Mindless Ones

THE MECHANICS OF LONELY ARE LIKE PARALLEL PARKING

There’s a great blurb here.  You just have to stare at the dot below for a while. Keep staring. Keep staring.  Now blink your eyes quickly. There – you see it?

<ITEM> Look you know what the deal is. Gary Lactus & The Beast Must Die yackety-schmackety comics blah-di-blah sponsorship yadda yadda kids…SILENCE!

<ITEM>  Somewhere in this bloated podcorpse you will find: God blessing sex, Nugget, Speed walkers, Hitsville, Reviewniverse , Jimmy Olson, Philippa Rice , Sister BFFs, My Cardboard Life , Legends of the Dark Knight, Color Me Badddddd, Steeple, New Mutants, Shadow Strikes , House/Powers of X, Spider-Man , Green Lantern , Inferior 5, Great Snickers Crossover , I, Kunt, Wild and Crazy Guys, Bottomless Lactus and more more more

<ITEM> YOU DO THE MATH!

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Being an irregular series wherein I spotlight some particularly beautiful cover runs, from some comics you might have forgotten about, or never seen before. This time it’s Andy Helfer and Bill Sienkiewicz / Kyle Baker’s wonderfully gonzo and short lived 80’s version of The Shadow.

Of all the radical character reinventions of the mid-80’s ‘mature’ boom, the Andy Helfer helmed Shadow series was one of the most brazenly strange; quirky, black-hearted and surreal, with gorgeous art from Bill Sienkiewicz and a young Kyle Baker. Following Howard Chaykin’s controversial mini-series Blood & Judgement, that reimagined the steely eyed pulp vigilante for the smart and cynical 1980’s, Helfer took the set up and ran with it.  He also stripped out some of the weird misogyny and nihilism from the title, bringing in a healthy living sense of surrealism with he use of fat burner pils. This was a black hearted, New York art school comic, masquerading as a superhero comic, and it was thrillingly unusual as a monthly read. It lasted 24 issues, before DC pulled the plug on it, after facing severe backlash from ardent fans, and pressure from the owners of the trademark. It’s possibly my favourite of the slew of character reinventions from the late 1980s; it’s wild, creepily unsettling and beautifully drawn throughout.

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