Books with no pictures in them? What would comic book writers know about those? More than you might think, at least in the last quarter century or so. Sure, there’s always been the occasional comic book writer who broke out of the funny book ghetto and made the move to writing prose (Mickey Spillane, William Woolfolk, Gardner Fox, Alvin Schwartz, to name a few), but for the most part, comic book writers stuck with the medium what brung ‘em. If they did write prose, it was likely to be a novelization or adaptation of some comic book or other media property.
These days, those boundaries have pretty much disappeared. Successful novelists such as Greg Rucka, Brad Meltzer and Jodi Picoult routinely make the switch between prose and comics. And comic book writers such as Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis are doing work that gets them shelved in the literature section instead of graphic novels or science fiction. With the advent of respectability for the art form (THE NEW YORK TIMES says we’re art, so there!), comic book writers are finally being taken seriously as writers.
Steve Englehart hit comics like a bombshell in 1972 with his runs on THE AVENGERS and DOCTOR STRANGE. Forget Vertigo — Steve’s work was a mind-expanding revelation a dozen years before SWAMP THING or THE SANDMAN. His stories were at the same time human and cosmic, his characters never getting lost in the often epic sweep of his storylines. Englehart wrote THE POINT MAN in 1981. Set in San Francisco, it is the story of Max August, known to his radio audience as Barnaby Wilde, a popular radio DJ on a struggling AM station. Life as Max/Barnaby knows it is about to change when, first, a carved lion is stolen from his apartment and, second, people start trying to kill him.
Englehart weaves a roller-coaster ride of music, magic and madness involving the USSR, the KGB, the FBI, the CIA, ESP, radio station KQBU and all the rest of the letters of the alphabet as Max, possessor himself of heretofore unknown powers, helps thwart a plot to destroy the U.S. through sorcery in a Cold War Magic Gap. The writing is solid and compelling, evidencing all the skill of a craftsman who has spent the last decade learning how to build an episodic story in the “To Be Continued” environs of comic books, yet never giving in to cartoony excess. Sometimes, when comic book writers write prose, we miss the luxury of the pictures to help carry our story along. In THE POINT MAN, Englehart never lets the absence of pictures slow his story. It’s a shame he hasn’t written more prose since.
John Byrne was another creator to take comics by storm. After an apprenticeship at the now-defunct Charlton Comics in 1975, he began to make his mark at Marvel, eventually taking over as artist on X-MEN in 1977. Byrne, who considers himself a writer first, began scripting his stories in earnest in 1981 when he took over THE FANTASTIC FOUR. He has since written and or drawn (or both) every iconic character in comics, from Superman to STAR TREK. In 1988, he tried his hands at a novel. The result was FEAR BOOK.
While Byrne has frequency displayed his proficiency with the horror genre in comics (most notably in his early-2000s run on Jack Kirby’s THE DEMON), FEAR BOOK is him playing Big Boy Horror. Sam and Joanne Dennison are new arrivals in the town of Fairharbour, Conn. (a thinly disguised Fairfield, the author’s hometown at the time), when they receive The Catalog in the mail. The horrors it contains and the desires it unleashes in everyone who opens its deep-red cover will make the streets of Fairharbour run red with blood.
“There, on those painfully white pages. The rages. The anger. The hatred. Buried all those years. Buried. The eagerness to kill and maim and destroy.” Suddenly, The Sharper Image doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Byrne followed up his 1988 Horror Writers of American’s Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best First Novel with WHIPPING BOY in 1992 and WONDER WOMAN: GODS AND GODDESSES in 1997.
Another revelatory comics creator who turned to prose was Jim Starlin, who, like Byrne, got his start as an artist before making the leap to write his own material. Known for his own take on the cosmic storyline, Starlin earned well-deserved acclaim for Marvel’s CAPTAIN MARVEL, ADAM WARLOCK and SHANG-CHI, and DC’s COSMIC ODYSSEY. Starlin’s ability to filter a story of Cosmic Significance through his point-of-view character was well-honed by the time he co-wrote — with wife Daina Graziunas — AMONG MADMEN (featuring 50 illustrations and a cover by Starlin).
When the world starts going insane and people turn into savage berserkers for reasons yet unknown (viral? chemical? accident? intentional?), ex-Vietnam vet/NYPD cop Tom Laker took his wife into the hills and found refuge in Shandakan, a small town in the Catskill Mountains where, as chief of police, he helps keep the madness at bay. There are several flaws in this plan, including his wife, Maria, who is part time-crazy and murderous herself. Starlin and Graziunas pull off a solid, post-apocalyptic science-fiction adventure tale, grounded by mostly well-realized characters and Starlin’s familiar macho stylings. And the pictures are darned nice, too! The duo have since published 1992′s LADY EL and 1996′s THINNING THE PREDATORS.
Speaking of familiar territory, I come to Warren Ellis’s 2007 debut novel, CROOKED LITTLE VEIN. Once again, it’s a groundbreaking comics scripter who makes the leap to novels. With his rise to fame at DC/Wildstorm on TRANSMETROPOLITAN, THE AUTHORITY and PLANETARY after a few years toiling in the vineyards of Britain’s 2000 AD and at Marvel, the British writer largely peeled off from mainstream comics to create a host of self-owned titles for Avatar and other smaller comic lines. His work is popular and often controversial. It is often, however, a lot of the same: The Individualist once scorned by the Establishment, now needed by that very same Establishment to clean up their life-as-we-know-it ending messes, mixed with a healthy dose of absurdity and metaphysical doubletalk.
CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, while an entertaining romp, features burnt-out P.I. and shit-magnet Michael McGill, who is hired by the president’s heroin-addicted chief of staff to locate and retrieve the lost Secret Constitution, a backup document crafted by the founding fathers to be used only in the case of emergencies. Which is, of course, now. McGill and his Ellis-esque smart-ass second banana/girlfriend trip off down the Yellow Brick Road of a thin storyline hung with poorly drawn caricatures, crazed sex addicts, unspeakable drug use, improbabilities aplenty and crazed situations that seem forced and trying too hard to mean something. It seems a bit absurd to do an absurdist thriller. But then, maybe that was the point.
Now, if there are any editors or publishers out there want to take a look at my recently completed 1951-era murder mystery, just drop me a line. It’s nothing like what I’ve written in comics …
Next time: Anthologies! —Paul Kupperberg
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I had no idea John Byrne wrote something else besides comics. Especially since he was one of the comic authors who it seemed I read ad nauseam growing up.
I remember reading another JB horror novel titled “Whipping boy” that I liked a lot. Has he written other novels besides these two?
John also wrote a WONDER WOMAN novel titled GODS AND GODDESSES, published (in hardcover & trade paperback) by Prima in 1997. John was writing the comic book series at the time.
Wow, I really disagree with yur review of crooked little vien. While enjoy Ellis’s comic work, I think his talents are very suited to this type of satarical novel
I enjoyed the book, Keith, I just find that Ellis relies on the same bits of shtick from story to story. I was hoping for a novel he might have broken out of his mold and tried something new.
That’s a good point Paul. I approached it from exactly the opposite way–I really didn’t think he could do the same stories without the graphical element, so I ended up being proved wrong. That’s the awesome thing about opinions, though–everybody’s right!
On a side note, I’ve always wished that Howard Chaykin would write a novel.
Oddly enough, when I was an editor in DC Comics’ Licensed Publishing department. I had the very same thought. I kept waiting for the right project to come along for Howard, but most of what we did there was too pedestrian to interest him. Maybe one day I’ll wind up somewhere I can let him writes what he wants. This is the guy who turned me on to Stephen Hunter and Lee Childs so obviously he’s got some pop lit chops.
I read your review of The Point Man by Steve Englehart with great interest. I bought and edited that book for Dell, and am glad you liked it so well. I also thought you might like to know that Steve Englehart has written a sequel to The Point Man, titled The Long Man, which Tor will be publishing next July.
That’s good news. I look forward to reading it. And thanks for buying THE POINT MAN. Back in them days, comic book writers didn’t get no respect so Steve’s book was a ray of hope for everyone who wanted to break out of the comic book ghetto.
Peter, I enjoy these columns of yours. Please keep ‘em coming. I look forward to your review of MINDSHIP by Gerry Conway (I mean Gerald F. Conway).
Loved all three books by Starlin and Graziunas, particularly the last one Thinning the Predators/Predators. Their first novel, however, was serialised in the back of First Comics Dreadstar comic (created by Starlin but written at that time by Peter David) and was called Pawns. Can’t remember a damn thing about it now, but loved it at the time. Shame it’s never been collected into book format.
I haven’t read any of Jim’s books besides AMONG MADMEN. In fact, until I did the research to write the column, I hadn’t known he’d written any others. I’ll hunt down a copy of THINNING THE PREDATORS and give it a go…I’ll also check out the DREADSTAR serialized novel; I’m planning a piece in the near future on prose stories in comic books, so it’ll fit in nicely.
Across the pond, British writers were happily switching between comic-book scripts and novels way back in the 1960s. Names you might not have heard of, but including Jacques Pendower (T.C.H Jacobs), Sydney J. Bounds and Vic J. Hanson, all wrote scripts for several companies — and me when I was editing Micron Publications “pocket libraries” in my late teens/early twenties. I also wrote scripts then myself. It was fast (well mostly) money.
The three writers I’ve mentioned all penned mysteries and westerns.
In Australia, comic book artist Paul Wheelahan (The Panther) turned to writing westerns, too, abandoning the drawing. He is still active as a novelist today for Black Horse Westerns.
I also turn out three westerns a year myself, including the Misfit Lil series. Now there’s a character I reckon would inspire some great art!
Cheers. Keith
You are correct, sir! My apologies for forgetting the overseas markets–and after recently doing a column on British comic novels, including several by comics scripters!!!!–and, of course, one of the British writers (albeit of a comic strip) whose novels DID make it to the U.S.: Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise! Being so wrapped up in the American comics scene, sometimes I just get totally chauvinistic and forget about the rest of the world. Thanks, Keith!
By the way, I checked out your website & was fascinated. I don’t read many Westerns anymore (some Robert Parker now and then, or I’ll pick up one of the series books at random just to see what’s going on), but reading through your site has whet my appetite to read something good…I guess the genre is in the air; I’m writing a kids chapter book with Superman vs. a Western-themed villain, Terra-Man.
Excellent topic, Paul. And thank you for the mention of the Black Horse Extra ezine. I’ll run a “Hoofprint” about this debate next time, which will be mid-November (only a month away!). I’ll illustrate it with a Steve Ditko cover for a ’70s Charlton comic . . . script was by a present-day BHW novelist.