Frank'sCuratedComics: Set Sale 3 - Slash Maraud/Detectives Inc/Elric

Get-ready-for-Christmas Sale

Slash Maraud/Detectives Inc/Elric set

I went to the secret comic book warehouse here in the wilds of western Pennsylvania and came back with quantity on a few choice sets and single issues.

I have NONE of these sets available. SOLD OUT!!

Please check out the other three sales I have going on right now

MORE PAUL GULACY (Slash Maraud artist) here:
http://franksantorocomics.blogspot.com/2013/11/set-sale-4-six-from-siriusjohn.html

Here are the two other sales going on:
http://franksantorocomics.blogspot.com/2013/11/set-sale-2-starstruckdragonringelric.html
http://franksantorocomics.blogspot.com/2013/11/set-sale-elricwhisperplus4.html

25 bux postpaid gets you:

Slash Maraud six issue set - 1987
Detectives Inc two issue set - 1985 reprint of late 70s series

Elric three issue set - 1983

**$35 postpaid to Canada. $50 postpaid to Europe, Asia, etc.

First up: SLASH MARAUD!!! Arguably one of the weirdest comics of the 1980s to come out from a major publisher. The content is basically like an "indy black and white explosion" comic but it's drawn by grizzled veteran PAUL GULACY. Colored by Adrienne Roy.

One of those post apocalyptic wasteland tales where dinosaurs and motorcycles collide!

There are these dudes called Shapers who have these fuzzy heads. (below)

But because it is Gulacy drawing this stuff - it's really eerie and kind of scary. He gets the realism enough that it's not funny or funny looking - just scary:

Great colors that break up the layouts. I think this work is really "blocked in" well by the colorist Adrienne Roy. The pinks and greens and yellows especially:

Next up: Detectives Inc #1 and #2 (below)

This is a 1985 reprint of a magazine size graphic novel from the late 70s. Eclipse did this with the Sabre graphic novel. So it was sort of a concession to the direct market. "Print it comic book sized so it is easier to shelve and store."

I like Marshall Rogers' art - he does these really interesting layouts that go across the spread. He goes from expansive broad strokes to clusters of tiny detailed actions. Rogers like Gulacy can also jam so much detail into his pages that they can be difficult to read. However the SEQUENCING that he pulls off within some of the wacky and overwrought layouts can be so fetching that it doesn't matter.

Also this book was originally made for black and white. So there are alot of zipatone screens and other grays. Coloring it must have been challenging because the tendency would be for it to "go dark" with all the layering. Tim Smith does a good job lightening the palette - especially with the bright greens - so the darker sections are balanced out a little bit. It's a strange document of the era when comics were trying to get "serious" and be more like a good tv drama or something. It may not be ultimately successful as a comic but it is n interesting work of graphic design and "sequential art".

Next up, Elric (below). I've written about this comic before here. This is one of my favorite comics because of the color process used to create it. P.Craig Russell and Michael T. Gilbert used watercolor, airbrush, dyes, inks, and the kitchen sink to color this one.

This is one of those examples of a creative team working together and figuring it out as they go and you can see that figuring out right on the page. Each issue's art gets better and it's exciting to see the palette and the drawings change.

Read the linked to article about the color process above - just remember that this was a watershed moment in comics coloring. It was early in the development of making full color comics and printing them affordably.

Check out the vibrancy of the colors in these panels. This independent series from Pacific Comics was a minor big deal because it was the beginning of the indy publishers outdoing the big publishers with nice paper and fancy inks.