Not Branded Yet! Stuff You Won't See in CRAZY!

Followers on my social media know I was lucky enough to get an email from Marvel Entertainment senior editor Mark Paniccia back in May asking if I'd like to contribute to a 40-page one-shot revival of CRAZY! I teach college writing during the fall and spring semesters, and school had just let out, and I was a little rusty at the ol' drawing board, but I said, "Why not?!"

Colorized Spidey. Detail of a page below.

A number of possibilities were floated. Mark said he was a fan of Megaton Man, so he obviously knew I wrote and drew parodies of superheroes from way back. What he might not have known was I also grew up reading straight Marvel superheroes and have harbored a desire to break into the mainstream since the late 1980s—a number of those unsuccessful samples for Marvel and DC are all over this blog and even more on my freelance blog.

Blue and graphite pencil on Strathmore Drawing 400.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

To make a long story short, I ended up penciling a pin-up for CRAZY! inked by Dexter Vines, and also penciling a six-page story written by Frank Tieri and John Cirelli and inked by Walden Wong. You'll have to wait until September when the book is released to see that work (as of this writing the inking has been completed and looks great, and I'm waiting to see the colors and final dialogued word balloons in place). I'm as anxious as you are!

Blue and graphite pencil on Strathmore Drawing 400.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

But I threw a few other ideas at Mark which, for whatever reason, he didn't have room for. Below is some of that artwork—which I hasten to stress I created of my own accord to warm up and shake off the rust after not having sat down at the drawing board daily for eons. It was loosely based on some of the possibilities we discussed, but I completely ad-libbed this stuff purely on speculation without a prior plot or script approval, so the failure to connect was completely on me.

Blue and graphite pencil on Strathmore Drawing 400.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

In the course of our discussions, Mark had mentioned that the Thanos Copter had become a huge internet meme in recent years (a cultural phenomenon of which even I was aware as the Unfrozen Caveman Cartoonist), and that Mattel had even put out a Hot Wheels version. I never read Spidey Super Stories #39 in 1979, or really any of that series when I was kid (I was actually outgrowing reading superheroes around that time—the late seventies—anyway, and reading things like Heavy Metal and classic comic strip reprints), but I located most if not all the story on the internet.

Blue and graphite pencil on Strathmore Drawing 400.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

In the original story, the Cat (artist Win Mortimer had clearly drawn the black-haired Cat from Claws of the Cat, although the threw some red over it to make her look like Hellcat, Tigra's replacement) has somehow gotten the Cosmic Cube, and Thanos is pursuing her in—of all things—a helicopter. Thanos drops the Cosmic Cube and some little kid out of a Bazooka Joe comic picks it up—while Peter Parker and Mary Jane happen to be walking through Central Park. When Thanos bullies the kid for the Cube back, Spidey swings into action—and I don't want to spoil the rest of the story.

Composited page.

The Thanos Copter has gone on to become an absurdist icon and campy symbol of a more innocent time in comics. The fact that Marvel and Mattel—and a growing number of fans—find this funny (along with Batman '66) shows that maybe comics are finding their sense of humor again, which is encouraging if you remember the humorless Marvel of the eighties when I was breaking into the business (they never would have sent me an email, if such existed!).

Blue and graphite pencil on Strathmore Drawing 400.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

Anyway, my riff on these ideas, I'm afraid, don't do anything to explain or elaborate on the 1979 story. Instead, they were just my chance to draw Spider-Man (my favorite character growing up), the Cat (I happen to own one of the original Marie Severin pages inked by Wally Wood for Claws of the Cat #1 on my wall—one of my proudest possessions), and Mary Jane, who for no reason I drew as Marie Severin drew Sarey Jane in "Comiclot" from Not Brand Echh! #12, in which she appears in a torn, "Daisy Mae" short dress (to this day, "Comiclot" features the most openly bawdy depiction of lust between Mary Jane and Spider-Man ever shown in a Marvel Comic).

Blue and graphite pencil on Strathmore Drawing 400.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

The second thing I tried was "How to Draw the Cosmic Cube," a parody of one of Marie Severin's how-to strips from the same issue of Not Brand Ecch! This turned out more surreal than funny, although I think the ending with Bazooka Kid turning into Teen Hulk redeems it somewhat. Last but not least, Hellcat meets Claws of the Cat, with a bewildered Spidey looking on, was a page I did for my own enjoyment and never even bothered showing to Mark.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

 

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

Admittedly, the stuff here is more PLOP! than Not Brand Echh! and more Bizarre Heroes than Megaton Man. Drawing in the hyper-manic early eighties Megaton Man style hasn't been my thing since, well, the early eighties, and my sensibility has surely changed over time. I'm actually at the point I envisioned in high school as to what an all-around comic book artist is supposed to be all about: straight, but not too serious about it. In any case, I had blast drawing this stuff!

Ink (Hunt #102 crowquill) and lettered with Rapidographs.

Colorized in Photoshop.

What you'll see in CRAZY! is, I hope, even cooler than this, and benefited from this extended nostaligic warm-up. It was an opportunity to draw some major Marvel characters for the first time, including Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Deadpool (along with some obscure references like the '50s Atlas jungle girls), and I'm grateful to Mark and assistant editor Tom Groneman for the chance to be a 14-year-old again. Maybe I'll show some of my pencils for that after the book is published.
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Read my YA prose novel, the Ms. Megaton Man Maxi-Series! New chapter every Friday!