Cool Place to Live

So this week a bus tour group from Ohio and West Virginia stopped in Pawhuska and used our church Family Life Center for dinner, a Native American traditional dress style show and a presentation by top fancy dancer Mike Pahsetopah. Afterwards, while people were waiting to talk with Mike, one of the tour participants asked how we were able to get him to present for the group. I deferred to the tour people, since I hadn’t done anything but unlocked the door.

But it made me reflect, because this man — who was probably about 10 years my senior — was astounded by something I’ve seen more times than I can count, and I’m whiter than flour. Mike was great, and (to my limited knowledge) a very skillful dancer. The thing is how many people I have to compare him too. Heck, I remember when Woolaroc first built their cultural building and the “Arrows Skyward” presentation featured live dancers. We get cross-cultural encounters every day here, and we can explore a dozen nations without leaving the state. Maybe it takes getting old to do it, but I’m sure glad I grew up here.

Get the Title Right, And...?

I'm not sure if I'll see the new Marvel movie, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.  I eventually did catch the most recent Spider-Man movie but other than that, I've taken a pass on a lot of the screen product originating in the Mighty Marvel Bullpen.

I read a synopsis of the movie and it doesn't sound all that interesting. Yes, there were spoilers, but trust me, if it had sounded worth it I would have seen it anyway. Apparently Wanda Maximoff drives a lot of the action and one episode of Wandavision was enough to convince me I liked nothing about where that character was going and how she was being used. Still a maybe, though. If some afternoon there's nothing going on and a showtime happens to coincide with the open schedule, who knows?

But I have to say kudos to whoever dreamed up the title. That's a great big beautiful piece of pulp-era wordage right there. Alliteration, a little high-sounding language, a protagonist's name that sounds mysterious and promises a shrouded journey, phrasing that gives the impression that it's one of a series of adventure, sci-fi or mystery thriller novels...someone did some excellent work there.

Now if the excellent work extends to the script, well, we'll see.

Artiste

One of the things the young Friar appreciated in his comic-book consumption -- which, despite claims from certain authority figures, was not indiscriminate -- was a well-done realist style of art. Yeah, you're reading a story about a guy who was born on another world or one who dresses up like a bat to fight bad guys, but they had to look plausible.

His favorite artists of that time leaned heavily in that direction -- Mike Grell, Jim Aparo, Dick Giordano and, king of them all, Neal Adams. It was only later I realized how important Adams' art was to some of the medium-changing ideas circulating at the time. Denny O'Neil's far more grounded Batman stories would not have worked if they'd been drawn by Dick Sprang. Sprang's cartoony style matched for the sometimes goofy adventures of the 1950's and '60's Dynamic Duo, but the decision to emphasize the "detective" aspect of the hero left little room for giant exploding jack-in-the-boxes.

Adams also help maximize the new trend of characters' facial expressions resembling those of real people. His classic cover to Green Lantern #85, in which the Lantern confronts fellow super-hero Green Arrow with undeniable evidence that Arrow's ward Speedy was using heroin, shows the expected gritted-teeth judgment of GL, the wide-eyed horror of Arrow and the haunted shame of Speedy. Though there are dialog balloons, they really aren't needed to read even deeper into the three and see GL's confrontation with Arrow's self-righteousness, Arrow's own lament that he missed the entire situation and Speedy's self-disgust and loathing at being exposed by men he had grown up respecting.

As I aged I saw how creative the supposed "cartoony" art could be -- Jack Kirby's blunt, forceful action, Steve Ditko's trippy visions and non-standard heroic characters and Darwyn Cooke's clean retro style. But a Neal Adams cover, inked by frequent collaborator Giordano, could always draw my eye (heh), even if the book featured not one single character I would ever read.

Neal Adams laid down his pencil for good on Thursday, at the age of 80. Comic-book-wise, he leaves behind several who draw in the style he pioneered and who built well with the excellent example they were given. Fans of the medium are certainly better for his choice to enter the field.