A Slice of 1993: Oh the Art! Oh the Feminism!

[mechanicaljewel]

A few weeks ago on NS_D, I talked about my plans about starting a blog about the kind of YA fantasy I grew up reading-- namely, stuff about witches and absolutely NO sparkly vampires. (BTW, that blog is up and going and I've already done a profile of Nico Minoru) Given that Zatanna is getting her own ongoing in May, I've been trying to get a good grasp of the character (who I really only knew from Identity Crisis before), which led me to the 4-issue mini "Come Together" that came out in 1993.

As a girl who cut her comics teeth on Sandman but has mostly been reading superhero comics the past couple years, let me say: Ooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh how I miss late-80s, early-90s DC/Vertigo art. A lot of European artists who hadn't given up on their European style, very gorgeous stuff! The story by Lee Marrs is okay, but the art by Esteban Maroto is phenomenal

This is the first page of issue #1:



A page from #2 where she combines the power of her dad's old wand and her Atlantean mother's necklace:



And the climactic scene in #4:





(Then she jumps into the demon's mouth to "become one with it")







OMFG. Seriously, where are the artists like this anymore? I checked ComicBookDB, and Maroto apparently hasn't done anything substantial for a while, which makes me a sad panda. But my god, why don't the European artists draw like this any more? Or Americans, for that matter?

And reason #2 I brought the series up-- I got a good chuckle out of the letters page from issue 2, and since we've shared many a laugh (and some outrage) over letters pages in the past, I thought we were due for a new round.




So DC beat Marvel to the whole "Year of the Woman" thing about 17 years ago. What, if anything, might this tell us about the future? (In b4 "In 10 years, Scarlet Witch will mind-wipe some dude who raped Mary Jane.")

Requested tags: creator: lee marrs, creator: esteban maroto, char: zatanna zatara, year: 1993

Comments

[meatwhichdreams]

Magnificent! I have no idea what the hell is going on plot-wise but the feeling of it all gets across anyway.

[mechanicaljewel]

Yeah, like I said, the story was okay, and by the end I really was reading it for the art. The irony is, I had a hard time following (at least in the beginning) because I had no idea into which context in the DCU it was going on, though they tried to make reference to other stories that (I guess) preceded this one, yet there were still a ton of letters in the other columns that were all "Damn Jim Shooter and his insistence that every comic be accessible to new readers! Us ~true readers~ know what's going on!" The idea that someone almost 20 years later might want to read it hadn't crossed their mind. (Or conversely, the idea that constant references to preceding canon might confuse new readers more than acclimate them)

[halloweenjack]

Wow--I wonder whether that art was influenced by Bissette/Totleben on Swamp Thing, or influenced it, or some sort of parallel development. Very nice.

[icon_uk]

Esteban Maroto has been drawing in much this style since the 1960's so there's no real question that he's basing this on anything other than himself.

As luck would have it I found my copies of the Amethyst miniseries he did in the 1980's and have been meaning to post some samples here, just to show how "Wow!" his work can be.

[sistermagpie]

Wow. That is pretty awesome.

[domino_blue]

Can I just say I can't see Zatanna without the hat and fish nets?

[greenmask]

Oooh, that's good art.

[autumn_lily]

::stares at white generic pill bottle:: This was aspirin that I just took right? Right?

[ex_miskatonic786]

I have a love/hate for the art and the story. I'm more into the art than story, tbh.

As for Lee Marrs, PLEASE DON'T HOLD ME TO THIS, but I believe he was one of those tremendously sad cases in comic history and was actually one of the first people helped by the CBDL.

(Though I dislike short-haired!Zee, I suggest Hellblazer issue Forty for the lulz.)

[mechanicaljewel]

Well, for one, Lee Marrs is a woman. She was an underground artist-- she wrote for Wimmin's Comix, even! Anyway, she's still around, as an animator. I haven't found anything about anything bad happening to her, so you might be thinking about someone else.

I agree with you about the story, though-- by the last issue, I was just skimming the words and breathing in the art.

[ex_miskatonic786]

THERE YOU GO SEE. TOLD YOU NOT TO (have Combs in his underpants as a consolation). I don't remember, but I could swear it was someone involved with this piece.

The first issue was like "hey, okay. Constantine's in a top hat so everything's awesome," but then it became, "lol Zee, someday they'll stop pushing men on you," it would be nice to see this story updated with ah, not 90s style clothing, but even then I can look it over.

Have you seen the solicits poster for it? It was gorgeous.

[mechanicaljewel]

Kim Yale (John Ostrander's wife, co-creator of Babs-as-Oracle) was the editor. She died of breast cancer a few years later. Maybe that's who you were thinking of?

And no, I'd love to see the poster for it.

[ex_miskatonic786]

Maybe! I'm going to have to go look everything up, now. Because it's going to drive me crazy otherwise.

Ta-da! I haven't seen it in a higher-res version than this, but it's still very nice. There's something special about the art when I can overlook the clothing (and sometimes hair) style. I have a really hard time re-reading Fate and Guy Gardner: Warrior, but this stuff takes the cake.

I think there were some of the inks up on comicartfans.com, and they were really gorgeous to look at.