Review: Will Dubbeld
It seems, in his travels, he’d picked up several pieces from the long-defunct Power Comics Company at an estate sale.
“Yes!”, was the emphatic answer.
There upon we ventured into his barn/workspace/storage facility, and he produced 2 large flat files jam-packed with art.
Sketches, page and panel art, production pieces, and several photostat copies used for cut-and-paste filled the two files, and I eagerly pawed through the treasure.
As collectors do, I offered to buy the lot and, as sellers do, he agreed to sell.
Upon separating and organizing this mass of artwork, my curiosity grew. I’d never heard of Power Comics, nor any of the creations within.
Due diligence and some swift internet work yielded a list of published titles, and I was on the hunt.
I recently acquired the full run of Power Comics Company’s anthology book, cleverly titled Power Comics, and eagerly sought to learn the secrets of this Bronze Age publisher.
As previously mentioned, Power Comics #1 is an anthology book and certainly represents the best (and worst) of DIY indie publishing.
The book is comprised of 4 stories, the first of which centers around a young man lamenting the loss of youthful belief in magic. It’s a well-crafted, whimsical story and was absolutely the right choice to open the anthology.
After that short, 9-pager we rocket into a sword and sorcery tale called The Belt of Americe!
Emphasis mine...
This felt vary much like it would be at home in Howard’s Conan mythos and features a scaly fishman named Valkus who has, “mastered the science of dimensions through the disciplines of wizardry and dervish-swim”.
Sounds pretty rad, right?!!!
Valkus longs to walk the surface (just like the Little Mermaid) and upon hitting the beach, our Creature From the Black Lagoon comes upon a lovely maiden beset by bestial barbarian-folk!
Our piscine hero, of course, rescues the young lady and escorts her back to the ancient city, Kal-Sha-A.
Americe is the sultry queen of the castle, and she quickly takes to the heroic merman. Showing him the wonders of the city and revealing her magic/superscience belt keeps her eternally young, Americe and Valkus hit it off and the romance is thick as roe.
Unfortunately, the barbarian horde is at the gates and Valkus saves the city at the expense of his happiness with Americe.
This story was probably my favorite and felt like it could’ve been a Pulp story from yesteryear.
But with a fish-guy.
It also features the coolest-looking panel I’ve seen in quite awhile:
“I have a certain knowledge of the wizardly arts!”
Emphasis mine, again.
The last story of any length is Nightwitch Rising and seems to be presented as the spotlight story.
Hemsut, the last witch of Atlantis, is set to be executed by a group of hooded, beardy guys called The Twelve for her crimes of treason.
She’s not having any of that nonsense and turns her witchcraft up to eleven, destroying The Twelve, herself, and consuming Atlantis in the process.
Hemsut becomes one with the Force or somesuch, and we cut to:
PRESENT DAY (Circa 1977...)
Onyx Moro, an employee at a mental hospital, awakens from a REM test with the horrible visions of Hemsut’s demise.
She soon realizes demons are attempting to exert their influence over our world via possession of mental patients and suffers a near-death/death/rebirth experience at the hands of one of the aforementioned infernals.
Onyx encounters Hemsut on the astral plane or somesuch during her near-death experience and agrees to serve as her vessel in order to best demonkind.
The Nightwitch lives again!
This story was incredibly slipshod and B-grade, but I couldn’t help but love it. The story is a wafer-thin retread we’ve all seen before, the layout is poor and the lettering absolutely atrocious, but Nightwitch has moxie.
Moxie gets you a long way in my book.
The absolute weirdest installment was a 5-pager called, “A Boy and His Aardvark”, and comes to us courtesy of T. Casey Brennan and Dave Sim.
Yes, that Dave Sim.
Of Cerebus fame.
Power Comics and Cerebus both debuted in ‘77, so Sim must’ve jumped right into his own book after Power folded.
In any case, this oddball tale features a young man with a pet aardvark and the pressures put upon him from all sides.
Mostly pressure put on him to kill.
Kill for his country, kill for his religion, kill for his race, etc. etc.
After a skewed speech from his dad about joining the army, eschewing girls for killing, and shooting Dandy, his pet aardvark, the boy does indeed learn how to kill.
Of the four stories, this one felt the most out of place. It would fit right in an obscure Underground book or newspaper but just didn’t have the same thematic elements as the other installments.
Honestly, the most fascinating part of the book was the middle 15 or so pages. Out of 68 pages, Power Comics devotes an entire section to The National Comic Book Retailer Directory. It’s chock-full of 1-page ads for local Michigan comic shops and these things are priceless. Amateur art and clever, albeit hokey, advertising for a dozen shops (probably most or all long since closed) harkens back to the pre-internet days of mailing lists, written correspondence, and SASEs.
From what I could find, Power Comics Company folded after the release of 6 books. 5 issues of Power Comics and 1 issue of a book called Cobalt Blue.
It’s unfortunate, really, but part of the die roll when it comes to the independent comic business.
Power Comics #1 was written and illustrated like a mix of Golden Age-60s books, both mainstream and Underground Comix, and I’d like to have seen the company progress. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Even more unfortunate was the fact I didn’t recognize any of the creative teams from other books.
Dave Sim aside.
Hopefully they didn’t throw in the towel on comics after Powers Comics.
No comments:
Post a Comment