Ever since the halcyon days of the obese Hogg sisters (Ima and Ura), popular culture has had an affinity for good names. I’ve never been fond of the mononyms (Madonna, Topol), but admit that a word can certainly paint a picture. For that matter, we should never underestimate the power of a well-placed adjective (Andre the Giant, Frankie the Educator). Yet, a certain je ne sais quois can only come from a name that combines onomatopoeia with a word combination that feels as though it ought to mean something- ergo: Batton Lash. And yet, you ask, who is this Batton Lash?

For almost three decades, Lash has been creating cartoons about inadequate monsters and the lawyers who defend them. His strip, Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre, began in The Brooklyn Paper in 1979. The attorneys in your family may well remember the adventures of Alanna Wolf and Jeff Byrd from the pages of The National Law Journal (1983-97). In the early nineties, Wolff and Byrd began appearing in their own comic book, Supernatural Law, on a sporadic semi-annual basis.

Lash writes and draws his tales of vampires and other foul creatures under legal duress. Then an attorney friend checks the stories to ensure that validity which adds enough legalese to satisfy the most ardent fan of Scott Turow. The glee that Lash brings to his twisted little world puts the spark in his stories while his artwork follows that fine line required of magic realism.

Lash also contributes to the output of Bongo Comics, home of the Simpsons posse. Lastly, one of the more bizarre footnotes on any resume has to belong to Lash for writing Archie Meets The Punisher in 1994, provoking the dire déjà vu of Jimi Hendrix opening for The Monkees.

March, 2006

“Co-created by” is such an awkward phrase. It accurately describes that middle school science project on which your parents “absolutely, positively did not” provide any assistance. It correctly describes Captain America, who was co-created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Both wrote. Both drew. A few years later, the pair co-created the unbelievable genre of romance comics. Simon and Kirby went their separate ways in the early fifties. Kirby continued producing freelance art, ultimately hooking up with Marvel Comics.

In 1961, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee co-created the Fantastic Four. Having worked together for two years, the pair had developed a very pragmatic approach to producing comics. Lee would give cursory instructions about the next issue (something like “giant bug stomps LA”) and Kirby would go home and develop a story, illustrate it, and annotate the panels. After receiving the finished pages, Lee would add the dialog. The pair used this methodology throughout the genesis of the Marvel universe, institutionalizing it as the Marvel Method. Kirby was the artist/storyteller on the first appearances of the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, the X-Men, and a host of others. Within a few years, the corporate cronies realized that Kirby had never signed over his rights to all those characters. Almost 20 years later, Kirby agreed that Marvel owned all rights to the characters forever and Marvel returned his artwork, which they had been holding hostage. A phenomenal worker, Kirby had regularly produced 15 pages of comic art per week. During the decades of legal posturing, Marvel had destroyed or lost all but 1900 pages.

Recently re-released, Essential Fantastic Four, Volumes 1-3 includes the first five years of Kirby’s work on the title. Volume three contains “This Man, This Monster” from Fantastic Four #51, which some have called the single best comic book ever published. For those people of a more obsessive stripe, issue 43 of the Jack Kirby Collector (Twomorrows Publishing) is scheduled to hit comic shops on July 20.

June, 2005

Be afraid! Be very, very afraid! Ghastlies, ghosts, and ghouls are the order of the season. All right, maybe not. Let’s face it, scaring people isn’t so easy anymore. If nothing else, we’ve become acclimated to fear. Natural disasters abound and horrific stories grace our television screens all day long. Alternatively, scary stories have been told since someone first wanted a little nookie by the fire. Halloween demands something a bit different.

You should know this: I have a stuffed baby alligator. Currently, it’s perched on a wall. The poor, dead beast passed down in my family from brother to brother like a bad reputation in middle school. A long time ago, when I was still green, in the Berkshires, when everything was brown, I ran a weird old mansion at the end of a weird old street. I was cook, janitor, and houseboy. One October night I was called upon to provide some entertainment for some young’uns out by the campfire. I hid the gator carcass under my jacket. I spun some yarn, mixing equal parts urban myth and ancient spectre. I don’t remember the details of the tale rightly, but the conclusion allowed me to whip out my mummified reptile and wave it spookily at the audience. I seem to recall that one of the youths puked.

There’s nothing like a good scary story. And you don’t need to make it up yourself. People who scare people, it turns out, like to do so in print as well as around the campfire. Poe and King, Straub and Koontz are reasonably accessible, but let’s surprise the kids this year. Independent houses are publishing some of the best spooky stories in small runs (usually less than 1000 books- sometimes much less). This often makes the books expensive, but they also come with all sorts of frightening bonuses, like slipcases, author signatures, artist sketches, and vials of blood…. Horror authors are a different breed.

Ash-Tree Press started in 1994 in Wales with 150 copies of a quintet of frightening stories. Three years later, the operation moved to Canada. Hundreds of macabre stories later, the press is going strong, with paperback and hardback editions. Ash-Tree took its name from a tale by the man who dragged the ghost story away from the campfire and into the modern era, M.R. James. An English don who developed a reputation for telling spooky tales, James gave in to the clamor and published his first collection a century ago. These eerie narratives remain the standard against which all ghost stories must be measured. Classic ghost story collections often have one or two.

Almost 15 years ago, the owner of a Cleveland bookshop offered me free copies of Cemetary Dance Magazine and Zippy Comics. Apparently they had been shipped to him as a promotion in the hope that he could inspire some interest among his clientele. No one else was interested. I took both, acting pleased, but I was a little put off by the Cemetary Dance cover. For weeks, the scary little magazine sat on the table, mocking my fear. When I cracked the cover, I was addicted. Then, they started publishing books. Over the years, all the big names have cropped up in Cemetary Dance Publications, because they do fancy books with all the geegaws: limited editions; slip-cased; signed; black gold; in Beverly Hills. Children’s stories to splatterpunk have all been treated with the care usually reserved for Easton Press pablum.

Arkham House is the granddaddy of the creepy small press. Started in 1939, Arkham had the primary intent of keeping the freaked-out oeuvre of H.P. Lovecraft in print. The wonderful story, Pickman’s Model, alone, was worth the effort. Near the end of World War II, Arkham expanded its mandate to include books about Lovecraft, or his characters… or his friends… or the publisher’s friends. In recent years, the mandate faded away and science fiction books tended to dominate the Arkham catalog, but the world would have a few less cold shivers and willies without their efforts.

October, 2005