ECLIPSE remembered

(This is a piece written in 2004 that was well received at the time by readers and friends.  Unfortunately the site it came  from was hacked.  We lost innumerable articles.  But a site online kept this in its archive, and I am reprinting it to avoid losing it a second time. )

When I announced the results of the signed comics contest and the favorite comic publisher informal poll I said I liked ECLIPSE comics. To my relative horror I received many emails from people saying who dat? And someone who PUBLISHES comics wrote to say did I mean to say Enigma from Vertigo. No I did not mean Enigma. I mean a publisher who created comics and cards and all sorts of wonderful stuff.

The Company and their books

Eclipse Enterprises, was a company that published comics, graphic albums, and trading cards from 1977 to 1994. Eclipse went out of business in 1994 but their legacy lives on in most successful
marketing ideas in comics. The publishers Dean Mullaney and cat yronwode were self described hippies but the product they put out appealed to everyone. They did horror, such as M and TAPPING THE VEIN under Steve Niles’s Arcane imprint. They did action, such as SCOUT or AIRBOY or WINTER WORLD usually featuring writing by Chuck Dixon or Tim Truman or drawn by Tim. They did super heroes, MIRACLEMAN by Alan Moore and other great talents. They did humor as in Larry Marder’s BEANWORLD. They did Manga, KAMUI and APPLESEED. They were among the first to release a Graphic Novel, SABRE. Later they helped popularize collected editions of serialized comics, along with ultra special hardcover editions with sketches. They paid royalties and allowed creative talents to keep their properties.

So why did they go bankrupt? I cannot speak for their fiscal policies but first the craze and hype for multiple covers and other gimmicks at IMAGE, MARVEL and DC who all were competing for a shrinking market made ECLIPSE less viable. At the same time the double bust of comics and cards in the 90s probably had something to do with the demise.

I asked former Eclipse talents this question:

"What was it about the comic book Publisher Eclipse that made its output so excellent for its time, somewhat dated for the 90s and now strangely resurgent in relevance? What publisher today is most like Eclipse in its outlook and output?"


Chuck Dixon answered:

"Dean Mullaney is what made Eclipse Comics what it was. The ultimate
guerilla marketer. Absolutely ruthless and one of those guys you were glad to have on your side. The guy has forgotten more about selling, printing and publishing comic books than most people in the business today.

His hit and run philosophy of publishing was to put out the greatest
variety of material and help it find its audience. Mainstream super
heroes, funny animals, political commentary, avant garde, crime,
horror and the uncatagorizable. Every trend was exploited and new
trends created along the way. Eclipse's output was the most eclectic, and at times outrageous, of its era. It matched Dean's restless nature and his willingness to take crazy chances. Eclipse didn't have the muscle of the big boys but stayed in the ring with a series of lightning fast jabs and dizzying footwork. Eclipse was the first in with manga. The first to exploit the comics/trading card connection.  The first graphic novel. Never played safe. Never went the easy route. Never rested.

There is no comic book company like Eclipse today. But there's also no company that doesn't owe a debt to the wacky, bohemian, abrasive little company created by Jan and Dean with two grand borrowed from their mom."

A couple of the talented people of Eclipse.

Timothy Truman, armed with gold short sword and pistol wrote the magnificent work SCOUT and is rumored to be working on a variety of secret projects. Chuck Dixon who wrote many books at ECLIPSE such as AIRBOY and WINTER WORLD is armed with two pistols and firing into the camera, is a mainstay at CrossGen, returns to DC with Richard Dragon and has a couple projects about to be announced being held in his hip pocket until the time is right.

(These references are amazingly dated by now, but I wanted to keep them in just for the date of the article being in context).

A comfie blanket, a bowl of chicken soup, b/w television, and a cat purring on your lap.

COMFORT FOOD

Due to the death of my mother and numerous health events, I had to take some time off between October 2012 to the recent present.  I was fortunate to fight and beat cancer.  I had many friends and family who entered that fight with me, helping with prayers, financial gifts and time.

The two persons who most helped me were my wife Beth, and my son Jonathan.  And the list of others who helped is a mile long, and mile wide.

But I also took time to read and mentally recover during the times of illness.

Here is what I read:

Comics/TPBs by Jamie Delano.  You remember him, I just interviewed him here a couple weeks ago.  His work is dark, but as I said, I find him to be a joy to know, and his work, however dark, allows me to recreate in the fact that I am reading fiction, really well done.

I read books of prose and verse by Lord Dunsany : I am enraptured by the lush depth of the words Lord Dunsany writes.  My experience reading these books was nearly religious/spiritual.  He moved me deeply.

I played 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons with my son and my best friend Russ.  I wanted to be the one who taught my son to play, so that he'd be aware of the great things about the game, rather than the easy to point at false foibles of gaming with dice rather than a computer screen.

Ultimately, I recovered from the disease of cancer, but everything I did to recover involved love.  I love comics, I love prose fantasy, and I love sharing the tales with my best loved friends and family.

More Lovecraft-arama

When I wrote the last time about Lovecraft I received a number of emails showing great interest in more covers from his books.  Here they are, some of them are from the UK, that I especially enjoy.

Perhaps you don't care but I do

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However some people deserve your money...

LIKE THESE PEOPLE

Comics and Atom Bombs

The world, not just the United States or Japan, changed when the two atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The war's end was simply one change, the world changed in many different ways than that sole end.

The world became aware of the bomb to end all wars.  This mighty power of destruction that previously was considered to be futurist and science fiction or fantasy, was for now in the hands of just one or two countries in the Allied powers.

The end of the war allowed the fashioning of a new world, with new alliances, and between the two most powerful allies, new enmity and distrust.  The acknowledgement that the system of war and recovery was changed was evident, in the fall out from the war.  The resort to big open wars would no longer work, as eventually both super powers and later the great powers would acquire nuclear weapons as well. 

This does present a change in plans for Ares, God of War.  When both parties making war have the ability to end it with a few dropped bombs on both civilian and military targets, the wars we fight are no longer clean and easy to sort out.  And this ignores even the fact that the world might well take sides, but, is it out of loyalty, or is it for the benefits that your umbrella of nuclear arms might provide?

The new world as found in the post nuclear era was considered by many in comic book form.  Whether the new, polluted world, as found in Nausicaa, or the urban anarchy and street gangs of Akira, Japanese talents considered the new world from a profoundly individual perspective.  Whereas other artists and writers might understand the horror of nuclear weapons, the Japanese had in fact suffered their use.  Rightly or wrongly, they suffered the use, as many still debate that issue.  Some people might consider the use of a nuclear background for stories to be wallowing in the moment and the suffering, but if it is done with care, I disagree.  It is a valid avenue of thought to consider a world with more destruction, and more fear, as a result of more bombs.

But the Cold War of the 1950s to late 1970s offered a powerful reminder to the world what could happen if both sides were to feel challenged enough to lose the war.  In those considerations many comic books were published showing a world shattered by unlimited use, and suggest that there is no winner should the world face such wars.

There was a wave, in the 1980s of comic books that showed the worlds found after the bombs, and considered what kind of forms of government might rise up after the destruction.  V For Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd suggested that in response to world catastrophe a fascist state would rise.  From that rise a response to the concentration of power within the hands of the state would give birth to anarchism and anti-government violence.  The book was solemn and dark, but was not without hope.  But nuclear war does present quite a challenge for survival.

In the present, while dystopia based stories exist, the gnawing fears of the Cold War offer fewer options.  Catastrophes still exist, but more now come from fears of environmental disasters, and the loss of control of the fabrics of society due to the internet and anti-state movements.  It seems hard for me, a 50 year old man, to imagine a world without a fear of nuclear war, but few people think of it now as the cause of the future disasters.  But it does still exist.