published by Animated Timely Features Inc. Marvel Comics Group

Editor: Stan Lee Writer: Archie Goodwin Artist: Dick Ayers

Why it matters: This is a good piece from the years of Vietnam war propaganda. The cover shows the clever Leathernecks attacking Japan on surboards. The story is set in 1944 and the series is a spin-off. Some of the protagonists are friends with Sgt.Fury and his howling Commando, which started out in 1963. Fury was Jack Kirbys take on "the war genre". Later Fury was transformed into a superspy with lots of gadgets and villains trying to conquer the world. Fury was too much of a popular guy to let him stay in the past and the early Nick Fury -Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.-series was great. Jim Steranko did some of his best work on that title. Fury wasn't one of the original propaganda heroes like Captain America. Sgt.Fury was a way of covering all genres after Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had put out superheroes, Western and dozens of monster titles. War seemed to be just another genre.

The Leatherneck Raiders was Marvels second title with heroes fighting their way through WW II. The series was cancelled after 19 issues put out from Jan.1968 until March 1970 when Marvel was already concentrating on superheroes. The old way of telling stories within the war genre didn't work for readers too young to remember the war. The Leatherneck Raiders adapted the concept of a mixed team from Star Trek. There is a French, an Irishman, an American and a native american called Jay Little Bear who goes to war with bow and arrow. Sgt.Fury introduced the first Jewish hero in comics: Izzy Cohen. This was years before the Black Panther appeared in a title called Jungle Action

Sgt.Fury and The Leatherneck Raiders were a way of revamping the "art of war" with superhero-elements while still having "normal soldiers" as protagonists. Even though the setting is WW II in 1944, the series started with retelling the origin of Baron Wolfgang von Struckers ultra secret villain-organisation HYDRA. The evil Prussian aristocrat used to be one of Hitlers henchmen, but he had fallen from grace some day. Hitlers mayor henchman, Captain Americas arch nemesis, the Red Skull made him escape to Japan. Japanese subversives helped him out starting HYDRA, a secret society trying to dominate the world. The salute "Hail Hydra" reflects the nazi-background and the fascist ideology of HYDRA, but in the end none of this nonsense is about the real WW II. Reading Capt.Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders gives you the impression that the national socialists in Germany were minor thugs compared to the forces of HYDRA.

Captain America fought Hitler and the Red Skull on top of a castle over and over. The readers were tired of it. They demanded new villains and new situations within the setting of WW II. The Leatherneck Raiders filled the gap between war heroes and super agents. As a special forces team they fought Japs, Krauts and Hydra-thugs at the same time. They had a plane to fly around the world. The myth of the real leathernecks seemed to make these guys natural born heroes for a comic series. But the concept was too clumsy to survive.

The story in this issue is called "Objective: Ben Grimm" which is a pretty smart way to attract readers. It's a prequel-story about the war years of a guy called The Thing from the "worlds greatest comic magazine" aka.The Fantastic Four. The Thing was just Ben Grimm before cosmic radiation turned him into a brickwall. Mr.Fantastic of the FF also showed up in Sgt.Fury, but Stan Lee must have dropped the idea of writing about the past of these characters right away.

When Sgt.Fury was transformed into an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., he was the last guy to be transported from the fourties into the modern Marvel universe. He was just made a bit older and it worked much better than defreezing Captain America who spent twenty years in an iceblock. There was no more need for a second universe in the past until The Invaders started in 1975. But that was just another superhero-title for an audience who liked the touch of "the Golden Age" while The Leatherneck Raiders was supposed to be a new war comic with the legendary Marvel touch. It remains the only title of it's kind that Marvel has put out besides Sgt.Fury which was published until 1981. But Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD already started in June 1968 and it ran for 18 issues until March 1971 (Issues#1-3 and 5 were by Steranko who also did the first seven covers. Those are some of the finest pop art-comics ever made. Look for the collected edition!) So, Nick Fury had two titles at the same time for a while and the modern one was cancelled.

The Leatherneck Raiders was cancelled exactly a year before. It started shortly after Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD came out in January 1968. The Zeitgeist was getting restless that year. A strange time to do new war comics, I thought.

Nothing else on the web about this title. Shame on you, Marvel zombies! But that's what makes mad-science.net such an exclusive source, ha, ha...

-toonopedia.com on Sgt.Fury

NEWSARAMA has a story on Marvel's new wave of fan fiction. There's going to be a new Epic-imprint and in a few days Marvel will open it's doors to accept any kind of submission from writers and artists. Even though it's SUPPOSED to be a unique label it's gonna be part of the old Marvel universe with all it's ridiculous heroes and allmighty gods running around in their underwear. Here's what Marvel itself had to say on this:

"EPIC Comics is a new Marvel imprint under which we will publish comics written and illustrated by YOU. Anybody will have the opportunity to submit work for consideration by EPIC's submissions editor.

EPIC enjoys more favorable economic parameters than Marvel (and other publishers for that matter) so we can publish books that others can't."

Publish book that others can't, is that with or without Wolverine and Spider-Man? Can we show titties, people doing drugs and someone peeing on the president's head? Or are you just trying to buy some cheap concepts? You're just a toy company, Marvel. You're producing action figures and comics about Action Figures. You know shit about art. It's not like people have to go crazy for the opportunity to work for the holy royal highness of trash culture. See, there are publishers all over the world and they're putting out a lot of comics THAT YOU CAN'T PUBLISH BECAUSE YOU'RE STILL FOLLOWING THE SAME BORING PRINCIPLES AND ALL THAT! Fuck Captain America! Fuck the current war propaganda you're putting up in comic books for eight years old kids!

Look at the ridiculous amount of money they're offering for giving away all the rights at the door. 500 bucks and that' it, right!

Read all about EPIC including submission guidelines "Modern Epic"-story over at ninthart.com

Since the deadline for the Stripburger's War Edition is getting closer (April 15th!), we are getting a little bit anxious. We would like you to remind you about our contest and ask you to give as a feedback and tell us if you have some ideas and if you plan to make a story. By doing so, you will make us more relaxed before the action of puting the issue together.

We'd also like to let you know that in the meantime we got an invitation to present the anthology at the Berliner Comicfestival (27.- 31. August 2003)

Looking forward for your reply, we keep our anti-war morale high!

Your's Stripburger

Exclusive scoop: It looks like there will be a relaunch of this classic Marvel-team from the Seventies under the Max-banner in a while. The daughters are Misty Knight who has a cyborg-arm and Colleen Wing who can do karate. Together they have a detective agence called Knightwing. The new series will have a lesbian approach, that's right!

Here is a rare Mickey Mouse-Annual from 1932 which shows the racist view of Walt Disney. Mickey fights "fierce niggers".

Eine gute Sammlung mit rund 1486 Comicseiten online gibt es bei ddr-comics.de

Art Spiegelman, best known for Maus, resigned from the New Yorker to protest "widespread conformism of the mass media."

His new series "In the Shadow of No Towers" is published by Forward and some installements will be posted on the web.

"(Q) Is it possible that the media is more reactionary than their readers?

"I don't think so at all, not after reading in the polls that George W. Bush is the most admired man in America. The world I see is very different from what they see. Those who think like me are condemned to the margins because the critical alternative press of the Vietnam War era no longer exists. The NYT chose to remain silent about the enormous protest marches that took place during the summer; and the readers of The Nation, the only major publication with any guts, are at most 50 thousand: that's nothing in a country as large as ours."

Marvel Comics' new Max-line is just in time for deconstructing Western-myths with the "Rawhide Kid" by Ron Zimmerman and the original artist John Severin, who must be in his eighties now. It's the revival of an old series from the fourties which continued within Marvel's old Western-line until the seventies. Max-Editor Axel Alonso has been successfully relaunching titles with some sort of controversial direction for quite some time now. Some were brilliant and some were boring. This one is a joke and it doesn't seem like the author has any sort of understanding of homosexuality.

There is that annoying big sticker on the cover saying "Parental Advisory-Explicit Content". I didn't find any explicit content and they're probably not talking about the lame brawl inside the saloon in the middle of the story. Is it meant the way that kids are not supposed to read a book with a gay protagonist? What's wrong with that? Concerned parents of America, you're full of shit! Fuck your 1887-family values!

Didn't you know that Captain America is gay as well? Haven't you heard of Batman and Robin?

Just look at the costumes! Would anyone who is not a faggot read crappy superhero-books? Your kid is probably jerking off while thinking of that hunk Daredevil right now!

And let me tell you that Marvel will put out a series about a lesbian couple next! I can see your daughter burn her cheerleader-uniform already.

The US didn't invent pizza and they didn't invent the comic-book either. Check out Gustav Dore, damned yankees!

"Originally published as Les Amours de M. Vieuxbois in 1839, the work saw American release as Obadiah Oldbuck in 1841 and claims arguable status as the first American comic book. In addition to a re-typset facsimile edition of Töepffer's work, the comic will include an introduction by Robert Beerbohm, a Martin Mystere strip, Italian translation of the original French captions and a new cover 'in the style of a modern comic book," reports publisher Alfredo Castelli to the Platinum Age Comics mailing list." Here's the cover (is that Tony Blair with his dog?)

quoted from Comic Journal's Journalista

Marvel Comics has made some deal with the anti-smoking-campaign thetruth.com. The logo has showed up all over the New York-version of the Marvel Universe. Paul O'Brien has an article on this over at ninthart.com/:

"What can we tell from this surprising plethora of logos? And it's always the logo, by the way, pasted into the art. Well, two possibilities present themselves. One is that a whole load of Marvel creators have independently decided they'd like to promote the work of this admirable organisation, who have very generously agreed to make their trademark available for the purpose. The other is that the logos are paid adverts, incorporated into the artwork itself. I don't need to tell you which option is the more plausible."

Warren Ellis has commented on this one in his personal newsletter. Here it is:
"Patrick Stewart has apparently said, in a dozen places, that he still wants to make a TRANSMET film.

This does not mean one is in production, nor that anyone's actively working to develop it right now.

I think Patrick's brilliant. I think he'd make an excellent Spider Jerusalem. Providing Darick was amenable, and I can't imagine he wouldn't be, we'd go and make a film with Patrick and Wendy Stewart in a second. But right now, nothing's happening.

Patrick and I haven't spoken in a while -- he did the last TREK film and X-MEN 2 back-to-back -- and I haven't caught up with Wendy in a little while now. When we do talk, we talk TRANSMET. There were overtures made to Darick and I by a director about a year ago, and I kept Patrick and Wendy updated whenever anything happened -- it came to nothing, as you can tell. Hollywood's built on talk. It's no big deal. Before that, we all tried to set up TRANSMET as a web animation with rich media around it, as a stepping stone to a movie, but the company involved tried to screw us all, and that was that.

What Patrick is saying is that he still wants to make the film. He knows I'm right there with him. We see things the same way. Patrick publicly attaching himself to the project doesn't hurt. But right now, nothing's happening. Okay?"

Transmetropolitan.com

The independent fair and comic-show Expo 2003 in the US is coming up!

-Graphic artist Peter Kuper has always been a favourite of mine. Check out the brilliant mini-series "The System" and Peter Kuper - Online

Metaphrog also has a new Flash-Site. Nice one, man!

The Acme Novelty Library is the best single work of any living comic-artist. It has been praised over and over. The artist still doesn't feel a need for a homepage, but there is a short animation you might wanna see:
Sparky In Action- Fashioned from disparate printed elements, here's Sparky in QuickTime (371k, see bottom of the page).

Did you see the work of David Rees? Well, you should! I recommended his site before and now some of his collected strips have made it into a nice paperback put out by Soft Skull.
There's a good review by Warren Ellis at artbomb if you still don't know why this might be interesting...
Well, check out Get your War on! - Online Edition or buy the "dead tree"-edition at amazon.

New Comic-series by the guy who created "Transmetropolitan" The website is here: Global Frequency

First peek: Cover by Brian Wood (Channel Zero) and first four pages as illustrated by Steve Dillon (The Preacher): Cover Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

New picture of the jade giant.

The official website for The Hulk by Ang Lee is open now. Not too much to see yet though... Holy Shit! Hulk smashes! Superherohype.com dug around the HTML on the Universal-Site and they managed to steal the Hulk-trailer for the Superbowl. It's a small-size-copy of 1.7 MB for the Windows media Player and it's worth waiting for a moment. Uhoh, now it's available in Quick Time and it looks way better! See the Hulk smash a lot of things and throw around a tank:
The Hulk Super Bowl TV Spot - full Quick Time-format

The Hulk Super Bowl TV Spot - shitty Windows Media Player-Format