Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The Forsaken Fangirls of the Direct Market Era

I love how Part III deviates into a lot of related territory concerning the history of Marvel, DC, and the undergrounds and then brings us back to your thesis about fangirls being alienated by continuity porn.

I also like how you zeroed in on Giordano, as you did with Thomas last time, as our "central character," so to speak. You've done a masterful job of giving us creators to "root" for while showing them in a new light.

I didn't know Marston/Moulton had employed uncredited female writers on Wonder Woman. Their anonymity reminds me of how Jesus's female followers were marginalized in the Bible and church teachings. Patriarchy runs deep in all aspects of our history, but, regardless, women have always been a powerful and subtle force.

Agreed 100% about the vintage Big John/Roy Thomas Conan tales, Emily. They've aged like fine wine, and they also are among the few reprints of pre-1990 comic books that actually benefit from the advances in coloring technology.

Big John was quite vocal about his preference for barbarian fantasy over superhero melodrama, although the impression that I got after reading a ton of interviews with him was that he exaggerated his dislike of superheroes because he knew it would get a rise out of people, and that amused him greatly.

And the cherry on top is that Big John has a six-degrees-of-separation connection to the Legion of Superheroes -- in Dave Cockrum's introduction to LSH Archives Volume 10, he enthusiastically recalled how a concurrent side-gig inking other artists' pencils for Marvel paid dividends after he inked two Big John issues of Avengers (124-125, FTR.) Cockrum said that a quick analysis of Big John's pencils while he worked over them. It was like a sequential art class condensed into a few hours, and Cockrum maintained until the end of his life that his own storytelling skills, layouts, and dynamics had all improved a thousand-fold by the very next time he penciled the Legion (in Superboy 193.)




Thanks, He Who. I actually had the good fortune of meeting Giordano three times during the mid-90s, on the convention circuit. The second time was particularly memorable, because he combined frankness with easy-going good humor as he recalled his final years as DC's Executive Editor. The crux of it was, to paraphrase what I remember him saying, "I hated Lobo, I didn't "get" his appeal *at all*, but the Direct Market readers loved him, and every time we put him in another series as a guest star, sales went up, and his own solo mini-series and one-shot each sold better than the last. That was when I knew it was time for me to step aside."

(A digression -- at the same panel where Giordano related the above, the other two guests were Gil Kane and Howard Chaykin, both of whose actual personalities pleasantly surprised me, after having read various interviews with them over the years which had me expecting a couple of sarcastic loudmouths, albeit a couple of very smart and savvy loudmouths. Instead, Chaykin was disarmingly polite and rarely showed any gratuitous bitterness or cynicism, while Kane was positively mellow throughout, and as the panel wrapped up Kane turned downright wistful as he recalled his early years in the biz, to the point where I almost shed a tear!! I learned later that Kane had just recently survived a severe bout with cancer, which was in remission when I met him, but eventually came back and took his life a few years later. Gods bless you, Gil, and I hope that even today you're still regaling the angels with your endless stream of exciting true-life tales.)

And I particularly appreciate the insights about the unsung power of women in your last paragraph. Yes, we do indeed keep chipping away little by little at outdated patriarchal notions, in order to reveal the greater truth that has always existed below the surface. Despite the current public hostility towards women, minorities, foreigners, and the LGBT community, I try to be philosophical about it and see it as a temporary setback...and to remind myself of how things were, in many insidious ways, much worse when I first moved to the States in 1990.

I have been thinking about this thread a bit. Does anyone have any ideas as to why, generally, in comics and animation, women were mostly employed as colorists? I know Disney Studios at one point employed all women in their coloring/painting department, and all men as animators, but I wonder how this divide started.

Emily, I can only assume it's because colorists were regarded as a "lesser" position, like secretaries and other subservient roles. (And, yes, I know secretaries are not really subservient; however, for much of our history we've had limiting notions of what women could do, and they were always seen as being in "support" roles.

In hindsight, they were smart enough to let men hog the glory and to influence things behind the scenes.)

I also think women had other goals besides simply "getting ahead" and "getting the glory." Many single mothers had to put food on the table, so they couldn't afford to worry too much about whether their position was regarded as "lesser" than men's positions. Many were probably just grateful for a paycheck.

I never finished reading this, but I will today.

Cleome, I thank you for having given me the incentive to finally pick up where I left off with this.

That said, I really want to finish the Legion/New Gods Retroboot fic first, but there's only 2 chapters plus a coda to go, so...optimal thinking.