My Name's Not Peter Parker!

Welcome to part 11 of

In which after The Human Fly finally secures himself onto of a flying jumbo jet in the rain, the passengers inside somehow hear a noise outside and come to the conclusion there must be someone up there, which is lent some credence by Spider mans spider sense in this next recreated page:-

If you was with me last week I shared the third part of "The Rocketman" aka Ky Michaelson's story of his experience building a rocket powered motorbike for the Human Fly , a story which appears in full on his own website http://the-rocketman.com/human-fly.html

Last time, Ky not only discovered that The Human Fly didn't appear to practice his stunts, but also that the people building the ramps didn't appear to know what they was doing - there appears to be only one way this can end, right?

Over to Ky…

"We watched the entertainment, but there was no sign of the Human Fly anywhere. As intermission approached, we were all really apprehensive, and to be honest with you, I truly couldn't believe my eyes when Rick and his entourage entered the arena. I had secretly been hoping he'd maybe gotten up that morning, looked in the mirror and asked himself, "Do I really want to die? Is this really a good idea? Do I really want to break Evel's record this badly?"

That was not to be, though, and as the promoter announced the stunt, and he took center stage in full costume, the crowd went absolutely wild. I stood in awe as he hopped on the motorcycle, waved to the crowd, looked over at me, gave the thumbs up, turned on the safety switch, and slowly opened the throttle.

The rocket bike started up the ramp slowly at first, and then the Human Fly pinned the throttle wide open. The cloud of smoke was a sight to behold in the nearly pitch dark arena. The super-heated steam shot out the back as the bike climbed up the ramp and instead of launching forward into the air, went much higher than it should have, and nearly straight up. 

Because of the wrong angle, it stalled when he let off the throttle, and the rear end dropped, nearly arching the bike completely backwards as it hit the receiving ramp hard, before then crashing down on him."

Will the Human Fly survive and what happened next??! Ky's tale will conclude next week… 

TRAGIC TALE
As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!:-

"In 1985, Mantlo took advantage of a tuition reimbursement program Marvel offered and put himself through law school, writing scripts by day and taking classes by night. In 1987, he passed the New York State Bar and while he still wrote the occasional comic book, as well as starting various novels and screenplays, he considered himself a full-time lawyer. He received a number of offers to work for real estate legal firms but he opted to work for the Legal Aid Society, a private not-for-profit that provides free criminal defense representation.

Mantlo made about $40,000 a year at Legal Aid, which was  considerably less than he was making at Marvel. But that was  almost the point: he became a lawyer mainly because he felt he had done all he could with comics to send messages about social causes. In law, he could help people more directly.

In court, Bill lived up to his reputation as the Boisterous One, earning numerous warnings from the bench for his fiery brand of delivery, especially while cross-examining police officers. As one justice recalled, Mantlo was the nicest person he ever had to hold in contempt of court. Once, Bill was arrested as part of a sweep against a sit-in by a local school union he was representing. He used his phone call not to arrange for bail, but to order pizza for himself and everybody else in the holding cell."

NEXT WEEK: Did The Human Fly Survive?  And more Tragic Tale!

If We Give Up We're Nothing!

Welcome to part 10 of

In which Ted Locke "The Handless Engineer" finds he is far from the only victim as The Human Fly shows Ted his own scars and asks for Ted's help via a stirring speech whilst in the shadow in this next recreated page:-

If you was with me last week I shared the second part of "The Rocketman" aka Ky Michaelson's story of his experience building a rocket powered motorbike for the Human Fly , a story which appears in full on his own website http://the-rocketman.com/human-fly.html

Where Ky found out a large Life Insurance Policy had been issued for the Human Fly (who Ky names as Rick Rojatt), but nonetheless built the ordered rocket powered motorbike - a modified Harley Davidson XL-1000 boasting 6,000 HP!

Let Ky continue…

"I let Rick know the bike was ready, so we delivered it to Montreal. We all met up the day before the big event, delivered all the equipment, and met with the promoters to discuss the plans.

They had hired contractors to put the jump equipment together for us, which I wasn't real happy about, but finally agreed to. We went over the stunt as thoroughly as possible, and much to my amazement, Rick didn't want to do any practice runs at all. He just sat on the bike, admiring it, determined to just wait until the time came. I gave him step-by-step detailed instructions on how to operate the rockets, and he just took it all in, nodding as I went along. I knew he understood what I was saying, but I hardly slept that night because I was always so safety conscious, and typically rehearsed stunts many a time before actually performing them.

I was uneasy with this particular situation."

No practice runs flys completely in the face of both The Human Flys own CBC interview as shown earlier as well as the professional stunt persons typical approach, there would have been plenty of practice, building up to the biggest jump bit by bit…

"Jim Deist, Dar Robinson, and I arrived at the arena bright and early. Much to our surprise, we could clearly see that the blueprints for both the jump and receiving ramps were obviously not adhered to, as there were major flaws in both of them. The jump ramp was much too steep, which would cause the rocket bike to come off it at the wrong angle and stall. I was even more concerned about the receiving ramp, though, as the last ten buses were supposed to be covered by plywood extending to the ramp. What we found instead was a plywood ramp that was about six feet above the buses, with exposed steel cross members. I told the promoters that their contractors, or whoever it was that built these things, obviously didn't follow the blueprints we'd provided, and I was not going to fuel up the rocket bike until major changes were made to the receiving ramp. I won't go into a lot of detail here, but it did turn into a major ordeal by the time we did our last safety inspection, which forced the Showtime to change quite a bit."

The ramp was also completely flawed, so it appears it is not just The Human Fly who may have been unprofessional, but also his arrangers…

Next week The Human Fly attempts the rocket powered jump, how bad will it get?!

TRAGIC TALE

As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!:-

"Where Shooter noticed this most was the ease and frequency with which Mantlo created new characters. Until Shooter got Marvel to implement a policy that gave writers a small percentage of any licensing for characters they created, any new intellectual property belonged to Marvel. While Shooter was working on that incentive, he told his writers to not create any new characters, to ensure they got a piece of whatever they would be worth. There was substantial money to be had once the incentive program was in place—$30,000 checks for the action figure rights on a single character were not unheard of. This is why Shooter had wanted the writers to hold off for a bit.

“Not Bill. Are you kidding? He was making characters like they were going out of style. He was irrepressible. He was a font of ideas. There was no limit to his creativity,” Shooter recalls. “I appreciated it on behalf of Marvel, but I felt bad for Bill that he had created these things that if he had waited a little while, he would have owned a piece of them. You know what his attitude was? ‘I’ll make more.’ I really admired that.”

By the mid-1980s, however, Mantlo’s writing assignments were dwindling. The days of lax deadline management were long gone, and most writers were doing their own fill-ins. Plus, Mantlo had locked horns enough with Shooter and Marvel top brass (including Stan Lee) that new editors were not particularly willing to work with him. Mantlo did not help matters with a failed attempt to unionize his fellow Marvel writers. He spoke his mind with such freedom and bluntness that he earned the nickname “Boisterous” Bill Mantlo, or merely, “The Boisterous One.”

NEXT WEEK: How do you land a rocket powered bike and more Tragic Tale

If I Fail Now The Fly Dies!

Welcome to part 9 of

Where we get the key to Ted Locke's double amputation courtesy of a flash back where in the Vietnam war Ted is planning to blow up a bridge when a innocent mother and child enter into the area - without any hesitation Ted runs into the fray and looses his hands as a consequence in this next recreated page…

If you was with me last week I shared the first part of "The Rocketman" aka Ky Michaelson's story of his experience building a rocket powered motorbike for the Human Fly , a story which appears in full on his own website http://the-rocketman.com/human-fly.html

As well as linking the Human Fly to Rick Rojatt, Last time Ky himself was expressing concern for the stunt going as far to say "it wasn't that there wouldn't be a crash, for I was certain there would be. It was just a matter of how bad it would be…"

With that established we continue with Ky's story:-

"The guy was determined, and since my business at the time was working with stunt people, daredevils, and people with death wishes, I remained intrigued and as optimistic as possible, praying I wouldn't fall witness to the hand of death "swatting" the Human Fly. I became even more concerned when I received a phone call from an insurance broker, Bruce McCaw, who called to thank me as he told me I was responsible for throwing a lot of business his way. When I asked him what he meant by that, he told me he'd just issued a life insurance policy on the Human Fly, and that Lee Taylor had been a client of his, as well. That really got me thinking.

As we prepared for this stunt, it soon became obvious that one of the biggest challenges we faced was the space constraint in the arena; there was no room to accelerate to the speed required, so I came up with a plan. I'd build a rocket-powered motorcycle that would sit right at the bottom of the ramp instead of making the usual fast and furious approach. All the Fly would have to do was get on, wave to the crowd, press the button, say a quick prayer, and hang on for dear life!!

Rick liked the idea, and agreed to try it, so he sent me a brand new 1977 Harley Davidson XL-1000 Sportster, a true black beauty, to build from. I put exactly three miles on it, and then the fun began. I yanked out the engine and built two 1,500-lb. thrust hydrogen peroxide rockets, which I mounted one on top of the other, directly underneath the fuel tank. Other than the two polished stainless steel rocket motors hanging off the back of the bike, I left everything else intact, including the headlight and taillight, to make it look completely stock. By the time I finished, this refined machine boasted 6,000 HP. In other words, if a guy were to take this thing out to the local drag strip, hold the throttle wide open, and hang on hoping the tires didn't fall right off? He'd be capable of going well over 300 mph in the ¼ mile."

The finished bike looked like this:-

Next week we will hear from Ky how The Human Fly felt that practice made perfect…

TRAGIC TALE
As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!:-

"There were other problems, too. Because he was writing so fast, and under tight deadlines, Mantlo was known to rehash stories that had already run in earlier issues, or crib an idea too closely from another source while searching for a storyline to develop. Mantlo was hardly the only Marvel writer to do this, but he was one of the few who caused some problems along the way. In one case, while scripting an issue of the Incredible Hulk, Mantlo borrowed from an Outer Limits episode written by Harlan Ellison. Ellison called Shooter to complain, and settled things for a standard writer’s payment for the issue, an acknowledgement in a later issue’s letters page, and a lifetime subscription to all Marvel comics.

In another case—and one that remains a point of debate within comic book fan circles—Mantlo was accused of plagiarizing an unfinished story treatment written by artist Barry Windsor-Smith, again for the Incredible Hulk. Shooter’s version of the story is that Windsor-Smith had brought to the Marvel office an unfinished treatment for a story explaining the origin of Bruce Banner, the Hulk’s mild-mannered, but easily enraged, alter ego. Shooter wanted to buy the story on the spot, but Windsor-Smith insisted on finishing it first, and he left rough drafts behind. Mantlo, while visiting the Marvel office, found Windsor-Smith’s work, figured it was open for use, and wrote a story off of it. The Incredible Hulk itself was between editors, and the story’s lineage was not noticed until the issue was in print. The story remains one of Mantlo’s most popular, and it was developed as a core element of the script for the 2003 film adaptation of the Hulk. Windsor-Smith never stopped holding a grudge over it.

“He did a tremendous amount of good work for us,” Shooter says, stressing that Mantlo’s good far outweighed his bad. “The nice thing about Bill was that other writers could be picky fanboys, but Bill would do anything. Book about a stuntman? Sure. Book on a toy? Sure. And he gave it a good effort, no matter what it was. He could do any job and he was always polite, always nice. You couldn’t help but like him.”

Next week: Preparation for the Rocket bike stunt and more Tragic Tale!

You've Given Up Before You Even Got Started!

Welcome to part 8 of

Where in the continuing attempt to reproduce Issue 1 of The Human Fly comic, we find Blaze is given both inspiration and motivation by the Human Fly himself...

With Blaze's real injury being one to her confidence and self belief in this fantastic page originally drawn by Lee Elias:-

If you was with me last week, I confirmed that the second real life stunt that can be proven that the Human Fly performed (which also went on to appear in The Human Fly comic) was a Rocket powered motorcycle jump over 26 buses

Quite a bit of this proof comes from the designer and engineer who built the rocket powered bike The Human Fly used "The Rocketman" aka Ky Michaelson on his own website http://the-rocketman.com/human-fly.html

You can read the whole story there all in one go But here is part 1 of Ky's Human Fly story:-

"In 1977, I was contracted to build a rocket-powered motorcycle capable of jumping over 27 buses. The jump was to take place in the Montreal Olympic Stadium, as a half-time show for a concert featuring Gloria Gaynor and a number of other disco stars of the 70's. The daredevil rider was Rick Rojatt, otherwise known as the Human Fly. At the time, Evil Kneivel held the record jump of 13 buses, and Rick wanted to beat it badly. Rick's claim to fame at that point in his career was an astonishing stunt he'd performed over the Mojave Desert where he'd wing-walked on a DC-8 and actually made two low flying passes at 250 mph, a nearly impossible feat, and truly death-defying. The other very unique thing about this off-the-wall daredevil was that he was never seen out of costume, and kept his true identity a secret by wearing a red mask and a white cape, identical to the comic book action hero."

So Ky is the second person to link The Human Fly to Rick Rojatt - there is nothing here to say how Ky knew the Human Fly was Rick or anything similar, but then neither is there anything to say he was not (unlike Jim Shooter in earlier postings about The Human Fly) so at least there is a possibility that The Human Fly and Rick Rojatt was one and the same

"From the moment I met this guy, I was convinced he was an accident looking for a place to happen, especially when he told me he wanted to attempt 36 buses. I managed to convince him otherwise when we discussed the fact that in order to do something that remarkable, he'd have to hit the jump ramp at well over 100 mph, and continue to burn the rocket a couple more seconds after take off. I explained that it was definitely possible, but the fact remained that acceleration of that magnitude in such a small area would launch him head-first through the concrete pillar at the opposite end of the arena. That conversation resulted in his finally accepting the challenge for 27 instead. He'd still have to travel at 80 mph, and it wasn't that there wouldn't be a crash, for I was certain there would be. It was just a matter of how bad it would be by the time he reached our nets and a huge airbag we'd have set up. 
I knew the decrease in speed and thrust would make a huge difference, and I felt we could pull this one off with minimal damage to the bike or to Rick (hopefully)."

If you remember I have already noticed how The Human Fly appeared to pushing the line in-between doing a fantastic stunts and just sheer recklessness, this on the basis of his wing walking stunt having to go through 3 attempts, 2 fails in rain at high speed and with the Human Fly being unconscious at the end of the first 2 attempts - I also noted how there was a specific statement about how carefully planned and designed The stunts the Human Fly was undertaking from The Human Fly himself in his CBC TV Interview

and here we have a professional who clearly is already wondering what is going to go wrong and how badly…

Next week amongst other things we will be treated to the Rocket Bikes rather unique specifications!

TRAGIC TALE
As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!:-

"Rough Drafts

But Bill’s writing was not perfect, and nobody knew that better than Jim Shooter, Marvel’s editor-in-chief and the guy who worked most directly on overseeing Mantlo’s work. Shooter became a comic industry legend in his own right during his nearly 12-year stint with Marvel, from 1975 to 1987. More than any editor before him, Shooter worked to make every Marvel title inhabit the same overall setting, creating a universe of thematically linked titles in which characters and storylines could easily cross over from title to title. Fans often refer to Marvel comics produced under Shooter’s watch simply as the Shooter era. More than a few of them contend that the Shooter era is the high point of all Marvel publishing.

Shooter notes that back when he was first editing comics—and Mantlo was just beginning to write them—publishers paid writers by the page, and it was a pittance, at that. The job was so pathetic, Shooter recalls, that one only did it because they truly loved the medium or they had no other choice. Those who could make a living at it had to be very fast at what they did. And Mantlo was fast. But his work often required a great deal of editing, if not full rewriting.

“I think it amused him that I was staying up all night fixing his stuff and making him look better while he’s staying up all night cranking stuff out and making more money,” Shooter says. He kept a file that consisted of entirely rewritten Mantlo script pages. If a single word of Mantlo’s remained on the page, it did not make the file. At the end of a single year, Shooter recalls, he would have a ream of paper in the file."

Next week: The Motorbike that can fly and more Tragic Tale!

A Total Attack of The Heart!

Welcome to part 7 of

Where the comic strip based adventures of The Human Fly slip into a Flashback for Blaze Kendall who rather shortly after being dismissed for being a woman by her Captain during her first flight as a co-pilot, finds herself in a life or death situation, As the Captain does indeed suffer from "A Total Attack of The Heart" In this next reproduced page:-

Last week I mentioned there was a another stunt that the real-life Human Fly that also appeared within his comic book adventures

This was announced in none other than the letters page ("Fly Papers") of The Human Fly comic, issue 5, January 1978, in which a letter from the real life Human Fly is printed:-

"We here at the (Marvel) Bullpen just received a letter from the (Human) Fly that we're passing along to you pilgrims out there.  The letter says that, on October 7, 1977, the very real HUMAN FLY - riding a rocket-powered motorcycle - will attempt to double a world's record by leaping over 26 parked buses.

This event is scheduled to take place at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada.

That's all we know as of right now, but if anything further comes along, we'll be sure to pass it on to you."

There's several things to note from this letter, the stunt mentioned was not mentioned at all in the CBC TV interview with The Human Fly (as seen in last weeks blog post) so one can only assume that this is the event for which he was having to train to the level of a athlete and did not want to mention.

But of course the main thing is like the wing walk, this stunt is very specific and should be very easy to prove or disprove…

So to start off with here is a photo of The Human Fly "jumping over 26 buses"

And it turns out there is a wealth of information about this stunt from the person who designed and built the rocket powered motorcycle The Human Fly used, so starting next week we will cover the first part of this!

TRAGIC TALE
As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!

"While Mantlo wrote certain titles for long stretches, he never bonded with them so deeply that it prevented him from writing other titles. Even when he was writing monthly scripts for Micronauts and ROM, Mantlo was still doing fill-ins. “You gave him the call, and 72 hours later, you’d have a story. That’s something the editors grew to depend on. It was natural to think of him as a go-to guy,” Claremont says.

But Mantlo’s writing itself was also deeper than most other comic writing, especially for the time. Mantlo used comics as a form of social commentary, especially on topics that became flashpoints during the protest era of the 1960s. A comic series about an injured stuntman became an allegory for disabilities awareness. A space opera comic about a talking raccoon became an allegory for taking proper care of the mentally ill. A story about why the Incredible Hulk is powered by rage became an allegory about child abuse.

A lot of writers, including Claremont, did this sort of thing, but few did it as regularly or as effectively as Mantlo did.

“He was one of the writers who thought that comics should be more than just guys in skin-tight suits hitting each other and saving the world,” Claremont says. “He was asking, ‘What kind of a world are we trying to save? What kind of lessons can we impart to our young and impressionable readership?’ The trick was to find a way to do it so that you’re not preaching, but you’re also telling a cracking good story that will make the reader turn the page and bring the reader back next issue so you can have an ongoing and more lasting effect. Bill did that.”

NEXT WEEK:- Rocket Powered Motorcycles and more Tragic Tale!

We're Heading Into a Storm!!

Welcome to part 6 of

as The Human Fly's comic book story continues at a greater distance from whatever his real life counterpart ever did - as the dialogue in the page below relates that The Human Fly is exposed to rain at 300 MPH…

Though we can't say that was an exaggeration by Bill Mantlo as The Human Fly was seen making the same exaggeration himself in his real life wing walk in the Mojave Desert!

Last Week I started to delve into the mystery of Rick Rojatt to see is he really was The Human Fly. The only conclusion I have managed to come to so far is that possibly Rick Rojatt could be the name of alter ego of the Marvel character The Human Fly but not the real thing, so let's do some more digging

This time here is a 5 minute interview with The Human Fly -"Rick Rojatt" which was filmed by Candian based CBCtv after the Mojave wing walk and makes for interesting viewing

Of course it is kind of hard not to notice that almost everything referred to in this interview did not as far as I can tell actually end up occurring, as well as the reaction from the audience who thought The Human Fly was joking!

That aside what I am going to take away from the interview is the reference to a team of people working on and planning the stunts The Human Fly was doing - we have already seen the Fly worse for wear after Mojave - How much worse will it get?!

Next week I will start to delve into the next stunt The Human Fly performed for real that also featured inside the pages of The Human Fly Comic…!

TRAGIC TALE
As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!

"One such title was the Micronauts, which was based on a line of science-fiction action figures already popular in Japan and introduced to the U.S. market in 1976. Bill himself suggested that Marvel license the toys so he could develop a comic around them. Marvel agreed and began publishing the Micronauts comic in 1979. The toy line had little in the way of backstory, metaplot or character development, but that did not stop Mantlo from building an entire universe around the toys, inventing numerous additional characters and even a fictitious alphabet for the setting. The toy line died in 1980, a casualty of pretty much any science fiction-themed brand that tried to compete with Star Wars merchandising. But by then, it did not matter. The Micronauts was a hit in its own right, popular enough with the fans that it won the 1979 Eagle Award for Favorite New Comic Title. The series continued until 1984, with Mantlo writing all but one of its nearly 60 issues, including spin-offs.

Also in 1979, Mantlo took on ROM the Spaceknight, also a licensed property based off a toy line. The toy was a talking cyborg doll produced by Parker Brothers, but sales were so poor, the toy was cancelled within a year of launch. Again, this failed to faze Mantlo, who had already written a detailed origin, backstory, setting and supporting cast for the title, which remained popular (and more importantly for Marvel, profitable) enough to merit publication for seven years, ending in 1986 after 75 issues.

During this time, Mantlo remained Marvel’s “fill-in king”, ultimately writing for nearly every title Marvel produced at the time. He had long runs on Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and Alpha Flight. At his most prolific, Bill’s work would appear in as many as eight different Marvel titles a month, and his total output exceeded 500 issues.

“Bill was in a class of his own,” recalls Chris Claremont, a colleague and close friend of Mantlo. Claremont’s 17-year writing stint on the Uncanny X-Men and various spin-off titles, from 1975 to 1991, made him one of the most famous writers in modern comic book publishing. Mantlo was different, Claremont says, because he lacked the prima donna ego of most comic book writers. He did not mind sharing story-writing credit on any given issue, often making a point of thanking in the credits anyone who helped him with the script."

NEXT WEEK:- The Human Fly writes a letter to his own comic and more Tragic Tale!

Image Duplicators Forever!

I hope you will forgive my very large indulgence in this blog post, but Thursday was the continuation of part of the unwritten narrative thread which goes through everything I do within “Images Degrading Forever”, So I hope you don’t mind if I share that here, this is where it belongs after all!

As some of you may know, my first published work was actually within the pages of Glamourpuss issue 12. The core point behind the text piece inside was how ridiculous and overblown so–called “serious” art journals can get when praising work

This was taken to its literal ironic extreme when drawings that I had done barely months after first picking up a pen and of terrible quality was featured as the drawings being hailed as the latest breakthrough in art with Dave Sim going as far to describe me as a “genius”…

With the joke or the source of the irony or parody being very clear – over hyped art critique, hyped to the point where the critique has failed to see the point or the intention of the art or the artist at all, to the degree where you can only conclude that its only worth talking about because they say so, a sort of self-perpetuating loop that keep that kind of art critique and that attitude going

Just to clarify my actual involvement in Glamourpuss is merely a question of happenstance and or luck depending on your point of view

The cover of Glamourpuss 12 had a beautiful drawing by Russ heath, arguably ruined by having my name plastered all over it:-

Following this the notion of Images Degrading Forever was delivered to me fait accompli by Matt Seneca and since then I have continually used and translated that expression by misappropriating quite a number of original works and representing them, but hopefully in a educational and ethical manner

Taylor Lilley of Orbital Comics described me as a “iterative curator” and that seems to be the closest actual description for what I am attempting to do, represent works and add something to them by doing so

So when I was invited to make a submission for Image Duplicators, the exhibition that wishes to take back art that Roy Liechtenstein “misappropriated” and to make new art that would focus on making statements regarding misappropriations-  not only was this arguably rather meta for me, but I knew I had to return back a Russ Heath original as a way of apologising to Russ for inadvertently ruining his beautiful art for Glamourpuss 12

It was Chris Thompson who invited me and made this possible...

So this is my submission which you can go and see for yourself in the gallery at orbital comics

Robin Barnard after Russ Heath

I purposely included elements which means the picture above is not a faithful reproduction of the original, the original is ironically difficult to copy

Then we have the return of WHAT MEN…

WHAT MEN is very much of out of place within this blog as there was no explanation given, just the pages with the dialogue, there was no other clues - you had to put the whole entire thing together yourself – quite literally and that is exactly where I left it and where I think it should remain

Nonetheless some of my recent notoriety has unsurprisingly come about because of the publication of WHAT MEN

I was of course expecting this to some degree so this is already addressed inside the context of the comic itself

Still I was not expecting the attention of being featured in Orbital Comics Orbiting pod podcast and being interviewed by Chris Thompson at the LSCC

Notoriety aside there was - at least for now - one part of the process that was missing and that was to give Dave Gibbons a copy of WHAT MEN in person

Dave Gibbons was of course the central point of Image Duplicators with his fantastic “WHAAT?” being an perfect encapsulation of the exhibition as a whole:-

"WHAAT?" By Dave Gibbons after Irv Novick

So I brought along the drawing I originally showed Dave Gibbons at Kapow when I told him I would be redrawing all of Watchmen Chapter V by hand - which Dave Gibbons had signed..

and then I handed him the last print copy of WHAT MEN I had:-

Which came complete with a Rorschach hand sketch:-

So yes, I was returning the art back to its original creator, in the middle of an event precisely all about exactly the same thing

Dave Gibbons is of course the most genial person you could hope to meet, he is welcoming, approachable and always positive, and he appeared to be flattered that I had gone to such effort.

I was half expecting him to say “WHAAT?!” …which would have taken the meta irony yet further

I of course was careful to warn Dave with regards the content of WHAT MEN as something he might not like!

Dave did ask if he was featured inside WHAT MEN to which I answered truthfully as yes he appears as the avatar of the creation he is singularly most associated with in Watchmen, Dan Dreiberg…

Who is a combination of a number of things Dave created or has experienced in his career, the most notable being his actual experience of wearing a super hero costume as the Big E in Tornado… 

Dave was quick enough to see that WHAT MEN was on some level about “before watchmen” on his own, I only hope that doesn’t colour his experience to much

In all honesty and fairness that is probably the last I will hear, but Dave was kind enough to spend five minutes being positive and was honoured that someone would spend the time recreating his work

Then all us Image Duplicators went outside for a group photo:-

Left to Right:  Robin Barnard, Dave Gibbons, Karen Rubins, Garry Leach, Mark Stafford, Mark Blamire, Jason Atomic, Rian Hughes, David Leach, Fufu Frauenwahl, Strictly Kev, Michelle Amir, Loz Atkinson, Graeme Ross and Steve Cook taking the photo.

And by pure circumstance I ended up standing right next to Dave Gibbons, wearing a custom T-shirt of a panel from WHAT MEN

So what happens after all this is anyone’s guess, maybe Strictly Kev can provide an answer…?

Strictly Kev of course did a piece for the Image Duplicators directly inspired by Watchmen and as a reaction to Before Watchmen:-

And…  Strictly Kev had actually brought one of the print copies of WHAT MEN!

So Kev and I had quite a number of interesting conversations and Kev was full of suggestions for future projects I might consider – during these conversations I mentioned that I have already redrawn all of the “Tales of the black freighter” panels from Watchmen by hand and these was just sitting in inventory waiting for something to happen to them...

One day, who knows!

Still although this all may sound more than a bit egotistical it is events like this that provide the fuel I need to keep drawing and if you have been following me for a while I maintain that I am not that skilled, so I hope to be a demonstration to anyone who wants to draw, that all its takes is time, persistence and networking

All kinds of wonderful things just seem to happen of their own accord after that, just witness all the above, none of which was planned!

If I can do it, anyone can do it!

The Image Duplicators exhibition is on at Orbital Comics in London until the 31st May 2013, all proceeds are going to The Heroes Initiative 

http://www.orbitalcomics.com/image-duplicator16052013-to-31052013/

Bleeding Cool was as the launch party and they provide a much better review of the Image Duplicators event

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05/16/dave-gibbons-rian-hughes-garry-leach-and-more-at-image-duplicator-tonights-exhibition-launch-dedicated-to-reappropriating-the-work-of-roy-lichtenstein/

A special and person thanks to Chris Thompson, Rian Hughes, Jason Atomic, Dave Gibbons, Strictly Kev, all the Image Duplicators, and Orbital Comics

Let Image Duplicators last - Forever...!