THE SPIDERBABY RECOMMENDS...

MAGAZINES and FANZINES:

THE IMP #1 and 2; THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JACK T. CHICK
by Dan Raeburn; Dan Fowler

One of the best comics-related zines I’ve had the pleasure of reading recently was THE IMP, which has two excellent issues under its belt thus far. I highly recommend the pair, which are written, edited, and published by Daniel Raeburn (#1 is available for $3 US, $5 foreign; #2 is $5 US, $6 foreign, both from Dan at 1454 W. Summerdale 2C, Chicago, IL 60640).

THE IMP#1 offers an illustrated, in-depth exploration of Dan Clowes’ career and cartooning. Raeburn’s insights are illuminating, informed (but hardly confined) by his evident obsession with Clowes’ work and his own conversations with the artist. Instead of presenting the interview material verbatim, Raeburn weaves Clowes’ statements into the essay, to be scrutinized with the same analytical eye he brings to Clowes’ narratives and art. Raeburn’s passion for the work fuels rather than clouds his analytical skills. Never content to accept either the words or images at face value (or in the context Clowes suggests), Raeburn’s compelling dissection of the cartoonist and his creations cuts surprisingly deep. This is essential reading for any aficianados of Eightball or Clowes’ other efforts, and a fine example of the kind of critical writing the comics’ field could use more of.

If you found my overview of religious horror comics in SPIDERBABY COMIX #2 worthwhile reading, you might particularly enjoy THE IMP #2. This second issue is a revelation, brothers and sisters, telling the truth and I mean the whole truth about Jack T. Chick, who Dan proclaims "the most widely-read theologian... and one of the best-selling artists in human history." Hallelujah! Bear witness to more than anyone's ever exposed before about Chick, the man behind the omnipresent "Chick Tracts," those tiny fundamentalist comic books that save souls and twist minds around the globe.

The Chick color comics are without a doubt the most horrific religious comics in history (well, since the CODEX NUTTALL and the 17th and 18th Century European broadsheets, anyway). None of that namby-pamby Archie Spire Comics stuff -- Chick’s tracts and color comics are dead earnest hellfire-and-brimstone sermons, savagely anti-Catholic and fiercely dedicated to salvation and redemption through Jesus Christ at any cost. Dan takes the holy bull by the horns with essays, interviews, and a critical overview well worth reading. Salvation, indeed!

While you're at it, check out Dan's site at theimp@xsite.net, and tell him I sent you, would you?

Jack Chick fans and scholars should also drop a line and $12.00 to Bob Fowler (at 354 Caliente Circle, San Leandro, CA 94578-4159) for a postpaid copy of THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JACK T. CHICK. Bob does a thorough job cataloguing, analyzing, and interpreting the Chick tracts & comics canon, from a different perspective than Raeburn’s and with a decidedly fresh orientation to the material. It's an ideal companion to THE IMP #2. This certainly isn’t the last word on Chick’s niche in comics, but Fowler and Raeburn’s efforts combined provide an invaluable and necessary addition to any comics scholar’s library.

- S.R. Bissette (3/28/99)

COMIC BOOK HEAVEN: The Best of the First Four Issues!!!
by Scott Saavedra

This is a blast! From cover to cover, this tidy saddle-stitched half-pint zine is a feast of guilty pleasures. Briskly written, snappily designed, and adequately illustrated by savvy Scott Saavedra, COMIC BOOK HEAVEN is a slice of just that, thick with cheese. Punctuated with relevant panels, cover repros, and graphic non sequiturs, Scott assembles a lively mix of trivia, including a definitive dissection of "Marvel and DC Monsters" (complete with a hilarious "comparison chart," comparing DC's wimpy zoo to Marvel's mind-bending menagerie of Kirby, Ditko, and Lee misfits), the weirdest comics stories in history, the cliches of romance and macho comics, and a fleeting expose on "The Cruel, Cruel World of DEVIL DINOSAUR." And more! All this in just 32 pages I find myself drawn to again and again. The Harveys and Eisners should add a category to their ballots, "Best Bathroom Reading of 1998"; COMIC BOOK HEAVEN would win, hands down. Get it while you can from the whip-wielders at Slave Labor Graphics, or better yet, write to Scott directly at PO Box 2363, Saratoga, CA 95070-0363, or visit his website at:

http://members.aol.com/scottjava

Tell him I sent you -- and that I want MORE! Actually, this is more -- with seven issues currently available for $2 each, you've got some catching up to do.

- SRB (4/2/99)

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BOOKS

SEAL OF APPROVAL: THE HISTORY OF THE COMICS CODE
by Amy Kiste Nyberg

(1998, University Press of Mississippi, 208 pages, ISBN #0-87805-975-X, $18 trade paperback)

	Click to buy this book from Amazon.com

The Comics Code Authority was formed in 1954 in the wake of the notorious Senatorial Subcommittee investigations of the comic book industry. Though generally percieved today as a now-toothless institution, and most definitely a pale shadow of the power it once was, the Code is still in effect, wielding enough power to prompt the recent initiation of Dark Horse Comics into its fold (reportedly to maintain and expand the tentative newsstand visibility of Dark Horse product). However, the CCA's ongoing reign over the mainstream comics industry has prompted surprisingly little serious scrutiny over the decades. Aside from ARCHIE Comics publisher and CCA co-founder John Goldwater's occasional drum-beating in print, the CCA has maintained a fairly low profile since its widely-publicized debut.

As a comics professional who bumped heads with the Code once or twice myself, I was always surprised how little my own editors seemed to know (or care to share) about the Code's workings. In fact, when Alan Moore, John Totleben, and I "crossed swords" over Code restrictions while working on SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #29 and ANNUAL #2 back in 1984-5, not once was the then-current Code presented to us, despite my own interest and requests; all I had to go on was the original 1954 version of the Code reprinted in the appendixes of Les Daniels' COMIX. Even as our creative skirmish resulted in DC's decision to cease submitting SWAMP THING to the Code for approval (thus initiating what is now the Vertigo line), the Authority seemed less than a ship passing in the night. It had only been spoken of, at first heatedly and apparently amid much pressure, then in the past tense, as something we needn't concern ourselves with any longer. To this day, after over twenty years working in the industry, I've never seen or been confronted with any documentation of the Code's rule, despite my involvement with all aspects of the industry, my ongoing battles, and oft-expressed curiosity about the CCA.

Thankfully, Amy Kiste Nyberg has been curious, too. SEAL OF APPROVAL offers a fascinating, comprehensive, and engaging history of the Code and its ongoing reign. Nyberg's credentials in the academic field (presently a professor in the Department of Communication at Seton Hall University) are impressive, but she also has an inside track to the comics industry itself (in part via husband John Nyberg, a successful illustrator and inker who also provided the cover graphics here), lending her research and understanding of the industry and issues at hand greater weight than that demonstrated in many recent comics-related academic efforts. Nyberg successfully dissects each and every component and function of the CCA, and the workings (and failings) of the Code itself, within the context of the marketplace it censors and regulates. Nyberg KNOWS the comics industry well, and her demonstratable grasp of its often mercurial and contradictory nature allows her to unravel elements relevant to the Code's history that have confounded (or more often been ignored by) previous scholars -- yours truly included.

Actually, the CCA and the Code doesn't take center stage until the second half of Professor Nyberg's exhaustive overview, after a precise and concise assessment of the various cultural, political, and institutional forces that railed against the comics industry in its formative years. Nyberg documents the gathering storms with compelling clarity, culminating in Dr. Fredric Wertham and Senator Estes Kefauver's effective campaigns which culminated in the birth of the CCA (and, coincidentally, the collapse of the comics industry). For some readers, this covers familiar turf, but Nyberg's intensive research has turned up a number of surprises, and her own analysis of the issues, personalities, and events is refreshingly insightful and bracing throughout.

Less familiar, and even more compelling, are the subesequent chapters detailing the nature of the beast. This is the meat of the story, and Nyberg tells us more than we've ever been privvy to before. Here are the covert meetings and Machiavellian schemes, the construction of the restrictions themselves, the myopic enforcement and dire penalties, and the ongoing attempt to maintain moral imperatives based in the values of post-World War 2 America amid tumultuous changes in the fabric of the culture, the marketplace, the (ever-dwindling) target audience. Nyberg also unveils the subsequent revisions of the Code in 1971 and 1989 -- what prompted the revisions, and what impact they had upon the mainstream publishers. Like a lunatic parent, the CCA has struggled to repress the irrepressible maturation of the medium itself, and here, finally, the tale is told.

Make no mistake, this THE most important book about comics this year. Though I question some of Nyberg's blindspots and conclusions, I have nothing but admiration for what she accomplishes in SEAL OF APPROVAL. Nyberg's rigorously-documented research into the institution responsible for the pervasive perception of the comics medium as a necessarily juvenile media sheds light on a powerful cabal which should have been investigated long, long ago.

This is essential reading for ANYONE interested in comics. SEAL OF APPROVAL earns my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION -- get your hands on a copy IMMEDIATELY!

            - S.R. Bissette (8/29/98)

Click to order SEAL OF APPROVAL from Amazon.com