Memorial Day

What better way to spend Memorial Day than watch the remaining episodes of HBO's "The Pacific" on my DVR? To be honest, when my most difficult decision is what relic of the 1980s or 1990s to revisit for one of my posts, it's difficult to imagine the sheer magnitude of what American soldiers have sacrificed during the history of this republic. But that is precisely why we have this day, Memorial Day, to honor their service. So, today, we pause to reflect upon their commitment to our nation and the bravery they have exhibited both in war and peace time.

Incidentally, depicted above is the cover of the first issue of The 'Nam, a comic about the Vietnam war published by Marvel Comics in late 1986. Because of my father's service in that conflict, I began to collect this series soon after its release to learn a bit more about it. I have been meaning to revisit it, as well, as I know that its issues have been collected in a series of trade paperbacks. So, dear readers, look out for a review of that series on the horizon.

Kurt Cobain and Hands Across America (May 25, 1986)

Twenty four years ago today, on May 25, 1986, Kurt Cobain was arrested for vandalism. What might have gotten Kurt so riled up on that Sunday? We can only speculate.

A theory: As fate would have it, Hands Across America, that ill-conceived do-gooder event, was held that same day. Remember that? It was a charity event, the goal of which was to have a human chain from one coast to the other, with all participants joined by holding hands. Surely, Cobain, the then would-be punk rocker had no patience for such displays of insincerity.

Well, it's just a theory.

The Last Generation (1986 - 1989): A Case Study of the Challenges of Independent Comic Book Creation in the 1980s

Above: Firecloud and Artra on The Last Generation #1 cover (1986).

These days, it must be difficult to be an independent comic book creator, even with the advantages bestowed upon them by technology, computers, and the Internets. Imagine, though, what a difficult feat the creation of a new comic book series must have been in the mid-1980s, when the use of personal computers was still in its infancy and the Information Superhighway was years in the future. Somehow, though, Memphis-based comic book creators Dave Bennett, writer Bill Bryer, inker David Porch, and artist Mitch Foust found a way, and in so doing, they created The Last Generation, an anthropomorphic, post-apocalyptic black and white comic book series which saw its first issue brought into being in 1986.

Published by Black Tie Studios, the series was certainly ambitious. With a mythology that spanned millennia, beginning in the times of ancient Egypt and going forward thousands of years, well into the distant future, the series attempted to create a vast mythology addressing issues of bioethics, nuclear proliferation, and space travel. The principal narrative is set several hundred years in the future, and the protagonists are these: Firecloud (a warrior Bear with shamanistic powers who is the last of his clan), Artra (a wolf and a thief who carries a strange and powerful radioactive medallion emblazoned with a peace symbol), Eremos Polastar (a mentally unbalanced humanoid with memories and dreams of the past which may or may not be real), Sh'Kreech (a winged female archaeologist in love with Polastar), and Thomas O'Malley (a former resident of the twentieth century awoken from his cryogenic sleep chamber by the other aforementioned protagonists). Ultimately, the five of them band together, in part driven by Polastar's quest to find the mysterious "ben-ben," an artifact which dates back to Egyptian times and may, in fact, be extra-terrestrial in origin. Complicating all of this is the presence of a sinister villain, Dr. Clavius, who in the 1990s tricked the world powers into nuclear disarmament by rendering all nuclear material in the world inert. The protagonists find themselves in the hollowed-out mountain lair of Clavius, who is somehow still alive. Much of this the reader must piece together, as the back story is something that must be ascertained from bits and pieces of the narrative, as well as supplemental materials outside the narrative proper, like a time line which appears in several issues or copies of news articles about the characters.

In the very first issue, the introduction notes that the series would be limited to eighteen issues:

Unlike so many of today's story lines we want you to know that this one has a definite end. The way I now have it plotted the book will end on/or about issue 18. For those of you who like riddles the book has a beginning and an end which is also its beginning. We hope that you will our story through to its end.

In late 1986, Memphis's Commercial Appeal newspaper ran a story on local comic book creators, including those behind The Last Generation. In the piece, the author explored their diverse backgrounds and their connection to the characters they had created:

"There's a lot of people who know me as a police officer because I come in contact with 'em, said David Porch, who put pen and brush to The Last Generation. "Hopefully, a lot more people one day will know me as a comic book artist."

...

"The characters are not just supernatural beings who can leap over a building in a single bound," Porch said. "They all have well-developed personalities. We kind of see ourselves as the characters."

Porch, a member of the motorcycle squad of the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, sees himself as Artra, a prankish wolf who walks upright and wars a strange artifact - a peace medallion.

Mitch Foust, the comic's main artist and a shopping mall airbrush artist by profession, is big and bearded. He's reflected in Firecloud, a warrior bear.

Hobby-shop worker Dave Bennett helped conceptualize the comic and work out the business problems. His long blond hair is the visual basis for a restless seeker-after-truth named Eremos Polestar, who cavorts with a beautiful winged woman.

Only Bill Bryer, a factory parts worker, who scripted the book, doesn't have an alter ego in the story.¹

(Note: These guys weren't the only ones in Memphis producing indie comic books back then. Memphis-based Philip Hwang achieved some level of success in the mid-1980s with his similarly independently produced Hey Boss! #1, a Bruce Springsteen parody, which we here at Chronological Snobbery profiled in this piece back in 2007.).

Above: from left to right, are Dave Bennett, Bill Bryer, David Porch, and Mitch Foust.

Contacted in late 2007, before this blog's extended hiatus, Foust, Porch, and Bryer were kind enough to submit to brief email interviews. (Efforts in both 2007 and 2010 to locate Bennett were unsuccessful.). We've collected the three sets of creator interviews below.

1. How many issues of The Last Generation were published? I understand the original plan was to have 18 issues, published four times a year. Were you able to complete that plan?

FOUST: We actually completed five issues. By issue three, we had a good friend, Rich Herold, to do the lettering. After issue 4 was complete, Rich was killed in a car accident. It really took a lot of the wind out of our sails. The main reason the books were never finished was that I couldn't meet the deadlines. We averaged about one book a year.

PORCH: Only five issues? It seems like it was a lot more than five books with all the blood, sweat, and tears we put into each issue. I was intrigued by the story that we wanted to tell and was personally saddened that we never got the opportunity to complete the series. The plan, as with so many things in life, did not go as intended.

The death of Our Book was TIME. We did not have enough of it. All of us, Bill, Mitch, Dave, and myself all worked full time jobs. I had gotten used to eating and decided a steady job was the best way to continue the habit. I had no illusions or expectations of the book making me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, so from my point of view,
the book was a labor of love. As I alluded to earlier, time was the major factor for the book's demise. Time was required for writing, drawing, inking and toning the books. In the five years we worked on the books, we averaged one issue a year and you cannot do that and survive in the comic business. Naturally, with every issue after the first one, our sales were becoming less and less and finally, with the fifth issue, the decision to stop production was made. A labor of love is one thing and losing money to keep the series going, well, that's another thing altogether different. Mitch and I did all the artwork for the series. We both did full paintings for the front and back covers as well as doing other art projects like the prints that went into the portfolio. With full time jobs, there was just not enough personal TIME to finish the books.

BRYER: Yes, we had planned to publish eighteen issues, and I had the entire story line plotted out from beginning to end for those eighteen issues. We did only complete five issues and the portfolio, but we had a compilation printed which included a reprint of issues one through three along with an introduction by Chuck Dixon. The short of it all was our letterer, Rich Herold was killed in an automobile accident while going to Memphis State University (as it was called then), Mitch Foust lost his job at the T-shirt shop he was working at and he decided to open his own business, and we did have the time to invest in the project anymore along with the fallout of [comic book] distributors in the late eighties and early nineties. We had several of them go bankrupt, and we never received payment for our books that we published and shipped to them.

2. Have you collaborated with your Last Generation colleagues on any other projects?

FOUST: I haven't seen or heard from Bennett in years. Bill and I keep in touch, His wife cuts my hair. Porch is a real close friend. We haven't worked on any other major projects together. A few illustrations, but nothing major.

PORCH: I am sorry to say that with the exception of Mitch, I have not worked on any other projects with the guys. For a while after the book, Mitch and I did work together on generic prints for fantasy and sci-fi conventions. As with the original arrangement, Mitch would pencil in the artwork, and I would ink the pieces. Over time, damn that 'word' again, we did less and less collaborating, and now, Mitch has developed into quite a good pinup artist with a neat web site, and I basically do commissioned artwork and haven't thought a lot about The Last Generation, but what thoughts I do have, are fond memories.

BRYER: No, we all sort of went our own way, and Bennett actually left after the third book or so, and we took on Rich Herold. When Rich was killed, we dedicated our fifth book to him, and I even rewrote the story to include him into it.

Above: The Last Generation #2 cover (1987).

3. How would you describe the challenge of putting together and marketing an independent comic in the 1980s prior to the Internet?

FOUST: The whole world was different. Diamond wasn't the only comic distributor. Capital was very good to us. We sold to four or five others, including Diamond. The demise of the other comic distributors certainly made our sales numbers dwindle. We did comic store appearances, regional conventions, and old fashion mail outs. We had some good heat at first, but with the glut of black and whites, it got harder to get attention.

PORCH: Self publishing is an easy concept to come up with; however, bringing it to life bears as many problems as Dr. Frankenstein faced in creating life in a dead body. Bottom line is that you have to have a good product, or no amount of marketing or promotion is going to bring it to life. The Last Generation was my first contact with the business end of the comic industry. Up to this time, I only bought and read comics. Starting out in the pre-Internet era, you have to have a product in hand to be able to send out to the distributor, the retailer and any other promotional outlet you can think of. A book in the hand was always worth more than a picture in a catalog to convince people to carry your product. Having a product in hand, means that you have already contacted several printers and gotten the best price per book for printing. You have set a production date and once the books are printed, you can store them somewhere until you can ship them out. You have handled the menial tasks of physically handling and packing orders. When you sit down and look at the cost per book required to produce it (keeping in mind that the more your have printed reduces the cost per book, but also means that you have to sell more to break even) and how much you can charge for it, you think, man - that's a good profit. Au contraire, self publisher. From the get go, everyone connected to the book gets a cut of the action. The printer gets his money up front - the distributor gets the book for a percentage of the cover price - the retailer gets the book from the distributor a little over what the distributor paid and finally, the reader gets the book at cover price. You had to anticipate how many books were to be printed for each issue, and if there was an over print, you lost money and if you under printed, you lost the sale. You had to have a major distributor like Diamond in order to get your book out nation wide. You just cannot make enough sales from your garage to survive. Today, with the Internet, it would be easy enough to get pre-orders for your product and print only what copies you need at the time. More individuals would be able to see a product with the click of a button. The money received would not have to be discounted through so many hands. With proper equipment, you could even print at home. Original artwork can be put on the Internet and bidded on. Before this, you basically had to handle the sale of the artwork at conventions or "again" through a distributor.

BRYER: It was very difficult as we came into the business right before the major fallout of the distributors and the collapse of the distribution network. As I said earlier, we had quite a few of them go bankrupt and not pay us for books that we shipped out to them. The marketing part wasn’t too difficult, and we even hooked up with several other small publishers that we meet at conventions and book signings and ran ads in our book for them and they did the same for us along with directly marketing to the distributors.

4. Of what part of the first issue are you the most proud?

FOUST: Finally seeing a finished, printed book. It was the first time I had ever seen my work in print. Back then, there was no digital printing. If it was printed, it was offset. The first issue took us two years to produce. Just going through the process of getting the book printed was an education. The covers were manually color separated. THAT is a dying, if not dead, art in itself. To actually hold the book for the first time was great. The Last Generation was certainly a learning experience. We got to meet several people in the industry. Some became good friends. I would have like to have finished the project, but it wasn't economically possible at the time. Maybe one day. Probably not.

PORCH: Personally, even though the book was a great means of getting my artwork out to the general public, and I did enjoy doing the paintings, I would have to say I was most proud of the storyline. It had a lot of twists and sub-plots, as well as a surprise ending. I wish I could go into more depth about the story, but that wouldn't be fair to the guys or the fans. To be honest, at my age, I can't remember a lot of it. I noticed you did not ask about what part of the series I was least proud of. I'm going to tell you anyway. It was the countless hours spent with an X-Acto knife and form-X film laying down the tones and gradation that gave the book its look. The book may have been a Labor of Love, but I didn't LOVE that part of it.

In closing, I would like to add that I would not trade those years I spent with the guys (Bill, Mitch and Dave) for anything. It was a great learning experience and taught me a lot about myself. You don't know what you can do until you're under a deadline! To all our fans out there, I know of at least three, I am sorry that we did not get to finish the series. I don't like leaving anything undone or hanging.

BRYER: Well, the story starts off, in issue number one, page one with someone telling or retelling the story of The Last Generation in the last issue you find out who is actually telling the story and to whom. The actual story line would have been complete in a broad sense; however, there would have been plenty of room for continuation stories involving the characters who were left alive at the end of the first eighteen issues along with the new ones who would have been introduced at the end of this story.

For his part, Foust noted that he was only 20 or 21 when he began The Last Generation, and the very first comic book page he ever drew was the first page of the first issue. At that time, he was spending 50 hours a week airbrushing t-shirts and attending college and notes that he initially "thought doing comic pages at night (after 10:00pm) would be easy . . . . Didn't happen that way." He's still in the game, though. You can see his current work at his official website, which also features an official biography which references his work on The Last Generation.

By the second issue, the series was printing letters from its readers. Interestingly enough, one letter writer was Landon Cary Dalton of Bowling Green, Kentucky, who would go on to win a 1998 short fiction contest and help create the Batman: Date with Destiny fan film. His letter appeared in the second issue of the series, some of which I excerpt here:

Despite the fact that I was left with a handful of questions at the end of the first issue, I am still impressed. Why? Because the creators of The Last Generation have begun to tell a story that is so involving that I care about knowing the answers. I care enough to read the next seventeen issues.

Reached by email in late 2007, Dalton remembered The Last Generation, copies of which he still has in his collection. "The comic book was recommended to me by the owner of a local comic shop called Pac-Rats," Dalton recalled. "He was trying to support the book, and encouraged me to write a letter of support. The only other book he ever recommended in this way was Roachmill." Interestingly enough, the second issue of the series is filled with letters from citizens of Bowling Green, because Tony Anello, and his daughter Kathy Anello, who owned Pac-Rats, offered a 100 percent money back guarantee for the first issue of the series on the condition that buyers was to send written comments to Tony, who forwarded them to Black Tie Studios.

Above: The Last Generation #3 cover (1987).

In the fourth issue, Memphian Charles Ettinger submitted a drawing of some of the characters for publication on its letter page and noted he wished to become a comic book artist (which came true). After Herold's death, Ettinger would complete the lettering on the fifth and final issue. Reached in late 2007, Ettinger was also kind enough to submit to a brief email interview.

1. What do you remember about The Last Generation comic book series?

ETTINGER: That it was short lived. It had a lot of potential, but it's so hard to self publish. I remember the storyline and the art. It would have been nice to finish the story.

2. Do you remember submitting a drawing to that comic book for publication in its letters section? What prompted that?

ETTINGER: Yeah, I still have the issue. I was friends with those guys, and they liked my art. I can't remember if i asked them or they asked me to do it. I also got to do the lettering in the last issue.

Above: The Last Generation #4 cover (1988).

3. Would you say that The Last Generation influenced your art and work in any way? If so, how?

ETTINGER: I was influenced at the time by the encouragement of my peers. We had a great circle of guys who loved to do the same thing, and I learned a lot by just hanging out with them. I wouldn't say that the book itself was an influence, but the people that produced it were.

4. What are you up to these days with respect to art and comics?

ETTINGER: Art wise, I do a lot of freelance work. I get to do cartoony and comic bookish stuff for ads and t-shirt art. I've also gotten into sculpting recently, so I plan on doing some comic related work in 3-d. The most recent published piece was a pin-up of Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew for Roy Thomas' Alter Ego magazine. It was a real kick when the creator of the book approved of your art. What I'll do from here is a mystery, but I hope to get back into comics heavily in the near future.

Above: The Last Generation #5 cover, the final issue (1989).

As noted above, Herold, who was involved in the production of the series, was killed as a result of a car accident in February of 1989. As noted by Bryer above, the fifth and final issue of the series was dedicated to Herold, who also served as the basis of a new character. (In a flashback, O'Malley recalls the 1989 death of a close friend named "Rich," whose death profoundly affected him.). At the time, Herold's passing was noted by The Comics Journal:

Rich C. Herold, a penciller and letterer for Caliber Press, Eternity, and Black Tie Studios, died February 23 in a traffic accident in Memphis, Tennessee. Herold was a 22-year-old graphics art student at Memphis State University.

Herold worked as the letterer on Black Tie Studio's The Last Generation #4 and had finished lettering the second half of issue 5 at the time of the accident. Herold was also lettering "The Philistine," a three part story scheduled for Eternity's Shattered Earth Chronicles.

The Last Generation penciller Mitch Foust called Herold "very energetic and real inspirational."

"His enthusiasm, his drive was so remarkable," Foust said. "He didn't mind redoing work as long as it turned out right. He had so much potential."

Herold was also penciling and lettering "Fugitive," a story written by Charles Marshall and inked by Greg Cravens that premiered in Caliber Presents #4. Caliber Presents #6 will feature a Fugitive cover from a design by Herold finished by Foust and Cravens.²

Cravens was also kind enough to submit to an interview in 2007 regarding his memories of both Herold and the Memphis comic book community in the 1980s.

1. How would you describe the independent comics scene in Memphis in the mid to late 1980s? How did you come to meet Rich Herold?

CRAVENS: The independent comics scene in 1980's Memphis is probably the same as it is now - and the same as it is in every town all over America. There are a lot of enthusiastic beginners pouring their time and energy into their projects, and whatever shakes out is whatever shakes out. Rich and I hung around in the same 'comic book/cartooning crowd'. At the time, The Mall of Memphis was still the #1 retail space in Memphis, and we all circulated around the T-shirt shop that employed me, Mitch Foust, A.G. Howard and a few other cartooning enthusiasts. We went to Memphis State together. He was a little younger than me. I missed out on the new Apple computer lab that the graphic design department opened when I was a senior, so Rich set some type for me for my senior project.

2. Do you remember The Last Generation series? What do you think is its legacy?

CRAVENS: Of course I remember The Last Generation. That was Mitch, Dave and David's big project. We all sort of floated in that atmosphere of "What are you guys doing with it now?" Its legacy? Hard to say. Rich's legacy to The Last Generation was that it went on longer than it would have if he hadn't breezed in and put more life into it. The way I remember it, Mitch and the Daves had decided to move onto other projects (Mitch and Dave Porch were already doing painted covers for other comic companies by then) and Rich convinced them, with his boundless energy, that they should let him do some of the grunt work, lettering and the like, and that they should keep it up. Similarly, Rich and I, and Charles Marshall, were doing stuff for Caliber Press. He breathed a lot of life into our 'Fugitive' series. Plus, Rich handed me some work that had been offered him - illustrations for a new newspaper, The Memphis Flyer. Rich never saw any of this stuff go to print. It was monstrous. He gave us all this energy and drive and got us all fired up and worked as hard as all of us, and never saw any of it hit the stands. I drew my first Memphis Flyer cartoon just after getting the news that he wouldn't ever see it.

3. What are your memories of Rich? How did you learn that he had passed away?

CRAVENS: My memories are the same goofy memories you have of best college buds. He and I cut apart a crackerjack box to hide an engagement ring inside it for a girl he proposed to. We threw him a birthday party in my apartment, and when he nodded off late in the evening, we taped him to the couch with every inch of tape in the place, which was a considerable amount. We went to a Joe Kubert's School seminar at UT-Chattanooga. Drove all night to get there. Kubert saw us and said "Oh, the sleepless Memphis guys again..." I remember his sketchbooks. All pencil. All crazy overdone doodles with neat concepts behind them. He was manic, really. Once, in my kitchen, he was all cranky and pissed off (I think it was because the girl didn't want to marry him) and idly, as he talked about whatever, he lazily reached over and got a spoon out of the drawer, nonchalantly pulled over the sugar container, laid out a line and made as if to snort this sugar right up his nose. He did the whole thing with a straight face, then cracked up as I realized what he was doing. Classic comedic misdirection, too, with all my attention on the conversation. He and I decided that we'd start working out together in my apartment's gym after that. Typical- "Yeah! We'll get up early and work out and get all studly and everything!"

I learned of his death when Mitch called and told me. I had to finish my first Memphis Flyer piece, for their second issue- a gig that Rich got me - that night. It hurt, that he wasn't sitting in the apartment cutting up with me while I finished it. And, like I said, he never got to see those cartoons, nor Fugitive, nor The Last Generation that he worked on go to print. He was a roadsign for all of us, pointing us the way we should drive ourselves, and then he was gone.

Above is pictured a flier promoting a January 17, 1987 appearance by the creators of The Last Generation at the now defunct Memphis Comics and Records' South Highland location. Note that at the event a "Watchmen trivia quiz" was conducted. (I wonder if those assembled at that 1987 event suspected they would have to wait another 22 years for a Watchmen film adaptation, and that upon its release in 2009, it would be such a terrible comic book adaptation).

In the spring of 1992, the T. Joseph Clifton Gallery at the Humphreys Center in Memphis featured work by Porch and Foust, including artwork from The Last Generation.³

I myself acquired a copy of the first issue of The Last Generation way back in 1987 and met the creators at an in-store signing on the same day. I'm not sure when I purchased the second issue, but it was not until 2007, when I began to research what would become this piece, that I located and bought the final three issues. With its premature cancellation following its fifth issue, the mysteries and foreshadowing in the series' five issues were left mostly unexplained. What was the ben-ben? Was Polastar from the distant past and/or from outer space? How did animals acquire human traits? Why was Artra's medallion significant? What was the endgame of Dr. Clavius? To where did Dave Bennett vanish? We'll never know. But considering the Herculean task of creating and self-publishing a series in the 1980s, a five issue original run is quite an accomplishment indeed.

Be certain to click on the comic book covers shown above for much larger images of the paintings done by The Last Generation artists. For additional reading on the independent comic book scene in Memphis in the 1980s, see:

• Hey Boss! A Parody of Bruce Springsteen (Chronological Snobbery, Nov. 5, 2007)

Footnotes

1. John Beifuss, "Hopes hang on superheroes: Comic Book creators view task as serious business," The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), December 29, 1986.
2. "Caliber Presents Artist Rich Herold, 22, Dead," The Comics Journal, #129, p. 21 (May 1989) (internal links added).
3. "Best Bets," The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), March 27, 1992.

How G.I. Joe Made Me Look Good in Science Class (1986)

Back in the mid-1980s, I scored major points in an elementary school science class because of the daily afternoon cartoon series, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. I was in the fifth or sixth grade, if memory serves, and the science teacher asked if anyone in the classroom knew what the acronym DNA actually stood for. Of course, no one did, and there was an awkward pause while the teacher waited, patiently, for someone, anyone, to answer her query. Not wanting to appear too brainy, I hesitated, but ultimately raised my hand and replied: "Deoxyribonucleic acid." How the heck did I know this at such a young age? G.I. Joe. That's right. G.I. Joe.

Back before I realized that cartoons were merely thirty minute commercials for toys I would later harass my parents to purchase for me, I watched the same animated shows everyone else did, including G.I. Joe. Periodically, when the toymakers realized they needed to introduce a new line of toys, they would begin a new season of the cartoon and introduce a whole host of new characters, each with its own accompanying "action figure." And so it was with Serpentor, the new leader of the terrorist organization, Cobra, who was introduced in a five part episode entitled, "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!" This new super villain was genetically manufactured by the villainous Dr. Mindbender, who dispatched his evil forces across the globe to rob the graves of famous military leaders and tacticians so that he might create his own super military leader from their DNA. Wikipedia suggests that this was part of the second season of the G.I. Joe cartoon, which aired sometime in 1985 or 1986. (I suspect it was 1986, as both the Wikipedia entries for Serpentor and Dr. Mindbender indicate those action figures were released that year.). Pictured above is the cover of G.I. Joe #49, which depicts Destro and Dr. Mindbender making off with a corpse for this purpose. In the cartoon, Dr. Mindbender, in explaining the scheme he had hatched, specifically mentions DNA and the source of the acronym, and I remembered it, making myself look smart in class later that year. Who knew? The best part: I never had to reveal the source of my knowledge, for even then, I knew that I would have regretted that admission.

In fact, thanks to the power of the YouTubes, I have found the exact moment of the G.I. Joe miniseries at issue. See below, and fast forward to about 1:50 in the video:

Hey Boss! - A Parody of Bruce Springsteen! (1986)

"Even non-Bruce Springsteen fans, if such creatures exist, should get a kick out of this book," - Philip Hwang, writer and creator of Hey, Boss!, in his introduction to the first and only issue of that series, Hey Boss! #1 (Visionary Graphics, Issue Date: 1986).

Time was, the image of Bruce Springsteen standing before an American flag was ubiquitous, as were parodies thereof. The Born in the U.S.A. album had been released in the summer of 1984 and ultimately achieved the feat of seven top ten singles throughout 1984 and 1985. In 1986, seeking to honor Springsteen and perhaps capitalize upon his success, 19 year old Memphis, Tennessee based writer Philip Hwang and Canadian artist Larry Nadolsky created Hey, Boss!, an independently published black and white comic book featuring parodies of Springsteen.

Although Hwang and Nadolsky's project would last but a single issue, its initial publication made news. In October of 1986, Daniel Perez of the Los Angeles Times wrote:

Thanks to a fan in Memphis, Bruce Springsteen will "tour" the country in late October. Philip Hwang , a "hard-core" fan, has written "Hey, Boss," a comic book that parodies some events in Bruce's life circa 1972 when he was an emerging rock star.

But Springsteen and band-mates Clarence Clemons and Miami Steve Van Zandt won't be identified by name because the author didn't get permission (they'll be called Boss, Big Chief and Miami, respectively).

Hwang and Canadian artist Larry Nadolsky will break the 32-page, black-and-white book into four vignettes. Press run: 10,000.¹

Above: Springsteen on the cover of the February 27, 1986 issue of Rolling Stone.

The four vignettes are "The Motel" (in which Springsteen and his entourage, including Clemons, check into a fleabag motel, flee from cockroaches, and then find two women at a local bar with whom to stay), "The Binkers" (in which Springsteen and Clemons dine with Archie and Edith "Binker" in an "All in the Family" parody), "The Rogue Gallery" (which features fictional former bandmates who conform to certain rock stereotypes), and "They Call Him Bruce" (chronicling another series of misadventures featuring Springsteen and Clemons).

The experience was to be a stepping stone for its creators. Hwang told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in late 1986 that he was "hoping to become a professional comic-book writer some day" and to do that "you've got to do something spectacular inside the comic world that everybody knows about."³ Featured on MTV News, the book would sell out its initial printing of 10,000.² Hwang and Nadolksy were on their way to success.

In an email earlier this week, Hwang, now based in San Bernardino, California, revisited the origins of Hey, Boss! and explained why he chose Springsteen to parody:

Twenty one years ago, Bruce Springsteen was one of the hottest music talents around. I was a teenager who had finished a moderately successful comic book series called Escape To The Stars. I think I was breaking even, but my collaborator James Lyle wanted to take the project in a different direction. So that series stopped at issue five.

I still had the desire to produce comic books , and Springsteen was someone I admired very much. His early works really connected with me. Many of them such as "Born To Run," "Thunder Road," and "Hungry Heart" have the romantic theme of leaving your stagnant home to a more dynamic place. I guess a lot of teenagers probably feel the same way.

In addition to connecting with Springsteen's music, Bruce had a persona that was different from the stereotypical hedonistic rock star. He was known for telling little stories during his concerts that really gave you insight into the man. I heard many of these stories on bootleg cassettes. So I took Bruce's concert persona one step further.

I also wanted to reach an audience beyond the typical comic book reader and felt that a comic book about Bruce could be sold in record shops and mainstream book stores.

Above: The last panels of "The Binkers," from Hey, Boss! #1.

Lyle, Hwang's former partner from Escape to the Stars, remembers things a bit differently, although he is quick to note that he and Hwang long ago buried the hatchet. The two even contemplated sending complimentary copies of Escape to the Stars to American servicemen during in Operation Desert Storm (although that never materialized). In an email, Lyle recalls Hwang's initial request to assist him in the creation of Hey, Boss! in the mid-1980s:

My sole contributions to "Hey Boss" were the Visionary Graphics logo that appears on the cover and turning Philip down flat when he offered me the job of drawing it.

He developed the script and pitched the idea to me. I turned him down flatly simply because I was still pretty steamed about how things had worked out on ETTS. What I told him at the time was that I felt it was a "one joke book" (referring to the "Springstine" gag, copped from Joe Piscopo on SNL) and that I wasn't interested. To be honest, I never expected it to get off the ground. I underestimated Philip's drive to succeed.

Undaunted, Hwang sought a new artist. Nadolsky responded to an advertisement seeking an artist that Hwang had placed in the Comics Buyer's Guide. The two then created the first issue and a handful of pages of a second issue that was never to be. Below you will find an image (click to enlarge) of Hwang's front inside cover letter to his readers:
The first issue arrived in 1986, although a planned second issue never materialized, in part due to fears of a possible lawsuit. (It was to feature Springsteen's attempt to break into Graceland.⁴). Although no legal representative of Springsteen ever contacted Hwang, the potential threat of litigation, coupled with some other issues, ended the series.

"It was a combination of the fear of being sued and not being paid by the distributors for the first issue," writes Hwang. "Also, I was artistically moving away from comic books."

Nadolsky's fears of legal action were more overt. In an email, he remembers:

I also recall the day a coworker walked in with the local paper (The Winnipeg Free Press) that had a large picture of Bruce Springsteen and a story on how we were going to get sued. Nothing happened, I guess we were too small potatoes.

On Saturday, April 25, 1987, Hwang appeared at Memphis Comics and Records on South Highland to promote the release of the first issue of Hey Boss!, a flier for which is below:

Nadolsky feels the issue has a broad legacy.

"I guess it could be considered a important book for the fact that it inspired Todd Loren to create Rock N' Roll Comics and led to me working on a lot of those books," recalls Nadolsky, who drew the first issue (which profiled Guns N' Roses) and many others in that series. (Loren's creation of that notable series, along with his unsolved 1992 murder, are the subject of the 2005 documentary, Unauthorized and Proud of It: Todd Loren's Rock N' Roll Comics. See also here for a MySpace blog entry from that film's site supporting the Loren connection.).

Hwang now lives in California with actress Jennifer Lien (who played Kes on "Star Trek: Voyager") and their young son. Now preferring screenwriting to comic book scripting, he claims not to have read a comic book in over a decade and a half. In 2001, he produced a horror film called Completely, Totally, Utterly, and just recently, via his company Spots B Gone Productions, shot Geek Mythology, the trailer for which is as follows:


Over two decades after its publication, it's difficult not to find the cultural references and humor in Hey, Boss! a bit dated. (For example, there's a Philip Michael Thomas reference.). What's fascinating, however, is how Hwang (then a student at Memphis's State Technical Institute and not even twenty years old) and the far-off Manitoba-based Nadolsky, successfully published an independent comic book in an era long before email and the Internet. They exchanged copy and art via the U.S. postal service. The comic was printed in New York City on newsprint at a total cost of $3,000; Hwang would turned to distributors, to whom he sold the issues (which would ultimately sell for a cover price of $1.50) for 60 cents a piece.⁵

Hwang (who runs a carpet cleaning business when not producing independent films) isn't quite certain what to think about his creation of Hey, Boss! twenty one years ago.

"Looking back, I am a bit embarrassed that I felt so strongly about an entertainment figure that I would go to the trouble of making a comic book about him," writes Hwang. "On the other hand, it is a great conversation piece that was harmless and hopefully a little amusing."

1. Perez, Daniel. "Section: Calendar, Boss Book," Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1986.
2. John Beifuss, "Hopes hang on superheroes: Comic Book creators view task as serious business," The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), December 29, 1986.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

"Blacke's Magic"

The relatively fond memories I have for the 1985-1986 midseason replacement show, "Blacke's Magic," may very well be the result of 1980s nostalgia. I couldn't tell you, really, because the series has never been released on video cassette or DVD, meaning that my memories of the program are two decades old. I'm not certain the program would fare well when judged by today's standards and compared to the multi-episode story arcs and postmodern self-referentialism of modern narrative television programs. But, in 1986, "Blacke's Magic" was good, clean, fun, if only because it featured a magician and an old school con man solving crimes the police simply could not. What more could you ask for?

At its essence, NBC's "Blacke's Magic" was a procedural, before that term was used to describe shows in which crimes were systematically solved over the course of an episode. There was one unusual crime per episode, and Alexander Blacke (Hal Linden), a magician, along with his con man father Leonard Blacke (Harry Morgan), solved them using their respective skills. Created by Peter S. Fischer (with Richard Levinson and William Link as creative consultants), the men behind "Murder She Wrote," the show followed the same formula, and attracted the same demographic I suspect, but as a young child of the 1980s, I was hooked. I even picked up a book on sleight of hand early that year as a result of the show.

The show began as a two hour movie, which aired on Sunday, January 5, 1986. Later than week, on January 8, it took over the Wednesday 9:00 pm slot formerly occupied by Robert Blake's canceled "Hell Town." Alas, "Blacke's Magic" would not endure. Canceled after less than a full season's worth of episodes, it returned again, briefly, with reruns in the fall of 1988. To my knowledge, it has not been seen since on television. There isn't much about it on the Internets.

The show had an interesting pedigree. It had been four years since Linden's "Barney Miller" had gone off the air; Morgan, for his part, had decided to retire before accepting the role. Shortly after the show premiered, Morgan told reporters:

I really had sort of decided not to do anything, to give it all up. My wife had died in February, which didn't help my spirits any. If she hadn't, I don't think I'd be doing this show because we would have been doing other things. After all, I'm going to be 71 (in) April.

...

Anyway, people kept saying to me, `Well, dammit, this is not good for you, sitting around thinking about it, and going to work will help you.' So when I got what I thought was a terrific script and a wonderful character, I took it. I'm glad I did. It was not a mistake.¹

What I remember most about the show was the interaction between Linden and Morgan, who were fun to watch together. Linden's character, as the more responsible of the pair, was left with the task of keeping his father, ever the grifter, in line during the course of their misadventures. Said one TV critic at the time:

There is nice chemistry between Linden, who is an urbane, dashing and wise Alexander Blacke, and Morgan, whose main role is to hang around in a straw hat and bow tie and sound homespun and look corny. They're a good team, and as a bonus, they always solve the crime.²

Here's the first few minutes of an episode which show cases Linden's slightly over the top performance style:


But magicians are supposed to be over the top, right?

Critically, the show was not well received. One writer balked at the premise and formula:

Blacke's formula seems to call for a clever five-minute setup of the crime at the beginning of each show, and a clever five-minute resolution at the end, in which, in time-honored closed mystery style, all the suspects are assembled, and the perpetrator -- and the method -- exposed by Linden.

But between, alas, there are 38 minutes to fill, not counting commercials, and filler it is: mostly Hal and Harry aw-shucksing, and mincing around, chasing red herring guest stars and generally killing time in that equally time-honored "aren't these guys cute going through the paces" TV tradition.³

This is a typical criticism of most shows in which the plot is neatly wrapped up at the end of a particular episode. Part of the appeal of modern serial television is that loose ends remain to be resolved not at the end of the episode but the end of the season, or sometimes, the end of the series itself. Modern television viewers accustomed to multiple plotlines and complicated arcs might not have the patience for a 1986 episodic program in which two far-from-young television actors solve crimes with magic tricks and sleight of hand. But this was the 1980s, and plots were tidily resolved by the end of the episodes, and writers writing under pressure may not have had time to be as novel as they would have liked. Another critic, describing the mystery in the original two hour movie, put it more bluntly: "Think of the most obvious solution, and you'll be right."⁴

Some critics predicted that "Blacke's Magic," which fared about as well as "Hell Town" in the ratings, might still survive due to the affability of its stars. Wrote Dallas Morning News critic Ed Bark: "The difference ["Blacke's Magic" and "Hell Town"] is that Linden and Morgan are far easier to work with than the mercurial Robert Blake."⁵ (If he only knew!)

Jim Steinmeyer, a theatrical illusion designer, served as a technical adviser for "Blacke's Magic" and was kind enough to respond to my email asking to share a few memories. In fact, if you watch the first video posted above of the great "Blacke's Magic" opening titles, you will see Steinmeyer's hands doubling for Linden's performing the magic tricks. Steinmeyer recalls:

In the opening sequence, I played Hal Linden’s hands. Many of these shots were me flourishing silks, holding doves, et cetera, as if preparing for a show. I did the little move at the end, where a card turns into a flower, and that is completely sleight of hand. (I was rather proud of it, as it was a very tough move to do, and doubly so in the time and under the circumstances, with the camera moving slightly! I think that even magicians don’t quite know how it’s done.) Hal and Harry Morgan matched the shots before and after it, but those are my hands in the middle.

In the opening sequence, Harry Morgan’s hands are played by a professional magician named Earl Nelson, a good friend of mine in Los Angeles. Earl is an expert manipulator, and very adept at knowing the best way to photograph these moves so they look their best.

When we shot the opening, I had my friend Ricky Jay ready to do Harry Morgan’s hands, but at the last minute they changed the schedule of the title sequence and Ricky wasn’t available, so Earl stepped in and did a great job. Ricky was disappointed that he didn’t get a chance to do it.

If you’ll remember, Harry Morgan’s hands do all card flourishes. He was supposedly an old card cheat. So Earl really did the tough stuff, and I did one trick.

Ricky Jay would go on to become part of David Mamet's stock company of actors, appearing first in Mamet's directorial debut, House of Games, only a year later in 1987.

News reports at the time suggested that Linden did all of his magic. Steinmeyer remembers how Linden tackled the role of a magician in preparation for shooting episodes:

It’s true that Hal Linden did most of his own magic, but he didn’t really learn sleight of hand for the show. Because of the show’s schedule, he didn’t have time to master elaborate effects, and part of my job was to choose effects for him that were slightly mechanical or special apparatus which gave the appearance of sleight of hand, but he could perform. I have to say that his acting abilities often carried the day in these examples. He had a wonderful touch and manner with these props. He really wasn’t much of a magician, and he didn’t pretend to be one, but he “acted” the part of a magician wonderfully, and he knew that was his job.

What I did not know is that John Carradine had played a role in pilot which was ultimately reshot with another actor due to some difficulties with Carradine's performance. He would have been 79 years old at the time. Recalls Steinmeyer:

For the first show, the two hour pilot, we shot the entire scene with the magic inventor with John Carradine in the role. It was very sad. He was very old, couldn’t remember the lines. His hands were arthritic and he could barely get through the scene. When the show was almost finished, we were called back to the set and arrived to find Carl Ballantine. He worked the scene perfectly and ended up being in the final show.

As a technical adviser, Steinmeyer had a number of duties to perform prior to an episode being shot:

When the scripts arrived, I suggested the best magic, then arranged it or had it built and showed up on the set to teach it to the actors and watch how it was shot. On several occasions I was called back to the insert stage to do additional shots. And for several of the scripts, I was called in early to make suggestions. For example, I suggested the way that the statue could vanish in “Ten Tons of Trouble,” and I think that got me brownie points from the producers (!) I was still in my 20s when we were shooting the show, so I was trying to be a good boy!

...

At that time we tried to do as much of the magic “for real” as possible. For example, the disappearing turtle that Black watches Ballentine do is a real trick, not a camera trick. I know this doesn’t mean much now (and it probably didn’t mean much to the viewers), but I always tried to arrange the effects so that they were something a magician would really do. The turtle trick was done with lighting and mirrors, the same way stage illusions are performed. As the show went on, we took liberties on a few occasions, but overall, the magic was “real.”

In my own digging into the history of "Blacke's Magic," I could not find much in detail as to why it never returned to the airwaves. Steinmeyer elaborates:

The show should have had another season. It was popular, but was caught in a contract dispute between the networks and studios. I know that sounds like a feeble excuse, but it’s a fact. The wrap party was a celebration. Everyone was ecstatic about the success of the show, but weeks later we heard that NBC wanted “back end” rights to their shows, and ended up eliminating many of their outside-productions that summer. It was very sad that it never came back, and the producers were devastated. (For me it was just a job! They were devastated!)

He recalls working with Morgan fondly:

Harry Morgan was just a delight to work with. Everyone loved him. Everyone. He was a very funny, old show business codger offstage. He told wonderful stories, endlessly, right up until the time that they’d call him to the set. He’d put down his cigar, glance at the script and step in. I remember several times when he had “tear-jerking” scenes — some sentimental thing. He could do this, as if doing it in his sleep. Wonderfully acted. You could watch the tears well up in his eyes. We all held our breath. “Cut!” He would pick up his cigar, walk off the set and start telling jokes.

I did very little with him, but had to have him do some “sleight of hand,” making a set of dice disappear, on the “Showdown” show. I prepared a couple of options. But the previous day, his good friend Leif Erickson, the actor, had died, and Harry had been up all night with his widow. He was really tired and a bit rattled. I think they even got cue cards for him on the set. I know they were worried about him, and I considered it very bad luck that I was now dependent on him to do something tricky that day. When it came to the magic, he just couldn’t focus on it. I talked to the director and we arranged to do it on a “cut,” using the sound of the dice to carry the illusion over, so it seemed he really did it by sleight of hand. This was the only time I saw Harry Morgan “off his game,” and everyone was concerned with him that day and accommodated him.

Erickson, who had appeared in On the Waterfront, died on January 29, 1986.

Steinmeyer says he will forever associate "Blacke's Magic" with the late, great Orson Welles, an actor who did not ever appear on that program. He remembers:

The day we were shooting [the episode] “Revenge of the Esperanza,” I was down in Marina del Ray, a very pleasant, sunny morning crouching behind a table, making milk appear and disappear in a glass. When I got back to the office, I found a number of phone messages. Orson Welles, a good friend of mine, had died that morning. Whenever I think about shooting Blacke’s Magic, I think about receiving that news.

Welles, the auteur, died on October 10, 1985. I would discover Welles for the first time a year later, as he was the voice of Unicron in 1986's Transformers: The Movie. It would not be until the early 1990s that I would see Citizen Kane and The Third Man for the first time.

Come to think of it, it's odd that the producers never made an attempt to resurrect "Blacke's Magic," especially considering the mileage that was made from "Murder, She Wrote," which ran from 1984 to 1996 (and a number of television films thereafter). It would have been relatively easy to create a number of television films in the late 1980s or early 1990s. But it was never to be. Linden has done a number of television appearances since then, and Morgan turned 97 years old earlier this year. There is no word on whether the show will come to DVD.

UPDATE:

I found this video of Steinmeyer lecturing at Brown University about the history of his craft that I thought interesting enough to share:



1. Hodges, Ann. "Sorry, but there's no 'Magic' in new Linden, Morgan show," Houston Chronicle, January 8, 1986.
2. Rosenberg, Howard. "Linden, Morgan Supply The Magic in 'Blacke's'", The Los Angeles Times, January 4, 1986.
3. Sonsky, Steve. "'Blacke' Needs Some Magic," Miami Herald, January 8, 1986.
4. Bianculli, David "'Blacke's Magic' Has Few Tricks," The Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), January 5, 1986.
5. Bark, Ed. "Which series will NBC, ABC renew?", The Dallas Morning News, March 31, 1986.