Welcome back to Shelf Bound, our monthly look at the world of comic binding and getting your comics out of the longboxes and on to the bookshelves! This month’s column is going to be light on actual binding practices, so if you are new to the hobby and want to get up to speed on the HOW of making a book like the one we discuss today, please check out this past column in particular to get up to speed.
A talking point surely on the Shelf Bound drinking game is the one regarding comic binding’s flexibility. As a book’s curator, YOU can decide what goes between the covers; the only limit being what you have on hand. Publisher differences and legal woes mean nothing to the comic binder.
Assembling comic combinations you would never see in bookstores is a large part of binding’s fun. Back in November we spotlighted a Darwyn Cooke bind featuring work from DC, Image, Marvel, and IDW. And given the amount of work Cooke did in his all-too-short career plus the freedom to not be limited to one publisher, we could easily have put together a book with a completely different content list. As the limitations decrease, the permutations increase.
Creators like Cooke are easy subjects to build open-ended binds around, but certainly not the only ones. Inspiration for others can come from anywhere: a song lyric, a bad joke, a notebook doodle, a cloud formation, anywhere. Today we’re going to look at one of my favorite binds from my collection, and how it came from such a small inspiration.
One of the cool extras you can get on your binds is die stamping: having an image stamped onto the cover or spine of your book in the same manner as the lettering (though not necessarily the same color). I go into this topic a little more in the link above, but long story short: for a little extra cost, these images can really add a little zip to your book.
Here’s the first of many sheets of die stamps available for use at the Herring & Robinson bindery:
[image]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/hrdiestampsheet1.jpg[/image]
These stamps were made through H&R by request from binding customers to be used for certain projects, with the understanding that the stamp then be made available for general use as long as the commissioning customer agrees to house the stamp with the binder.
As you can see, stamps come in all different sizes and styles. Some are small icons, others text, and still others are direct recreations of specific logos. (If you end up using one of their stamps for either the Grendel eyes, the round Dark Horse Comics logo, or the Watchmen clock, you’re welcome), It’s fun to peruse these sheets from time to time and use them as springboards for your own binding projects. You see the old school Valiant star logo and think “hmmmm . . . I’ve been meaning to do a Valiant bind . . . “, and so forth.
But today’s book came about because I kept looking at stamp #4:
[image width=300]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/scifirocketstampBW.jpg[/image]
Sleek, distinguished, reminiscent of the Hugo Award statue and just personally evocative of a particular era in pop culture and comics. “Yeah,” I kept telling myself. “That would look REALLY cool on a spine.”
So I made it happen.
ROCKET MENWritten by: Jeff Parker, Joe Casey, Kurt Busiek, Mark Millar. Art by: Doc Shaner, Stuart Immonen, Goran Parlov, Marc Laming, Nick Dragotta, Michel Fiffe, Nathan Fox, Jim Mahfood, Benjamin Marra, Dan McDaid, Tradd Moore, Grant Morrison, Jim Rugg Originally Published by: Dynamite Entertainment | Image Comics Collecting:
- Kings Watch #1-5 (Sept 2013- January 2014)
- Flash Gordon #1-8 (Feb 2014- Nov 2014)
- ShockRockets #1-6 (Apr 2000 – Nov 2000)
- Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers #1-6 (Aug 2014 – Mar 2015)
- Starlight #1-6 (Mar 2014 – Aug 2014)
[image]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2014/01/FlashGordonDeclanShalvey.jpg[/image]
Could I go on and on and on about Flash Gordon in general, and this run by Jeff Parker and Evan “Doc” Shaner in particular? I could, and with Multiversity editor Brian Salvatore, I have.
Suffice it to say that Shaner & Parker do the good work here in the name of not only Flash, but adventure comics in general. Homage to earlier works is made, but every gets a 21st century upgrade that makes problematic choices a thing of the past. This is a Flash Gordon series to be embraced and enjoyed.
I added the Kings Watch mini, even though Flash is not the headliner, because it sets up so much of the conflict in the Flash Gordon series, which picks up RIGHT where it leaves off. Parker and series artist Marc Laming also do a great job with making it a fun read in its own right, so that helps!
[image]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/shockrockets1.jpg[/image]
Shockrockets was another series that came & went under the banner of Image Comics’ Gorilla Comics imprint of the very early Aughts. Imagine a sci-fi hero’s journey version of DC’s Blackhawks and you have an idea of what to expect: super fun adventure that looks like an absolute dream. Immonen was still working through the more hyper-real rendering style of his Superman run and hadn’t hit on the slightly more abstract & kinetic Nextwave or later Marvel style, so this is an interesting snapshot of his style trajectory. I remember a LOT of mech-heavy comics of the day tended to carry with them a huge manga influence, so it was refreshing to see an artist deliver the tech goods AND offer something a little different with the character work.
[image]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2014/05/CapVI.jpg[/image]
Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers was originally a Jack Kirby series from the early 1980’s, published by Pacific Comics, one of the first indie comics companies. By this point in his career, Kirby was so far beyond giving a flippa-dippa about doing anything other than what his inner muse to him to do that he welcomed the opportunity to cut loose again. What looks like standard space opera fare is littered with throwaway ideas other creators could make whole series on.
Enter Joe Casey.
In 2014, Casey and artist Nathan Fox teamed up with Dynamite Entertainment to bring back the series. To give it the necessary fresh spin, they recruited their own galactic art ranger lineup of cartoonists like Michel Fiffe, Jim Rugg, Connor Willamsun, Grant Morrison, and more. Yep, Grant Morrison puts art pen to paper for this one. And as one of the few writers who can translate Kirby Kraziness for today’s readership, Joe Casey was ideal for a project like this.
[image]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2014/02/starlight01-parlov-cover.jpg[/image]
As soon as I had decided to put Flash Gordon in this book, I thought it would be a funny joke to put this Mark Millar series in as well. Essentially The Flash Gordon Returns, Millar and artist Goran Parlov show us what happens when Fla– coughcough Duke McQueen, a USAF pilot abducted to a faraway galaxy he eventually rescues from a tyrannical despot, is called upon to take up the raygun again decades later.
The joke might end up on me, however, as Starlight is probably one of my favorite Millar stories ever. He shows the type of restraint here that made his Superman Adventures stories so wonderful, although “restraint” might not be the right word for a comic that has its hero shooting someone in the crotch with a laser. It might make me frustrated with him for all the times he aimed for a lowest-brow approach, but at least we have the goods here.
And speaking of the goods, Goran Parlov channels Moebius/Metal Hurlant something fierce on these pages, from the architecture to the open linework to the flat color palette. This series is gorgeous with a capital Goran and definitely work seeking out.
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Left On The Launch Pad
Let’s talk about some of the things I didn’t include.
- EC-era comics like Weird Science or later DC comics like Mystery in Space
- Older versions of these comics, like Kirby-era Captain Victory or Al Williamson Flash Gordon.
- Revisionist works like Dare or Twilight for specific characters, or Fear Agent for something broader.
- The Rocketeer
I’ll start this off by saying there’s always room on the shelf for a volume two!
A few of these missed the cut because already have bound in other books, such as The Rocketeer (its own omnibus), Dare (an 80’s sci-fi anthology with Mister X, the “Mechanics” storyline from Love & Rockets, and Dennis Fujitake’s Dalgoda), and Twilight (a DC sci-fi bind with Truman’s Hawkworld and Byrne’s OMAC). Not that I wouldn’t bind something more than once if the book really demanded it, but these didn’t seem to fit that bill for this book.
Earlier runs of these comics honestly didn’t occur to me. Going back for this article, I noticed that my favorite team of Kirby & Mike Royer only did the first two issues of Captain Victory before Royer moved on. Williamson did a two-issue Flash Gordon mini with Mark Schultz for Marvel that could also have been included. If space was an issue (no pun intended), I probably would have dropped odd-man-out Shockrockets for their inclusion.
There are tons of random EC comics (or more budget-consciously speaking, Gemstone reprints of EC comics) I could have thrown in for flavor. Specifically for Fear Agent, I would have gone for either the one-off issue #16 or the “Tales of the Fear Agent” trade, as they are more standalone reads.
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Showing My Work
Here’s the final result, as well as the binding slip I used:
[image]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/rocketmenbook.jpg[/image]
[image]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/rocketmenbindslip.jpg[/image]
Quick binding note: Color mockups aren’t required on your binding slips; if you are asking for multiple colors in stamping, as long as you are clear which text is which color, simple arrows should be fine. The same for spine text – if you feel the text as written in the spine slot might be confusing to read, go ahead and write it more clearly elsewhere on the sheet. Your binder will thank you!
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That’s All, Folks!
That’s it for this month’s column! Shelf Bound comes out the third Tuesday of every month, meaning the next column will go up on April 21st.
I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen so far. While I have ideas for future binds and binding-related content, I really want to hear from you! Let me know what you thought of this bind! What did I get right? What did I get wrong? Give me some ideas about comics you think are shelf-worthy!
Shoot me an email about any of the above or more at greg@multiversitycomics.com or follow me on Twitter at @gregmatiasevich and let’s have some fun!