Jim is an artist as well as a writer, and that's where you'd find much of his work these days. While you might not know his writing from his old comics, odds are you've seen some of his artwork. His character designs have graced such shows as the animated Superman from the 90s to the Scooby-Doo videos of recent years. His artwork appears in many other toons, ranging from Johnny Quest to Fish Police to Freakazoid! to Tom & Jerry.
I know him best from his old stories he did for Warren, and sometimes they stuck with me in the oddest ways. Back in the days before the WWWeb, hunting and collecting music was a much more difficult and time consuming endeavor. I maintained a constant watch list of things for which i was hunting, and the printed copy had a header reading Hard John's Nuclear Hit Parade. That title came from Jim Stenstrum.
Back in the 70s when my first son was gestating, Jim had a short series of stories in Eerie running under that title, starring Hard John Apple, illustrated by Richard Corben. This was right about the time that Den started running in Heavy Metal magazine, bringing a bit more attention to the work he was doing at Warren.
A snippet-
...some time later...
Where Joe Guy played a light-hearted but dark parody of the comics genre, Hard John gave Stenstrum license to turn that twisted lens on modern society of the 60s & 70s. As usual when Jim is spotted driving, i was standing by the road with my thumb out, eager to go along for the ride. Even the short jaunts were usually interesting, like his work with Neal Adams to produce Thrillkill - a story about a public mass shooter written way back in 1975.
In addition to his work in animation, Jim also has a new series of novels featuring Rex Havoc (just two so far - Asskickers Of The Fantastic and Horror Island.)
I've yet to read either, but Rex Havoc & The Asskickers Of The Fantastic was the title of a story he did for Warren's 1984 back in 1978, just to be confusing. I only discovered the existence of these books while writing this piece, but i quite enjoyed the original 10 page comic.
If you go hunting through old issues of Eerie, Creepy and 1984 looking for his work, you should know that Jim also wrote for them under the name of Alabaster Redzone.
Anyway - Yes, we'll come back to Hard John after we wrap up on Joe Guy. In the meantime, here's another taste of Jim Stenstrum's slightly skewed sensibilities as he and John Severin bring us the Super-Abnormal Phenomena Survival Kit -
For younger readers left wondering about that last line, Irwin Allen (who brought us shows like Time Tunnel, Lost In Space and Land Of The Giants) had recently sparked the Disaster Movie genre and was making a new name for himself while altering the Hollywood landscape, influencing movies to this day. The Towering Inferno and Earthquake were huge box office back when this was written.
pages from Creepy #79 and Eerie #83 (1976, 1977)
John Severin was one of those artists who was so very very good all the time that I think fans overlooked just how amazing his work was. He always delivered a slightly askew real world view which worked for comedy or adventure, but the distinction was small. In a satire like this, that is the ideal artistic note to ring.
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I'm not sure why the system doesn't like your posts, Rip. There was no email notification this time, either.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Severin was terribly overlooked. He wasn't flashy - he was a good story teller with a solid, clean style. Sometimes the best artists can become invisible in a way. They do their work in a way that leaves the viewer/reader more conscious of the story itself than they are of the presentation.
Fortunately for me, his slightly askew real world view, as you well phrased it, had great appeal for my love of things Odd and drew my eye his way.