Sunday 20 July 2014

Eddie Khanna: Action Comics #563

Action Comics #593 (DC Comics, January 1985)
by Robert Loren Fleming & Keith Giffen
EDDIE KHANNA:
Dave, there it goes again.

I had this comic out for some reason. I had been reading it a few years ago because of the Ambush Bug story and I guess I never put it away. So I saw it was still out, flipped it open and boom, right on the front page is a picture of Cerebus on a wall behind Ambush Bug.

Just when I thought that it couldn’t get any stranger, I looked over at the advertisement on the inside front cover for model cars.

Is it just me, or is that Stan Drake’s infamous convertible that someone has drawn to sell these things in the comic book medium (available as a t-shirt)?

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any stranger than THAT, Fisher's post the very next day on AMOC was about the model car you used to draw Stan Drake's convertible, along with the photos of it.

That was why I asked him if he knew the brand of the model car you used. I’m pretty sure it’s not Monogram Plastic Model Kits, but you never know. Just curious. Also curious about who the artist who did the original drawing used in the ad was.

(postscript)

Leaving a restaurant a few days ago, and what appeared to be the exact same car pulled up at the stoplight as I was crossing the street. These cars aren't really common around here.


DAVE SIM:
In answer to your question, Eddie, no the model in Dave Fisher's photo was an all metal (with plastic detailing) model I found in a downtown Kitchener junk shop back in the glamourpuss days. Very weird day: they had a model Corvette and facing it they also had a jigsaw puzzle of an SL 300 gull-wing Mercedes like the one that Alex Raymond owned.

"Oh, well, it's a 1957 Corvette.  Not a 1956.  If it had been a 1956,  THAT would have been a coincidence."

When I opened your envelope and saw the ACTION COMICS cover, "Oh no. NOW what?"

That's a pretty good one, I have to admit: a little picture of Cerebus directly facing the inside front cover with the 1956 Corvette.

See, I think that's Comic Art Metaphysics.  The issue of ACTION COMICS came out in late 1984 which was just after Judith Bradford had come to my attention.  As I look at it now, God saying, "I didn't give you the talent I gave you so you could use it to get yourself a teenager for a girlfriend."
Which, to me, is basically what God was saying to Stan Drake in September of 1956.  So it seems like a metaphysical version of "Oh, no. Here we go again with the teenaged girlfriend."

"I'm CAR-RAZY" is a good way of putting it.  

Eddie and me are LOUSY with examples of this at this point. As soon as I've got the Stan Drake section completely refurbished on THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND, we'll start sharing a few more of them with you here.

We'll STILL have enough left over for a couple of good sequels if SDOAR sells.

4 comments:

Birdsong said...

From every angle I look at it that is Cerebus and his mean stare for sure. Does anyone know if Keith Giffin is a a fan?

Giffin is a guy whose style you can never nail down. He drew "straight" like he does here and then later a sort of Hyper-Kirby and even later some kind of thin line abstract stuff with almost no blacks at all and then everything in between.

But no matter how you slice it that is Cerebus in the background. Meaning? Who can say?

Anonymous said...

Giffen's style from this period was very easy to nail down, especially if you're familiar with Argentine cartoonists ... I did often find Ambush Bug funny, though. The Cerebus head might have been a call-out to the only other humourous comic being published (if you don't count Secret Wars).

-- Damian T. Lloyd, xrx

Tony Dunlop said...

Neat Stuff wasn't funny?

Travis Pelkie said...

Giffen, with an E.

And yeah, did Jose Munoz feature Cerebus at this time too, as Damian alluded to? ;)