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The Saturday Comics: Generic Comic Book

28 Apr

April 28, 2012

The time was 1983 and Marvel Comics was on top of the world. In fact, they put out a series of bizarre comics in the mid-80’s that I will detail  over the next couple of weeks. Each of them sold, and sold well. In this era Marvel could do no wrong and their fanatic Marvel Zombies gobbled up anything Marvel put out, including this thing.

Back before store brands were marketed as niche foods, generic cans and boxes of plain food were all over the aisles of your big chain grocery stores. Marvel, in what appeared to either be a parody, commentary, or an attempt to show that their fans would buy any piece of crap  anything they published, put out the Generic Comic Book. It was so generic that it did not even have creator credits. Check out their house ad that month:

It is probably good that the artist remained anonymous. However, Steve Skeates has claimed the writing credit.

Here are the rest of the details from mycomicshop.com:

22 page Generic Superhero story “A Superhero!”

Characters generic characters.
Genre parody; super-hero

It also claims that Stan Lee edited this issue himself. If only this guy would turn up in the Avengers movie. C’mon Stan! Make it happen!

Next Week: More mid-80’s Marvel.

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Imponderable #44: Bakersfield California

27 Apr

April 27, 2012

I’d like to say I had more information for you. I’d like to say that the airplane will be turned into, I don’t know, anything but an airplane, but I can’t. From other sources online, it is what it appears to be: the guy will bury an airplane and let you use the toilet. Ten out of ten for convenience, I guess. When you got to go you got to go.

So as I often ask in this arena, is this art? What is he trying to say? I don’t know and I found no clue online. But what could he be saying? I’m stumped.

From The Washington Post: Buchel creates fictitious environmental installations that comment on social and political forces. Some of his previous work has included setting up a community center for low-income London residents inside a blue-chip gallery, and creating a maze within a garbage dump in Paris’s famed Palais de Tokyo. Bucher was also involved in a legal dispute with MASS MOCA after the museum attempted to complete and exhibit his installation called “Training Ground for Democracy,” without his cooperation. Courts initially ruled in favor of MOCA, but Bucher won on appeal.

He set up a maze in a garbage dump. Yeah, because when you find yourself in a garbage dump the one thing you want is to spend more time there.

Would you travel into the desert in order to climb down a tunnel and look at an airplane? The question is Imponderable.

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