Category: Uncategorized

The Everyman (1991)
by Michael Allred and Bernie Mireault

Oh, wow. An Allred/Mireault jam. (Heh heh.)

I loved Mireault’s comics back then, but the publishing history was so convoluted that I’m not sure I ever read them all. It was a fun concept, and the books were engaging, but I have a feeling that it kinda petered out? I should re-read those comics at some point…

Hm. Nobody has put out a complete The Jam collection? Shame!

Allred is, of course, a super-star now, but I did lose track of him in the 90s. I loved Graphique Music, but he seemed to streamline both his artwork and his storytelling as time went on, and I basically lost interest. I still have a tendency to snap up new work of his if I happen upon it…

Wow. This is so bizarre to look at. The guy’s face is 100% Mireault, and the awkward poses (and slightly wonky proportions) of the girl (especially in the second and eight panels) scream Allred. It’s so weird seeing their massively distinctive separate styles smushed together this way.

Not that it looks bad or anything, but it certainly takes some getting used to.

The plot is a basic rape/revenge (possibly without the rape, but with murder) story.

It doesn’t make much sense, though — why, for instance, did Emily Play (see) induce their killer to kill his wife? It seems like a really roundabout way of getting revenge, not to mention being a really shitty plot development.

The layouts are also just kinda sloppy — the two BLAM panels being positioned like that throw everything out of whack.

So I don’t know what this comic is, really. Just two pals goofing off on a story? On the one hand, it seems so unambitious and in-jokey, and on the other hand, there’s more going on here than in strictly necessary. They set up the structure for a continuous series, but it’s not like they really make that series seem very… pressing.

Jason Sachs writes in Amazing Heroes #200, page 83:

The Everyman is the newest feature of
Marvel’s Epic horror line, although
the comic is more supernatural than
horrific.
It concerns Emily Play, a benign
witch raped and murdered in a small
town, and her coming back for
revenge in the body of an androgynous
supernatural being of vengeance, the
Everyman (although the being is never
given that name in the story).
This sounds rather cliched in out-
line, but co-creators Dalton Allred and
Bernie Mireault breathe fresh life into
the plotline. For instance, rather than
have Emily/Everyman kill her rapist
and murderer in the book’s climax,

[SPOILERS CENSORED! DUDE!]

Pretty unique for a Marvel hero.
Allred and Mireault’s art is gor-
geous. Apparently, the two men paint-
ed animation cels to create the tex-
tured colors and vibrant linework
here—it’s a unique effect, and quite
attractive.
The Everyman seems to be a pilot
for what looks like a pretty good
series. It has some plot holes and is
occassionally a bit hard to follmv. But
the idea has promise. Let’s hope
Allred and Mireault get a chance to
bring back their unique and
compassionate spirit of vengeance.

Sachs basically retold the entire plot, which is a bit excessive. I mean, even for me, on a blog 30 years later.

An interview in Amazing Heroes #196, page 65:

LANG: When did The Everyman
come into this?
BE.M: Well, around this time, he said
he’d get The Everyman going and I
said, “Yeah, sure.” So, a month later,
he called me up and said Carl Potts
from Epic had tentatively agreed to do
The Everyman. A little after that, it was
a go, one of the great shocks of my life.
LANG: Why was that a great shock?
BEM: Why’? Because I genuinely
don’t expect anything out of this in-
dustry (laughter). I expect to work
hard doing comics because I love it,
then die, then later on, someone will
reprint my stuff and, make a lot of
money. Somebody. Somewhere. But
not for me in this life. So, The
Everynan project got off the ground
and I got to use this coloring technique
that I like that’s like painting anima-
tion cells. It prints very, very well, and
I don’t think the industry has seen it
very often so I expect it’ll make quite
a splash.

Hm… did it?

An Inerview in The Comics Journal #164, page 101:

WINDHAM: The Everyman
certainly seemed more ob-
sessive than Madman,
which obviously operates
more as an adventure
comic. You wrote The
Everyman before Madman
Adventures, yes?
ALLRED: Right.
WINDHAM: Was there any reason that you didn ‘t continue
with The Everyman?
ALLRED: Yeah, the main reason was Epic didn’t promote it
at all, and they were only interested in it being a one-shot.
Bernie Mireault — my partner on The Everyman — and I
wanted to continue. I came up with the story idea, then we
bounced it back and forth — that’ s why when you read the
credits it doesn’t say who drew it, who inked it, who
colored it, it just says, “Mike and Bernie.” The Everyman
is both Ofours equally. We had intended to have a continu-
ing series wherein each issue a new Spirit would have
control ofthe body and it would be a whole different story.
It was unlimited where we could go, determining on what
character was inhabiting the body. So it was very charac-
ter-driven, and we were really disappointed that we weren ‘ t
able to continue it.

The book has never been reprinted (or continued), and there aren’t many reviews of it out there. Here’s one:

It’s a wonder Allred and Mireault didn’t do more work together, because there’s something almost alchemical about their marriage. This book appears to be drawn by the former and inked by the latter, and they both have clearly stamped every page with their own style.

Captain Confederacy (1991) #1-4
by Will Shetterly and Vince Stone

Captain Confederacy! That brings back memories! Vague, vague memories.

I read this as a teenager in its original, self-published incarnation. I had a thing where I’d sample at least one comic from every new publisher that popped up… until the black and white explosion happened, and I had to stop, because that was 90% crap. But I remember kinda liking Captain Confederacy? I think I dropped it at some point, though, because… Well, I don’t remember.

The title probably makes everybody think that this is some kind of right-wing loony tunes kind of comic, but it’s not: It’s an alternate history thing where the US isn’t a single nation, but is the quilt shown above.

In the first issue, we’re introduced to all these non-Confederacy “heroes”, like this German fly girl and this Texan cyborg, but the book otherwise doesn’t really tell us much about the world the story takes place in, or, indeed, what’s Captain Confederacy’s story: It’s perfectly readable the way it is, but I’d guess that people who read the original series will find it a lot easier than newer readers.

Stone’s artwork is quite readable, but the figures are pretty sloppy and amateurish: Is that doctor (in the lab coat) supposed to have legs that are one quarter of the length of his torso?

Also note the early computer lettering: It’s jagged and ugly as fuck.

It’s also sometimes just hard telling what they’re trying to convey with all these shifts in perspective and dialogue with ambiguous sources. I think… probably not a lot; it’s just … sloppy.

And… what’s going on here? Is the guy in the cross smock trying to take a pill? What’s that pill supposed to do? Give him super-hero abilities? Is it a suicide pill? Is it even a pill at all? What.

There’s a lot of this sort of thing where you just go… what…

Oh, and Captain Confederacy is now a black woman, which makes a change from when I read the series as a teenager.

Ah, yes. I remember there being quite a lot of explorations into the timeline on the letters pages of the book… and that continues here. Shetterly also says that the Civil War was about states’ rights.

Right.

The colouring is pretty odd, I have to say.

There’s little action over the four issues. It’s mostly these people standing around, talking to each other about … stuff. The plot is about a … conference for … heroes from different countries that’s… supposed… to achieve something.

It’s not the most thrilling of concepts.

Stone is credited as “penciller”, and there’s no inker listed, which makes me wonder whether the artwork is somehow enhanced on a computer. It does look pretty lo-res?

And, oh, that’s some muscles on that guy… Perhaps he’s supposed to be horribly deformed?

And then (spoilers!) it turns out that it’s all a plot to re-unite the US and manifest destiny etc. Nefarious!

I get the feeling that Shetterly isn’t much interested in telling a story (because there isn’t much of a story here), but instead just think about possibilities for his universe.

One thing that’s still unclear by the end of the series is whether Captain Confederacy has any super-powers. In the scene above, you see the guy with the magical sword cut a hole in the ceiling (and, yes, that’s is totally what it would look like if you cut a hole between two floors of a high-rise hotel; totally), and then the other guy throws her up, and … that’s the end of the exertion, really. Is she, like, a gymnast?

Shetterly announces that Captain Confederacy may continue, or it may not. And a fan writes about possible uniforms for the universe.

This series has never been collected or reprinted, but you can apparently read bits of it online? And here’s Shetterly’s blog.

As you can imagine, it’s a bit controversial:

“I’m trying to follow the gist of this comic book,” Boswell said. “It seems to be a racial thing throughout. I really found it offensive.” Both Joey and Boswell are white. Boswell said the book’s content also offended her other foster child, who is Black.

Uhm… that’s… some introduction to an interview:

When we interviewed one of Captain Confederacy’s creators, writer, Will Shetterly, we had nothing but partial information on this comic book series. So it wasn’t clear for us whether the series really was written from a racist point of view, or if it was a denunciation of this attitude. Thus, we tried to ask questions which would allow Shetterly to present his case fairly, whether he was a racist or not.

Heh:

How do you feel about having created this series back then, today?

We had some minor frustrations. We were one of the first to experiment with computer production of comics. The colors of the Epic series are too bright, and the lettering is terrible. That’s the price of being an early adopter of new technology.

But I see that they didn’t actually ask him. I’m pretty sure the answer is “no”, but:

Shetterly popularized the term “social justice warriors”[6] in 2009 in his blog “Social Justice Warriors: Do Not Engage”, by contrasting them with “social justice workers”, the former being more extreme people who “rage, mob and dox in the belief that promoting identitarianism [I.e., identity politics] will make a better world.”.

I wasn’t able to find any reviews of the Epic series.