comic books Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Writer/artist Steve Bissette is 70

more than Swamp Thing

I first met writer/artist Steve Bissette in the backroom at FantaCo Enterprises, 21 Central Ave., in Albany, NY, probably in 1987. Steve had come from Vermont to talk with Tom about contributing to the comic book Gore Shriek. I worked primarily on shipping the publications and mail orders.

I tried to be cool because I didn’t want to appear like a fanboy. “Oh, I love your Swamp Thing!” even though I did love his Swamp Thing. He also does some great dinosaurs.

We developed an easy rapport, partly because of his genial nature and because I was impressed by his intellect. He has a historian’s and librarian’s mind.

Steve showed up at FantaCo maybe a half dozen times before I left the company in November 1988. He also worked on a horror magazine called Deep Red, founded by the late Chas Balun (d. 2009), who was as wonderful as Steve said.

I lost track of Steve for a bit, but I started regularly commenting on his blog around 2008. Then, I would link to posts Steve wrote in my blog. I found over 100 references to Bissette, some of which were comments on his Facebook pages.

“If you work in a brick-and-mortar retail establishment, and if you tell me when I ask if you have something that I can only get it online, then you have lost me forever as a customer at said brick-and-mortar retail establishment.” I quoted that verbatim because I agreed with the sentiment.

“I always thought Bob Marley HAD to have seen or heard the BANANA SPLITS theme. Compare Bob’s ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ riff; —c’mon, don’tcha think so, mon?” I had never given any thought before, but he may be right.

IP

His thoughts on intellectual property tended to align with mine.: digital music; Disney/Marvel, SONY, and copyright overreach; can you defend public libraries and oppose file sharing?

Likewise, “As my buddy, Steve Bissette ranted – I think it regarded a policy by Adobe or Microsoft: ‘We can afford them once, and that’s what we can afford. We want to own almost all the things we buy. With few exceptions, we don’t wish to buy or support those things that do not wish to be purchased outright. We do not need more monthly bills. We do not wish to interact with you regularly for permission to be permitted to use what we purchase to use.”

His comments on boycotting Marvel/Disney movies, such as The Avengers, because of the treatment of Jack Kirby, HERE and HERE, informed my thoughts, which is why I didn’t see the Marvel movies from 2012 to 2019.

Stephen Bissette‘s open letter to DC on Facebook about NBC’s Constantine.
“My friend Steve’s dissection of DC is so deliciously understated and addresses the issue of common courtesy.”

He solved a movie mystery for me!

FantaCo

Our overlap with FantaCo is important. Even though Steve stopped working with Tom in the early 1990s, Steve and I need to ensure the record is straight. We spent some time trying to fix the FantaCo Wikipedia page, which contained much egregious misinformation, some of which has been rectified.

When I wrote about FantaCo, Steve would link to me, and vice versa, such as here.

Steve drew the cover of a book called Xerox Ferox, which debuted at the FantaCon 2013 in Albany. I got him, Tom, and several others to sign the book. Maybe I am a fanboy.

Bio

You can read his frankly meager Wikipedia page, but he worked on much more than is noted, some of which I own.

Steve attended the Kubert School and wrote the lovely To Joe, With Love: A Sad Farewell to the Man Who Opened All the Doors. He taught at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT, for about a decade and a half.

There are several Steve Bissette interviews I linked to:

You can NOW hear him blather [his word] with Robin at Inkstuds: PART 1 and PART 2.

Stephen R. Bissette: comics pioneer & evangelist from Radio New Zealand

Deconstructing Comics Podcast: #500 – Stephen Bissette: Comics, Movies, and Creator Credits.

The Stephen Bissette Shoot Interview! A Career-Spanning Chronicle!

Interview with Swamp Thing Comic Artist Stephen Bissette.

Stephen R Bissette – CCS instructor, monster-maker for Next Up Vermont.

Steve is one of 21 individuals selected to be inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2025.

He’s written a LOT of pieces, particularly in the past several years, some of which are catalogued here. However, this Facebook page is a better source of his recent work.

On his Facebook page, he’s mentioned life difficulties, such as the devastation caused by the Vermont flooding in 2011, HERE, HERE, and HERE, and other stuff, which I won’t go into.

For some birthday of mine, I swiped this from Steve’s Facebook page at least a decade ago – he’s a fellow March Piscean, of course – and I thought it both appropriate and true, though I’ve never seen the film:

“You think grown-ups have it all figured out? That’s just a hustle, kid. Grown-ups are making it up as they go along, just like you. You remember that, and you’ll do fine.”
– Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), MATINEE (1993)

Peace and joy and love to my friend Steve Bissette.

Afrofuturism: a history of black futures

technoculture and speculative fiction

Afrofuturism? What’s that?

In August 2024, my wife, daughter, and I visited the National Museum of African History & Culture in Washington, DC. My wife and I have never been to the museum, although I was a charter member for several years before its 2016 opening. Conversely, my daughter had gone twice, once for school and once with a church group.

The primary newish exhibition was about Afrofuturism, a term I’d never heard of before planning the trip. We went to it first. The exhibit ended two weeks after we visited, so we were lucky. (It ran from March 24, 2023, to August 18, 2024, and can still be accessed, in part, online.)

However, after seeing the exhibit, I still had difficulty explaining to somebody else what Afrofuturism is. I did have a good sense of WHY there was Afrofuturism, and it was because we – black people are still here, despite it all.

What?

What does Wikipedia say? “Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and magic realism, and it can also be found in music.”

So, I decided to buy Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures in the museum shop to augment my understanding. There are four main chapters, and several essays written by different authors are included within.

Space

Chapter 1 is Space Is The Place. One of the first images in the museum display and also in the book’s introduction is the final panel of Judgement Day, a 1953 Al Feldstein/Joe Orlando story from EC Comics’ Weird Fantasy #18, in which Tarlton is a representative from “Earth Colonization.” He visits Cybrinia, “the planet of mechanical life,” to see if the blue and orange robots are ready for “inclusion in Earth’s great galactic republic.”

An essential character in Afrofuturism is Lieutenant Nayato Uhura from Star Trek. She was played by Nichelle Nichols, who also came up with her character’s Swahili name. Famously, she wanted to quit after the first season, but she was convinced to stay on by MLK, Jr. She subsequently formed the “company Women in Motion, which NASA contracted to help recruit more than 8000 people, including some of the first African American Asian Latino and female astronauts.” Many women, starting with Mae Jemison, credit Nichelle’s efforts for them entering the space program.

Futurists

Chapter 2 is Speculative Worlds. Interestingly, the notion goes back at least to Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)

Her Poems of Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, were released two years before her emancipation in 1773, the first book published by an African American poet. Thomas Jefferson and others underestimated her fervent imagination, capable of composing such lines as

celestial Salem blooms and endless spring

calm and serene thy moments glide along

and may the muse inspire each future

Martin R Delaney (1812-1885), a writer, “soldier abolitionist, publisher position, and advocate for black resettlement in Africa,” originally published Blake or the Huts of America as a serial in the Anglo African magazine from 1859 to 1862; the book tells the story of Henry Blake, who escaped slavery in the South, flees to Canada, then travels to Africa and Cuba. In action, Blake resembles both Denmark Vesey and Josiah Henson, two historic figures well known for efforts to achieve freedom for themselves and others.

William Edward Burghardt DuBois was a towering figure. He was asked to curate the American Negro exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition. “DuBois developed colorful hand-drawn charts, graphs, and maps that illustrated the social realities of African Americans. These infographics were surrounded by documentary photographs, books, and patents attributed to African Americans. By visually demonstrating the accomplishments of the post-emancipation generation, Dubois [claimed] that African Americans’ achievements deserve to be seen in the same light as other vaunted achievements of the 19th century.”

Funny books

My best college friend Mark used to drive us to a store so he could pick up comic books, which I thought was a very strange thing for an adult to do. But one day in 1972, I discovered Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1, which I purchased, which started two decades of funny book collecting. There was also a Luke Cage live-action program in the 2010s.

In one of the early video clips at the museum, the speaker said he didn’t know that he needed to see the movie The Black Panther and that it needed to exist until he saw it. I understood that because I had the same experience.

In a caption: for Black Panther (2018), “production designer Hannah Beachler constructed the aesthetics of Wakanda, the technologically advanced African nation where the movie takes place. Beachler traveled throughout Africa for eight months, researching the continent’s culture, architecture, clothing, food, and transportation.

“The fictional African nation of Wakanda [is] powered by the imaginary element vibranium, concealed from the outside world and never conquered.” For a continent that had long been colonized, this was massive.

There is also a section, Dialogues in Space: Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany.

Art

Chapter 3 is Visualizing Afrofuturism. The book cover is Android/Negroid #14 by Wayne Hodge (2015): “The series combines collage and photography by merging photographic portraits with illustrations of machinery and technology. Hodge explores the relationships between race, history, and science fiction.”

There Are Black People in the Future is a series of billboards that started in Pittsburgh and have spread worldwide.

The chapter focuses on fashion and art, such as Commemorative Headdress of Her Journey Beyond Heaven by Kenya, which uses “mass-produced items to draw attention to material consumption beauty standards and black cultural identity. “

Music

Chapter 4 is Musical Futures, which namechecks, among many others, Jimi Hendrix, Nona Hendryx of LaBelle, Vernon Reid of Living Colour, and especially Sun Ra. Writer Stanley Nelson says without Sun Ra, it is hard to understand George Clinton, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monáe, Raz G, Kamasi Washington, Shabaka Hutchings, Black Panther, Lovecraft country, and Afrofuturism itself. Cover art and costumes (see Nona Hendryx’s outfit) are elements of Afrofuturism.

The Order Of The Pharaonic Jesters – Sun Ra

Welcome To The Terrordome – Public Enemy

One Nation Under A Groove – Funkadelic (George Clinton)

Space Children – Labelle

Metropolis – Janelle Monáe

Cult of Personality – Living Colour

The book helped me better understand Afrofuturism. There was a certain repetition, inevitable, with a half-dozen writers covering similar territory. Nevertheless, I recommend it; the visuals in this book are tremendous. At 200 pages, it’s a relatively quick read.

HeLa

Finally, this picture of Henrietta Lacks was not in the book but in the exhibition .”She died in 1951, aged 31, of an aggressive cervical cancer. Months earlier, doctors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, had taken samples of her cancerous cells while diagnosing and treating the disease. They gave some of that tissue to a researcher without Lacks’s knowledge or consent. In the laboratory, her cells had an extraordinary capacity to survive and reproduce; they were, in essence, immortal. The researcher shared them widely with other scientists, and they became a workhorse of biological research. Today, work done with HeLa cells underpins much of modern medicine.”

I wondered how someone whose cells had been exploited for so long would be Afrofuturism. Ultimately, her immortality, a scientific miracle, was also successful in achieving the future for her family when they settled the case’s outcome.

The neighborhood and other questions

webslinger

Mary, who I know from two different churches, asks, in response to Ask Roger Anything:

What do you like about the neighborhood where you live? What do you not like? Ever think about living elsewhere?

One very snowy winter’s evening, probably in 1997, the power was out in parts of the city. I visited my then-ex-girlfriend, now my wife, on that stretch of row houses on Manning Blvd., about six blocks from where we live now. We found a nice restaurant to eat at—they had power!

When we bought this house in the Pine Hills section of the city, I recalled how much I liked the last block of Madison Avenue, filled with restaurants. Some have gone (Bruegger’s bagels), but others have replaced them (Kismet, the Mediterranean place).

I like that my bank, a branch of the Albany Public Library, and a Price Chopper grocery store are all within walking distance. At the junction of Madison, Allen, and Western, one can catch many buses going uptown and downtown. I can get to church, the uptown or downtown SUNY campus, the bus and train stations, two hospitals, the Capital Rep theater, and several other places with one bus, and many more with two buses.

When we moved into this house, we figured my daughter would go to the elementary school that was very close by, but they tore down the 99-year-old School 16 and built the Pine Hills Elementary School in its place. My daughter had a very, very short commute. She would get up 20 minutes before school started and still get to school on time.

However

But the bad thing about the neighborhood is that it’s changed, which neighborhoods do. The big two changes are the closures of the College of Saint Rose, where we attended concerts, and the Madison Avenue CVS. I hope the Madison Theatre really reopens.

When we first moved in, I knew my neighbors better. A few doors down were the Ellenbogans; I particularly liked Mrs. Ellenbogen, but they died tragically.

As you know, Harry and his family lived right next door, and I liked them. Then Harry died, and the family moved away. Now, that house is owned by an absentee landlord who is quite terrible. He picked some really bad tenants early on, some of whom I’ve written about. But he also pumped poop from his basement down our common walkway, which ended up on our sidewalk.

My wife is bugged by the fact that he hit her car while it was parked. He denies it, of course, even though there are a couple of witnesses. He’s not a pleasant person. I do not like him; the good thing is that I think he’s slightly afraid of me.

If we were to move somewhere else, it would almost have to be near the Delaware, Madison, or Central Avenue bus routes. My mother-in-law is living at the adult residence Beverwyck; I hate the idea of living there. The bus that goes near there runs extremely infrequently and stops a mile away. I lived off of Lark Street a lot when I first lived in Albany, at five different places, and I liked it. It’s not that far from church or downtown.

Fruit pie

Favorite desserts?

I like carrot cake and strawberry shortcake, though I haven’t had them in a while. My general go-to is fruit pie—apple, cherry, or blueberry—with vanilla ice cream.

Absolute top favorite superhero?

From fairly early in college, when I first started reading comic books again, it was Spider-Man. I related to Peter Parker or whatever iteration of Spider-Man was behind the mask. I managed to see all of the Spider-Man movies I had not seen before during the pandemic. I’ve seen the animated Spider-verse movies. Spider-Man is probably the only Marvel movie line I’ve managed to keep watching after The Avengers Endgame was over.

2025?

Your assessment of candidates for Albany’s next mayor?

I haven’t given great thought to the campaign, being more focused on the 2024 presidential elections, Congress, et al. There’s no info yet on Ballotopedia for the Albany mayoral contest.

In June 2025, there will be the Democratic primary for mayor. For those who don’t know, Albany has been a Democratic city for over a century. It hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1921. I don’t think this is good, but there it is.

So, the primary will, in all likelihood, determine who will be the mayor in November 2025. The incumbent, Kathy Sheehan, is not running for a fourth four-year term.

Albany’s chief city Auditor, Dorcey Applyrs. was the first candidate to announce.

Dan Cerruti is a political newcomer who one of our mutual friends is very fond of.

Carolyn McLaughlin, a county legislator and former city council member, recently announced.

I’m vaguely surprised that I haven’t seen Corey Ellis, Albany City Common Council President, hasn’t announced. He’s raised a good amount of money already. Does he not want to challenge Applyrs and/or McLaughlin?

Andrew Joyce, who failed in his attempt to take the Assembly seat, or others might enter the race.

I have no strong political feelings yet about most of them. However, I didn’t warm up to one of them personally. So ask me again in March of 2025, and I’ll give you a better answer than this, especially after the lawn signs go up.

RIP, Trina Robbins (1938-2024)

The Way We Wore

According to my diary, I met Trina Robbins, Steve Leialoha, and Scott Shaw! at the San Digo Comic Con on August 6, 1987. I didn’t write anything about the encounter except that it was “nice.”

But maybe I was a bit starstruck because I had enjoyed her work for so long, going back to Wimmen’s Comix from Last Gasp in the mid-1970s.

She also produced a four-page story called The Way We Wore for Gates of Eden, published by FantaCo in 1982 . In a previous life, she was a clothing designer.

While she did work for Marvel and DC, notably Wonder Woman, she was better known for working with “independent” publishers. Her body of work is vast.

But it’s not just the breadth of her work. As Mark Evanier wrote: “Beautiful…talented…important…I don’t know which quality of Trina I should start with. I’ll start with important. Trina Robbins was one of those cartoonists who did things that mattered. No one did more to elevate the awareness of and the opportunities for females in the realm of cartooning and comic art. And along the way she did not neglect the males; did not neglect anyone or anything worthy of attention.”

As the Forbes article noted: “Her unapologetically feminist take on politics and pop culture stood out among peers like Robert Crumb and S. Clay Wilson, and the experience left her a lifelong critic of the ‘boys club’ misogyny she perceived in such work.”

Documenting women

A 2018 piece in Vulture called her “the Controversial Feminist Who Revolutionized Comic Books.”

She and Cat Yronwode created the legendary 1985 tome Women And The Comics, the “first attempt to document the careers of the hundreds of women who have created and worked in the field of comic strips, comic books and cartooning. The Women whose work is showcased in this book have been long overlooked or ignored by most other histories of comics.”

From the New York Times: “She also wrote more than a dozen prose books, including Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013 (2013) and Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age (2020). ‘Trina didn’t just support women,’ Shary Flenniken, who created the ‘Trots and Bonnie’ strip for National Lampoon, said in an interview, ‘she unearthed the history of all these women cartoonists who had never been talked about.'”

The most recent comics-related item I purchased was the crowdfunded Won’t Back Down. “Comics legend Trina Robbins is fighting the rogue Supreme Court with over 30 storytellers from all around the world to publish a pro-choice anthology. Proceeds will be donated to Planned Parenthood.”

I read a lot of the many comments about Trina on Facebook. Many shared the sentiment, “I thought she’d be here forever.

EQ

Among the most interesting was from Wendy Pini, co-creator of the comic book Elfquest. “Were Trina and I friends? That’s hard to say. Not once in all the years we knew each other did we really understand each other. We didn’t ‘get’ or even really like each others’ artwork and writing. We didn’t inspire each other…. I was not her kind of feminist or activist, not a ‘joiner’ in most of the causes she cherished. Our life experiences and world views were, for the most part, very different.

“That said, when it came to today’s politics and speaking out on LGBTQ+ rights, Trina and I were very much on the same page. Her activism thrilled me and I sent applause when I could. She would pop up in my political FB posts from time to time – I was always delighted to have her chime in. Her voice carried weight. With her vast energy and drive, she was willing to get down in the trenches and get up close and personal with pro-woman movers and shakers… Trina could do that. She was a mover and shaker herself and an inspiration to many.

“I’m so glad Trina knew that I thought she was adorable. I honestly have no idea what she thought of me… Though we weren’t close, I loved her and I loved running into her, through the years, at San Diego Cons. She represented something powerful: a pioneer and a survivor. Outspoken, controversial, at times even rude… I loved her for all of that. She was funny. Just knowing she was keeping on keeping on was a kind of comfort, something to count on.”

Condolences to Trina’s longtime partner Steve Leialoha and their family.

Comic book poll re: writers, artists

FantaCo connection

My buddy Greg Burgas commented on a comic book poll that ranked writers and artists. I’m not participating because I haven’t really followed comics since 1994, when I sold the bulk of my collection. There are several names I do not even recognize. I still have books such as the Marvel Masterworks, the Moore/Bissette Swamp Thing, a couple of Will Eisner titles, and the original Dark Knight.

The post got me reflecting on some of the people I’ve interacted with, though.

David Mazzucchelli and Denny O’Neill made a store appearance at FantaCo in 1985 during their Daredevil run. There’s a photo I lent to someone to digitize; it shows them, Matt, a couple of other people, and me in the store.

I never dealt directly with Bernie Wrightson except in short phone calls, but FantaCo published some of his work. When he died too young, I wrote about him here because he was so talented and a sweet guy in even those brief interactions.

In his Wikipedia page, [Greg] “Capullo’s first comic work was a publication called Gore Shriek, which was picked up and published by a comic book store in Albany, New York, called Fantaco Enterprises. Gore Shriek was a horror comic book specifically labeled Not Intended for Children because of the violent and graphic nature of it.” FantaCo didn’t “pick it up,” but whatever. I knew Greg, though not well.

Barry Windsor-Smith appeared in FantaCo pubs, but my dealings with him were meager.

Frank Miller created the cover for FantaCo’s Daredevil Chronicles, edited by Mitch Cohn, and also did a centerspread and interview. When I was going to edit a Spider-Man Chronicles, Miller agreed to produce the cover. But he bailed at the last minute, causing me quite a lot of stress.

Pre-Maus

Art Spiegelman used to come to FantaCo to personally deliver copies of Raw, the oversized and eclectic comics and graphics magazine he and his wife, Françoise Mouly, published in the 1980s. I remember hanging out with him during the 1988 San Diego Comic-Con; it’s probably recorded in my diary.

FantaCo was in discussion with Denis Kitchen about putting out a Kitchen Sink Enterprises Chronicles with a Will Eisner cover. I would have edited that issue; alas, it never happened. Except for asking him a question at a panel discussion during that ’88 Con, I never had any dealings with Eisner.

I bought a graphic novel from Jim Starlin at an Albany comics show in the 2010s. He autographed it, but he was very busy.

I told my Jack Kirby story here.

George Perez created the Avengers Chronicles cover for FantaCo, He was supposed to make the back cover for the Fantastic Four Chronicles but was problematically late.

John Byrne saved my bacon as an editor, not once but twice, as I noted here, re: Miller and Perez.