Inteview with Herb Trimpe

It looks like there's a Herb Trimpe renaissance taking place. He's had new work published in Hulk specials over at Marvel, while fandom is taking a second look at his legacy (which follows about 15 years of Wizard magazine talking shit about him. Who's laughing now Gareb Shamus?) I met Trimpe last year at a convention and he had one of the longest lines in the building (and accidentally managed to block people from visiting June Brigman's table next to his.)

The interview above is from a 2008 Pop Culture America show.

The Master of Quack Fu

I love me some Howard the Duck, but the book always worked best when it avoided explicit superhero parodies.
The weakest issues in the series were parodies of other Marvel titles. Sure, “Iron Duck” and the “Master of Quak Fu” made for some great cover art, but the stories were tepid (Howard as “Son of Satan” is the exception.)
The third issue is intended as a lampoon of the kung fu craze of the mid 1970s. The problem is that writer Steve Gerber doesn’t really know what he thinks about the fad. Howard, of course, hates it, but Gerber can’t eloquently explain why, and the book frequently contradicts itself.
The story begins with Howard and Beverly leaving a kung fu movie. Howard is clearly disgusted by the violence in the film, calling it “training for the local troops.” He also takes issue with Hollywood exploiting as “ancient tradition” for its own end as he stands on the street shouting at people. All he needs is a box to stand on with the word “soap” written on it.
Anyway, the kung fu craze gets out of control when, at a local diner, Howard and Bev see a character named "Count Macho" (based on Count Dante, who ran numerous ads in comics in the 1970s) kill an overzealous karate fan.
Early in the issue, Howard proclaims that people who enjoy violence "don't have the mental equipment to be sure they exists." So what does he do when Count Macho kidnaps Bev? He takes a crash course in kung fu so that he can fight back. Like all good liberals (and conservatives, for that) Howard's real concern isn't his own ability to process reality ... it's everyone else's. He thinks he lives in a world of idiots, which is probably true. He simply can't recognize that he's an idiot, too.
I'm not really sure what Gerber's message here, was. It begins as a slam against kung fu movies, but the story would have felt at home in a Shaw Brothers picture. Howard abhors violence, but turns to it the first chance he gets. Because the story has no intellectual center to argue from, the issue feels like nothing more than propaghanda.
The issue features guest art by John Buscema. Frank Brunner quit after two issues when Marvel passed on a requested pay raise. It was their loss ... Brunner is a fantastic artist.

Vertigo gets off to an early start

DC Comic's "Vertigo" imprint didn't launch until 1993, but the seeds for the line had been in place since the early 1970s. DC had experimented with more mature titles (i.e., "not superheroes") a few times, with such books as Swamp Thing, The Shadow, Jonah Hex and their assorted mystery/horror anthologies. For a lot of reasons (such the the national paper shortage, changes in editorial staff, etc.) the company had a hard time keeping any new book in print for more than a dozen issues, so many of their best books were also their most brief.
One of the best comics the company published in the 1070s was the Denny O'Neil/Mike Kaluta interpretation of The Shadow (it also featured some occasionally uncredited assistance from Jeff Jones and Bernie Wrightson.) It was a no-nonsense interpretation of the William Gibson pulps, with The Shadow portrayed more like an underworld boogeyman than a costumed adventurer. Kaluta left the book after a few issues, with the remainder completed by the likes of Frank Robbins and the much-underrated E.R. Cruz. The series even featured the first meeting of The Shadow and The Avenger, something that pulp fanboys had been talking about for decades. They'd meet again in the late 1980s, during the controversial — and hilarious — run on The Shadow by Andy Helfler and Kyle Baker (anther prototype series for Vertigo.)
After a dozen issues, though, DC pulled the plug. O'Neil said he was never offered a reason for the book's cancellation and had every reason to believe it had sold well (at least, well enough to continue publication.) The O'Neil/Kaluta stories were collected in The Private Files of The Shadow, a hardback that has been out of print for many years (and will likey remain so, seeing how the comic rights to The Shadow are about as popular as Chris Brown right now.)