A THOUSAND FLOWERS: STEVE GERBER

[MattBrady]

Poca de Gracia
A Deadline Doom Story
by Stuart Moore


Newsarama Note: A few years back, Stuart Moore was a regular columnist for Newsarama, writing the weekly “A Thousand Flowers,” which looked at the broader picture of comics.

When I tell people that Howard the Duck got me through age 15, I'm about half kidding. The first issue I read -- coverless, at my cousins' summer cabin -- was "Swan Song of the Living Dead Duck," a full-length hallucinatory epic wherein characters from the book's first nine issues, and from the Marvel Universe at large, capered through the inner mind of the title character as he suffered a full-bore nervous breakdown. As weird as HOWARD THE DUCK could be, I thought it was even weirder. I thought it was like that all the time.

I also loved it.

Steve Gerber, Howard's creator/author, returned to the inner-hallucination motif several times over the course of his comics-writing career. Sometimes, as with Kyle Richmond's disembodied brain in The Defenders, it was an effective part of a larger story. Other times it seemed obvious and forced, as in the first issue of his and Michael Golden's short run on Mister Miracle. (The other two issues were brilliant, but that one fell flat.)

Steve's death made me think about my relationship, as a reader, editor, and fellow author, with writers I admired in my youth. In general, I try to avoid contact with them, especially if part of what attracts me to their work is a certain darkness and misanthropy. There's an entire book of essays about aspiring poets' and fans' encounters with Charles Bukowski. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the essayists come off as arrogantly presumptuous of a stranger's attention, the conclusion one after another of them draws -- shock, shock -- is that Charles Bukowski was a bit of an asshole. Really? And had you ever read the man's work? I have, I'm a fan, and I sure wouldn't show up at his house uninvited in the middle of the fucking night.

But anyway. Steve Gerber. He was an impeccable craftsman, probably the biggest influence on my own comics writing in terms of flow and pacing. Pick up a pile of Marvel Essential volumes, sift out the nostalgia through a fine screen -- you missed some; sift again -- and Steve's stories are the ones that hold up. Sometimes they're a bit wordy by today's standards, but the words flow. The dialogue sounds like genuine conversation; the narration, like a master storyteller leading you through a multilevelled tale that in those days had to be wrapped up, or at least build to a cliffhanger, in seventeen pages.

But craft was only part of what Steve did well. The stories also had heart, and a constant, urgent search for meaning unconstrained by the tired pseudo-Christian nonsense that filled the comics of the day. ("Is there anything we can do for him?" "Yes. You can pray.") And there's anger, too, expressed by the criminals and punk singers and modern Vikings in Man-Thing, and, most directly, through the voice of Howard the Duck.

That anger made me want to keep Steve's voice on the page -- to reread it untainted by contact with the man himself. And when I was an editor at Vertigo, in the early '90s, Steve's reputation wasn't the finest. There are comics he wrote for Marvel around that time that are justly forgotten; you won't read a single mention of them in the tens of thousands of words of obituary that have appeared in the past two weeks. Whether Steve was going through a rough patch or being severely rewritten by editors, I don't know -- certainly there was a lot of the latter going on at Marvel then. I suspect some combination of the two.

But either way, that brings up the other reason I tend to avoid contact with writers I've loved: Their later work is often disappointing. Writers don't have a monopoly on this failing, of course. Musicians, poets, fine artists, interior decorators, and standup comedians all fall prey. If we live long enough, sooner or later you and I will be a massive disappointment to someone who loves us, too.

Then Steve did Nevada for Vertigo, with Phil Winslade. I didn't work with Steve on that, but I remember discussing the possibility of him and Gene Colan doing part of a Books of Magic Annual. Tom Peyer and I used to play a game of figuring out who would have handled the various Vertigo titles if they'd existed in the Silver Age, and Books of Magic was clearly Gerber and Colan. (Hellblazer was drawn by Don Heck.)

The Books of Magic plan didn't come together. Steve didn't get back to me, presumably because he either wasn't comfortable with the character or couldn't come up with a suitable story. But he was cordial and gracious, if cautious and ultimately uncommunicative. As an editor, I was always surprised when old-school writers gave me the benefit of the doubt. I think it was partly because of my book-publishing background, partly because I don't ________ people, and partly because I wasn't part of the old comics guard that so many '70s writers held ill feelings toward. Someday I really should disabuse Steve Bissette of all those nice things he's said about me over the years. Not today, I think.

When I started at Marvel Knights in 2000, Phil Winslade was working pretty much exclusively for the imprint. We talked about a number of things, including which characters were in use or could be revived. Eventually, naturally, we came around to Steve and Howard.

Steve's legal and moral tribulations with Marvel regarding Howard have been chronicled in many other places. But here's something that hasn't been, quite so much: That first year or so at the Quesada/Jemas Marvel, we could do anything. Peter Milligan and Mike Allred could reimagine X-Force as a post-post-postmodern media satire; Luke Cage and Jessica Jones could perform acts that would get them tossed right out of the Avengers -- even the underground team. Garth Ennis could create an adversary for Nick Fury called Fuckface. (Try looking him up in the Official Handbook.)

Axel Alonso and I each put together a revival of one series we'd loved as kids, with the original writers: Master of Kung Fu and Howard the Duck, respectively. Neither was a huge commercial success, which may speak to the original series' timeliness (the first run of Howard was firmly rooted in '70s trends and moods) or may illustrate the dangers of trying to go home again. Or it may simply mean, as George Clooney has said of his aunt Rosemary, that you can continue to do excellent work while the audience moves on to something else. Pop culture is a fickle, transitive world, its collective eyes constantly flickering to the next shiny object.

But for a brief moment, Steve's desire to do one more Howard series coincided with Bill Jemas's own particular form of madness. Faced with the problem of the duck's design -- a legal settlement with Disney had left us with a very specific, not terribly attractive look that had to be adhered to -- Bill embraced the idea of transforming Howard into a variety of other animals. (I don't remember now whether this was originally Bill's or Steve's idea.) It was Bill who suggested the first issue's cover, depicting a pissed-off mouse under a large Howard The Duck logo, and Bill who came up with the tagline: DON'T ASK. And Steve didn't just go along with it; he ran with it, gleefully.

I'd heard stories of Steve being a deadline nightmare, but that wasn't a problem on this series. I suspect, in later years at least, Steve had deadline problems on books he didn't really want to write. But he embraced the chance to tackle his signature character again, with -- under the then-new MAX imprint -- far fewer content restrictions than before. He slipped into Howard's voice as though it had been running on a loop in his brain for twenty years. And the ease with which he satirized both real-world and pop-culture subjects -- the word "Doucheblade" still makes me laugh -- showed how much he'd missed it.

It's been nice to see this later Howard series get as much play as it has, in the various Gerber tributes. I've edited a lot of comics -- probably enough, at this point -- but I'd have to say that, while the Howard mini as a whole had its bumps, the final issue is one of the books I'm proudest to have my name on, in that capacity. In a way, the issue is a return to the full-on hallucination structure Steve had used so many times in his earlier career. But both as an example of a Gerber plot staple and as a plain old Howard story, it breaks new ground.

The narrative consists primarily of a conversation between Howard and God, personified in the traditional Judeo-Christian image of a hirsute old man. Howard expresses severe doubts about his life, about the choices he's made. But, uniquely to this story, God presses Howard on the point, showing him images of the "normal" life he could have led...working nine to five, coming home to a white picket fence and two point three children. And Howard, for the first time, accepts his choices. He realizes he's done the right thing -- for him, if for no one else.

And God repeats a phrase from earlier in the story: In order to dance the snake -- para bailar la bamba -- to negotiate the twisted paths of life, to live with the horrors mankind inflicts on its fellows -- one must find a bit of grace. Howard, in particular, must find his own little bit of grace.

At age thirty-nine, as a person approaching middle age who had not followed a traditional career or personal path, that spoke to me as strongly, as directly, as "Kiss and Tell in the Psycho Ward" had, twenty-some years before.

While writing the new Howard series, Steve was pleasant, anxious, meticulous, inspired, open to input, infuriating, brilliant, exacting, and professional. He had hoped the series would continue past the initial six issues, but it wasn't to be. And at the end, he did indicate to me that he felt he'd finished off the duck's story. Given the identification he felt with his most-recognized character, it's hard not to think Steve, too, was examining his life and finding his own bit of grace. I can't tell you for sure; I never asked him. But it seemed that way.

Steve went on to write Hard Time, a jewel of a series that combined the passion of his younger writing with a greater moral awareness and his surest storytelling yet. Like him, we all move forward, bailando la bamba in our disparate ways. If we're fortunate enough to leave behind a body of work equal to Steve Gerber's, we'll have done pretty well. And if, along the way, we find that little bit of grace -- well, that's worth treasuring, too.


Stuart Moore is a writer of comics and other media. His blog is here.

[OM]

Bill embraced the idea of transforming Howard into a variety of other animals. (I don't remember now whether this was originally Bill's or Steve's idea.) It was Bill who suggested the first issue's cover, depicting a pissed-off mouse under a large Howard The Duck logo, and Bill who came up with the tagline: DON'T ASK. And Steve didn't just go along with it; he ran with it, gleefully.

...Actually, I've always wondered if this was a sort of homage to Steve and Gene Colan's Stewart the Rat, which for all practical purposes was a "re-imaging" of Howard, albeit through the eyes of an anthropomorphic rat as he deals with the morass that was/is Southern California.

[FChamberlain]

A very nice tribute to a true artist who added much to the medium.

[samnoir]

I loved Gerber's return to Howard the Duck at MAX more than the original series.

Nevada was brilliant.

I was hoping that either of both series could have been continued in additional minis.

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[Rockin' Rich]

If "____face" was ok to include, what the ____ did "________" replace?

[Rockin' Rich]

I see. Your system filters it out -- sometimes.

[ShinAkuma666]

I just loved that Max mini, I have never read Nevada but I have the issues somewhere, will read them very soon.

Just saw that theres a Howard the Duck Omnibus by Marvel coming up this summer, very tempting to see more of the creativity of Steve Gerber there.

[Stuart Moore]

Ha! The "___" actually makes it look like I said something worse than I did. It was basically B.S., spelled out.

[Traumaville]

As much as I loved Howard The Duck, the comic that totally 'changed' the way I looked at comics (and everything else for that matter) was Omega The Unknown.

It will always top my list of greatest reads. I re read it almost yearly and find something new everytime.

Gonna miss you Steve!

[Rob S.]

That was a really nice piece, Stuart.

[TheFoo]

Great piece, makes me wish ATF would come back, but under better circumstances.

[Spy_Smasher]

I never actually liked Howard all that much -- if at all -- but Omega the Unknown was fantastic. Gerber also did a bunch of work on Marvel's horror side that I remember fondly. I totally understand that most tributes to the man center around his famous duck, but it's good to remember that he had a very rich career besides.

[PhilipAMoore]

I think Gerber got the last laugh on the final Howard story he figured out how to get Marvel to do a paridy that promoted Image and Vertigo. I wish he could have kept writing about the duck . I am really looking forward to the complete Howard the duck hard cover

good day

[JLAJRC]

That Howard MAX mini was FANTASTIC. In fact, alot of the early MAX stuff is VERY underrated.

[chbryan]

Stuart, thanks for sharing this with us. Many have written about the various qualities that SG brought to his work, but not as many have commented on the craftsmanship that was evident. He made sense out of weirdness -- at the end of the story, no matter what oddities showed up, there was a clear sense of what the story was about. Clear answers were not always included, but at least we knew which questions were being asked.

I reread Omega the Unknown recently, and I think it could, with very minor changes in slang, be published today and not seem anachronistic to readers.

And I was looking forward to every issue of his Doctor Fate . . . I'm gonna miss ya, Mr. G.

[Dirk Manning]

Excellent work as always, sir.

It was nice to see this column return (even for a one-off) even though it was inspired by tragedy...