The Vulgar Eclectic
Vulgar: of the usual, typical, or ordinary kind
definitions courtesy of Merriam-Webster
Eclectic: composed of elements drawn from various sources
recent blog posts
- Hunger by Knut Hamsun
A book jot from January 2022:
I just finished reading Hunger (1890) by Knut Hamsun, translated by Robert Bly. This novel is narrated by an unnamed protagonist living in the city of Christiania (modern-day Oslo) near the end of the 19th century. He is extremely destitute, often homeless, and his penurious existence combined with a perhaps unusual sense of propriety results in such protracted periods without food that his physical and mental health are severely affected.
The reader is given an intimate tour of the insides of the narrator’s brain. His sanity is often in question, as well as what it is exactly he is struggling so fiercely against. There’s a great deal of deep psychological darkness and physical suffering, as well as occasional moments of beauty and even gentle light-heartedness. As the narrator’s thoughts are traced in intricate detail, the reader gets a sense of his minute-to-minute existence.
When considered with the entirety of the book, the ending seems to hold a key to understanding the narrator’s extreme descent into hunger and isolation.
“My God, I was a long way down.”
- Wulf the Barbarian
In a continuation of my recent sword and sorcery (and specifically barbarian) comic book reading foray, I jumped into the world of Wulf the Barbarian by Atlas Comics. This is the Atlas publisher from the 1970s, usually referred to as Atlas/Seaboard to distinguish it from the much earlier pre-Marvel Atlas of the 1950s.
If Claw the Unconquered seems truncated at 12 issues (or 14, if you count the two photocopied unreleased stories), Wulf was pruned to the quick at only four installments. This was the result of the entire Atlas/Seaboard publication roster abruptly disappearing when the company was dissolved only months after it was created. The Atlas/Seaboard story is an interesting one.
As a reader who gobbled up comics during the 90s boom of independent publishers, it came as a surprise that some of the business stratagems of that era had already been attempted in the mid-seventies at Atlas/Seaboard. Specifically, Atlas/Seaboard attracted some high-level talent by offering very good pay (some of the highest in the industry at the time) and rights to characters authors created. In a similar creator-focused vein, original artwork was returned to the artists. All of this brought many exceptionally talented creators to the new company, including names like Alex Toth, Steve Ditko, Russ Heath, Bernie Wrightson, Wally Wood, Neal Adams, John Severin, Pat Boyette, and others.
Unfortunately, Atlas/Seaboard faced numerous distribution problems as they burst out of the publishing gate, launching 23 titles and an additional five oversized comics magazine titles in a very short span of time. According to some sources, in addition to the distribution issues, some readers reacted negatively to what they perceived as carbon-copies of existing Marvel heroes. All of this culminated in the company dissolving late in 1975. Wulf was one of a handful of titles that made it to four issues. It was an abrupt and complete end to the Atlas/Seaboard universe.
I have only read Wulf from that list of 23 titles. I feel it had real potential. The character, a blonde-maned barbarian “on a nameless world in a forgotten time,” was created by Larry Hama. Hama, of course, would go on to garner acclaim as the writer for years on Marvel’s G.I. Joe title. In Wulf, he did both the writing and penciling for the first two issues. He does an excellent job in both departments and it was disappointing to see him depart after those initial issues.
The first issue introduces the reader to Wulf, a young and optimistic outlander, and his mentor Stavro Dar Kovin, a disabled juggler, as they exist on the margins of society in the city of Azerebajia. It’s not long before we are treated to a flashback origin story, explaining how Wulf, prince of Baernholm, and Stavro, fencing master of the house of Wulfgar, have ended up destitute on the streets of a foreign city.
We are then brought back to the present day, as Wulf’s reality is turned on its head and he is suddenly thrust into an adventure leading ultimately to his destiny (a destiny we as readers are doomed to never reach).
This first issue is excellently told and well-drawn. The pacing and characterization are top-notch and an early example of Hama’s skill as a craftsman of compelling stories and characters. While the comic uses some familiar tropes, both the plot and the characters feel fresh and different. This comic could really have developed into a great narrative had it been allowed to evolve. Keeping Hama on the title would also have helped, but I did find the third and fourth issues enjoyable, if not nearly as masterfully done as the first two. And with the conclusion of issue four, the tale is interrupted and seemingly confined to the ashpits of abandoned comics. Wulf will find good company there in the likes of Claw, Star Hunters, Korg, and so many others.
In these panels from a page in the first issue, the reader is treated to a panoply of locations, begging to be explored, across the world of young Wulf. - Bajazet by Jean Racine
I recently read Bajazet, a tragedy in five acts written by Jean Racine (translated by Robert Bruce Boswell) and first staged in 1672. The setting is the Ottoman Empire in the early 17th century. The characters and plot are inspired by what was, at the time, recent history, which is unusual for Racine’s historical plays. Most are set in classical antiquity, frequently drawn from Greek, Roman, and biblical characters and stories.
The plot revolves around the themes of power, deceit, and love. Not surprisingly, the central dilemmas ensnaring the characters are brought to a conclusion with violence.
“Nay, the last drop would be too dearly purchased,
Were it to be preserved by cowardice.”
- Colors
- Claw the Unconquered
Sword and sorcery is a genre that I find often appealing and only sometimes satisfying. Perhaps it is the propensity for a general deficiency in characterization, or the oft over-used tropes and situations. Regardless, it’s a realm of fiction I return to time and again and, despite my previous criticisms, thoroughly enjoy.
Recently I delved into the four color world of sword and sorcery, specifically the comic Claw the Unconquered. I finished reading all of the series, including the original 12 issues from the 70s created by David Michelinie, as well as two “lost” issues (more on that later). There have been some newer iterations of the character and I briefly perused one but, no surprise, I was not interested. I just don’t often get into newer comics. In my opinion, they are lacking the wonderful magic that made me a comic fan in the first place. There are of course exceptions to this, and it is nothing more than a personal opinion (and, really, a topic for a different post…suffice it to say the following concerns only the Claw comics from the 1970s).
Judged solely on the cover of the first issue, Claw appears to be nothing more than a carbon-copy of Conan, albeit donning a red glove. Robert E. Howard’s barbarian was in the midst of a major revival and Marvel’s version of the sullen-eyed thief, reaver, and slayer was inspiring a slew of savage characters created in the hopes of riding the barbarian wave (now I have an image in my mind of Conan astride a longboard, wearing his loincloth instead of bermudas, catching a breaker under a bright Californian sun). Claw was clearly a part of that response and I wondered if there was anything more to the character. There can’t be another Conan and, frankly, I think it’s silly to try to make a generic Cimmerian under another name. Thankfully, I think there is a bit more to Claw that sets him apart.
As a bit of an aside, apparently Michelinie had a different vision for the physical representation of his creation but Ernie Chan (credited as Ernie Chua during his stint on Claw, due to a spelling mistake in his immigration paperwork) was already well-versed in the iconic image of Conan, having inked John Buscema’s Conan over at Marvel beginning in 1973, and he brought a similar style to his penciling of Claw.
Claw is different in a few ways other than just the crimson gauntlet covering his bestial right hand; one of the more notable is the basic structure of the larger storyline. In Conan, like much of the genre, there is a focus on more personal, rather than world-shaking, plots. While this often seems to be the case in single issues of Claw, we find in the series a larger, more epic narrative that slowly develops, all as Claw almost obsessively searches for answers to his own origins. In this larger plot is evidence again of another influence, one mentioned by Michelinie himself: Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone.
In both creations, gods use mortals as instruments in their larger battle of chaos against law, good against evil, and the existence of a multiverse undergirds existence in both worlds. Also, like Elric has Moonglum as an upbeat force of friendship and optimism, so too does Claw have Ghilkyn. Just like in the Elric saga, this companion quickly became one of my favorite parts of the story. I didn’t want to see him depart but, had the series continued, it was clear Ghilkyn was going to return as a major character. Both Elric and Claw’s grimness benefit from the buoyancy of characters like Moonglum and Ghilkyn (much like Ishmael is not the same without Queequeg).
The above paragraph makes me think of one of my favorite titles when I was reading comics in the early 90s…Valiant’s Eternal Warrior. In that series, we had the rather no-nonsense Gilad Anni-Padda, the Eternal Warrior, who is often accompanied by either his boisterous brother, Armstrong, or Geoff the Geomancer, with his child-like innocence being an appreciated counter to Gilad’s somberness.
However, back to Claw…the Conan-esque aspects of the individual stories, particularly Claw’s proclivity for getting himself into jams on account of someone else (and often being betrayed in the process), are well-done and an enjoyable aspect of the stories. So, too, are Claw’s encounters with weird creatures…the gruesome Kann the All-Consuming, the great two-headed slug of K’dasha-Dheen, the annoyingly unpronounceable demon N’Hglthss, the multi-limbed cyclopean monster sent to patrol Varcanum Pass, a gargantuan lobster that guards an ancient oracle, and a shambling, lake-mud formed assassin are only a few of the grotesque and unusual monstrosities Claw discovers as obstacles in his quest.
I have mentioned a couple of obvious inspirations for Claw, and there are others (Moses as a baby in the river, for example, is a clear forerunner of Claw’s origin story). However, at one point in the comic, I had to wonder if Sam Rami had read Claw before making his Evil Dead movies!
I mentioned earlier that I read both the twelve issues published by DC beginning in 1975 and the two “lost” issues. The latter are an artifact resulting from the infamous DC upheaval of 1978. Most comic folks probably know the story of the DC Explosion, during which the company launched a host of new titles in an effort to compete with the growing market dominance of Marvel, and the burst of sudden cancellations, known as the DC Implosion, that followed shortly on its heels.
Claw the Unconquered had already been cancelled once previously, after issue #9 in 1976. There was a protracted hiatus, until Michelinie succeeded in convincing his bosses to continue its publication with #10 in May 1978. A couple more issues followed, and then the DC ship crashed suddenly and with much tumult, leading to numerous layoffs and a cancellation of roughly 40% of its titles. This catastrophe has been attributed to a number of factors, famously the significant blizzards of ‘77 and ‘78 that hindered distribution and, less poetically, general inflation and the rising costs of paper and printing.
Claw was one of the many victims of this convergence of nature and economics, as was another Michelinie title, Star Hunters (a series I love!). Many of the comics that were abruptly cancelled actually had issues pencilled and ready to go. These were collected into two volumes, titled Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, photocopied in the DC offices, and distributed to a few lucky folks. I’ve read that fifty copies were made, although I imagine it is difficult to ascertain the exact number. Thankfully, digital copies are now available to read online and I was able to track down the two issues of Claw that were included in the first collection of the cancelled comics.
In my opinion, it is well worth searching these two issues out, if one appreciates the character and preceding storyline. They are enjoyable in themselves and give an idea of where the plot was likely headed, had the series continued. It’s regrettable this title was cancelled, although the 14 existing issues make for a very good read in themselves. Sometimes a little sword and sorcery can go a long way in scratching the itch for adventure and unknown worlds.
