Mark Evanier's Blog

I promised something silly here tonight and there's nothing sillier than this…

I never thought I'd find myself on the same side as the National Rifle Association but they're pretty mad over his blaming of the victim in Minneapolis for carrying a legal firearm. He's going to have to do something to try and win their loyalty back. I'm guessing he's finally going to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue.

This is not exactly the cover to the first issue of Vampirella, which was published back in 1969. I've taken the liberty of replacing the original VAMPIRELLA title logo with a later one because I think the later logo was way better than the first one. I did not tamper with the drawing itself because it's quite iconic and it was done by Frank Frazetta. Anyone who thinks they could possibly improve a Frazetta drawing would be out of his ever-lovin' mind.

The first issue of Vampirella went on sale officially on July 19, 1969.  Jim Warren, who was kind of a maverick in the comic book business then, had been publishing Creepy and Eerie — two very good horror/weird comic anthologies with black-and-white interiors and an awful lot of ads for neat-looking monster stuff one could order from an outfit called Captain Company, which was also owned, I believe, by Mr. Warren.  I actually had a friend  who had very little interest in the fine stories in Creepy and Eerie but would buy an issue occasionally for the ads.  He spent a lot of money on some of those ads.

They were very good horror comics containing not all that much horror and very little of the gore that would dominate some of the magazines that came along later, trying to emulate Warren's success.  But Creepy and Eerie were only great until the issues that came out around September of 1967.  A superb editor/writer, Archie Goodwin, wrote most of the stories up until then and they were drawn by the likes of Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, Gray Morrow, Alex Toth, Jerry Grandenetti, Steve Ditko, Reed Crandall, Gene Colan and other great talents.   And somehow, Warren was able to engage Frank Frazetta to do paintings for most of the covers.

I don't know what Mr. Frazetta was paid but it was probably about a half-millionth of what he got for a painting later on at the peak of his career.  The originals to some of those paintings have recently sold for huge amounts.  One of those those amounts had seven figures in it and the first one was a 5.

Then Archie Goodwin left to work for Marvel (and other places) and most of the great artists left at the same time.  Creepy and Eerie went to all or mostly reprints for a while and when new material did appear, it was not of the same caliber.  There were a few more Frazetta covers — including the painting recently sold for those seven figures with a 5 in first place — but only a few.  Eventually, better stories and art did appear and Warren magazines made a great comeback.  My friend who bought them for the ads even noticed the improvement.

Vampirella joined Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie — the hosts of their respective magazines — on the newsstands in 1969.  One suspects that someone said, "Gee, these horror-type comics would sell better if they were full of beautiful women with little or no clothing."  And so Vampirella was born.  She was created by Forrest J Ackerman, who was also the editor of Warren's other most notable magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Most issues of Vampirella featured a story about the lovely title character.  Tom Sutton drew the first one and in it, she wore (when she wore anything) a costume designed by Trina Robbins, who was soon to emerge as an important talent in the underground comics movement.  And then there was that amazing Frazetta cover of the character in the costume Trina had designed.

In the rest of each issue, there were non-series stories that contained bits of female nudity or near-nudity.  On newsstands that also sold Playboy and Penthouse and a thousand copycat publications, Vampirella seemed rather tame.  Some good artists popped up in it but I recall not finding it terribly sexy.  A couple of the artists drawing naked women did not seem to have ever actually seen one in real life.

But it must have sold decently because Warren published it until his company shut down in 1983…and it must not have sold huge numbers because he never brought out a companion magazine.  There were rumors he was planning one but they never panned out.

I do not recall any significant outcry against the "adult" element of Vampirella.  It wasn't quite erotic enough to prompt many protests.  I do, however, recall one very silly semi-scandal involving the first issue and one of the members of our old comic book club.  I'll tell you about it in a day or so.

Vampirella — the magazine and the character — have continued on from other publishers.  As you probably know if like me you've tried, it's not easy to kill a vampire.  And I was going to end this piece here but after I wrote the first half of it, I realized I got something wrong.  There is — or rather, was — a person who could improve on a Frank Frazetta painting.  That person was Frank Frazetta.

Frank — I didn't know him well but I think I knew him well enough to call him that — was rarely satisfied with his paintings after he may have thought they were finished.  But very so often, after one of them was published, he'd put it back on the easel and improve it to his satisfaction — sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.  He was never that fond of the costume for Vampirella so he went back to that painting that adorned the cover of #1 and he added something.

No, I'm wrong again.  He didn't add something.  He subtracted something…her costume.

As the painting now stands, Vampirella is sans wardrobe.  No uniform.  No clothing.  And the painting will soon go up for bids over at Heritage Auctions.  The selling price will probably be about the same as the amount of our money Donald Trump is prepared to pay for Greenland…or maybe his stupid ballroom plus Greenland.

I myself will not be bidding on the painting but if you're interested and you want to see what you might be buying, click this link.  Actually, I doubt anyone will.  I'm sure most readers of this blog have way too much class to want to get a look at a fully naked Vampirella painted by Frank Frazetta.,  In fact, I don't know why I even bothered supplying that link.  No one will use it.

I was going to shift back to non-political video links today but my friend Buzz Dixon posted this to Facebook. It was made by the Green Party of England & Wales but it applies to the U.S. and, sad to say, many other countries these days. I'm not sure any Green Party in any country has the power to accomplish anything but the one that made this video sure made a good video. I'll post something silly later today…

Tonight's Daily Show. It airs here on the West Coast in two hours…

Yes, I will be at WonderCon in Anaheim, a fine convention which takes place March 27-29. No, Sergio Aragonés will not be in attendance. His health is fine. He's just not doing any cons at the moment. Now you don't have to write me to ask.

Sal Buscema, one of the last illustrators for Marvel in the "Silver Age" has died last week at the age of 89. Today would have been his 90th birthday.

Sal was born in Brooklyn on January 26, 1936. He followed his older brother John into a career in art but, at first, not comic book art. Sal worked in commercial art and magazine illustration but then, in 1968, he began inking some of John's work for Marvel and soon was drawing on his own. His clear, direct storytelling pleased most or all of the writers he worked with. His speed and dedication to meeting deadlines pleased his editors. I never heard anyone speak of Sal in less than glowing terms.

At one point or another, he drew just about every major super-hero comic that Marvel published. In the seventies, there was a period when Marvel was desperate for artists who could handle that kind of material and Sal was pressed into service as a pencil artist who did what some called "breakdowns." That meant that he penciled the pages but not in great detail, leaving much to be left to the inker/finsiher. His rep as an artist may have been sullied a bit by some of those stories that went to not-the-best inker/finishers. As I understand it, Sal became bothered by that and eventually, though it lowered his income a bit, asked to do finished art all by himself. Some of this material was quite outstanding.

I got to interview Sal at the 2003 Comic-Con International in San Diego and we also had him on the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. Here's a photo from that panel…

Left to right standing, that's Michael Chabon (author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay), Stan Lee, Sal Buscema, Larry Lieber, Stan Goldberg and me. In the front row, we have Wendy Pini and Mike Royer.

Sal was a very nice man and a very good artist and he drew a huge amount of comics that people loved. Always sad to lose someone like that.

There are an awful lot of websites out there that compare the videos of Alex Pretti's death with the Trumper spin on how the ICE guys did nothing wrong and it was all — as it always is with such people — the victim's fault that he or she was killed. Here's Politifact.

And here's FactCheck.org with most of the same conclusions.

And here's The Minneapolis Tribune.

Many of you have seen an online post from Donald Trump shortly after the murder in Minneapolis in which he said in which Trump said "ONLY CRIMINALS CARRY GUNS ON OUR STREETS." Snopes says the post is a fake.

You may also have seen folks online posting and reposting what purports to be a photo of Alex Pretti's gun. Snopes says that's a fake too. It's a photo that had been posted to the Internet long before of what may be the same model of weapon.

On another source of Great Lying: As the Associated Press points out, Trump made the really, really stupid claim that because there are massive snowstorms, that proves there's no Global Warming. Whoever named the phenomenon "Global Warming" did the world a great disservice. If they'd just called it "Climate Change," we'd have fewer ignorant people making the same mistake.

All the late night shows are new tonight. Colbert has Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania on and I think he was rescheduled from later in the week. Seth Myers has Chris Hayes on and they'll probably be talking about Minneapolis as well. And Jon Stwwart is back and his scheduled guest is Jason Rezaian, the man who was held prisoner in Iran for 544 days in Iran. Comparisons will, no doubt, be made.

The other day here, I mentioned the line "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?" and I said it is often attributed to Richard Pryor. Someone named Steve Stoliar — who claims to know something about the Marx Brothers — sent me this…

It's always been my understanding that it's a misattributed misquote. People ascribe it to Groucho in Duck Soup but it was Chico who had the line. And there's no "lying" in the quote, which would've been quite unnecessary. Dumont says, "But I saw you leave with my own eyes!" and Chico says, "Well….who ya gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?"

Never heard it attributed to Richard Pryor, but I’d love for the record to be set straight about the Groucho/Chico Duck Soup (mis)quote.

Thank you for your attention at this time (but not at that time).

You are correct, Mr. Stoliar, that in Duck Soup, Chico said what you said he said. In fact, here is documented proof which even Kristi Noem could not deny of him saying it…

The confusion on the part of those who insist Groucho said is perhaps understandable since when Chico spoke those words in Duck Soup, he was masquerading as Groucho. We should probably be grateful that they didn't think Harpo, who was also dressed as Groucho in that movie, said it.

In the meantime, I think I know how Richard Pryor's name got attached to the quote. In his 1982 stand-up film, Richard Pryor – Live On The Sunset Strip, he uses the variation with the word "lying" in it. Here's a clip from that film and I must warn you that if you click on it, you may hear some awful and dangerous words. You may also notice that he is not dressed up as Groucho Marx but he probably should have been…

So thank you, Mr. Stoliar, for clarifying this matter of great importance. If you're truly interested in the Marx Brothers — and Groucho, in particular, may I recommend this book to you? I'm sure you will be pleased with your purchase.

I'm working on a script today and I'm sorta able to focus on that…but every time I think I oughta post something on this blog, all I can think about is the murder of Alex Pretti in the streets of Minneapolis…and that's what happened there: Murder.  All the bullshit "alternative facts" by the killers and their enablers can't change that.  They might have gotten away with it if there had been fewer cellphone cameras trained on the crime or if the people with the cellphones had had limited views.

Others have been killed like that and the killers will probably never be brought to justice.  There was enough ambiguity in the videos of Renée Good being shot in the face for some to pretend it was justified but I don't think they can get away with it this time.  This one's different.  We'll see if that difference makes the kind of difference it should.

I can't help but think that if John Oliver weren't on hiatus, he would have scrapped some or all of a show recorded yesterday and done something for tonight.

Some of what I'm feeling is expressed in this video by Devin Stone, the gent responsible for the Legal Eagle videos I occasionally post.  I wouldn't blame you if you've heard too much about this today and need to direct your brain to other topics out of fatigue and/or frustration.  But if you bring yourself to watch this, watch this…