The Story of "The BIRD" and Me -- Chapter One

The format and subject of an upcoming post on my David'Z RantZ blog is going to make you think you're actually reading an entry meant for this blog. Appropriately, this post, the post you're about to read here, may make you wonder if you've stumbled onto David'Z RantZ instead!

Sorry about any and all confusion. You should see what it looks like from my side of things lately!

Anyway... My last post here was entitled OHO! (prequel to "The Reunion of the Super Pets") and this post was supposed to be Part One-and-Only of "The Reunion of the Super Pets." However, I am waiting for a "snail mail" letter from Bruce Meservey, the artist of that extremely unofficial DC Comics "Crisis" crossover. The letter will hopefully contain a few details about the artist's involvement in the "Reunion" which I can weave into my story!

To tide you over until I do get that letter and can integrate it into what I've already written, I plan to tell the tale of what came before and after the one and only issue of a title called The Bird: Pan-Dimensional Victim of Circumstance, which I co-created in the 1980s with my former writing partner, artist "Skip" Simpson.

This first self-indulgent chapter* will dwell heavily on much of the childish silliness & goofiness spawned by the developing creative mind I possessed as a little spud.

* * * * *

The Early Bird... sort of

One of my earliest creations -- coming after Lobster Man and about the same time as the Gremlin (whom I've not yet told you about) -- was Red Raven. When I was between the ages of seven to nine years old, pretty much, I liberally stole borrowed a lot of concepts from the comics I enjoyed reading, re-worked them, and "created" my own characters. I can justify that behavior today by saying that I was too young to know any better, and that it's not like I was actually trying to get money from them by pawning them off on anyone as my own.

If you're more than a little familiar with Silver Age comic books, you'll know the name Red Raven. You're no doubt thinking, "Okay, he obviously swiped the name from a Golden Age Marvel Comics (Timely, actually) character which Marvel had dusted off a couple of times in the late sixties."

The one and only Golden Age appearance of Marvel's Red Raven.

But you'd be wrong. "My" Red Raven character pre-dated Marvel's revival of their old 1940s one-shot hero from Red Raven #1. (And until he re-appeared, I didn't even know there was one in the '40s!)

In fact, there was another Marvel appearance of a Red Raven character, one that came before the X-Men and Sub-Mariner issues pictured above. He was a Western character, a villain in an issue of Rawhide Kid. Maybe you know about that story, and so you think I got my Red Raven from that little tale, instead.

But you'd be wrong again. Sorry. In fact, I never even saw an issue of Rawhide Kid until issue #44 or #45...

Nope. I wasn't even reading Marvels yet. I was too young to know one comic publisher from another, and at this point -- middle to late 1963 -- I'd only read one or two comics later identified as Marvels (Fantastic Four Annual #1 -- which my sister had bought -- and Tales to Astonish #49**. And I'd heard about a new character named Spider-Man, but didn't get to see an issue until #10.) The name of my Red Raven came from a DC Comic, of all things!


"The Batman Nobody Remembered" was a story in World's Finest #136. In it, Batman, Superman, and Robin fought a villain called Red Raven. I liked the name. I stole it. End of story.

* * * * *

The Cranston Comics Group (because "The Incredibly Dumb Comics Group" didn't sound as good)

Actually, it was only the beginning of the story. I had the name for my character, but now he needed a costume, an origin, a secret identity, some villains, and maybe even some kind of supporting cast. Most of the material I came up with could charitably be described as "derivative."

For example: Red Raven's origin totally ripped off Superman's, right down to the home planet named Krypton! Only instead of being found and adopted by a couple named Kent, he found a home with a single woman he ended up calling -- *ahem* -- Aunt May.

He had all of the same powers as Superman, too. Flight, invulnerability, super-strength, super-vision, super-hearing, super-speed, super-breath... He even had the same weakness, Kryptonite. The biggest difference was that much later, when I'd discovered the X-Men, Red Raven developed a power beam like my favorite X-Man, Cyclops, had.

R.R.'s uniform was really simple. Hell, even Lobster Man's had been more creative! Red Raven had a red hood (kinda like a ski-mask, but with smaller holes for the eyes and mouth). A red shirt. Red pants. Red gloves. Red boots. No chest insignia. And finally, a red cape. Only the cape showed any originality. From a rear view of Red Raven, the cape looked much like an elongated, inverted heart. (We're talking a cartoony, Valentine-type heart, not an anatomically-accurate heart!) I guess that was my way of suggesting wings -- the only concession to the whole birdlike "raven" concept -- as he flew through the sky.

Unlike my former employer, Paul Howley, who had painstakingly drawn each and every issue of his Insect Man title (and its various spin-offs) during his childhood, all I needed for each issue of Red Raven was a drawing of the cover of each numbered issue, and a vague plotline for the issue in question in my own mind.

Red Raven's secret identity was Jonathan Parker, a name which came from Jonathan Kent and Peter Parker, I believe. But he only had that alter ego for four issues. Jonathan Parker was an adolescent, and upon returning from a battle with a foe called -- *ahem* -- Spider-Man, he was changing identities in the back of his school, and was spotted in the act by a school chum who was probably outside cleaning the chalkboard erasers.

The Jonathan Parker I.D. was kaput. By issue #5, Red Raven had found a new secret identity and a brand-new foster family! He was now known as Sylvester Morgan. Nice trick, huh?

Wonder whatever happened to Aunt May?

Most of R.R.'s villains were based on stolen DC characters, and later, Marvel characters as well. There was the Human Top, and a Lizard clone called Lizard-Man. I've forgotten most of them, which could be a blessing in disguise. I do recall one adversary, issue #6's The Nut -- that's "nut" as in "wacky, zany, goofy kinda guy" as opposed to a peanut, a piece of hardware, or whatever unsettling thing you may be thinking -- who had an m.o. similar to that of Mr. Mxyzptlk, but with a strikingly different visual. Then there was #3's Mr. Ugly, who wore a Dr. Doom-like face mask to hide scars received in (again) a Dr. Doom-like lab accident. His death at the end of the tale was oddly similar to the death of Baron Zemo in Avengers #15 for -- *cough* -- some reason.

I wasn't satisfied with having only the Red Raven character, however. As time went on, I developed other titles by what I came to call the Cranston Comics Group, Cranston Comics, or later, CCIG (Cranston Comics International Group). I'd gotten "Cranston" from a factory called Cranston Print Works in Webster, Massachusetts, the town next to my own home town of Oxford. I assumed that "Cranston Print" referred to publishing. It didn't. They printed fabrics. Cloth. Oops.

With those other titles came other heroes and villains. As I aged, the rip-offs were joined by some original ideas, but at first, they were really dumb-ass versions of DC and Marvel heroes with -- usually -- stupid names.

Many of those "dumb-ass heroes and villains" will be discussed in the next chapter.

* * * * *

*Lately, these two blogs of mine are becoming increasingly "self-indulgent," as I call it. I am writing more and more for myself. Maybe that wouldn't be the case if more of my readers -- and my StatCounter tells me I have quite a few more than those three or four who still bother to comment regularly -- would give me an idea of who they are and what they want to see more of, or less of.

**It's interesting -- to me, anyway -- but I might have started reading Marvel Comics somewhat later if it hadn't been for DC!

In 1963, DC published an issue of Batman which featured a villain called Ant Man. Like World's Finest's Red Raven villain, Ant Man was a one-shot character. I wasn't aware of Marvel's Ant-Man, Henry Pym, in Tales to Astonish. A few months later, however, Tales to Astonish #49 cover-featured a story in which "Ant-Man Becomes GIANT MAN!"

Of course I bought it.

Then, when I got it home and started reading it, I found that there was no mention of Batman, and that this "Ant-Man" was not a dark-haired villain, but was, instead, a blonde-haired hero!

And the art was like nothing I'd ever seen before, either.

But I loved it! And if I recall correctly, house ads inside the book mentioned that Spider-Man guy I'd only heard about up until now (except for having read his brief appearance in Fantastic Four Annual #1). That meant that these "Marvel" guys did those Fantastic Four comics, too!

So this was an entirely different publishing company. Cool.

It wasn't until about four months later that I finally got ahold of an issue of Amazing Spider-Man (#10). After that, to paraphrase what I said much earlier in this post, "End of story. Beginning of story."

* * * * *

Next time, a post that'll be as short as I can make it. It'll be a hopefully-brief follow-up to this one, telling about how I "lived" the role of Red Raven -- somewhat -- and it'll also tell about my "revival" of Cranston Comics in the early 1970s.

And I'll keep watching my mailbox for that letter from Bruce Meservey!

The Once and Future AERO, Chapter One!

David M. Lynch's First Rule of Writing: Never throw anything away.

Part One ~~ The 1960s

The very first character -- a superhero --- that I remember creating was "Lobster Man," a rather unimaginative sort who popped into my head when I was about five or six years old. Someday, I'll tell you more about him. But not now.

• The very first story spawned by my young mind was the now-painfully-recalled tale of "The Grandson of Dracula," which made its almost-debut a year or two after Lobster Man's creation. Only a few paragraphs of the story were ever actually written down (by my mom, no less), and only parts of it were plotted, as well. And if you're a glutton for punishment and want to know more about the story, all I can remember at this late date are two plot points:

1. The main character's father -- the Son of Dracula, natch! -- was briefly mentioned at the beginning of the story. He was an American soldier in World War II, who was unceremoniously staked right in his foxhole by another American soldier who'd discovered his true identity. Swear to God.
2. The climactic battle which resulted in the death of Drac's Grandson -- I don't recall ever having given him a real name -- took place atop the uppermost tracks of a freakin' roller coaster. Again, I swear to God.

When I was really young, I would often act out the stories I created in my warped little brain. I seldom took these sessions all the way to the point of dressing as the characters, but if my memory serves me correctly, I did end up dressing as the Grandson of Dracula, wearing a costume comprised of:

1. A Frankenstein mask (Of course it made no sense, but my "costumes" were assembled from whatever I had around the house!).
2. A pajama top designed to look like a gaudy sportcoat (It had wide red, white, and blue horizontal stripes, and IIRC, red lapels.).
3. A wooden ski pole as a "weapon." I don't know why I used a ski pole rather than one of the zillion toy guns I owned. Maybe it was more in keeping with the superheroes, who didn't kill. Captain America had a shield, not a gun. Thor had a hammer, not a gun. And so on.
   
4. Lord knows what else.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say in my typical roundabout fashion is that I don't know who or what I was supposed to be on the day the above photo was taken, but it sure as hell wasn't Lobster Man or The Grandson of Dracula.

It wasn't Red Raven, either. He came very slightly later, when I was about seven. (Yup, that's another tease, for another time. Sorry.)

I went through a lot of phases when I was a little brat kid. I had to, as a sort of coping mechanism for the fact that I didn't have too many neighbors my own age. What I did have was a sister who was six years my elder. She and I didn't play together very much. I remember two games we played a lot, however:

1. "Jocko" was what we called the game where my sister played a young girl who owned a monkey named Jocko. I, of course, was Jocko. Yay.
2. "Chicken Hawk" was what we called it whenever we would ride our horses -- real horses, I should add -- to various imaginary farms, warning all the farmers to lock up their chickens because the dreaded chicken hawks were coming! Swear to God. Damned chicken hawks never even showed up. (Chickenshit was more like it, apparently!) And obviously, since it was our game, they could have shown any time we wanted them to, and I dimly recall at least one time when I suggested to my sister that such a confrontation was necessary for the sake of an exciting storyline... but no. She controlled these stories. No wonder I wanted to be a writer as I grew older, so I could be in control of the story.
   

But I digress.

Something else that I had, which was ten times better than neighbors and a damned sister any day of the week, was 4.7 acres of mostly fields, with some surrounding woods... added to an over-active imagination.

When I wasn't in the house watching television or reading, I was usually outside in the field -- my father often instructed me to "go outside and play with yourself" [sic], which was about as racy as the humor got in my house during the sixties -- and that gave me leave to play on one of the two huge wagons we had on our property.

When I say "wagons," I'm not talking about the "little red wagon" variety. Nope. We had two full-sized wagons. One was similar to the old "covered wagon" you'd see in all the TV and movie Westerns... but without the cover -- or metal "ribbing" -- itself. The other was a "tilt-cart," kind of a forerunner of the dumptruck. Both were ancient, and starting to rot.

Potential death-traps, in other words. The perfect playground accessories.

There was no such thing as a "child-proofed" anything in my day. I guess they figured that if you survived all the scrapes, gashes, broken bones, concussions, and the like which you were bound to encounter while growing up, it was God's way of showing the world that He'd meant for you to make it to adulthood all along!

(Hey, not bad. I just managed to combine "intelligent design" with evolution's "survival of the fittest" angle.)

But hey, I'm still digressin' my ass off here, so what's say we only stay stuck in the '60s long enough to say that, in reference to the above photograph:

1. Somewhere in the back of my childish mind, I must have been pretending that the green monster toy -- The Great Garloo, by Marx -- was a gigantic figure in his and my "reality." Otherwise, I would've been a pretty crummy superhero to attack something smaller than myself... and with a damned ski pole as a weapon, no less.
2. Again, I really have no idea who or what I was supposed to be in the above photo.

Okay, boys'n'girls... Let's jump ahead roughly twenty years. Cuz I can.

Part Two ~~ The 1980s

During the mid-1980s, I was working at a store called That's Entertainment, in Worcester, Massachusetts, which sold comic books, records, sports & non-sports trading cards, role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and the like... and just about anything else one could call a collectible. (Can you say "milk bottles," boys'n'girls? Sure you can.) TE's owner (and Jerry Seinfeld lookalike), Paul Howley, was a shrewd businessman trapped inside the body of a "kid" who refused to completely grow up, at least where it concerned things he didn't have to act like an adult to accomplish.

I certainly hope that doesn't sound like an insult. It's meant as the exact opposite. "What I'm trying to say in this awkward way" (Sorry, old Rod Stewart line!) is that Paul generally didn't take things too seriously, which made him a really fun person to deal with, work for, etc.

(One example: Paul used to take a perverse delight in telling people "I sell funnybooks for a living." My personal view was that he purposely used the term "funnybooks" to good-naturedly thumb his nose at those who took the comic book hobby too much to heart. You know, like the oft-seen geek-made-good characters in movies and TV nowadays, who make constant, all-too-serious references to "graphic literature?" That type of person would positively cringe at a term like "funnybooks.")

In fact, it was the last Day Job -- notice I did not use my usual "Crappy Day Job" designation -- which I actually enjoyed going to "work" at.

During my stint at TE, the so-called "black & white boom" -- spearheaded by the fluke success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- hit the comic book market. All of a sudden, anybody who had -- or whose dad had -- two or three thousand dollars to spare could become a comic book publisher. ("Could," and, in far too many unfortunate cases, did.)

Paul and I were both at the store one day, talking about an old TV show we'd both enjoyed as kids during the 1960s. It was a program called The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

According to Paul's recollection of that day, I was the one who asked aloud why none of the comic companies -- many of which had nostalgic licensed projects in the works -- were doing a revival of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series.

Paul and I suddenly became the 1980s equivalents of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, with their old "Hey, kids! Let's put on a show!" exuberance. (I'll leave it to you to decide which of us was Mickey, and which of us was Judy... !) It was decided that That's Entertainment would secure the rights to publish a Man from U.N.C.L.E. comic.

(I am greatly over-simplifying this story! Lord, am I ever! If you want all the dirty details, you can start here.)

Anyway, the decision was eventually made that the U.N.C.L.E. series would feature stories by various writers and artists. Several submissions were... umm... submitted. There was even a sheet of photocopied sketches -- not original art -- and an accompanying cover letter from comics legend Dick Ayers!

Ayers had been working in comics for almost forty years, and had helped usher in the so-called "Marvel Age of Comics" in the 1960s. Personally, I'd particularly enjoyed his work on two Marvel titles, Ghost Rider (a Western character, not the motorcyclist with the flaming skull that came later) and Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.

The "fanboy" within me asked Paul if I could keep the letter and the drawings, and he said yes. I "filed" the two pages somewhere and more or less forgot about them...

For about six years, anyway...

* * * * *

That's all you get this week, gang. Sorry! Next week, Chapter Two (including "Part Three," in my quest to confuse everyone!), which is all about Dick Ayers, myself, and the creation of AERO!

Thanks for your time.