The Sensational She-Hulk 50

Here is a Christmas present for you all, my completed recreation of the Sensational She-Hulk 50 as written and drawn by John Byrne with guest writer / artists:- Dave Gibbons, Frank Miller, Richard and Wendy Pini, Walt Simonson, Howard Mackie, Adam Hughes, Terry Austin and Howard Chaykin!

I hope you enjoy it!

She-Hulk will return in 2015...

NEXT WEEK :-

31st December 2014,  A retrospective of 2014

1st January 2015, Spidey Team-Up Issue 1

She-‘oo me old china?

Having established last week that the first would be replacement artist for She-hulk would be British is a start...

But even this does not begin to encapsulate the page that follows as written and drawn by Dave Gibbons- Yes the same Dave Gibbons best known as the artist of ‘Watchmen’… (and as featured on this blog before)

There are multitude of references in the art, this is just a few :-

The coat the punk rocker is wearing is the same as Rorschach’s there is the obvious inclusion of a Smiley badge, the shorts also appear to be pin striped just like Rorschach’s trousers. But we have the much more traditional union jack T-shirt and mohawk haircut to offset this

The police-man is a complete miss mash of apparel - wearing a english police helmet, a sheep-skin jacket (as if he is from ‘up north’), a black shirt with FBI written on it, a standard english police truncheon and a badge on his belt very reminiscent of Judge Dredd from 2000AD (a comic that Gibbons worked on extensively), he is also referred to as "Yer Honour" suggesting he could be in fact a Judge...

There are also a number of british items in the street, such as an old red telephone box, a London double decker bus together with the marvel cliche generic buildings with american names just put on them such as new york town hall etc

On top of all of this is the dialogue which is laden with he most over the top mock cockney you could possibly imagine - Its much more like what a Hollywood producers idea of what cockney might sound like… And yes I am thinking of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins right now…

The page concludes with the appearance of what is most likely to be the former UK British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Overall one must guess that Mr Gibbons must have heard too many times an rather limited view of response from any would be american comic publisher to which he had submitted his work as a reason for rejection

And this page is a summary of all those negative responses all combined together in one single page?

Renee’s response on the next page seems to suggest this also with a direct statement of failure to capture the American idioms…

Moving on - we again play guess the next artist - Renee says it’s “One of the top talents” - She-Hulk Mentions “Grim and Gritty” and “this Dark Stuff”…

Who could it be?

NEXT WEEK:- She-hulk wonders if her run-on sentence is ever going to end!

WHAT MEN

This week I present for the first time the complete “what men” in one “easy to read” blog posting…

Disclaimer / A Cautionary warning
This is possibly the most perplexing, confusing and contradictory, not to mention experimental project I have ever undertaken

It can also said to be controversial or possibly have controversy pushed into it, as it can arguably be said to be a rage against the dying of the light regarding the comics industry

It can also be said to be the equivalent of being blindfolded, spun around until you are dizzy and then dropped into a maze of mirrors with no actual escape

It might be described as a slight of hand magic trick as its all done with smoke (the dialogue) and mirrors (the art)

Of course it is instantly recognisable while at the same time being something completely different, it is a infinitely nested boxes of contradictions which once they have cancelled each other out leave you with… nothing?

It is supposed to be humorous but one can't decide it is "funny ha - ha" or "funny - peculiar"

It is probably best to consider this project as not only just a mistake, but quite possibly the biggest mistake I have ever made and to not read any of what follows at all as it’s frankly awful

Or it may not be awful, I can’t really decide what follows is for you or not, only you can make such a decision, some people may like it, others may hate it, and some people may be determined to flame me until I have burned to a crisp for even attempting this - all these opinions and more are all equally valid

This project was just something that I felt I had to do at the time, and for the record what follows is not literally my opnion but rather an attempt to summarise all the various opinions that was going around at the time with regards to creators rights issues, using the famous and biggest selling example of how badly wrong creators rights can get

“What men” is only part of the actual title which is in fact (forgive the sexisim)  “If the measure of a man is in his moral and ethical behaviour then what men run the comics industry”

As to if you should read or or not - “I leave this in your hands”

NEXT WEEK :- APESLAYER!