting the message into schools, which David regularly visits it's not really a viable route - hence really the website and hence my current task of creating animations and immersing myself in online tutorials, John Shuman and Chris Georgenes who you can access from within Adobe Flash are just brilliant and inspirational teachers.

The possibilities that knowledge of Flash creates as we move into the world of Apps are it seems limitless, so we're a-going with the flow and it is our intention to continue with the regular Wednesday look at how Cloud 109 is moving out into the world beyond our desk space by including a look at how we're going to adapt to these new opportunities.

Above is a little taster of something that will be included on the Cloud 109 website.

Plus a lot more of course!!!

Pages 1-12 here

and 13-21 here

Recommended Flash reading:
How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4: The art of design and animation

Theakstonization!!! - A Plastic Magnifying Glass and The World's Finest Comic

Back to a second look at Creepy 36 , which is a good example of the period when the Warren line of comics were well on the road to the recovery from the awful nadir they had endured in the late sixties, when page rates were slashed, editorial and office staff were let go and many issues of Creepy and Eerie had been entirely devoted to reprints. Vampirella was the turning point for the Warren Empire and as funds replenished the once empty coffers, so new art and script were being sourced. Some of the artists were to become regulars, some were just passing through but all of their creations were interesting and some were brilliant.

The following story would I suggest, fall into the interesting category as it featured the early artwork of an artist who would develop his own very elegant take on the grace and romance of the silver age of D.C. comics. Rich Buckler who ended up drawing pretty nearly all the characters he's poured over as a kid and went on to create Deathlock had networked through the fan groups that had started coalescing throughout the late '60's, and it was as much his energy and enterprise as well as his innate talent that got him working for all the major companies from the early '70's onwards. He was one of the young hopefuls who attended The Detroit Triple Fan Fair which would have also been attended by another teenager energetically producing home made fanzines, who was to provide the script for "Forbidden Journey", which in all other respects is yet another homage (think of those Bruce Jones artworked stories we've featured here) to the work of the Al Williamson EC team.

Greg Theakston had entered into a lifelong love affair with comics when his elder brother had returned from a trip to a dime story with a plastic magnifying glass and a copy of what he described was the "world's finest comic" - "look, it says so on the cover". The younger Theakston was mightily impressed as he gazed at the contents, he was already familiar with Superman but he hadn't come across the guy with the bat costume before, he looked pretty cool too.

Theakston's mother in an admirable bid to widen her boy's scientific comprehension of the world around him pointed out to his that Superman's face wasn't printed pink it was actually composed of a lot of tiny red dots, which as Theakston hauled himself across the veranda to examine the page with the aid of the plastic magnifying glass could see was indeed the case. He was also hypnotically fascinated by the pool of light he could see on the pages as the sun's rays illumined the surface of the comic, he was also mesmerised by the smoke he cold see emanating from the centre of the light pool. It was some twelve holes in before his brother realised what was happening and snatched the now degraded comic back.

But the damage was done in more ways than one as Theakston became more and more obsessed with comics and comic art, to the extent that at the age of fifteen he was producing fanzines devoted to the work of his all time comics hero Jack Kirby. He even invited Kirby who was busily producing gargantuan quantities of artwork for The Fantastic Four and a host of other Marvel titles to attend their Detroit Convention. Kirby was of course way too busy but upon hearing that Theakston had helped organise the event and having profoundly happy memories of his own  experiences of being in a boy's club, invited Theakston to be his biographer and thus was another chapter of comics history written as the teenageTheakston vowed to himself that come what may he would indeed fulfil the honour that Kirby had accorded him.

Greg Theakston has gone on to become an artist, writer and publisher and has worked with pretty nearly all the top talents in comics, in fact after graduating in 1971 he went straight to work as Jim Steranko's assistant, he has also worked closely with Neal Adams and the late Dick Giordano who coined the term, "Theakstonization". This term refers to yet another of Greg's lifetime missions which is to bring to life comics which through scarcity, sheer expense or a mixture of the two would be unaffordable for most enthusiasts.

The process which Theakston has been employing for over a quarter of a century involves sourcing old and battered copies of comics and then bleaching out the colours. With the work that he did on the Spirit Archives, he then scanned in the pages and printed them off at 200% in much the way that the original art would have been sized. He then worked over all the damaged lines with a pen/sable brush and ink to reinstate all the original line work.

Little did Ma Theakston realise what she had unleashed when she handed the six year old Greg the plastic magnifying glass.

Frank Bellamy's World War 1 - The Art of Comics Restoration

I've often found that the sheer ephemerality of a lot of the publications that I have been hopelessly obsessed with has had me pining for some kind of permanence that would enable comics to take their rightful place in the finest libraries of the world. So strong was this urge to bestow a degree of gravitas and at least pseudo longevity on these otherwise eminently disposable journals that I can still recall with a slight thrill of horror, actually taking scissors to some of my favourite comics so that I could glue particularly worthy pages into a hard bound scrapbook thereby changing their status from mere comics to proper books. The irony of course being that in the process I had destroyed the thing I loved.

Worse than that, the insanity was contagious, my dear little brother who had a near mint run of TV 21 from the debut issue, followed my example but in an act of sheer perversity actually favoured the astronomical guff that was running on the reverse side of Embleton's Stingray adventures.

But the desire to confer some degree of semi-permanence on otherwise here today, in the trash can tomorrow culture has now reached it's apotheosis with the age of the computer and attendant digital scanning and restoration facilities. There is now a multitude of hitherto prohibitively expensive and or elusive comics that are being re-presented in hard bound collections and in many ways the whole trend is very exciting, but there are always one or two caveats and considerations.




The fact that these works are now being brought into the light of day is generally laudable, but where the project often stumbles is in the process by which these otherwise lost treasures are being reproduced. The curse that applies itself like a kiss of death to a lot of the U.S. product is an insane desire by digital colorists to add their own photoshop tricks to artwork that was designed to be reproduced with flat color. The recent and now mercifully stalled Gemstone E.C. reprint series or Dark Horse's Chronicles of Conan series being good exemplars of this regrettable trend. The problems that have beset U.K. reprint projects seem to be largely budgetary, The Hawk Dan Dare Books, when computer scanning was still in it's relative infancy were sourced from color photo copies, hence the slight fizz to all the yellows, not to mention the horrendous state of the reproduction of "Charley's War". The first edition (2 volumes only) which was published by Titan Books in 1983 and 1984 were beautifully reproduced. Why then I hear you ask are the current editions so horrible in comparison? The answer quite simply is that in the intervening years I.P.C. cremated all of Joe Colquhoun's original artwork and the new editions were reproduced from scans with one can only assume a minimal budget assigned to this now critical process. Hence the parlous state of what should be a glowing example of some of the best ever art and script to grace a series of UK comics. There are similar tales of publishers cutting corners, even to the extent of not scanning from original artwork because of insurance and transportation costs, which leads to the finished product failing to quite achieve the greatness it deserves.

Which is why, when I do come across publishers that love and care unstintingly for the material they are releasing, I am so impressed and want to spread the word to other kindred spirits. And with that in mind, I'd like to share with you some scans from Book Palace Books recently released; "Frank Bellamy's The Story of World War 1". This book is without doubt one of the most exciting releases aimed at connoisseurs of great graphic art that has appeared over the last few years. Frank Bellamy and Michael Butterworth in creating this series for the chldren's weekly Look and Learn created a masterpiece and Bellamy himself in an interview he gave to Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons in 1973 referred to enjoying the freedom that the series had given him in being able to experiment with a variety of techniques.

I am relieved to be able to report that the production values that were applied to this project were second to none and the quality of the scans and subsequent restoration work are such that in the case of the limited edition, which comes accompanied by a print of one of Bellamy's original pages for the series shows no diminution of quality whatsoever between the pages sourced from Look and Learn and the original print. The  book which is edited by Steve Holland (who also did a superb job on all the scanning and restoration) comes with an introduction by the noted Bellamy scholar and enthusiast Norman Boyd and also includes brief biographies of both Frank Bellamy and Michael Butterworth.

All in all an excellent addition to the shelves and a more permanent fixture than any scrapbook of these pages could ever have aspired to.

Cloud 109 - Episode 23

We're rapidly approaching a self imposed hiatus with "Cloud 109", it's not that we're abandoning work on the opus - far from it, as I type the other Reverso me (living somewhere on Earth 2 in a parallel universe is frantically skimming through Chris Georgenes "How To Cheat in Adobe Flash") as we get our dedicated "Cloud 109" website up and running and suitable for public consumption.

So much to do ... so little time ...

But, I am very aware of this very delicate balancing act that creatives such as Dave Morris and the amazing "Mirabilis" team, Garen Ewing with his wonderful "Rainbow Orchid" (Book 2 out soon and the cover is an absolute knockout too!)and the awesome Tim Perkins over at Wizard's Keep with the epic "World's End" (Tim's just done an interview with BBC Radio Lancashire - well worth a listen - check the link on his site) have been doing and that is flagging up their creations, teasing and tantalising but not giving the whole game away into the bargain, otherwise even allowing for a few people still wanting to add your book to their shelves, there's not going to be a lot of suspense or anticipation left in the process. And believe me suspense and anticipation are a vital part of the selling process. I used to get almost as much enjoyment out of seeing all the covers for the first few editions of Warren's "Creepy" and "Eerie" in those black and white teaser ads in Famous Monsters of Filmland as I did from reading the actual magazines, by the time I finally tracked them down I was ready to part with my life savings, which at the age of fourteen was pretty much what I did.

And this is the stage that we're heading towards with "Cloud 109", we'll soon have posted 25 consecutive pages from the book and as the entire first volume is a mere 60 pages long ( I used to think 60 was kinda epic until I discovered that Dave Morris, Leo Hartas and Nikos Koutsis planned on Making Mirabilis 800 pages long - cheez!!!) I think we are heading towards showing a little too much of our hand.

So what we want to do is move the sample pages to our own Cloud 109 website (c'mon Peter! Type faster so you can get the friggin' website completed!!!), but continue with the blog as it's now become a bit of an institution and a great way of sharing ideas and influences, plus - and this is very important - a blog lives, breathes and gently pulsates in a way that a website doesn't. We can and will continue to update and tantalise with random snippets from the rest of "Cloud 109 - Book 1", not to mention Books 2 and 3, plus other creative projects that we're involved with and the blog is the best game in town as regards all the necessary communication opportunities we require to achieve this.

So here in the meantime is page 23 of Cloud 109 and here also is a glimpse of the teaser book we have produced using Lulu.com. A very few copies of this will be filtering out over the next few weeks as we continue with our efforts to raise the profile of what I regard as the most exciting project I have had the privilege of being involved with over the last thirty mumble, mumble ... years.

Previous episodes can be read here and here: