S/D X-Men Runs

All that material, including the roundrobin discussion was sold as PHOENIX THE UNTOLD STORY or somesuch. I can't recall the date it hit, but I want to say 1987? Might've been to help gin up interest in the X-FACTOR book of the time, but that was all a very long time ago. There were pencil pages from it published in Fantagraphics' X-MEN COMPANION BOOK II from the early 80s.

Yes, Fantagraphics put out not one, but TWO books on the X-MEN back in the day. The second one is a great find by the by. I'd assume the first one is just as good in terms of content, etc.

yeah all that stuff is in the Masterworks edition, plus some b&w/pencil art Phoenix story that ran in some other special edition mag

How is the coloring in those? I always get edgy when they leave the old colors in place and just run them on glossy paper without toning them down. Generally looks TERRIBLE and would rather read the newsprint scans that I have sitting on my hard drive.

looked nice to me but I am hardly a stickler for such things. I like my comics colors bright and saturated. It's b&w reprints of things that I can't stand.

FWIW, I left a little summary of different reprint options as a comment on the last blog, for those who still don't own this one.

Untold Story is from 1983, so the roundtable has an extra layer of tragic pathos with everyone involved going "Well, one thing's for sure, she is DEAD and not coming back, and that's final!"

The Masterworks I have are recolored, occasionally rather insensitively (blank yellow background becomes blank pink background - why?). This seems to vary based on which recolorer is at work, though - some of the issues look just fine.

The most disappointing reprint series that we'll get to in our project is the New Mutants Classic series, which are really bare-bones, and kind of disrespectfully sloppy in that the cover will be like "CLAREMONT - MCLEOD" even though four of the issues inside were pencilled by Sal Buscema. Little things, but annoying. But the comics are great.

yeah I'm psyched for all the off-shoots as well!!!

can i just say that i love the drubbing of misogynist byrne in contrast to the relatively-open-minded claremont in the latest blog?

Hey, thanks! Sooner or later we'll swing back around and give Claremont more of a talking-to on gender stuff, but generally I think, as David said, he deserves more credit than he gets. Being a great draftsman apparently buys Byrne more wiggle room than Claremont being (in the last 15-20 years) a hack storyteller, and that seems sort of unfair. Especially when you read interviews...you get the sense of this guy who's maybe not THAT on the cusp of social revolution or whatever, but is at least TRYING to be a sensitive forward thinker, and he's just surrounded by an old boy's club. At least that's the vibe I get. It'd be really interesting to get some insight from say, Louise Jones and Ann Nocenti about working with him versus the rest of the office. It might not gibe with my reading at all, but I wonder.

(Next installment should be up tonight or tomorrow btw!)

awesome!!

byrne seems a total cock btw

claremont used to proudly show off at comic conventions a sketchbook he'd collected where he'd got just abt every comic book artist you can think of to draw him a nudey pic of storm, so his 'enlightenment' over byrne is v v relative, imho

here's a page from a recent xmen comic by new man chris and milo manara:

http://comiczine-fa.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/XGalsdisco1.jpg

o_0

but still, john byrne seems a truly unpleasant, reactionary, libertarian dickhole.

claremont used to proudly show off at comic conventions a sketchbook he'd collected where he'd got just abt every comic book artist you can think of to draw him a nudey pic of storm, so his 'enlightenment' over byrne is v v relative, imho

Regardless of anecdotes like this, I agree that when it comes to his writing, he really did do a lot to make female superheroes full-fledged rounded individuals, and not just supportive characters, the "ladies of the team". How many superhero writers did that before him? And you have to remember, even during the 80s you had stories like the East Coast/West Coast Avengers crossover, where various Avengers have to figh each other one-on-one, and in each fight the male character beats the female character - even when it's kinda ridiculous, like Captain America beating She-Hulk.

Also, in Marvel comics before Claremont's X-Men, the female superheroes were often relegated to the roles of wives and girlfriends for more prominent male superheroes. During Claremont's prime years with X-Men, only Kitty and Jean were dating a male team member, and both of them were more prominent than their boyfriends.

claremont also always treated racial matters with a lot of sensitivity

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/44215_10150097347974199_602254198_7403031_5745209_n.jpg
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/248719_10150318406954199_602254198_9873298_1074945_n.jpg
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/25773_435405234198_602254198_5589029_2836794_n.jpg

new men like nude women too

why is everyone orgy-dancing & Storm is getting arrested by evil Errol Flynn? it's her party is it not???

One last post before I skip town for a while! Enjoy!

manara really can only draw one woman's face, can't he?

have a good summer Doc! thx for the awesome blog!

xp tbf he draws faces?!

Thank YOU, DAM! Peace!

Doc -

is Kangarat Murder Society dead? We miss you! I know you've been super busy, but figured I'd call you out here instead of twitter.

^

x3

Yeah, loved reading those, give us some more!

Awwwwww, y'all are great! And yeah..this is better, I don't use twitter or know if anybody says anything about us on there(?).

It's NOT dead - this has just been a wacky, um... six months. Wow. Didn't really expect it would be that kind of hiatus (I guess all dormant bloggers say that)...

I have genuine, actual hopes of reviving it after the new year! For real! Keep the fire burning.

Thanks Doc! Can't wait for more to come.

The n-word stuff upthread is a bit of a headfuck.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/comics/article/49499-x-men-writer-chris-claremont-donates-archive-to-columbia-university.html

doc, damn, just saw this, sounds like the blog woulda been just what i wanna read but the link dont work, anywhere else to check out the stuff?

http://kangaratmurdersoc.wordpress.com/ is the direct link, not sure what's up with the domain. Hope you like!

Paging Doctor Casino:

http://daviduzumeri.tumblr.com/post/45140694544/any-chance-of-revisiting-the-uncanny-x-men-chats-with

hahah was that you? David sent me that earlier. I knowwwwww, I know!

It was me. :) I can't help it if I miss reading those posts.

I miss doing them! We talk about it every now and then, we're both game, it's just a matter of time - I'm in a PhD program now and it's just hard to commit to something like that. But I really did enjoy it. Maybe we could manage to do, like, one a month or something.

That would be awesome.

Yeah, please do some more!

would read. would read the fuck out of, in fact.

Yeah same here. Love those.

Y'all are the best. We're in talks. Maybe, just maybe!

Woohoo! Tentatively, of course.

start a kickstarter

yeah really I don't even like X-Men and found the blog v entertaining

help me out guys! a friend of mine was wearing this shirt, and i feel like i should've known instinctively which artist it was. my first guess was Art Adams, but not too sure. based on the team line-up it's '81-'83?
http://i.imgur.com/MUXNsmd.jpg

Art Adams, no doubt - he drew the covers for Classic X-Men, the reprint series of the Claremont era that begin in the mid-late 80s.

Is that Kitty between Nightcrawler and (I assume) Rogue?

yup!

As much as I love Art Adams, there's an unsettlingly Liefeldian quality to the character on the left there (Rachel?)

Liefeld is Art Adams without the whimsy or genius. I stopped reading comics before the Liefeld era but I can imagine his work would swiftly have cooled my teenaged ardour for Adams' work.