I was googling the covers Kirby did for Verotik (Danzig’s comic company) and unexpectedly fell upon Glenn Danzig interviewing Jack Kirby, which I didn’t know had happened, but I am not really surprised about (with Danzig being such a huge Kirby fan).
Anyway, here are the covers (not Kirby’s greatest work, but still Kirby):
Jill Tomahawk: woman, cop and Native American … Marvel really tried all the possible combinations in the 70’s, didn´t they?
I confess that the reason why I chased Red Wolf #8 was King Cycle (more about him some other day, just look at the cover below, the urgency of the “NOW! SET IN THE HOLOCAUST OF TODAY!“, brilliant stuff), but Jill Tomahawk captured my imagination by surprise.
Much like Lucretia Jones, here we have one of Marvel’s attempts at creating “strong” women as background characters that never really took off. In Jill’s case, and as far as I know, only appeared in this issue and the next one. This is one of these cases where I feel really curious about what was going on behind the scenes, as there are just too many possible scenarios … I mean, sure, there seems to be an editorial effort to include libbed women in the 70’s, but were they aware of how many times the word “pig” (coming from a woman in reference to a man’s behaviour) appeared in Marvel Comics each month? Did they decide it was not very subtle or did they move on to the next thing?
Before we get to the Jill Tomahawk story, allow me to include another example:
The Avengers page and Red Wolf #8 both appeared in 1973, as did the couple of Daredevil issues with Lucretia Jones (who didn’t call any man a pig, but only because she was lucky enough to work with suave Ashley Sanders). Both Lucretia and Jill disappeared shortly after from the Marvel Universe, the Scarlet Witch being too established a character for them to be able to put aside. Am I going crazy or did something happen in 1974? Maybe someone at Marvel didn’t like feminists? Or maybe it was the readers?
Anyway, this is by no means an analysis, I will leave this to brainier minds with a bit of time in their hands … I mean, there’s probably someone who wrote about this already somewhere else.
Didn’t plan to write that much (saying so little at the same time, but that’s the problem with stream of consciousness blogs), so here’s the first part of Jill Tomahawk’s story:
You will agree with me, that’s a pretty meaty first appearance for a character you are not planning to use, but to be fair, Red Wolf was cancelled with issue 9. After this scene, Red Wolf goes back to his flat and talks to his best furry friend and gives him a piece of his mind about his new friend:
Here’s my (very humble) tribute to all the female characters of Marvel that were forgotten in 1973 … You still live in our hearts:
As if trying to rival with our sister website Cocktales (and you should take a look, if you haven’t, it’s the literary equivalent of
), spambots are generating pieces of written gold that shouldn’t be dismissed (I am sure a couple of comic writers even use them in their pitches). Here are a couple of those gems:
Too this arm tooks a look a wrist, time is it’s yet early, 80% she hasn’t waked up?…
“Sorry, sorry!Is that I ain’t good, the in the mind is too worried.Like, I descend to do some shopping, the words doing are too late afraid of getting into trouble, a short while I braised soup and waited soup like, you also drink a point and otherly…
Let’s finish (for now, might do another one over the weekend) with another great artist: Fernando de Felipe … Unfortunately retired from comics (like German García), he seems to be working in cinema now, which is a real pity. Books like ADN and Marketing & Utopía have a lot to do with a lot of people in my generation liking comics that pushed the boundaries. His (and his writing collaborators’) characters, more than often psychotically obsessed, and the claustrophobic stories were a breath of fresh air compared to what the market was offering in the 80’s and 90’s.
In any case, another one of those creators whose work you should probably look out for. You can actually find his adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs here
I am really glad Javier Pulido is back. For a moment (after the last issues of the Incredible Hulk series), it looked like he had disappeared forever, but it seems that he is back now and getting the recognition his amazing art deserves. Again, this will be a look at his early career in Spain as information about the rest of it can be found online pretty easily. It’s incredible to see all his talent was already there, in these, his first published (except for the sample) works … Enjoy!
