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March 28, 2007
Farewell Marshall Rogers
Marshall Rogers died last weekend at the age of 57. A terrible loss for the comics world and he passed away at a very young age. I was pleased to see that newspapers covered the story and reported the details about Rogers' longtime collaborations with Steve Englehart. It can't be overstated what an impact these two made on Batman in 1977. The character had slip-sided into mainstream superhero tales after Neal Adams had ended his historic run. The Joker had become a pathetic cartoon of a villain, and most of us had never heard of Hugo Strange. Englehart's story brought Batman back as a creature of the night and Rogers was the perfect artist to render these tales. It seemed like a very intimate collaboration--but we (comics fandom) discovered only at the very end of their short Detective Comics run that Rogers had never met Englehart. Englehart had written scripts, sent them to DC, and taken off on a long European vacation. He never saw the finished pages until he came back to the United States.
I had seen Marshall Rogers artwork a few months earlier, in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #32-33. These issues contained the two-part "Daughters of the Dragon" story by Rogers and Chris Claremont. I immediately sat up and took notice of Rogers' unique and dynamic storytelling. Panels were broken up and laid out in unconventional ways. Sounds effects and typography were used very dynamically, too, much like Walt Simonson. The story was pretty damn cinematic as well, with Colleen Wing and Misty Knight spinning out of Iron Fist's supporting cast and into an Asian adventure. The story had scenes that were more risque than usual, as in the top sequence when Misty and Colleen's clothes are shredded during a fight and the pair run frantically to a police station. This was the era when Claremont was a superstar, making everything sparkle from Starlord to Iron Fist to the X-Men.
As great as his Batman work was, I thought Marshall Rogers did a superior job on his brief Mister Miracle three issue run. Mister Miracle's costume, gadgets, supporting cast (especially Big Barda), and villains all seemed perfectly tuned to Rogers' unique style. I kept wanting to see Rogers (and Englehart) return to Mister Miracle and give this character the treatment he deserves.
There's so much great work that Rogers did in his career, and I can't list them all here. Probably like many old time fans, after Rogers' ended his 1970s DC work, I kept waiting and waiting to see what he would do next. He did some independent work with Englehart that I loved, especially the graphic novel I Am Coyote. To appreciate this novel you have to read it during the summer in your youth under a haze of MJ. He returned to mainstream comics in 1981 to work with Roger Stern on Doctor Strange #48-53. I was thrilled to see Roger's work on the cover of 48, showing the good Doctor under attack by Brother Voodoo. Clea's butt-facing to the viewer didn't hurt at all. Rogers' short run on this series became a perfect graphic novel adventure, with the conclusion changing Doc's life forever--Clea walked out on him.
When Clea left Doctor Strange in issue 53, so did Marshall Rogers. I kept expecting him to return. Those were the days without websites! The next two issues had fill-ins by Paul Smith and Michael Golden--no slouches--but Rogers never came back. He must have known to get off the stage and leave them wanting more. I kept looking and looking for more Rogers work, and maybe during that time he did Foozle or Scorpio Rose or various one-shots. In the late 1980s, Rogers joined Englehart again, taking the Silver Surfer to new heights by finally getting him freed from Earth to soar the cosmos. The first issue in particular was spectacular: the Surfer escaped Earth, confronted Galactus, and saved Nova (the big G's new herald). It kicked off the Silver Surfer's longest running series to date, spanning over 100 issues, though Rogers left with issue 12.
I never stopped wondering when I would see another comic by Marshall Rogers, but now I'll have to be comforted by his past work. He was a unique artist. He will be missed. Nuff said.
Posted by Kid Flash at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)March 4, 2007
Slide: Comics Screensaver
I've been playing around with Slide, a website that allows you to share images, create slideshows, and stick them on your blog. Kind of like YouTube, except for pictures/images instead of movies. You can download a toolbar for IE that allows you to bulk upload images and get a Windows screensaver which syncs up with whatever you upload. Here's a quick slideshow I created with no theme, just a smattering of random images from comic book covers and posters:
