It's 20th Century Refugee, the M.I.A newsletter of Glen Cadigan. This should've appeared in early October, but not much was going on then. Things have started to speed up recently, though, so let's get to the news!
Good-Bye Keith Giffen
Keith Giffen passed away on October 9, but waited a few days to announce his demise to the world via Facebook. Here's what I said about him there:
So. Keith Giffen is dead. He broke the news on Facebook himself, that's the kind of guy he was. People thought it was just Keith being Keith, but it was true. That tells you everything you need to know about the man and his sense of humor -- anyone or anything could be a target, including his own death.
He had recently taken to podcasting (called "I'm Not Dead Yet!" -- true at the time) and told stories of how he crossed state lines with a monkey, walked into Muhammad Ali (and bounced off), did the same thing with George Lucas up at Marvel before Star Wars was a hit, and other things that could only happen to Keith Giffen. He described his character, The Heckler, as being Bugs Bunny in human form, and you could say the same thing about his creator. In fact, Keith once wrote a Bugs Bunny story (when DC was publishing a Bugs book) about Bugs versus a vending machine which Keith said was the most autobiographical thing he'd ever written. He was always mischievious, looking to get away with whatever he could. His number one collaborator, Paul Levitz, had this to say:
"He had an infinite number of ideas, pouring constantly out. Many, thankfully, never saw print as wholly insane or inappropriate. But the ones that did!"
Keith Giffen's brain was like a car without brakes. He definitely needed a handler to navigate what came out of his head since he couldn't tell which of his ideas would fly and which wouldn't. Case in point: when he was working on the comedy, Formerly Known as The Justice League (or was it its sequel, I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League?), Mary Marvel was a member. At that point in time she was wearing a white costume instead of her traditional red (to distinguish her, I suppose, from Captain Marvel) and Keith wanted to put her back in her red one. His idea was this: she would lose her virginity (off-page, I assume), and the next time she said, "Shazam!" her costume would be red instead of white. Hilarious, but shot down by his editor at DC for obvious reasons.
The headlines are billing him as the co-creator of Rocket Raccoon, Lobo, and the most recent Blue Beetle, but if you ask me he's most closely identified with either The Legion of Super-Heroes or Ambush Bug. (Guess if they ever appear in a movie, they'll get a nod.) He had a long run as the co-writer of Justice League, and he was the one who made it take a funny turn. But he could certainly do drama, and did. If you wanted someone to blow up a planet and kill millions of people, Keith Giffen was your man.
He's best known as an artist, and his art style changed multiple times over the years because that's just how his brain worked. When he first broke in, he burned bridges and ended up washing out almost as soon as he got his foot in the door. He briefly worked selling Kirby vacuum cleaners (you read that right) door-to-door in New Jersey and repossessing cars near Atlantic City because he was skinny and could slip in through half-open windows. Then he was given a second chance and didn't look back. That led to back-ups on The Legion, which led to him drawing the whole book, which led to "The Great Darkness Saga" and collaborating with Paul Levitz and The Legion being second only to The New Teen Titans in sales at DC, and Keith Giffen becoming a superstar.
(When I interviewed him about his Legion career and its relative position to the Titans (drawn by George Perez), I knew who I was talking to and made a joke that he could've done a Tonya Harding and taken George out with a lead pipe. His response was, "Have you seen the size of George? He could break me like a twig!") [Edit: Upon digging out the original transcript of the interview, it turns out the actual, word-for-word quote is, “If you've ever seen George and me together, I probably couldn't get my hands around George. I'm a little gnomish creature. George is this huge, massive person who could hurt me."]
Keith Giffen's favorite piece of critizism was something a fan said about him once. "Break Keith Giffen's hands, then break his feet, because that guy in My Left Foot learned how to draw with his feet!" I can also remember a Legion fan, upon seeing a photo of Keith for the first time, saying, "Keith Giffen looks like one of his drawings!" but it was an observation, not an insult, and I think that Keith would've laughed at it.
Despite his intro on his Facebook page ("I write stories and draw pictures while I'm waiting to die."), his death was unexpected, so this is a shock. Check out his podcast on YouTube if you want a sense of the man. He was chaos and creativity incarnate, equal parts creating and destroying to create. There were times when he was everywhere, and at least one time when he couldn't get arrested, and this was long after he was an established star.
He was as unpredictable as the industry that employed him. He turned the Legion of Substitute Heroes into a joke, then he turned them into an elite commando squad called S.U.B.S.. He worked for the big two, and worked for smaller, almost invisible publishers. Even a throwaway character like Rocket Racoon, who first appeared in a black and white magazine at Marvel at the very start of his career, came back as a big hit. He designed Jack of Hearts' almost impossible to draw costume around the same time, earning him curses from his fellow artists every time they had to illustrate him. And then there's Trencher, and Punx, and Video Jack, and other things people aren't even mentioning (like working with Rob Liefeld and Eric Larsen and Jim Valentino at Image in the '90s) because he did so damn much.
Goodbye, Keith Giffen. If the Earth is still around in a billion years, there'll never be another one like you.
If I Could Turn Back Time
Turns out I missed a recent anniversary. 15 years ago, on October 8, my first comic book sale was published. "One of Those Days" appeared in Cthulhu Tales # 6. It was followed by my second comic book sale in Cthulhu Tales # 7, "The Awakening," twenty-one days later. Yup, I was published twice in three weeks to break into the industry proper (not writing about it for TwoMorrows). As for how that happened, # 6 was supposed to come out in September, but it was late.
There are a couple of things that make this interesting. The first is that the 'A' cover of # 6 was by Scott Keating, who also hails from Newfoundland. This was a completely accidental pairing (I'll eat someone's hat if editor Mark Waid did it on purpose), something I didn't realize at the time. (If you're wondering, the 'B' cover was by Marco Rudy.) A few years ago two other Newfoundland creators also appeared in the same comic book, but that pairing was on purpose, and over a decade after myself and Scott did it by random chance.
The second is that "One of Those Days" was adapted to film. Yes, it was a short film, but it was a short story. In an age when people can't seem to tell a whole story in twenty-plus pages, I did it in six. To date, between YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook, it's been viewed over 430,000 times. That's not bad for something without a big studio behind it and which wasn't promoted at all by its original publisher. Word-of-mouth doesn't get enough credit, but it's still effective.
Which leads to a trivia question for which I might be the only answer: I can't think of another comic book writer whose very first pro sale was adapted to film featuring live actors. (Don't say Jerry Siegel -- Superman wasn't his first sale, and that particular episode of Action Comics wasn't adapted, either.) Maybe there is one, but I can't think of one. I suppose it could still happen retroactively, but in terms of it came out, it was published, then adapted, I'm drawing a blank. I wonder if I'm forgetting someone?
On The Horizon
This week there was mild chaos (I’m exaggerating) as Roy Thomas was editing my biography of Edmond Hamilton for an upcoming issue of Alter Ego. Turns out his computer couldn't read the file; this necessitated sending it over again in a different format, which solved the problem. That reminded me that I should really remind you that it'll be coming out in April 2024, and outside of the regular features (FCA, Mr. Monster's Comics Crypt, etc.), it'll occupy the whole issue. It's very long with pages of endnotes and if you liked my biography of Dave Cockrum, I apply the same fine toothed comb to arguably the most successful author of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, who also happened to write a lot of comic books when the Golden Age of Science Fiction ended. You can preorder a copy at your local comic book store or buy it online here.
Lots of interesting stuff has turned up for the issue, including articles about Edmond Hamilton that appeared in his local newspaper, presumably arranged by his older sister who worked there. Did you know that he entered college at age fourteen, and that there was a picture of a fourteen year old Hamilton in the paper? And did you know that his younger sister, Betty, did the same thing, only she was twelve when she did it? Okay, it was a hundred years ago and maybe schools were different back then, but it's still very impressive!
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Since I didn't intend to stay away this long, how about this for making it up to you: my next newsletter will be in two weeks, and it'll have a big announcement! It's something I alluded to in an earlier newsletter, so if you can't wait until then, you'll just have to go back through the archives to guess what it is!
'Til Then,
Glen