COMICS SUCK! - Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm & Such #1 (March 1995)

20 YEARS AGO - March 1995

Cover artwork by Tim Truman.

JONAH HEX - RIDERS OF THE WORM & SUCH #1 (Vertigo - DC Comics)
"No Rest for the Wicked and the Good Don't Need Any"
By Joe R. Lansdale (w); Tim Truman (p); Sam Glanzman (i); Sam Parsons (c); Todd Klein (l) & Stuart Moore (e)

Riders of the Worm and Such was a five issue limited series from Vertigo comics, it was the second Joe Lansdale / Tim Truman Jonah Hex mini-series after the award winning Two-Gun Mojo from 1993. That series proved that the team could handle Hex's world and stay true to it, although one could argue that the characterization and setting is a little stiff at times. Riders of the Worm is where the creative team let loose and had fun.

And it IS fun. Lansdale is a rare writer, Riders of the Worm, like many of his stories is equal parts horror and humor. He has discovered a balance that I haven't read any other writer find as successfully. Many can handle one but not the other, some dilute the effect of both with the presence of the other. Stephen King does it quite successfully, as does his son Joe Hill at times. Lansdale turns the horror and humor knobs up to 11 without blowing the speakers. It's a thing to watch, the humor is truly funny and the horrors are truly ghastly.

The story revolves around Hex coming upon a strange ranch with a young sidekick after being attacked by giant half-man, half-worms. The ranch is run by Mr. Graves, an Englishman, inspired by a bar brawl he shared with Oscar Wilde to spread art and culture to the cowboys of Texas. Hex encounters Hildy at the ranch and the two strike a romance of convenience. He also runs into the Autumn brothers, Edgar and Johnny who strike romances of convenience of their own with pigs. There are loads of gross-out moments in these five issues and the Autumn brothers are principally involved in most of them.

And, like most, if not all of Lansdale's writing, there's wit. In issue 3, Mr. Graves refers to the worms as "denizens of the netherworld."

"What's a denizen?" the kid says.

"Kinda like a Yankee," Hildy says.

In this first issue, Hex's newfound travel partner, Rudy is pulled halfway outside the window of their shelter by the titular worms. Hex and the kid manage to pull him back in, but he's been bitten in half and only his legs return.

"One thing's sure," Hex says, "he didn't get caught on a nail." (See image at left)

It's obvious that Lansdale is fascinated by pre-Columbian America. Because it's history is mostly unrecorded and undeveloped, it provides him a sprawling canvas upon which to draw and he always delivers with the goods when drawing on it. It was said this story was based on local folklore, but I'm sure Lansdale colored in some of the background. Of course, when he does bring out his box of crayolas, he uses buckets of blood red.

Many of his most colorful moments, however are reserved for the Autumn brothers. The cross-eyed, pig diddling simpletons were based on Johnny and Edgar Winter and the company was sued for their efforts by the famous duo but won (read all about it at this location).


WHAT ELSE WERE THE KIDS UP TO BACK THEN?

Joe R. Lansdale carried on the Weird Tales pulp tradition throughout the 1980's and 90's, continuing to this day, so it's only right that another underrated weird tale scribe was also represented with a major release in March 1995:



MONSTER MAGNET - DOPES TO INFINITY
Dave Wyndorf, leader of Monster Magnet is arguably the weirdest poet of the post-beat, post-hippie era. His lyrics seem like stream-of-consciousness rambling on first listen, but contain a penetrable internal logic, unlike some of the other well-known lyricists of the 90's. For example, "All Friends and Kingdom Come" is a threatening romantic ultimatum, but the casual listener might not catch that among all the talk of "mushroom boy" and "mushroom clouds in my hands". I think it's time to re-evaluate Wyndorf's lyrics and place him among the great weird authors of the 20th century. He certainly comes out of the pulp tradition, having been weened on a steady diet of fuzz guitars and Jack Kirby Marvel comics.

Aside from the lyrics, 'Dopes to Infinity' contained some of the best music of the decade, smack dab in the middle of it. The album did quite well overseas but was virtually ignored on their home soil. It's been the story of the band's career. The problem wasn't one of quality, but how to qualify the band. They're too heavy to be a rock band, but not heavy enough to be a metal band. Who would buy these wonderful evils? The answer: Europeans!

To this day Wyndorf prefers the European audience and it's hard to blame him. He talks about it endlessly in interviews, but this recent quote takes the cake: "do you want to live your life playing in some shitty bar where some guy with a bald head and ponytail is looking at you going Do Freebird!! Or do you want to go play in front of 26-year-old girls with big tits in Finland? That’s where you

want to go. And that’s where I go!" (read the full interview at this location)

'Dopes To Infinity' is one of my favorite albums of all-time. It along with Alice in Chains's 'Music Bank' box set and the first six Black Sabbath albums have been mainstays in my listening rotation since high school. It's not necessarily diverse, it's not necessarily an "important" record historically, it's just good ... real good. Every song is exciting in its own way but I think what ultimately won my heart in those early days was the instrumental "Ego the Living Planet", named after one of the most fascinating characters to spring from the mind of Kirby and one of my personal favorites. The way to my heart isn't through food it's through early Marvel references.

Dave Wyndorf knows the way.

Well, now you've sampled Wyndorf and Lansdale, but have you read Sutter Cane?

Far as I'm concerned In the Mouth of Madness is director John Carpenter's last classic film and in some ways is his masterpiece. Combining the on-page and off-page lore of writers H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King into a single character, Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), Carpenter and screenwriter Michael De Luca had free reign here to explore every avenue of horror. The story is about fictional worlds bleeding into reality through the diabolical work of Cane. His books are turning people into maniacal killers, Sam Neil plays an insurance investigator sent on behalf of a publishing house (Arcane House run by Charlton Heston) to find him. Along the way he falls deeply into the mouth of madness.

In many ways the film is a love letter to two of the most popular masters of literary horror of the 20th century, but mostly it's a gallery of wonderful images. It's like an exhibition of deleted scenes from the minds of the masters put together into a running narrative. Now, that may not sound like the greatest of endorsements, and not every Carpenter fan loves this movie, but I think it's fantastic. But that's also why it may be Carpenter's masterpiece. Many of his most lasting images are in this film, without any one totally dominating. Who can forget the guy on the bike? Or the Cathedral of Transfiguration which doubled as Cane's castle and the mob that guarded it? Or Seinfeld's Nanna, Frances Bay as the murderous and deviant innkeeper? Or Julie Carmen's transformation.

The first time I watched this movie, I hated it. The premise didn't grab me and the look of the picture felt cheap and uninspired. But after I gave it another chance, it was revelatory and plays as the best "Lovecraft adaptation" not directed by Stuart Gordon.

COMICS SUCK! - Azrael #1 (February 1995)

20 YEARS AGO - February 1995

Cover artwork by Barry Kitson

AZRAEL #1 (DC Comics)
"Some Say in Fire ..."
By Dennis O'Neil (w, e); Barry Kitson (p); James Pascoe (i); Demetrias Bassoukos (c) & Ken Bruzenak (l)

It's the series no one demanded and was destined to failure, but somehow eked out a respectable existence. You remember how it all started, it was big news that transcended the comics world. Not two years after killing off Superman, DC Comics had literally crippled the Bruce Wayne. But a little thing like a broken back wouldn't stop the Batman. In Bruce Wayne's absence, a new character, John Paul Valley was drafted to take the mantle of the bat. Before long, JPV Batman established that he had a longer-term solution to crime, namely, killing the bad guys. This all took place in the now legendary Knightfall storyline. I was in Grade 7 at the time and was fully against the whole idea, knowing it was a crass marketing scam and that the company would bring back Bruce Wayne eventually. Even as a 12 year old, I wasn't fooled. But I've since read the entire Knightfall story and I've got to say it's excellent. This is one of the few instances where my 12 year old self was wrong.

If it does nothing else, Knightfall answers the question "why doesn't Batman simply kill his villains since they keep coming back?" I love that the editors addressed this "elephant in the room" head-on and showed that the answer to this question is not only obvious, but essential to one of the most enduring fictional characters of the 20th century.

In the aftermath of the story, John Paul Valley was despised by fans. He needed to be, he was designed that way. Ultimately, he was a patsy.

It wasn't long however, before the editors of the Batman family of books realized they had an intriguing character on their hands and gave him a title of his own. Though murderous, he had a disturbing innocent quality and was at heart, a demon-haunted "good guy" fighting the good fight, albeit in a misguided way.

Because DC tapped Dennis O'Neil, one of the greatest writers in the history of the medium, to pen the character's solo tales, the book slowly, grudgingly found a minority audience and survived for a surprising 100 issues. By this time, JPV was once again going by his original name of Azrael, after losing the mantle of the bat in combat with a recovered Bruce Wayne. Azrael was an agent of the Order of St. Dumas, a shadowy organization with ties to both Catholicism and the occult. JPV had been raised as a regular kid in America but had been the victim of psychic driving to implant in his mind the combat techniques that would make him nearly the equal of Batman. The process had also driven him mad.

The first issue re-established O'Neil's methodology of continuous 5-issue story arcs that he had introduced six years earlier on Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. The story begins with JPV as a drifter fantasizing that he is still a costumed vigilante. When he protects a newfound friend from a random attack, he mentally dons the red and gold garb of Azrael and refrains from killing the assailants. But he can no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality and when the thugs return to set fire to the homeless shelter he is staying at, he convinces himself to ignore the flames, thinking them another hallucination.

By issue 5, the final chapter in the opening "Fallen Angel" storyline, he is slowly learning to adjust, motivated by protective feelings towards another newfound ally, Sister Lilhy who he helps escape the manipulative clutches of the Order of St. Dumas. Although incredibly emotionally immature, Azrael must help look after Lilhy, who is even worse off than he is. Neither are equipped to deal with society.

With issue 47, in an attempt to boost sales and tie Azrael more closely to the larger Batman universe, the series was re-titled Azrael - Agent of the Bat. It's a testament to the strength of O'Neil's writing that this hated character even found an audience to begin with. He wrote all 100 regular issues of the title and the issue #1,000,000 special.

WHAT ELSE WERE THE KIDS UP TO BACK THEN?
After taking a chance on a new title for a hated character, the surly youth of 1995 undoubtedly marched into their local CD shop to sample the weird and riffy sounds from a new and angry band:



ELECTRIC WIZARD - Self-Titled

I wasn't around for this. I wish I had been, this album would have blown my little mind sky high-ee-igh and six feet under. Though Electric Wizard's debut can tend to sound slight and polite when compared to later albums 'Dopethrone' and 'Come My Fanatics', in February 1995 this must have been the heaviest thing those lucky few who found it had ever heard.

The trademark riff-laden sound of the band was already firmly in place, but the production is cleaner than what fans may have later come to expect. This is written in the perspective of one who found them much later, of course. But that cleanliness focuses the spotlight on Jus Oborne and co.'s Black Sabbath worship. A song like "Behemoth" makes that crystal clear. Few have managed to play in Tony Iommi's sandbox and come out as filthy.

The highlights don't end there of course. "Stone Magnet", "Mourning Prayer" and my personal favorite "Devil's Bride" (see video above) also showcase Oborne's Hammer Films, and exploitation cinema sensibilities. Later on, the use of film clips would become a staple of the band's atmosphere. They are absent here.

And while they are inarguably one of the bigger names in Doom Metal, and helped to define the style, they are a divisive band. Some of those who don't like the band today, stay loyal to the early records, including this one. But that's what happens when a true visionary artist does what he wants, those who can't keep up get left behind. It wasn't long before Electric Wizard outgrew this album, but for early '95, this is world-melting stuff.

Right. So after fixing their undercuts, inhaling an obscene amount of intoxicants, sampling the latest title from DC Comics and getting ear raped by the first coming of the next generation of heavy, the surly youth of the mid-90's headed to the theater in the local shopping mall to check out the new HBO's Tales from the Crypt movie, Demon Knight. Psh, obviously.

"Come on out everybody, time to play!"

Much like the comic book the show was inspired by, years of gory storytelling were hollowing out the soul of the series. When Demon Knight came out the show was on the verge of being cancelled and the plan moving forward was for the producers to concentrate on a (hopefully) never-ending series of full-length movies of originally stories in the EC Comics spirit, rather than the 20 minute television episodes based on the actual EC Comics stories. Demon Knight was the first of these.

The film was directed by Ernest Dickerson and starred Billy Zane, Jada Pinkett, William Sadler, Brenda Bakke, CCH Pounder, Dick Miller and Thomas Haden Church. It was successful enough to spawn a second film, Bordello of Blood but that spelled the end of things for the Tales from the Crypt crew. But Demon Knight was successful enough with 13-year old me. It was my favorite horror movie of that year and gave everything a little Grade 8 turd like me could handle: demons, possession, tits, explosions, ultraviolence, Jesus blood and some memorably gory deaths.

Those deaths in particular stand out. Some of them were tongue-in-the-heart outrageous, blood spraying like a-teamster-with-his-thumb-on-the-end-of-a-garden-hose gory. This was at the very peak of practical effects. CGI was in its infancy and no one outside of James Cameron could find the budget for it, while practical effects had reached all new levels of sophistication. Which was all too the good. I remember times in particular about sneaking cigarettes, reading Fangoria magazine, my Tales from the Crypt reprints while watching Demon Knight on VHS and just marveling at the magic of special effects wizards like Tom Savini, while thinking of my own possibilities, drawing melting men and skulls, skulls everywhere.

The script was originally written in 1987 and intended to be director Tom Holland's follow-up to Child's Play. After a marathon round through production hell it eventually landed on the desk of producer Joel Silver where it was intended to be the second of a trilogy of Tales from the Crypt spin-off films. Cooler heads decided Demon Knight was the better of the three and so it was put into production ahead of schedule and Grade 8 history was made.

And though Electric Wizard's debut had just been released I wasn't hip enough to catch on to it, but the Demon Knight soundtrack was more than adequate at the time. The standout song from the film was from a brand new band called Filter. As I recall, this was the first anybody had ever heard of the band and how they get their first single into a major motion picture was any teenager's guess at the time. It turns out Richard Patrick is the brother of Robert Patrick who you might remember from Terminator 2 and I'm sure that had more than a little to do with it. The song was "Hey Man Nice Shot" and at the time I loved it. Filter had spun off from Nine Inch Nails and had a bit of that heavy industrial sound to them but with a little more rock n roll to it. On later albums they shit the bed creatively which it turns out is just the thing to propel a band into new heights of popularity. Ahem.

The rest of the soundtrack were no slouches either. "Cemetery Gates" by Pantera, and good tracks from Sepultura, Ministry, Machine Head, Rollins Band and that weird band I'd seen on Much Music with the guy with the weird hair, The Melvins. Yeah, that soundtrack was pretty bad ass for its time, although it did thin out in places as various artists soundtracks often do.

Take my word on it, this film loses its power to thrill on subsequent viddies but 20 years ago, I couldn't get enough of it.