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“Warp which adapted a stage play about superheroes by Del Close (the nexus of all realities) that was very weird and very funny”
I think the plays were written by Stuart Gordon, with Neal Adams involved in design. The comics were by Peter B. Gillis, with some backups by John Ostrander.
“also seem to remember they had an impressive run of on-time shipping and the like until the issue of Flagg which was meant to have a new artist on it (was it Bill 'Fables' Willingham?) failed to materialise, and if memory serves they were fairly blunt in pointing the finger.”
The culprit/scapegoat was George Freeman, who was replaced by Joe Staton for three dull issues, after which Mark Badger took over. Chaykin packed in Flagg after this, with Steven Grant and then a misplaced JM DeMatteis taking over as writer. Chaykin returned for a second volume, although sidemen such as John Francis Moore, Richard Ory and Mike Vosburg seemed to be doing most of the work.
“I should have remembered WARP! since I was just re-reading the darn things a few months ago. The first 14 issues adapted the plays and I believe the first 6 issues had beautiful art by Frank Brunner. Later issues had a lovely back up called OUTRIDER by Peter B. Gillis and Bill willingham.”
Brunner adapted the three plays in the first nine issues, with dialogue by Peter B. Gillis. I wouldn’t describe the art as beautiful, as it was rushed in parts and inked by the likes of Bob Smith, Bruce Patterson and Mike Gusovich. Nice covers, though. After Brunner left, Gillis produced new stories, drawn by Jerry Bingham and Mike Gustovich. There were three Warp Specials, drawn by Howard Chaykin, Mark Silvestri and George Freeman. The series was set in Cynosure, later used as the locale for Grimjack.
One of the reasons for the failure of First was its inability to retain top quality talent after its third year. The likes of Tim Truman were able to obtain better terms at Eclipse, where he could retain ownership of Scout. After Mike Gold left to work for DC in 1986, the editorial content nosedived. Latter-day editorials seemed to consist of little more than naked hype and backslapping. In my opinion, First was at its best when publishing cheap, high quality comics on Mando paper, with the more expensive Baxter paper reserved for a few series (mainly Nexus and Badger, which along with Whisper had been published in that format by Capital Comics. It seemed that around the point where every series switched to the more expensive format the artwork ceased to justify it. The likes of John Calimee and Hugh Haynes took over Nexus from Steve Rude, and Ron Lim took over Badger from Bill Reinhold.
Some other stuff from First:
Crossroads
Prestige format team-ups featuring Nexus, Badger, Sable, Sable, Whisper, Luther Ironhand, Judah and Grimjack. Nice Steve Rude covers, but otherwise pretty dull.
Demon Knight
Grimjack Graphic Novel by John Ostrander and Flint Henry
Dreadstar
Jim Starlin’s cosmic regurgitations poached from Epic Comics (one of the main reasons why modern-day Epic doesn’t do creator-owned series). Later issues were written by Peter David and hideously drawn by his mate Angel Medina, whom David described as one of the three best artists he’d worked with.
Dynamo Joe
Manga-influenced robots by John Ostrander and Doug Rice.
Oz graphic Novels by Eric Shanower
Evangeline
Inherited from Comico, this was Chuck Dixon, Judith Hunt and Ricardo Villagran’s post-apocalypse nun. One of Dixon’s more readable efforts, although later issues featured Jim Balent as penciller. Matthew Sweet’s song Evangeline was based on this comic.
First Adventures
Anthology featuring Whisper, Dynamo Joe and Blaze Barlow by Peter Gillis.
The Gift
Prestige format anthology one-shot featuring Badger, Nexus, Grimjack etc.
Psychoblast
Steven Grant’s superhero strip. Badly drawn, but possibly an influence on Warren Ellis.
I thought Steven Grant’s Whisper was very underrated. The issues in the teens drawn by Spyder (AKA Neil Hanson) were my favourites. I remember reading somewhere that Grant had managed to obtain the rights to Whisper and was considering a new series about a new character, in the fashion of how golden age and silver age DC characters shared the same name. Does anyone know whether anything came of this? |
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