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MattBrady
03-14-2007, 08:12 AM
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/TwoMorrows/BackIssue/21/21_LRG.jpg" align="right"><i>From BACK ISSUE #21, on sale March 15th from TwoMorrows Publishing:</i>

<i><b>Seeing Red: Dissecting Daredevil’s Redefining Years</b>
by Philippe Cordier</i>

<b>Daredevil is not a bestselling book!</b> The title is not in the same commercial league as X-Men.

But there is something about Marvel’s Man without Fear … something that attracts artists and, when done well, readers as well.

There is also something unfair about Daredevil (DD)—such wonderful creators were on the book, yet a lot of them are unsung heroes.

Talk about DD with fellow comics fans and the names you’ll hear are Gene Colan and Frank Miller (along with some discussion of Stan Lee, Bill Everett, and Wally Wood) among the “older” readers, while almost every “modern” fan will jump to the Kevin Smith/Joe Quesada, Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev, or Ed Brubaker/Michael Lark eras. That’s a shame, because a lot of other good artists worked on the character.
In this article, I’ll focus on two kinds of creators:

The first person we’ll look at is not an unsung creator—far from it, because we’re talking about Frank Miller. As great as the man was/is, his DD should also be remembered because of the artists he worked with on the title: Klaus Janson, David Mazzucchelli, and John Romita, Jr. (we’ll leave Bill Sienkiewicz for what could be a future BI issue).

The second thing we’ll take a look at is a run that is not famous enough: Daredevil by Ann Nocenti, John Romita, Jr., and Al Williamson. This rather long and very good run is often forgotten because it was kind of a “strange” book, thanks to Nocenti’s twisted imagination.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give the devil his due…

<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/twomorrows/backissue/21/file003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/twomorrows/backissue/21/file003_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a><b>THE BEST THERE IS AT WHAT HE DOES (#158–172)</b>

Frank Miller makes no mystery of the fact that he always loved crime comics. DD was as close as he could get to this genre, considering that crime comics weren’t the flavor of the month at the time (and still are not). When Miller got his start in the late 1970s, almost all you could do if you were a young cartoonist was draw super-heroes. Daredevil’s costume is plain enough to have allowed Miller to stay away from the all-too-colorful world of super-heroes that he didn’t want to do in those days.

One of Frank Miller’s strength was and still is <i>storytelling</i>: His layouts are a joy to behold. Those skills didn’t come out of nowhere: There are strong influences by Will Eisner in the way the city (a character of its own) is portrayed in Miller’s DD, with long panels and layouts trying to slow down the reader’s eye, or multiple little panels making the reader fly across the page.

Miller also paid a big tribute to the late Gil Kane in figure drawing, anatomy, and panel layouts that were clearly inspired by this artist. Miller added his sense of dialogue as soon as he could do the writing himself, very early on the run. [<i>Editor’s note: Miller started as penciler with <b>Daredevil #158</b> (May 1979), working with writer Roger McKenzie, then assumed the writing chores with issue #168 (Jan. 1981).</i>]

Miller is a consummate storyteller: Once a reader started his DD, he couldn’t to stay away from it. Adventure, drama, strong and beautiful women, a sharp sense of humor, cliffhangers … and most of all, mood—mood all over the page! This grim-and-gritty feeling (way before it was cool to be grim and gritty) was this run’s forte, but it might not have been possible if Miller had worked alone—at least half of what made Miller’s pages so great came from someone else, someone who started as an inker (and a finisher), then became the sole artist of the book:

Klaus Janson. <b>IN THE SHADOWS (#173–190)</b>

Covering Klaus Janson’s career is an impossible task for just one article. It would take a whole issue of <i>Back Issue</i> (maybe someday?).

Beginning with issue #158, when young Miller came on board as DD’s penciler, Janson was already inking the book. He had worked over pencilers Carmine Infantino, Gene Colan, and Gil Kane for a good deal of issues. He was there to make sure that the pages still looked good and consistent under the new cartoonist’s run. And boy, was it good! Miller really glowed when he took over the writing gig. He was then drawing very tight pencils, but trusted Janson to add texture to the pencil art.

After some time it was obvious that Janson was able to do much more than ink over the pencils, so Miller gave him looser drawings, beginning with issue #173 (Aug. 1981). Until this issue, Miller had spotted blacks. After that, it was the inker’s job. [<i>Editor’s note: “Spotting blacks” is indicating where inked blacks should or should not go.</i>] This allowed Frank Miller the penciler (who, at that time, was still drawing on the actual artboards) to focus on the writing and storytelling—not to mention that it was two issues after the book went monthly, so production time was also a factor.

Janson embellished Miller’s great finished layouts with every tool he could find: brushes, pens, markers, zip-a-tone, duo-shade paper, and clothes (for inked effects). He even inked parts of panels with a stick! Every tool that made the pages “work” was a good one. This gave readers pages saturated with atmosphere. Paper and colors played a very important part on the end result.

Here is what Klaus Janson has to say when asked about this subject:
“The duo-shade paper was only used for special occasions. It is a paper that is a bit thicker than the usual board and has texture embedded into it that cannot be seen unless you apply a chemical to it. I used it occasionally—as examples, once for a Daredevil poster that Frank and I did, and another time for the cover of <b>Daredevil #181</b> (and some other times, I’m sure, but I can’t remember all of them. There is a shot of Kingpin in one of the pages [issue #190, page 33] where he’s in his limo and I think I used duo-shade paper in that panel).

“I used a lot of duo-shade in DD #177, for instance. All the flashbacks were duo-shade, as was the sequence where Elektra is climbing up the mountainside in DD #190. But the premise was that the duo-shade had different textures in it that would be revealed when the artist applied a chemical to it. Some duo-shade paper was just lines (like the cover to DD #181), other types had other types of texture (like stipple, which looks grainy). I like the line duo-shade the best. You could get two different densities out of one paper: One was a line going one way, and the other was a darker version, which meant the lines were crossing each other, if you know what I mean. I just used it to give some depth and texture to certain images.

<center><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/TwoMorrows/BackIssue/21/file002.jpg" border="0"></p>
<p><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/TwoMorrows/BackIssue/21/file004.jpg" border="0"></center>

“I was very much interested (still am) in what light does, and would often use my interest in light as a way of organizing the image. If you look at the DD work, the color, the use of zip-a-tone and duo-shade, was all about creating mood, clearing up the storytelling, and experimenting with light. And I don’t want to minimize another reason: which is that it looked just very, very cool. A lot of books at that time were still basically four-color with no attempt to go beyond that, and I was very influenced by Neal Adams and Jim Steranko and what they were able to do beyond the basic four-color (red, blue, yellow, and black) limitations of the printing process.”

Zip-a-tone can be used for great effects, too. Let’s read what Klaus Janson has to say about the way he used it on page 13 of <b>Daredevil #187</b>:

“The page where DD is crossing the street in the issue where his senses go out of whack—I think his hearing is uncontrollable. Well, in that panel on the top of the page, he starts to walk across the street and there are cars and trucks behind him. I placed a layer of zip-a-tone over the entire background to get a very specific effect. And that was inspired by (and I remember this very clearly) a play that I had just seen where the curtain was down but light was projected from behind it so you could see through the curtain a bit. The light made it transparent. And when the light was off, the curtain seemed solid again. And although I don’t remember [the details of the] the play, that effect stayed with me to this day. And I wanted to duplicate that effect in that panel and make it seem like DD is set apart from his environment (by his senses going crazy), emphasizing his alienation and troubles and also doing a very cool effect.

<center><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/TwoMorrows/BackIssue/21/file001.jpg" border="0"></center>

“Pencilers, inkers, and colorists need to have ideas that they pursue—that’s the most important part of the art, I think, the pursuit of an idea. That’s why when the Daredevil series was reprinted a few years back in a trade paperback, the coloring didn’t need to be ‘updated’ or changed. It looked contemporary already. Which I was pretty damn proud of. Ahead of our time and all that. I always thought that when I started to color the series [beginning with #179, ‘Spiked’], that was when the best work of the series occurred. Both Frank and I were really on fire at the same time, and the book benefited from having a united, organized vision.”

By the end of his run, Frank Miller was doing simple layouts on small sheets of papers, a process he began with issue #185. Klaus Janson was drawing, inking, and coloring the book.

You can’t find this kind of art team today. Every modern-day penciler has to draw so tight that the inker has to fight if he wants to do more than just trace over the line. If you gave a page laid out by the late, great John Buscema to a “modern” inker, it would be fun to see the way he’d look at you. Same thing with Miller’s layouts: As far as storytelling is concerned everything is there on the page; but you won’t find details, figures are not always fully rendered, and the inker has to spot blacks! This type of collaboration is a win-all or lose-all situation: A bad teaming choice and it’s a nightmare, because the inker won’t know how to treat the pencils (Big John Buscema had more than his share of bad inkers); but when the penciler and the inker are “mind reading,” you’ve got the best of both of them.

That’s what happened with Miller and Janson on DD. Toward the end of the run there was no way anyone could see where Miller’s job ended and where Janson’s begun. Now, thanks to BI, you can see it:

Let’s take another look at issue #190, page 33 (the one Klaus told us about when he spoke about duo-shade paper). Janson changed so much in those panels: The Kingpin is not the same anymore in panels 3 and 4 (pen and ink), and the same thing goes for DD in panels 2 and 6. Background is added in panel 1, not to mention the car in panel 5. Miller didn’t draw what he knew Klaus would take care of. There were almost no shadows or black-spotting on the layout, yet the finished page is full of moody blacks. Note that Janson kept the storytelling as good as it was in the rough.

<center><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/TwoMorrows/BackIssue/21/file000.jpg" border="0">
<p><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/TwoMorrows/BackIssue/21/DD.jpg" border="0"></center>

Now, look closely at page 15 of DD #190: a splash page. No storytelling there, just a well-thought-out action shot. Beautiful design and interesting drawing, but one can’t finish this if one can’t draw. Klaus kept the design, then added a little drawing, shadows, blacks, and textures. You still can find some kind of Miller’s drawing in the final page, but it is clear that the page is a Miller/Janson piece of art. Miller’s trust of Janson’s work was so real that Klaus was allowed to change whole faces as long as he stayed faithful to Miller’s idea.

<b>Daredevil #190</b>, page 1 (above) illustrates that point: In the third panel Frank Miller drew a kind of generic face. He may as well have told the inker, “I want a closeup face staring at us.” Klaus Janson drew the same pose as Miller did, but the face isn’t the same at all, since Janson used photo reference on the face. That kind of alteration might very well drive today’s editors to scoff, “Photo ref for an inker?! Are you <i>kiddin’</i>?! That only works for the penciler! An <i>inker</i> can’t add more than line weight!”
But it <i>can</i> be done! With an amazing end result!

Klaus Janson reflects on this process:

“When I look back at certain pages, I feel there were definitely some panels where I went too far from the pencils. Some of that was due to my desire to follow my vision, some of it was a result of trying to keep characters and the book looking consistent through a series of artistic changes, and some of it was due to my shortcomings as an artist.

“If I were handed the same pages today, I would try to keep a bit more the roughness in the pencils rather than ‘smoothing’ them out. There was an abstract quality to the pencils that appeals to me more now than it did then. I’ve always maintained that I can be faithful to a pencil job and do an ‘overhaul’ when necessary.

“All in all, though, I thought Frank and I raised the level of the series and had a great time doing it.”

Miller did a wonderful job on DD, but this run was as much Klaus’ as it was Frank’s (even more Klaus’ than Frank’s toward the end). Would Miller have been successful after DD if he hadn’t worked with Janson? There is almost no doubt that he would have, but one thing is for sure—the two of them grew as artists during this run. And readers had a great character drawn by two great artists!

<i>The DD dissection continues in BACK ISSUE #21, including its up-close-and-personal looks at the Daredevil work of DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, ANN NOCENTI, and JOHN ROMITA, JR. It’s our “The Devil You Say!” issue, is sure to set your soul on fire! Behind its awe-inspiring Daredevil cover by MIKE ZECK is an in-depth look at the Man without Fear’s 1980s and early 1990s adventures. MIKE MIGNOLA recalls the roots of Hellboy in an exclusive interview, DAN MISHKIN and GARY COHN go “Pro2Pro” on their co-creation of Shadowpact’s Blue Devil, and “Greatest Stories Never Told” examines COLLEEN DORAN’s unpublished X-Men spin-off Fallen Angels. Plus sizzling spotlights on the Son of Satan, TY TEMPLETON’s Stig’s Inferno, the hellish humor of DC’s Plop!, and one of JACK KIRBY’s most bizarre comics, Devil Dinosaur! Edited by MICHAEL EURY. 100 pages, $6.95.

Order at your local comics shop, or online at here (http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=415)

Single issues: $9 US Postpaid Or Subscribe: 6-issue subs for $36 US </i>

davew
03-14-2007, 09:12 AM
Those breakdowns are great. Very informative, and nice to see a feature which concentrates on the artwork rather than the writing for a change.

chris08
03-14-2007, 09:25 AM
this was a great article, had no idea these two had so much interaction in their pages. also he used a stick to ink? :confused:

STL
03-14-2007, 09:39 AM
Very cool article. Do these get collected? Or released outside of the US? I would very much like a collected edition of these. Especially this issue to be alongside my DD: Omnibus.

And I agree, Nocenti's run was the 2nd best run ever on DD. Bru's though making a push for it but I still like Kesel's run more. A bit more lighthearted.

talkback
03-14-2007, 09:42 AM
Ann Nocenti's rrun is still one of my favorite times in comics. It's when I fell in love with Daredevil as a character.

POWRSURG
03-14-2007, 09:51 AM
I'm sorry to threadjack, but can someone from Newsarama please fix the home page? All of the ellipsises (elippsii?) for recent links link to the Arnold Drake article. If you click on "full story" for each link it takes you to the correct article, but the ellipsis following the text is incorrect.

On topic, this article has reminded me that I need to read the second volume of Marvel's Frank Miller DD Visionaries. I read volumes one and three (the pre-Elektra and post-Elektra's death volumes), but didn't couldn't find volume two for a bit. Should I read it before the recent Bendis DD trades I picked up? I have read volumes 4 and 5, and just picked up volumes 6-7, 9-12, the last issue that would have been in volume 8 (I wish Marvel would make a new printing of this as it's sold out and that was the only issue I could find locally) and the issues of Bendis run follow 12, save the last which I bought in preparation for Brubaker.

CATMAN3
03-14-2007, 09:52 AM
Nice ZECK cover!

DianaKingston
03-14-2007, 10:14 AM
I think Nocenti's run is often overlooked not so much because of her "strange imagination" but because she was really, really preachy. There's only so much anvil-banging a writer should be allowed before they cross lines.

Spaz_Monkey
03-14-2007, 10:22 AM
Until I saw these pages, I never realized just how important Klaus Janson was to the look and feel of Frank Miller's early work. Janson's inks, or in this case the lack of them, were the defining feature of Dark Knight Strikes Back. DKR's look was so defined, so specific, due to his inks that without them, the follow-up was too slick looking. None of the grit we came to know and love in the Miller/Janson world of Batman.

whitemarkd
03-14-2007, 10:26 AM
This article looks incredible - really adds yet another level of appreciation for the Miller/Janson DD...

Drew Geraci
03-14-2007, 10:30 AM
Klaus has always been my 'hero'. Look at the magic he created using all those lovely shades of gray! Good to see him get his due.

Klaus started on DD over Bob Brown, I think, and the previous Brown issues were very average, as he was given uncompatable inkers. But take a look at Bob & Klaus' work on#125-130 with The Torpedo, Copperhead and Man-Bull and you'll see some dramatic lighting that stands head-to-head with the best DD art!

Also, Gil Kane & Klaus on What If? #3! Damn! I could go on all day...

Drew
www.drewgeraci.com

Ye Olde Iowa
03-14-2007, 10:37 AM
This was a really fascinating article. It's so easy to forget how great art becomes when you have such great collaboration between a penciler and inker. I don't think Janson ever really gets the credit he deserves fro his work here.

Zeitgeist
03-14-2007, 10:50 AM
I wish he would change back to his Black armor costume

Cheech-Daddy
03-14-2007, 11:11 AM
Until I saw these pages, I never realized just how important Klaus Janson was to the look and feel of Frank Miller's early work. Janson's inks, or in this case the lack of them, were the defining feature of Dark Knight Strikes Back. DKR's look was so defined, so specific, due to his inks that without them, the follow-up was too slick looking. None of the grit we came to know and love in the Miller/Janson world of Batman.

Agreed. DKSA had very little grit and I thought the colors were way too flat, not just compred to Janson's watercolors on DKR, but just in general by today's standards as well. There's very little blending in those colors. Still an enjoyable book, though.

Robot H Brian
03-14-2007, 11:20 AM
I think Nocenti's run is often overlooked not so much because of her "strange imagination" but because she was really, really preachy. There's only so much anvil-banging a writer should be allowed before they cross lines.

Not to go off topic too much, but I never read any of Nocenti's Daredevil, because, after suffering through six issues of nonsensical story and (especially) dialogue in Longshot, I swore I'd never abuse my brain trying to make sense of anything she'd written.

I know some people really dig her stuff, and that's cool, but I always felt like I was reading something that had been written in English, translated to Martian, then translated back into English.

theodoros2
03-14-2007, 11:42 AM
I think Nocenti's run is often overlooked not so much because of her "strange imagination" but because she was really, really preachy. There's only so much anvil-banging a writer should be allowed before they cross lines.


Ann Nocenti wrote really interesting decent stories,
with a big help of John Romita Jr.
But her very last issues were poorly written actually.
So many people think all her stories were bad.
And it's so unfair for her. Only her last stories were not so great.

((Actually the last ones sucked!!))

Kamandi
03-14-2007, 12:08 PM
Frank Miller is the man who made Daredevil cool.
His stint (when he started writing) was the only time when Daredevil was one of Marvel's best selling title.

On the Ann Nocenti/John Romita Jr. run, it is an overlooked and underrated run.
Nocenti did her best writing on her long writing stint. It was all about soulsearching for the character, although, I don't think Daredevil was well-suited for a 'road movie' type of storyline. Daredevil outside of New York (or even outside Hell's Kitchen for that matters) is not the same. But Nocenti's writing was top notch anyway. Also, I feel John Romita Jr. really became the great artist he is now on that title. It is on his long Daredevil run that he developped his strong layout, pacing and visual storytelling. IMHO, it is the best run on the character between Miller's and the current Brubaker run. Yep.

DianaKingston
03-14-2007, 12:13 PM
Ann Nocenti wrote really interesting decent stories,
with a big help of John Romita Jr.
But her very last issues were poorly written actually.
So many people think all her stories were bad.
And it's so unfair for her. Only her last stories were not so great.

((Actually the last ones sucked!!))

Well, no, because Typhoid Mary was relatively early in her run, and that included the ludicrous scene where - in the middle of a coordinated attack against him - Daredevil stops to get an earful from an anonymous civilian (who just happens to look like Nocenti) about the Cycle of Violence and Oh The Children Must Not Suffer Any More and Can't You Do Something About Nuclear Waste?

STL
03-14-2007, 12:21 PM
Ann Nocenti wrote really interesting decent stories,
with a big help of John Romita Jr.
But her very last issues were poorly written actually.
So many people think all her stories were bad.
And it's so unfair for her. Only her last stories were not so great.

((Actually the last ones sucked!!))

I agree entirely that the late stories sucked. Definite start to mid run rocked. JRJR was also the man in that period. I think it was a great collboration.

Justin Eger
03-14-2007, 12:28 PM
Okay, Frank and Klaus and Ann and John Jr., I'm in total agreement.But there's one more era that's sorely missing...

Dan Chichester's run, with artist Lee Weeks and, later, Scott McDaniel. If you want to get particular, Ron Wagner's work later, too, was awe inspiring on top of Dan's scripts.

Fantastic stories, with plenty of development on the groundwork Frank Miller laid out years before. Excellent stories of the Hand that played more like epics than comics. Great, great stuff. And, yes, there was the black costume later in the run (still beloved by a few of us out there).

I had a chance to talk with Scott McDaniel at a convention a year or two back, and he still fondly remembers working with Dan on the stories with the Snakeroot and the return of Hydra, among other things, despite the controversy that cropped up among editorial when they created the black armored costume.

Good times, all around, and, honestly, the most fondly remembered issues of Daredevil for me.

theodoros2
03-14-2007, 12:47 PM
Okay, Frank and Klaus and Ann and John Jr., I'm in total agreement.But there's one more era that's sorely missing...

Dan Chichester's run, with artist Lee Weeks and, later, Scott McDaniel. If you want to get particular, Ron Wagner's work later, too, was awe inspiring on top of Dan's scripts.


I think Frank Miller wrote a great story with "Born Again" but he literaly destroyed the cast. It was an "almost ending" of Mat Murdock.
No more Foggy Nelson, no more law practice.
The era between "Born Again" and the Ann Nocenti stories were the biggest crap
we read from the Daredevil comicbooks. Meaningless adventures.
There wasn't any writer who knew what to do with it!

So Ann Nocenti tried to create a new cast and she succeeded, I think.

Dan Chichester brought the old cast back. Then came 1993!
The golder era of nothingless. I have a lot of Scott McDaniel comics,
but not even one Daredevil issue. I thought this era was the worst.

Should I try to buy some of them?

grayhulk76
03-14-2007, 12:50 PM
great frikin thread!!!

Janson was/is fantastic. great to see an inker get his due. They are essential to the craft, unless penciller's start doing all their own inking, which some due, but certainly not all.

until this article, it never dawned on me the Gil Kane/Miller connection. It is definitely their, now that I look back.

the DD Miller Omnibus shows off Miller's great collaboration with Janson to the MAX. I only had the 1st DD/Miller trade and thought their worked looked great, so I jumped at the Omnibus. WELLWORTH THE VALUE. (although I got 35% off. I still would have paid cover! :D )

It also shows Miller is not one to hold is pencil's as sacrosanct. That takes confidence in oneself as well as one's inker/team. The best artists always allowed others input into their best works, even the high art masters.

Joe Rubenstein and Bob McCloud are two other inking masters of the brush.

ps saw Geraci's appreciation of Miller.

nowadays pencillers are putting alot more detail into their stuff but I think inkers still make a difference.

Geraci is a fantastic contemporary inker. always appreciate the projects he works on. Dexter Vines, Paul Neary, Robin Riggs, Fernando Blanco, and Danny Miki are others I enjoy immensley too.

AGAIN: GREAT THREAD ON A PART OF MEDIUM VASTLY OVERLOOKED: THE INKERS.

The Guvnor
03-14-2007, 01:01 PM
Thanks for the excellent, informative article. That era was reprinted in one of the Marvel books here in the UK a few years back and it was simply brilliant. I enjoyed every minute of it. Klaus Janson and Mark are still incredibly talented to this day.

RedRonin
03-14-2007, 01:28 PM
AGAIN: GREAT THREAD ON A PART OF MEDIUM VASTLY OVERLOOKED: THE INKERS. Agreed. So often an artist is saved or ruined by their inkers.

Very cool insight in this article.

kbfore
03-14-2007, 02:17 PM
I still have all these original comics in my collection. I had no idea at the time how popular they would one day be. Still probably the best Daredevil series to date.

ANGELDOGGIE
03-14-2007, 02:23 PM
Those Miller/Janson issues of Daredevil are my favorites of that title.Not that the other creators mentioned are'nt any good...far from it........these issues just speak for themselves. I'm glad I have 'em!!

swanstand
03-14-2007, 02:55 PM
I have the recent trades for Miller & Janson's Daredevil run, but after reading this article it occures to me how interesting it'll be to revisit this stuff when the Marvel Essentials trades get around to collecting it in black & white.

grphxkindaguy
03-14-2007, 03:15 PM
Well, no, because Typhoid Mary was relatively early in her run, and that included the ludicrous scene where - in the middle of a coordinated attack against him - Daredevil stops to get an earful from an anonymous civilian (who just happens to look like Nocenti) about the Cycle of Violence and Oh The Children Must Not Suffer Any More and Can't You Do Something About Nuclear Waste?

I read Nocenti's run when it first came out, and I remember loving it.

Cut to 4 years ago, I reread those issues w/older and wiser eyes.

The heavy-handed preaching (like the example given above) by Nocenti really killed it for me. It would be complete garbage except for the fantastic Romita Jr artwork...

kalorama
03-14-2007, 03:42 PM
Ann Nocenti's rrun is still one of my favorite times in comics.

Second that. It's my second favorite run on DD after Born Again. Still some of JRJr.'s best work.

I read Nocenti's run when it first came out, and I remember loving it.

Cut to 4 years ago, I reread those issues w/older and wiser eyes.

The heavy-handed preaching (like the example given above) by Nocenti really killed it for me.

I haven't read them since they came out, but Nocenti's somewhat off-kilter and less than subtle style were very apparent to me at the time. In fact, that was one of the things I most liked about it. The sudden and complete shift was a breath of fresh air after a very long period (McKenzie/Miller, Miller/Miller, Miller/Janson, O'Neil/Mazzuchelli, Miller/Mazzuchelli) of faux film noir DD that had started to wear a bit thin as far as I was concerned.

And Typhoid Mary remains well-ahead of Elektra on my list of DD's best Femme Fatales. Or is that Femmes Fatale?

Drcharles
03-14-2007, 04:17 PM
DareDevil as always been my Favourite character, like so many other fans where I live; so I doubt very much I will be able to get this mag, considering how popular DD is around here.

Skinshark
03-14-2007, 04:24 PM
Truth be told this defined my tastes in comics, as it's when I started collecting and drawing with great regularity!

=s=

trucho
03-14-2007, 04:32 PM
Speaking of inkers and Nocenti's run: what Williamson did on Romita's pencils was just incredible, from the thin line of the early issues to his more loose style on the latest. Romita never has looked better.
I haven't reread those issues in several years but remember them fondly, and one must admit that some of the them hadn't nothing to envy to Miller's best ones. Sometimes they could be preachy (even Nocenti has admitted that) but the stories were always interesting and never easy (the ones she did with Romita; I'm thinking on one she did with Ditko and... ugh).

And for Janson.... You don't have to wait for the issues where he did the pencils to see how much he influences: just watch to issue #163, inked by Rubinstein, as good as he is, his inks paled in comparison with Janson's (in fact, Janson did the first pages, and the difference screams).
Without Janson, I think, those comics artistically wouldn't have been nearly a half what they really are.

bigdaddyhub
03-14-2007, 04:36 PM
My brother collected all the daredevils in the Frank Miller run and all the way to Ann Nocenti's run when we were kids. (I had the X-Men, GI Joe, and Groo covered with my allowance.) I read the heck out of those Daredevils, and I loved it. The Ann Nocenti preaching drove him off the title and out of comics for good. And when he would stop taking me to the mall so I could get my books, I stopped reading for 18 years.

ANN NOCENTI- I AM COMING FOR YOUR SOUL!!!

kalorama
03-14-2007, 04:41 PM
I was always hoping Nocenti would do a followup mini-series with Number Nine. Did that character ever appear again anywhere? (The Typhoid Mary mini she did with John Van Fleet is also well worth digging up.)

DianaKingston
03-14-2007, 05:20 PM
I suppose that, to her credit, Nocenti was at least making a conscious effort to move out of Miller's shadow, what with the trips to Hell and Matt leaving his "comfort zone". If only she'd toned down the rampant proselytizing and faux-melodrama (the whole Karen/Matt/Mary triangle was really awkwardly written, especially once Kingpin got involved, and that was just a whole other level of eww), she could have been remembered as someone who made a real difference in "Daredevil". As it is, her run was so "out there" that Chichester swung the pendulum back to Miller's style.

Fredy2k3
03-14-2007, 06:38 PM
If you want to speak with Philippe Cordier, the author of this article in Back Issue, he's a member on www.superpouvoir.com, the best French site on comics (news, previews, reviews, forums, etc.).

The thread (in French) can be read here : http://www2.zonealta.net/~edmondt/forum/showthread.php?t=5367

Fredo ;)

Del Gorky
03-14-2007, 08:37 PM
Compare the level of page composition and sequential goodness here to that of Aspen's much ballyhooed newcomer Marcus To as featured today on newsarama. Miller and Janson even two decades ago were true craftsmen who knew what to do with a page to achieve not only solid storytelling but maximum dramatic effect. This is comics as functional art and not just over-rendered pin ups.

Spartan
03-15-2007, 12:41 AM
Wow, that was a really great article and a nice surprise to find on the site! Great stuff!

phil c.
03-15-2007, 05:33 AM
Thanks for the comments guys. I really appreciate the feedback. As for Ann Nocenti's work on DD, I hope some of you will change their mind after reading the mag (there's still a lot of things in this Back Issue 21 : interviews of A Nocenti, John Jr, R Macchio...rarely seen artwork...) And feel free to keep those comments going

Philippe

PS : Hi Fredo (you're everywhere :-)

DarkNomis
03-15-2007, 10:27 AM
Great, great article.

I love how it emphasized how in sych Miller and Janson was back then with the artwork and the article is right about the relationship of penciler and inker today.

An inker embellishing as much as Klaus did today would feel the wrath of the penciler or the editor. The only other penciller/ inker back then that work together with such A powerful effect on the artwork was John Byrne and Terry Austin. Terry austin definately enhanched the inks on Byrne work as you can tell on any work they didn't do together.

I remember the buzz about DD during that time in the early '80s and what Miller and Janson was doing, and tht the book was seen as a "gritty crime drama for a comic" and actually considered very violent for a comic code approved book at the time.

And while they did some great art and stories, climaxing with the death of Electra, for me the best story arc for DD (and perhaps comics in general) is "BORN AGAIN". That's how you write a comic. A page turner from the beginning to end.

And as much as I dislike his attitude you have to give it up to Kevin Smith for his "Guardian Devil" storyline also.

Daredevil to me should never be in the same mainstream media as the big names like Spidey or X-Men. I lik his "cult" status, which is what makes him because if he ever get to mainstream then he would become another wolverine (who, believe it or not, at one time was considered a "cult" anti-hero) where he's overused and out played.

lex luthor
03-15-2007, 01:57 PM
Janson is probably one of the most underrated artisits in all of comics and I'm glad this article puts a huge spotlight on Janson artistic abilities.

Now that he is the go-to inker for John Romita Jr, I would love to see Janson ink as well as color Romita's pencils. That dynamic would rock so hard your eyeballs would fall out. I'd also love to see Marvel let Klaus do some pencilling too - just look to Punisher # 1 - 5 for Klaus at his artistic best.

And for the record, I feel Nocenti was the best DD writer outside of Miller and I think she immediately followed Miller after DD: Born Again with a series of one and dones and w/a ton of fill ins (Chuck Patton, Rick Leonardi and Keith Giffin come to mind) before Jr Jr became the regular artist.

phil c.
03-16-2007, 07:15 AM
I'd also love to see Marvel let Klaus do some pencilling too

Marvel : Legion of monsters : Man-Thing 1. Out in a few days (or week) Story by Charlie Huston, Pencils by KJ, inks by KJ :-) Don't miss it