Thursday, June 23, 2016

The Boys from Derby: "The Informer!" by Gill and PAM

Dig it, Groove-ophiles! Cop and detective shows were big in the 1970s (as they still are), but for some reason, comics rarely tried their hands at the crime-drama genre. Yeah, the easy answer is, "They all flopped, Groove," but if they'd been given a chance, some of 'em might have caught on. Take Charlton's Vengeance Squad. Yeah, the real "star" of the mag was Nick Cuti and Joe Staton's brilliant back-up strip, Michael Mauser (which you can dig on if you'll take the time to look up those sensational strips in our index), but Vengeance Squad, especially beginning with ish #2 (June 1975), was a really cool strip in its own right. Why "beginning with ish #2"? 'Cause writer/creator Joe Gill was joined by the immensely talented and criminally underrated (ironic considering he was a cop moonlighting in comics) Pet Morisi aka PAM on the art. PAM's style was perfect for the strip. Ol' Groove sees a unique mix of Alex Toth and George Tuska in a slick newspaper strip style that really brought the cool to Eric Redd and his aides Candy Orr and Tulsa Coyle's adventures. Here's there story from that far-out second ish, "The Informer!"

















3 comments:

  1. PAM manages to weld a 50s hard boiled edge to 70s sensibilities in this issue.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pete Morisi was ideal for this woefully overlooked comic book series. E-Man I love, Doomsday +1 was awesome, but this series had a special panache that gets ignored. People talk about the Mauser back up (rightfully) but ignore the great stuff up front.

    Rip Off

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 2 series mutually reinforced each other.

      Delete

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin
Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


All other commentary and insanity copyright GroovyAge, Ltd.

As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!