1963 and Big Bang Comics
Pastiches and homages have become somewhat of an underground guilty pleasure for comic readers. A pastiche is an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period. So when writers of huge characters completely mess up said characters with political correctness, retcons, or just bad writing overall, leave it to characters like Watchmen, Supreme, and Miracleman to pick up where their predecessors left off. Thus…Big Bang Comics!
Before getting into Alan Moore’s “marvelous” 1963, we need to look at its possible inspiration for its direction and creation. It was originally created by Gary Carlson.Carlson's first major independent comic occurred in the 1980s with a black and white title called Megaton. Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon and Rob Liefeld's Youngblood both debuted in Megaton. In the 1990s Carlson wrote Berzerker for Caliber Press; one of the first canonical appearances of a Big Bang Comics character was by the Knight Watchman in Berzerker #1.
The Big Bang anthology was created by Carlson and Chris Ecker (known as his persona “Tom King”) in 1994 with publishers Caliber and later Image comics.
The idea of the the Big Bang stories was to encapsulate what made comics, more specifically DC comics (with some exceptions in regards to Marvel comics), great to begin with in its early years.
It started with a 4 issue miniseries with Caliber in 1994, and some side stories including Knight Watchman: Graveyard Shift. Then, two years later, they moved on with Image comics to create a 35 issue series and spawn countless trade paperbacks and side stories.
Using mostly Golden, Silver, and sometimes Bronze/Modern age art styles and writing, the series created interesting pastiches such as Knight Watchman (Batman), Ultiman (Superman), and Thunder Girl (Mary Marvel/Captain Marvel/Shazam).
Years after Carlson started his Big Bang stories, in 1993, that the great Alan Moore would take this idea for his own. Using mostly Marvel Comics for inspiration, Alan created the amazing miniseries known as 1963!
Originally advertised in the pages of Shadowhawk, 1963 teased the works of all the artists and writers above. This included his longtime partner, an artist Supreme fans should be familiar with, “Roarin’” Rick Veitch.
Now, I don’t want to spoil too much. So throughout these upcoming weeks, we’ll go over 1963, its influence, other appearances made by its characters, and two epic crossovers! with Big Bang Comics. See you next time when we go over issue one!
Hey, cool! I'm glad this blog will continue with 1963! It's been a long time since I've reread this series, so I look forward to doing so.
ReplyDeleteMe too. I need to break out my issues and follow along. Although the ending is so sad.
Delete1963 came out first, right? I remember reading that Big Bang actually made Alan reconsider doing a DC version of 1963. Great article...keep it up!
ReplyDeleteYeah, 1963 came out before the Big Bang anthology came out, but it appears Carlson was doing these sorts of stories before that and Megaton (Man?) was a place both Larsen and Liefeld were creating some of their Image characters.
DeleteMegaton (no Man) was a great anthology book from the 80's. I have them, but haven't read them in awhile. I recall all the stories taking place in the 80's. In 1993, Gary Carlson put out a series called Berserker. In it, there was a golden age style story about Knight Watchmen. I think 1963 came out Summer of '93. I don't think either had knowledge go the other. But both enjoyed each others book.
ReplyDeleteJust one of those lucky coincidences? How cool.
DeleteIdeaSpace...of course!
DeleteHa ha... it answers everything!
DeleteHomages & Knock-offs in Comics are always an interesting conversation topic.
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered what makes a Pastiches character good or bad? (Or should I say successful?) Very curious to see what your take on this question is.
Hopefully this makes sense.
My only guess is that it depends on what the Author is adding to that Pastiche-Established mythos.
Like Nite-Owl (Pastiche of Blue Beetle) & Lobo (Pastiche of Wolverine) are considered successful characters based on previous archetypes as opposed to Liefeld's EXTREME! pastiche characters that amounted to nothing.