Tom Artis

Note to readers: this post was supposed to be scheduled for August 30, but I accidentally posted it along with the August 27 post. The new/next post arrives on schedule September 3rd.

So I’ll tell you an anecdote from the late 80s. This was during the two years between college and grad school, when I was living in Chicago and working at the Field Museum, living in a studio in Hyde Park, and living life as a series of daily adventures.

Snakes and hotties

Serpentine, AKA Naomi Pierce

My final and best major Champions game was played in Gainesville 1990-1992, during my Master’s studies. It was set in Tampa and the supergroup was called Force Five.

Flyin’ high

Here’s what happened: in the course of a series of Spider-Man issues which included more and more youthful voices and more and more explicit political positions, Stan Lee and Gil Kane did a pretty intensive story including street drugs.

Bad guys and bad fathers

I’m on about Stan Lee’s run on Spider-Man as a novel again, for the second of four intended posts. The first one was Today I am a man.

Today is for taboo III: Mess-Factor

This is the third of three posts about Marvel mutantdom in the late 1970s and 1980s; the previous two were Today is for taboo and Today is for taboo II.

I’ll open with perhaps the most rage-inducing comics-geek phrase I can produce: I like Cyclops better than Wolverine.

Unpleasantries

This is the third of my series of posts regarding the original 6-issue series Marshal Law. The two previous two were Looking for a hero and Back from the Zone. This one’s a little shy on visual content, because it’d be gross. I want to talk about rape in 1986-1988 comics, which means a shocking lot of it.

And I’m not the bad guy

Crazy girlfriends! The staple of autobio and semi-autobio comics and comix everywhere. Even Wendel features one in the form of Ollie’s ex-wife, the “queen of mixed messages.”

Moooo!

This is the third and final post for my Watchmen musings, the previous two being Whom were they watching? and A hero shall appear. Judging by the responses to those, it won’t be winning me any friends, and I know why. This is a most sanctified bovine.

That duck, ’nuff said

Where to start? It’s not too surprising that Marvel featured an in-fiction parody character, right? There have been quite a few of them, and in an era of constantly-launched and constantly-canceled comics titles, of complete editorial chaos, of plummeting sales in the obsolete newsstand venue, and badly-stumbling attempts to get superheroes into other media, Howard was a solid hit.

Long live Lib

Who was she?

It’s 1999. I’m in my first prof job at the Bio department at Valdosta State U, in southern Georgia – a much better school and general gig than I’d thought. I’m on the organizing committee for the annual Women’s Studies Conference there, similar to roles I’d played in many such events. “But what straight white guy could do it, and handle it?” “Get Edwards.” At the end of the conference, I’m hanging out with guest of honor Kate Millet, who was kind enough to attend my talk.