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Fiction and Excerpts [2]

Colorful Heroes: The Origins of Marvel’s Iron Fist and Luke Cage

George Khoury

Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:00am

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Non-Fiction || Remember the days when every comic book captured your imagination, and took you to new and exciting places? When you didn’t apologize for loving the comic books and creators that gave you bliss? Comic Book Fever captures that era, when comics offered all different genres to any kid with a pocketful of coins, at local establishments from 7-Elevens to your local drug store.

Comic Book Fever: The Neverending Story of Star Wars

George Khoury

Tue Sep 13, 2016 1:00pm

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Excerpts

Colorful Heroes: The Origins of Marvel’s Iron Fist and Luke Cage

George Khoury

Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:00am 2 comments Favorite This

Remember the days when every comic book captured your imagination, and took you to new and exciting places? When you didn’t apologize for loving the comic books and creators that gave you bliss? In Comic Book Fever, George Khoury (author of The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore and Kimota: The Miracleman Companion) presents a “love letter” to his personal golden age of comics, 1976-1986, covering all the things that made those comics great—the top artists, the coolest stories, and even the best ads!

Inside this full-color book are new articles, interviews, and images about the people, places, characters, titles, moments, and good times that inspired and thrilled us in the Bronze Age: Neal Adams, John Romita, George Pérez, Marv Wolfman, Alan Moore, Denny O’Neil, Jim Starlin, José Luis García-López, The Hernandez Brothers, The Buscema Brothers, Stan Lee, Jack Davis, Jack Kirby, Kevin Eastman, Chris Claremont, Gerry Conway, Frank Miller—and that’s just for starters. It covers the phenoms that delighted Baby Boomers, Generation X, and beyond: Uncanny X-Men, New Teen Titans, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Love and Rockets, Crisis On Infinite Earths, Superman vs. Spider-Man, Archie Comics, Harvey Comics, Kiss, Star Wars, Rom, Hostess Cake ads, Grit(!), and other milestones. So take a trip back in time to re-experience those epic stories, and feel the heat of Comic Book Fever once again! Comic Book Fever is available September 20th from TwoMorrows Publishing.

Below, read an excerpt from the book that delves into the creative history of superheroes like Iron Fist and Luke Cage.

Excerpts

Comic Book Fever: The Neverending Story of Star Wars

George Khoury

Tue Sep 13, 2016 1:00pm Post a comment Favorite This

Below, read an excerpt from the book that covers the summer of 1977, and the launch of a little film called Star Wars…

Miracleman

With One Magic Word: The Miraculous Revival of Marvelman

George Khoury

Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:00pm 1 comment Favorite This

Before the comic book world had The Dark Knight and Watchmen, 1982 gave us a revolutionary, revamped Marvelman in the pages of Warrior #1—a character that a few years later achieved more fame and acclaim under his new name of Miracleman, courtesy of American publisher Eclipse Comics.

Before the rage of ultra-realism, sex, violence and rock ’n’ roll were in all mainstream superhero storytelling, writer Alan Moore and a group of committed artists did it first and better with Miracleman, a forerunner to the dramatic possibilities that an entire industry would attempt to force onto all their heroes. This uprising was the first time that an established superhero character was pushed to its fullest dramatic possibilities, and then some. Here was a costumed heroic comic character ready to give the entire world peace, a true utopia unlike any ever seen in the art form. Subsequently, a young Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham would pick up the torch and continue to beautifully explore the ramifications of said bliss.

Now that it appears Marvel Comics has settled the copyright nightmare that have kept these stories out-of-print for over a decade, a new generation is ready to discover perhaps the greatest superhero novella ever told.

Comics

With One Magic Word, Part Four: Miracleman, The Golden Slumber

George Khoury

Fri Jul 30, 2010 3:47pm 2 comments Favorite This

“There is no real perfection.”—Pete Ham

Neil Gaiman has stated that Alan Moore presented him with the notion of being his Miracleman successor in 1986. Moore recalled, “I think that I just handed it over to Neil. We might have had a few phone conversations, I don’t remember, but I think I knew he would have great ideas, ones that were completely fresh, ones that weren’t like mine. And indeed he did. He did the excellent Andy Warhol [story] (Miracleman #19), for example, which I think he took from a random line from one of my stories about there being a number of Warhols, but he expanded that into that incredible story. I can’t take any credit at all for Neil’s work, apart from having the good taste to choose him as a replacement, really.”

Comics

With One Magic Word, Part Three: Apocalypse Please, The Eclipse Years

George Khoury

Thu Jul 22, 2010 2:30pm 1 comment Favorite This

Prior to the bankruptcy of Pacific Comics in 1984, Quality Communications had just inked a deal with the Californian publisher for a colorized repackaging of “Warrior’s” Marvelman material in the United States. Shortly after, rival Golden State publisher Eclipse Comics negotiated with the Schanes brothers (Pacific’s owners) to save and acquire a great number Pacific titles, including the deal for Marvelman.

Although Eclipse Comics never had the market share and power of the Big Two (DC and Marvel), the company offered its talent room for creator ownership and freedom from censorship. For a progressive superhero like Marvelman, landing within the company started by brothers Dean and Jan Mullaney was seemingly a perfect fit.

With One Magic Word, Part Two: The Miraculous Revival of Marvelman

George Khoury

Thu Jul 15, 2010 5:34pm 2 comments Favorite This

Back in 1981, fate played a major hand in the comeback of a dormant British comic book superhero character named Marvelman. Former Marvel UK editor Dez Skinn was tired of doing all the heavy editorial lifting for others when he decided to branch out and start a new company called Quality Communications. With his rolodex and publishing experience, he took a chance on himself and started Warrior, a comics anthology magazine that somewhat followed the content tempo of Marvel UK’s comic magazine format.

But, more importantly, Quality shared copyright ownership with its young pool of British creators. As Warrior was revving up, Skinn began to entertain the idea that it would be beneficial for the magazine to have a known character featured within. In his eyes, there was no better character than “the only British comic superhero,” rebuilt and modernized for an audience only vaguely familiar with the name from comics lore. The bigger question then became: Who would helm this revival?