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Comic Book Creator # 9 Summer 2015 (magazine review).

For those of you who have been buying TwoMorrows Publications based off my reviews and have ever wondered about the effectiveness of their back issue ads, be assured, they do work and I spent a little loose money acquiring a few issues prior to when I started reviewing recently to fill some gaps in my knowledge. Not that I haven’t bought any before, but y’know, you just have a need.

For this issue of ‘Comic Book Creator’, it is obviously because of Joe Staton, but more of that in a while. There’s an examination of European comics from an American point-of-view. Considering that the UK is a lot closer geographically to Europe, you would have thought there would have been more interest here but there really isn’t. Yes, we’ve had volumes of ‘Tin-Tin’ and ‘Asterix’ over here and even ‘Metal Hurlant’, although the American version ‘Heavy Metal’ got the better circulation. However, even if the European versions were translated into English, our own product at the time, not to mention American comics, would have squeezed them out. Even so, Michael Aushenker’s look at the product shows some of their titles. There’s also an interview with Italian artist Leila Leiz and a check now shows her career progressing.

However, when it came to the first part of an interview with Stan Goldberg who got his job as a colourist at Timely by literally sitting in for a friend, there’s some magic with a dry humour. Goldberg wasn’t just a colourist but also a fine cartoonist working for many companies, including making his mark in the Archie Comics.

Johnny Lee Achziger explains the rise and failure of his tabloid ‘Gods Of Mount Olympus’ where he got Joe Staton to do the art. Staton, also gives his perspective on things, as well as John Workman his worked on latter issues of the 6 issue run.

All of this is the warm-up for main and biggest event, a long interview with Joe Staton. I met Joe and his wife, Hilarie, at his first Comicon in the UK and a few of us rescued them at tea time so they could get something to eat, so was interested in reading about his career. I still have good memories of that time, not to mention a sketch he did for me of Phoenix.

This is also the day of learning how to pronounce words. For years, I’ve pronounced ‘Staton’ as ‘Stat-ton’ and now discover it has an invisible ‘n’ and should be pronounced ‘Stan-ton’, and now I remember it like the grave in ‘The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’. Nicola ‘Nick’ Cuti’s surname should be pronounced ‘Cutty’ as in ‘Cutty Sark’. Here’s how name phonetics don’t always work.

Joe Staton’s knowledge of American newspaper comicstrips, comics and Science Fiction easily qualifies him and his wife as geeks. Amongst the art shown is a piece called ‘Why The Cartoonist Slashed His Wrists With The X-Facto Knife’ is to die for…well, not that literally but should put the fear of an annoyed artist up any of his assistants.

Considering how much Jon Cook’s interview covers, there are a couple things Joe told me that I wish was covered. Staton drew layouts for the ‘Legion Of Super-Heroes’ for a long while but didn’t really like it cos of the multitude of characters to keep track of. My best memory was how he would accent the bust or legs of female characters depending on the preference of the editor. When you consider that the Helena Wayne Huntress was pronounced in both departments, it did make me think.

I digress. Joe Staton’s career has covered an incredible range and still working today. The interview will make you want to look up the various titles he’s worked on and there are a lot of surprises there. He’s one of the great ones and I haven’t even mentioned E-Man or Green Lantern, for which he contributed many new to the Corps, so I’m mentioning them now. Read and enjoy.

GF Willmetts

April 2018

(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2015. 82 page illustrated magazine. Price: $ 8.95 (US). ISSN: 2330-2437. Direct from them, you can get it for $ 7.61 (US))

check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com and http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_132&products_id=1205

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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