The REAL Lobo

In the final month of 1965, Dell published a unique title - Lobo. The creation of artist Tony Tallarico and scripted by D.J. Arneson, Lobo was a classic "Man With No Name" character - a U.S. Civil War veteran tired of the killing and simply seeking peace. It's a archetypal role that served well for a lot of comics and movies over the years, and Lobo beat many of them to it.

The duo took the character to Dell's editor-in-chief, Helen Meyer - she loved the concept and put the book into production. In December, the first issue shipped out.

Lobo's tale opens as the Civil War closes...

 Lobo establishes himself as both true to his desire for peace and a man with nothing to prove as he avoids one saloon fight, and simply walks away when another breaks out when Ace tries to provoke him, despite being called a coward for not wanting to fight.

As expected, while he chases after Johnson the others pin the crime on him, giving the only name they know - LOBO.

Lobo finds himself "wanted for every unsolved killing and robbery this side of the Mississippi." While pondering his options, a near miss shot leads him to find the man he avoided fighting back in the bar, Red Carson. Red explains that "Ace and Smoker hung around after the killing you did and ended up robbing the bank." Lobo corrects him about the killing, and Carson explains why he was out here in the first place -

After a brief fight, Lobo captures the trio and rides them back to town...

Lobo gives the dead man a proper burial and heads back to the only place he isn't hunted, the old timer's cabin, only to find the old man on his deathbed -

Perhaps the most truly remarkable aspect of Lobo was the lack of racial stereotypes. He wasn't an escaped slave or any of the standard tropes one might expect. In fact, at no point is his race even mentioned - he is simply a man, marked only by the colour of his skin. That's a concept that seems to elude so many creators even today. And one that was far too advanced for the time...

If one was telling the story of comic books in standard comic book form,  one of the greatest super-villains of the tale would be Distribution.We've already seen how distribution killed efforts by small publishers to put out their own comics featuring black heroes. Distribution did terrible things to the industry over time - killing even Jack Kirby & Joe Simon's company, preventing them from potentially bringing about what was eventually the Marvel Age of comics. And distribution is an even bigger enemy here.

Lobo was cancelled with issue #2 for one very simple reason. Over 90% of the bundles were returned - most unopened. The dealers refused to put a title starring a black man on the stands, and readers were never given the option to buy it. So vitriolic was their reaction that the vendors often returned all the comics bundled with Lobo, crippling Dell's financial flow for that month. Tragically, a measurable portion of the population today is still driven by that fear that acknowledging different others somehow diminishes themselves.

In his second and final episode, Lobo faces off against a land baron styling himself The King -

While this exact scene may not appear in the comic, it's close enough - they do duel with a variety of medieval weapons.

Next time, we jump back to the 1940s -

pages by D.J. Arneson and Tony Tallarico for Lobo #s 1 & 2 (1965, 1966)

Another Month Arrives

Hey! I finally noticed what the date is today. I suppose you'll be wanting your monthly calendars then.
Right - here we are:

NOTE: The Playboy calendar page has nudity, of course,
and has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the picture.

Our ongoing topic will resume shortly.

In The Days Before The Panther Ruled

When it comes to oddly unique stories, the coolest tale for Ebon doesn't appear on the pages of the comic. Cover-dated 1970, Ebon was published in December of 1969 in San Franciso when the undergrounds were in full bloom.

Larry Fuller had a desire to tell the story of an authentic black super hero, an idea that started a few years earlier, while he was still serving in the Air Force. After returning to civilian life and moving to San Francisco, he ran into what might seem like an insurmountable problem to any other man. He couldn't find an artist for the book. He did, however, have the G.I. Bill, which provided for college education for service veterans. So to accomplish his dream, he used it to go to art school and learn to draw the book - both pencils and inks.

While the comic suffers for the lack of a more experienced and polished inker, it's amazing to think it was created by someone who hadn't the skills to even attempt it only a 2 or 3 years before that point. The book stands as a testament to what ambition and drive can accomplish when a man has a vision and the will to achieve it.

The entire story runs 26 pages, so we'll be trimming a bit for length -

 Our hero is taken up to the ship, and learns of Oju and his people - a once fearsome warrior race now dedicated to the prevention of destruction and violence. He explains that centuries ago "our greatest explorer, Jom, came here and found life!"

Jom's Heart acts as a catalyst, foreshadowing the Inhuman's Terrigenesis in later Marvel comics, and is rendered comatose. Oju's machines tend to Valentine while he undergoes his metamorphosis, and soon...

 The book was published by Gary Arlington, a San Francisco comic shop owner, and it had exceedingly low distribution - fewer than 100 copies were sold.

Without being able to generate the necessary audience, issue 2 was never produced. Last i knew, Fuller still had designs on continuing the character, and mentions intent to do so on his website. However, it doesn't seem to have been updated in this century, so there's no telling there.

Quite interestingly, Fuller later wound up working together with Grass Green - the creator of Super Soul American from our previous post. As yet, i've been unable to find copies of those comics. Damn.

A little over a year later, another small publisher produced an even harder to find comic:

Written and published by Tom Floyd, with strong artwork from Eric O'Kelley, the book starred Steven Thomas who is transformed by a fairly generic laboratory accident into the Soul Wonder Of The World, with powers of Strength, Invulnerability and Flight. Leader Comics operated out of Indiana, which likely didn't help the distribution.

As we've seen above, distribution was a big problem for the independent publisher. There was, however, one black hero who got his own title from a major publisher way back in 1965...

We'll talk about Lobo next time...