Liner Notes for "Koman!"

As mentioned in earlier blogs, "Koman!"—now being serialized at the rhadventures.com website—is the last of three stories originally produced in the 1980s but never released. These initial stories were produced on "spec" with no real plan at the time for how they were going to be released. Since they were my first attempts at doing work intended for print, they also functioned as learning exercises.

When I began publishing the series, I naturally started with my most current and representative work. ("The Care Package," released in March 1991 in a one-off Rob Hanes comic-book, was the first RH story to officially see print. The story was later included in the Rob Hanes Archives trade paperback.) By the time I exhausted those stories and began going back to release my older work, I realized my first three stories were too crude compared to my current work, so they were shelved. As the series jelled, these early stories also fell out of continuity. For all these reasons, these three stories were not included in the above-mentioned Rob Hanes Archives trade paperback which collected the other early stories in the series that had appeared primarily in zine format but not in the regular comic-book series.

Nevertheless, "Koman!" was a real turning point for me. The earlier two stories—"Meet Rob Hanes" and "Loyalties"—introduced Rob as a new detective and the "odd man out" at Justice International, and provided the impetus for sending Rob overseas. Anyone familiar with the series will recognize that "Koman," a fictional Middle East country, is the locale for many other stories, including, "A Night on the Town," "The Two Lady Agathas," "The Assassin," "Masks," "The Care Package," and, more recently, in RHA #9, "Rescue in Koman." But it all started in "Koman!"

While Koman was not modeled on any one country, it included elements of places known at the time for instability like Lebanon and Yemen; and thanks to the continued volatility of the region, it shares many of the qualities associated with current hotspots like Afghanistan and Iraq. The common thread in the recent histories of these countries, which I tried to capture in the Koman stories, was the fracture among competing and warring factions along political, ethnic, and religious lines.

Since it was the early '80s, Koman was originally envisioned as a Cold War battleground, caught between the U.S./Western bloc and Soviet spheres of influence—with the U.S. backing a weak central government that controlled the more developed, metropolitan and westernized part of the country and the Soviets exploiting a "rebel" force made up of religious fundamentalists and disenfranchised ethnic groups and tribes that controlled the outlying areas.

Of course, with the end of the Cold War and the rise of fundamentalism, the Cold War piece has fallen away but the other factional splits remain in place. These are personalized in later stories by the figure of General Amra, a military strongman whom the U.S. supports, and Sayed Farsi, a moderate who leads a fragile coalition of rebel forces (both make cameos in "Rescue in Koman" in RHA #9). But given the volatility and rapidly-changing nature of the region, I decided to create a fictional locale for these stories. For the same reason Milton Caniff set his seminal adventure strip, Terry and the Pirates, in Asia because he saw the orient as "the last outpost of adventure" in the world, I saw the Middle East as having the same kind of potential for a wide range of adventure stories.

My goal has always been to eventually play out the Koman story arc in an adventure in which the country collapses and in which Rob might even be called to testify before Congress. This story is still in the cards, but I haven't yet felt the time is right yet for it.

But "Koman!" is also a turning point because it was a story in which I felt some real progress both as a writer and an artist—while it's still rough around the edges, I could take some satisfaction in knowing that I was improving. If you take a look at the Rob Hanes Archives trade paperback, which collects the eight stories produced immediately after "Koman!," one can definitely see the steady evolution and growth in the series, and particularly the art.

Issue 12 Reviews

I've received a nice mini-surge of orders recently, which usually means the series has been recently reviewed or spotlighted somewhere.

Sure enough, in scanning my most recent subscription copy of the Comics Buyer's Guide that just arrived in the mail (#1661/Jan. 2010), I discovered that CBG columnist Karen O'Brien reviewed Rob Hanes Adventures #12 in her monthly column, "The O'Brien Factor," giving the story a respectable 3 stars. (See p. 19 of the issue, cover image at right; I would have scanned the actual review itself for this blog, but the newsprint paper made it a bit too muddy to reproduce!)

The review also earned the issue's inclusion in CBGxtra online top picks here.

A Google search also pulled up a review of the issue at the Comixology website.

"Koman" Begins Today

The final story of the '80s-era Rob Hanes adventures being serialized at my webcomics site, rhadventures.com, kicks off today.

I'll post my notes for the story, entitled "Koman!," shortly.

As a recap, the other stories will remain permanently archived at the site. This includes "Introducing Rob Hanes" and "Loyalties."

The notes for these stories are available here, here, and here.

And Now for Something Completely Different....

All last week, IFC aired a 6-part document on the history of Monty Python's Flying Circus, "Monty Python, Almost the Truth (The Director's Cut)." The group had a profound influence on my own early life and tastes.

I discovered Monty Python at the perfect time: the show first started syndication in the U.S. around 1975, which would have put me just at the start of my teens. I vividly recall being somewhat puzzled by the first episode I saw but intrigued. Fortunately, I stuck with it and slowly began to "get" what they were doing and, of course, quickly became an avid fan.

If I recall correctly, I had only recently discovered the television show when Monty Python and the Holy Grail was released. The movie obviously made me a fan for life—I recall it being one of the first movies I ever saw without my parents and with friends. It also was the first time I recall truly laughing aloud at a movie. (I recall one of my friends accidentally doing a spit take of his soda onto an audience member in the row in front of us during one hilarious sequence—after that, we learned to sip our sodas with our eyes closed.) Being the typical fanboy, I went on to devour whatever I could by the group, including their books and comedy albums, and being excited by their other projects, such as All You Need is Cash (the Beatles' parody Rutles mockumentary by Eric Idle). I even began producing my own homemade brand of Monty Python books for myself and my brother!


As I said, I was certainly the perfect age and demographic for Python—by the time I started college, spontaneously reciting and re-enacting Monty Python lines and skits became a quick way to connect and bond with new friends.

Calling the Pythons the Beatles of comedy has become a bit of a cliche recently, but it's nevertheless an apt and concise description: in the same way the Beatles reinvented and redefined rock 'n roll music and the music industry (even the album concept), the Pythons completely redefined the boundaries of humor, pushing comedy in new directions. And as the Beatles internalized their love of early American rock, the local Liverpool skiffle scene (as well as a bit of the English beer hall tradition), and turned it into something new, Python built on the work of innovative comedy groups like the Goon Show and brought this subversive surreal comedy into the mainstream. (Indeed, many of the Pythons worked concurrently on many of the British shows at the time before coming together to create their own show.) Many comedy shows, and practically every comedy skit show, are clearly Python influenced. It seems fitting that the Beatles were fans of Python (and vice versa) and, as shown in the IFC documenatry, that their lives intersected substantially in many ways over the years.

Being familiar with the group, aside from the details there's not much new information in the documentary for me, but in the same way the Beatles Anthology documentary was the band's way of cementing their legacy on their own terms, Almost the Truth serves the same function, while also serving as validation of their importance to fans like myself. I always have been fascinated by the fact that the Pythons were all well educated, primarily coming out of Oxford and Cambridge (which has produced similar formidable respected comedians and actors like Emma Thomson and Hugh Laurie). You can see this reflected in their humor, which is incredibly verbal and littered with literary and historical references that you either get or don't. And though it's always a risk to dissect comedy, I've always enjoyed hearing how the several camps within the group certainly recognized they had their own styles of humor and strengths; but again like the Beatles, the sum of the whole added up to something much more than their individual parts.

Anyway, here's to Python. Watching the documentary and rewatching the shows have reminded me of how exciting it was to discover Python for the first time, and how much a role it played in my life when I forming my own sense of humor and identity.

Honoring Genial Gene Colan

To see a slideshow of photos from the event described below, click here.

I had the great privilege to attend the annual banquet of the Cartoon Arts Professional Society (CAPS), of which I'm a member, this past weekend. Although CAPS has thrown these banquets for many years since it's founding in 1977, several years ago the group renamed the award given at the event the Sergio, for Mad cartoonist Sergio Aragones, a founding and longtime core member of the group.

This year's Sergio went to legendary comic-book artist Gene Colan. It was a great dress-up affair; the food was terrific, and among the attendees were Aragones, June Foray (a past honoree), Stan Freberg (another past honoree), Bill Morrison (who MC'd), Stan Sakai, and Scott Shaw! Speakers included Gerry Conway, Mark Evanier, and Marv Wolfman. Conway and Wolfman touchingly spoke about how Colan's artistry made them better writers, both of whom worked with Colan early in their careers. Original art by Colan was on display at the dinner, and a tribute book was assembled for the honoree.

An outstanding professional-quality video tribute was also put together by CAPS president Pat McGreal and played at the dinner. The video included glowing tributes by Dave Gibbons, Batton Lash, Rob Liefeld, Jeph Loeb, Jeff Smith, and, of course, Stan "The Man" Lee, as well as others. Numerous photos of Colan's family and of his childhood were included in the video, provided by Colan's wife, Adrienne.

A nice video tribute was also provided by Marvel Comics Editor in Chief Joe Quesada. CAPS member Bill Morrison MC'd, bringing the same style and comedy he has brought to his work as MC of the Eisner Awards.

The honoree, Gene Colan, was touched by the award and in his gracious acceptance remarks, acknowledged the people he had worked with, the fans, and CAPS.

But what made this year's tribute particularly impressive and memorable was the fact that the guest of honor actually was not in attendance—due to health reasons that have been public knowledge, shortly after he accepted CAPS' invitation, he told the group that his doctor had advised against him traveling to California from his home in New York.

So taking advantage of modern technology, using Skype, CAPS (through the tech wizardry of member Stephen Silver) was able to patch Colan in through a video-audio hook-up!! Colan and his wife were projected from a laptop onto a screen and hooked up to the room's sound system, so they were able to see and hear the whole proceeding (see photo above)! Everyone was amazed by the quality of the link from 3,000 miles away, saying it was like a NASA hookup or a remote telecast during the Academy Awards.

A special surprise was during the presentation of the actual award. CAPS had secretly sent the engraved award to Colan's wife, so when the presentation was made at this end, his wife handed him the Sergio statuette—Colan was genuinely surprised and delighted.

After the formal program ended late in the evening, Colan stayed on so that individual attendees could sit at the terminal and speak with him and congratulate him personally. All the guests also received a special edition endplate of an original piece by Colan, individually numbered and personally signed by the artist (see picture above right).

It was another classy event for CAPS from start to finish.

Another blog about the event can be found at the blogs for Mark Evanier and Marv Wolfman.

From the Archives: Loyalties

This week, the second of three 1980s-era Rob Hanes Adventures stories begins serializing at my webcomics site, rhadventures.com. New pages from the 12-page story will be posted three times a week on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with the third story commencing on November 16th.

As noted in my previous posts, these stories were the first I completed that were intended for publication as a comic-book series. Though not representative of my current abilities or drawing style (nor part of current series continuity), they are being released at rhadventures.com as webcomics to give readers a sense of how far the series and me have come since these early days.

As will become clear once all three stories are posted, the stories form a mini-arc for the character: the debut story introduced the character and defined his place within the Justice International detective agency and his relationship with the other private eyes; the second, "Loyalties," which commences this week, builds on that foundation and by the end propels the character onto a more international setting, which always has been my main intent with the series; and the final story in the trilogy, "Koman," is the first that features Rob caught up in overseas intrigue.

My goal in these early stories was to show Rob at odds with an agency made up of Cold War-era warriors, and the product of a generation less doctrinaire and absolute in its view of the world. That attitude would be put to the test as he moved to a global stage and confronted real-world dilemmas and situations.

This second story, "Loyalties," is another fairly tightly-written story. I was obviously still finding my way as an artist and a storyteller—for the most part, the storytelling and layout is fairly functional and straightforward, with not a lot of vibrancy. In re-reading it, I can see how I should have used the layout more to pace the story a little better.

Though the character is "done in one," at the time, I did like the character design of the story's main antagonist, Marty Hexam. The female lead, Audrey Hollister, is another character I had developed quite a while before beginning work on these stories as a possible love interest within the detective agency, but she has yet to appear again in the current series.

With its focus on Middle East unrest, "Loyalties" sadly remains somewhat prescient today—suicide bombing was already a feature of the Middle East conflict in the 1980s, though not as predominant, I believe, as it is today. This aspect of the story also offers a preview of what's to come in the series, which I will touch on when I discuss the third stories in the series, "Koman," which begins November 16th.

Everyone has to Start Somewhere!

As promised in my previous blog, today at my webcomics site (rhadventures.com) I begin posting never-before-seen stories from my series, Rob Hanes Adventures, that date back to the 1980s! The first self-titled story went live in its entirety today. Then on Friday, the second story will begin serializing, with a new page appearing every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. After that story concludes in early November, the third story will begin.

As noted earlier, these stories—"Rob Hanes," "Loyalties," and "Koman"—were the first completed that were intended for publication, and were used to show to potential publishers. I say "intended for publication," because as anyone familiar with my work knows, the character was actually created in the mid-1970s and envisioned as a syndicated comic strip patterned after classic adventure strips like Terry and the Pirates (samples of these early efforts have appeared periodically in the comic-book series).

But it wasn't until after college that I became more serious about publishing the series. Throughout college I kept a sketchbook and saw steady improvement in my work; afterwards, however, I began to focus on producing finished work for print that was polished and professional looking, using the correct tools of the trade. The three stories being released at rhadventures.com are the first of these efforts completed. When one is starting out, getting through a full story requires a lot of discipline and concentration, so completing these stories was quite satisfying, proving to myself I could indeed do it. (There's an old axiom in the comics business along the lines of, "Your first 1000 pages are going to be crap, so you might as well get those pages out of the way as quickly as possible!")

By this time, the independent/alternative comics movement was in full swing, which also probably provided me some additional impetus to work on the series. Up until the '80s, with a few rare exceptions, comics primarily featured only superheroes and consisted of pretty much only two publishers, DC and Marvel, which limited one's options. However, the rise of the direct-sales market in the '80s, and the appearance of independent publishers which produced more alternative work like Cerebus, American Flagg, and Love and Rockets, gave me some hope that there might actually be a niche for the series.

When I completed these stories, I sent proposal packets to numerous publishers. As mentioned in my earlier post, Renegade Press actually picked up the series. Unfortunately, the company went under in 1988 before the first issue was released.

These early efforts obviously are the work of a different artist—the work is much more cartoony and, as one can see, I wasn't using zipatone shading yet, so the work is pretty stark and flat. Though the figurework is expressive, it's still rather stiff and a lot of the proportions are off—Rob's head and the head of the female lead, Samantha Archer, seem a bit too large in some shots (not helped, admittedly, by the very '80s mullet cuts featured in the stories). The inking is nothing to write home about but at least fairly clean. (I think I was primarily using a waterproof rolling ball writer at the time). Hey, it was a start!

As for the story, while again perhaps not as polished as my work today, I must admit that in re-reading it, I find the story and dialogue fairly concise and to the point: Rob's character and his reputation at the agency and his relationship with his boss, Gabriel Evans Girard, and with his co-workers at Justice International are fairly sharply defined. And I wrapped it all up in only 16 pages!

Since most comics are by design a periodical/serial medium, comics fans tend to get fixated on continuity and consistency. As such, I don't consider these stories official series canon, not only because they were a freshman effort but also because of some inconsistencies longtime readers will notice the stories have with the current continuity.

For example, the main "villain" of this piece is Jarret Cox, a fellow agent at Justice International. Anyone familiar with the current series will know that Cox is currently a major recurring character in the Rob Hanes Adventures universe: he is one of Rob's primary CIA handlers who, though he still has it in for Rob, nevertheless is not a corrupt turncoat as he appears in this first story. I always liked Cox's character design and the natural tension he brought as someone who didn't like Hanes, so when I decided to re-boot the series early on, I made Cox part of the regular cast of secondary characters.

Cox's two henchmen, seen in the very first pages of the story, are also minor secondary characters (click on the page image above to see the characters in more detail). The one with the thin shades is Clemson, seen intermittently in the current series as a lieutenant to international crimelord Nicolai Korda (Clemson's backstory describes him as a former CIA agent, though I'm not sure that's ever been explicitly revealed in the series); the other character, with the curly hair and mustache, is Rocco. Though he hasn't appeared much in the current series aside from "Introducing Rob Hanes" which appears in the Rob Hanes Archives trade paperback collection), he was actually among the first characters ever created for the series and appeared frequently in earlier story outlines before I began working on the series as a comic-book series. Always intended as a kind of mob-type enforcer, his calling cards were that he never spoke and always wore a leather leisure-suit style jacket. Remember, I created him in the '70s, but I must admit this look still suits the character!

Anyway, as I have said, these stories are presented purely as an historical curiosity: while it's certainly rough and amateurish, at least it's clear that I've come a long way since these early efforts!

Next up, I'll talk about the second story, "Loyalties."