I think I first discovered colour US comics while on annual family holidays in the UK in around 1978 / 1979. These were the days when newsagents and mini-supermarkets and those shops selling holiday souvenirs all had a rack of comics tucked away at the back (usually at ground level). It was predominately Marvel - titles such as "Power Man and Iron Fist", "Marvel Two-In-One", "Shogun Warriors", "Machine Man", "Spider-Woman" - all selling for something like 20p each, or sometimes bundles of ten for a pound. Pocket money prices. To eleven year old me this was pure gold. Of course I was aware of many of the characters from the black and white reprints in Marvel UK titles such as the justly famous "Captain Britain" and "Star Wars" weeklies, but this was in colour, and not cut into five page chunks.
Those reprints included some of my favourite strips - "Rom:Spaceknight" and "Micronauts" - but now I could get the original comics (I still have all my copies in a box in the loft, although I had to go back and fill in the first few issues). I scooped up everything I could find and rooted out local newsagents closer to home who also stocked US titles. My collection started to grow.
Then two things happened that changed everything - the growth of the "Direct Market" and the rise of "independent" comic book publishers. The Direct Market basically meant that retailers could bypass existing book shop and newsagent distributors to make purchases direct from the publishers. However the trade-off for more favourable ordering terms was that the stock was non-returnable. Retailers had to make a gamble with their predictions for customer demand, although surplus stock could be held for future potential sale. The Direct Market led to a big rise in speciality shops where readers could get a wider range of comics quicker and in better condition. If you missed a month you would likely be able to find it amongst the extensive back issues.
The emergence of this business model and the larger number of comic shops also meant that publishers could target their retail audience, rather than relying on the somewhat scattershot approach of a newsagent who didn't understand the product, just shoved it out of the way and sent it back for a refund the next month. In the very early 1980s, Marvel saw the potential of the Direct Market and starting putting out a number of titles aimed specifically to capitalise on it. They could print fewer copies, put them only in comic shops and sell out of everything, rather than having tons of returns. "Dazzler" was one of the first and I clearly remember when "Micronauts", "Ka-Zar The Savage" and "Moon Knight" switched to being direct only in 1982. Yes there was a small price rise but you also got more pages and the stories just seemed to become more complicated and grown up. The fact that I was heading towards being fifteen years old at this time might have had something to do with it too. Those old titles are still some of my favourites.
The ability to have a smaller print run and target it at a fan audience also meant that others could get into the comic book game other than just the "big Two" of Marvel and DC. There had always been alternative publishers in the market place - the likes of Charlton, Fawcett, EC and Archie - but now things exploded. Anyone could start their own comic book company and in a couple of years there would be dozens of publishers and hundreds of titles. Pacific Comics were one of the first Direct Market publishers - releasing titles in such as Jack Kirby's "Captain Victory and the Galaxy Rangers" and the initial issues of Mike Grell's "Starslayer" in 1981 / 1982. There were many others like Capital and Eclipse and Renegade, but I want to deal with a publisher who took things to a different level (for me anyway) - First Comics.
First Comics was the brainchild of Ken Levin and Mike Gold. Based in Evanston, Illinois they launched in 1983 with "Warp" - an adaptation (and continuation) of the 1970s SF stage play - written by Peter B Gillis and drawn by Frank Brunner. It told the tale of bank clerk David Carson, who is transported to the mystical realm of Fen-Ra where he is tasked by the sage Lugulbanda to battle alongside leather-clad Amazon warrior Sargon against the evil Prince Chaos. So far, so superheroes in a fantasy setting. It was okay as an alternative to Marvel. But far, far better was to come.
In quick succession, First Comics released a range of innovative, unusual and above all successful titles. Characters which are still fondly remembered to this day - Howard Chaykin's "American Flagg", Mike Grell's "Jon Sable, Freelance", John Ostrander and Tim Truman on "Grimjack" (god how I love that series), "E-Man" drawn by Joe Staton. The list of hits goes on and on. They took over publishing "Dreadstar" by Jim Starlin, "Nexus" by Mike Baron and Steve Rude and that writers other series, "Badger". I'm sure I'll be coming back to some of these titles in later posts.
First Comics became *my* comic book company. I bought everything they released. I recall so vividly leafing through the racks of the local book /comic shop in Southend-on-Sea (called "The New Bookshop" if anyone else remembers) and discovering those first few issues. Then the old gentleman who owned the shop started putting comics aside for his regular customers. He had a comic storage box of brown paper bags with names on. Every week I would visit the shop and pick the latest releases. I was also making irregular trips to Forbidden Planet in London where I found even more titles for me to reserve. I think this is where I really discovered "mature" comics - concepts beyond basic superhero tales. I was sixteen - leaving school and venturing out into the big wide world. Even now writing these words I have a big grin on my face thinking about the enjoyment these comics brought and what they meant to me.
In 1984, in the middle of all this success and well-deserved industry recognition, First Comics released something even more different. As mature as "American Flagg" was, this series just blew my mind. It's title? One word. "Mars".
"Mars" is the story of one woman, Morgana Trace - a scientist crippled in a horrible attack which took the life of her father, Resolving to continue his work, Morgana moves to the lighter gravity of the Moon, where she can still use her legs, and develops the technology to allow human minds to control robotic bodies. The chance then arises for her to be part of the eleventh mission to Mars - a mission to terra-form the surface for human habitation.
Arriving at the red planet, the explorers and engineers set to work using their metal avatars, laying the groundwork for the centuries it will take to transform the world into an earth-like paradise. When suddenly all contact is lost with the Earth and Moon, the team believe that their only option is to go into suspended animation and wait out the 10,000 years for Mars to become habitable.
10,001 years later, Morgana is woken by the computer, only to find that she is totally alone and the ship has been stripped of everything to sustain life. Her only hope is to take her robot and fly down to the surface of the newly lush planet and find what happened to her missing crew mates, and why they left her behind. But it turns out Mars is also home to something far more powerful, terrifying and just possibly impossible to understand.
Sounds fairly simple doesn't it? Don't be fooled. As much as the story might be about exploring a weird and wacky landscape, it's also about, artificial intelligence, memory, what makes us alive, faith, life after death, the nature of god(s) and the corrupting influence of power. Oh and lots of lots of very strange alien creatures.
"Mars" was the creation of Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel. Nowadays these two men are separately and together synonymous with unique and innovative comics work - things such as "Breathtaker", "Hammer of the Gods", "Gregory" and of course "Sandman". But back in 1984 no one had really heard of them beyond a couple of issues of "Heavy Metal " and the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book series "Be An Interplanetary Spy". This was their first major comics work - and they put everything into it. At the time they deliberately took a single by-line on it, blurring the lines over who did what. This was a real joint labour of love.
I think what threw me most was how different it was to the other comics I was reading. . Okay so I was no stranger to more "cartoony-looking" comic books - having worked my way through the local libraries entire stock of "Tintin" and "Asterix" several years previously - plus I was already reading "E-Man" which was far more of a humour book. Not everything had to look like it was drawn by Gil Kane or Jack Kirby or George Perez or Sal Buscema or John Romita or be about superheroes. Most of First Comics' output was about as far from that was you could get. But "Mars" was....less straightforward. Stranger. More philosophical. There were almost no thought balloons or captions. The art was almost minimalist at times. What was with all the dead artists? The talking dinosaurs? The hallucinations? I wasn't prepared for the jumps between the real and the metaphysical, the changes in style. The non-linear storytelling. I'll admit, it confused me.
And then around six issues in, something just clicked. Maybe I just got with the flow of what Hempel and Wheatley were doing, but suddenly "Mars" became my favourite book and went to the top of my reading list each month (well, after "American Flagg" to be perfectly honest). I couldn't wait to see where this SF psychological drama would take me next.
It's also worth mentioning the back-up strips at this point. As well as 18-20 pages of the main story, there were two supporting stories that were completely different in tone and style. The first started in issue two. "The Black Flame" by Peter B Gillis, with lurid over the top art from Tom Sutton / Don Lomax, was a kind of supernatural super-hero with a black staff and a motorcycle. fighting demons.
A member of the Nightmare Legions, he rebelled against his masters to protect the souls of the innocent - a kind of cross between Doctor Strange and Ghost Rider. That lasted until issue 8, when it transferred to the "Starslayer" title (and ended taking over a whole issue of that book at one point).
The second backup starting in issue 10 was "Dynamo Joe", by writer /artist Doug Rice. It was an anime & manga influenced story about a giant robotic battle suit - piloted by Imperum soldier Elanian Daro and humanoid feline Pomru Purrwakkawakka - fighting the lethal alien Mellanares. Again the strip continued elsewhere in other series and eventually spin off into it's own comic.
Both were good fun and definite counterpoints to the weirdness that was going on in the main feature.
But, all too soon, flagging sales meant that "Mars" came to an end. Issue twelve proved to be the last. Hempel and Wheatley managed to wrap up their initial storyline (cramming 80 pages worth of story into half that) while leaving things open enough for future adventures, but these never materialised. Well not quite....
When the complete story was reprinted with new colouring by IDW in 2005, Mark Wheately revealed that his 1994 series "Radical Dreamer" was set in the same universe - filling in some of the gaps of what was happening on Earth during those 10,000 years Morgana was in suspended animation. His intention is that one day he'll link everything together into one cohesive tale, but ten years have gone by since then and nothing has been released.
I think in reality "Mars" was probably ahead of it's time. A unique art style. Blurred lines between hero and villains. An ever-evolving storyline with only minimal indication of resolution. It was a kind of storytelling years before that became a popular thing to do. The market wasn't ready for it back in 1984.
It's fairly easy to pick up the back issues of the series (the trade is somewhat more difficult which is odd considering it's twenty years younger). Give it a chance. It deserves a wider audience.
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