Friday, April 1, 2022

SPIDEY DUDES

More Spider-Man and Ben Reilly talk, this time taking a deep dive with the fine folks from the Spidey Dude podcast.

11 comments:

  1. Well Dematteis, i hope you are enjoying these last podcast interviews about SPider-Man, before the mere mention of the character has you going into hours long diatribes about the back of the comic letter that transformed you.


    Also, you are a fan of classic movies and radio serials... or so you claim... and work in a medium that got its start in the same era. Have you ever thought about doing a 30s-40s period piece, with or with out superfolk?


    Jack

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    1. The closest I've come is SAVIOR 28, which had some chapters taking place in that era. I've also been nursing an idea that takes place a little later, in the early 1950s, in the TV business. But, yes, I love that 30s-40s era and I'd have a blast setting a story there.

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    2. Personally, when done well, I love period writing. Even a decade in the past can be very interesting.

      There is something about being able to look back in hindsight.

      Again, when done well. Making it too saturated in a tie can be an issue.

      Maybe it is just the history nerd in me.


      But, you also wrote some Captain America that flashed back to Steve and Arnie in the 40s.

      There are actually a lot of Marvel and DC characters I think would flourish if you hept them in the era they were created in.

      However, I think the 30s and 40s hold a unique place in the imaginations of both the mainstream in general, and comic readers in particular.

      There is the apocalyptic nature of both he Depression and WWII, and the way of how they flow so well into each other. WWII had such wide reaching implications, especially for America,and the Greatest Generation so mythologized, it seems almost like an origin story.

      With the 20s considered the first modern decade, so everything seems new. Especially mass media. That every mass media, recorded this era that seems so similar to the worlds you and I BOTH grew up in, yes also so alien.

      Of course, there is also the familial nature. You perhaps in relation to your parents, and me with certainty with my grandparents.

      It all leas to the idea of it feeling like a very special marriage, and creates living history.

      IN comics specifically, it is when it started. There was so much energy in those days, nothing seemed off limits. It was raw energy.

      This creates both a desire to recapture, but also add some substance to an era where it was not always possible to dive deep with characters.




      Now, for something completely different...


      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OyytKqYjkE



      Jack

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  2. Let's be honest, Dematteis. No one talks about the true foresight Roy Thomas and Buscema has with Conan. They say what America was craving from its heroes. They saw the need the fans felt for their heroes. Filling a rising niche they yearned for.

    I speak of course, about the desire for exposed torsos. The 70s bred them, and Thomas saw it coming.

    Luke Cage: Open Shirt

    Shang Chi: rarely wears a shirt

    Man-Thing and Swamp Thin: no shirt between them

    Werewolf by Night: No shirt as the wolf

    Son of Satan: Showing off that sweet mystic ink with no shirt.

    Howard the Duck: covered torso, but NO pants. Hey, it was the 70s, everyone was kind of a freak.

    True, no Ghost Rider, BUT he is a flaming skeleton. There is no skin to show,

    It is even true for older characters.

    Captain America, after Conan plunging neckline enthusiast Falcon becomes his partner.

    Thing gets his own team up book, and he never wore a shirt.


    The shirt loving X-Men get cancelled in 1970, then Beast gets his own book, and joins the Avengers when he goes shirtless. When the X-men are revived Storm is basically in a swimsuit, and colossus and Wolverine are constantly having their shirts completely blown apart.

    Hulk gets his own magazine and a hit TV show, he is johnny shirtless all the time.


    The Defenders original line up, Hulk and Namor, both hate shirts.

    meanwhile, Nighthawk, hellcat, and Devil-SLayer are can;t escape the team books.

    The cat, who Patsy got the costume from had her book fail immediately, and comes back as the more successful Tigra...who barely wears anything.

    What is Batman's most iconic scene in the 70s? sword-fighting, with Ra's, int eh desert, shirtless.

    Kudos to Roy for being the first to see it, but have to ask...why did you readers all want that is bad in the 70s?

    Were you all creeps? A latent hippie thing? Was every comic reader a huge Iggy Pop fan (since his his body rejects shirts).

    Or was it some mystical calling to a more primal life?

    I need to know.

    Well, nit really.

    Point is always know what the fans want, before they even do. Way to go Roy!


    Jack

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  3. I know it's just a typo, but I want to read the adventures of that emaciated monster, SWAMP THIN.

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  4. Well, when you are walking around shirtless all the time… like Alec Holland always was… you have to stay trim.

    After all, who knows what weird compulsion was leading his readers’ habits. Need to cover your bases.

    Jack

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  5. These conversations get stranger and stranger...

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    1. I disagree.

      But I am wondering...

      In that Batman scene I mentioned, he has a hairy chest. In the vast, vast, vast majority of comics before and after in his 80 year run, it is missing.

      How much sleep or work is he not doing while he shaves his torso...and, why?

      What kind of freakshow WAS the 70s?!



      Jack

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    2. One more thought on the matter.

      Red Sonja...also created by Roy Thomas... showed a lot of skin as well. She was so popular that she is still being published, by other publishers to this day.

      I am starting to think this theory you came up with, about readers in the 70s wanting to see skin might have some legs after all.

      Your theory just might be right, Dematteis.


      Jack

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