Rick Veitch: S&D, C or D, A&P, aces over eights

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Something reminded me of Heartburst today, one of those crazy Marvel graphic novels from back in the day when half of them were non-MU stories along the lines of what Epic Illustrated was publishing (yes, I'm going to revive the Epic Ill thread sometime) -- a Rick Veitch story about a guy who grows up on a distant planet where they're just now getting Earth television broadcasts and name everyone after brand names or something, so the protagonist's name was Sunoco Firestone.

There was his Swamp Thing run, a good but brief one, with all the attention focused on the never-published Swamp Thing Meets Jesus issue (Rick's pages from it were on display in the Words and Pictures Museum's Swamp Thing exhibit, so I've read it; I wish I could be all indignant and say it was his best issue ever, blah blah, but it was about in the middle, really).

His King Hell stuff -- Maximmortal, Brat Pack ... I have a Brat Pack tattoo!

The One, for Epic, ever cover memorably a consumer item of some kind -- Coca-Cola, a hamburger, etc.

Rare Bit Fiends, his illustrated dream journal.

His Aquaman run, which I don't think I read any of.

And probably plenty of stuff I'm forgetting. I can't think of anything he's done for Marvel outside of Epic, but he hasn't done a lot of mainstream DCU stuff, either.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 00:24 (twenty-one years ago)

TMNT!

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't know he'd written TMNT! When? The post-movie popularity explosion, the recent revival, or some other time?

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 03:42 (twenty-one years ago)

His current Question miniseries is quite brilliant, though Tommy Lee Edwards's art deserves a lot of the credit. But Sage's goofy sub-Ginsberg's-Howl utterances to Metropolis are classy.

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 15 March 2005 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

He did a three-parter called "The River," just before the movies came out, I think. There was a definite Swamp Thing-horror comic vibe -- the bad guy was a giant leach. It's here, though.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Having been exposed to much more of the h3nta1 than I ever imagined I'd encounter, I find a striking parallel between the WTFness of Veitch's work (at least on The Maximortal, & maybe Rare Bit Fiends) & the aforementioned h3nta1 - that sort of atavistic dreamlike incisiveness that unearths strange images with enough of an anchor in substantial things (because they involve biology or sex, usually) to be disquieting and disturbing and alluring all at once. The only other artist that compares in this regard (as far as I can recall) is Frank Woodring, and the disturbing edge in his work is skillfully offset by the cartoony, iconic nature of his drawing style.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 15:12 (twenty-one years ago)

For the record, the h3nta1 I'm talking about is of the t3ntac13 variety. (I'm of a mind, when I'm not in the mood to think about this on A Deeper Level - not THAT level, you perv-o-nauts - to agree w/ one of the fake TH video-box mock-ups offered during last week's Sealab 2021 - "JAPAN: WTF?") (No doubt there's an essay waiting to be written about TH & Miike's filmwork (cf. Visitor Q & Audition) & post-WWII Japan, if there isn't one already.) (Unless I'm getting my geography all wrong.)

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 15:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I killed this thread dead! Nice!

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 16:03 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not dead! I haven't seen any h3nta1.

I'm waiting to read his Question series in TPB -- I forgot he was doing it, actually.

And I can't believe I haven't read his TMNT issues -- those came out right in the midst of my Veitch fandom, too.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 15 March 2005 19:17 (twenty-one years ago)

"The River" was the next thing Veitch did after quitting Swamp Thing in high dudgeon, so no surprise it had a similar tone. His next issue showed him shifting attitudes as he got away from the media kerfuffle, it's a big Big Daddy Roth tribute. He also did a Casey Jones story with Eastman years later, which started out being serialised in some anthology but then got finished as a two-issue colourised mini after the anthology died.

The River was even collected, in a typical Mirage "no creator credit or art on the front" stylee.

Other Veitchiness: Abraxas & The Earthman (hippy sci-fi foolery from Epic, soon to be collected by King Hell), 1963 (the real workhorse behind the series), the good bits of Supreme with Moore, the first series of Neil Gaiman's Teknophage (art by Bryan Talbot, using big corporate dollars to satirise big corporate attitudes to creativity), some total rub for McFarlane that never got finished...

― kit brash (kit brash), Wednesday, 16 March 2005 09:23 (twenty-one years ago)

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