The Strange World of Fletcher Hanks

While this blog is called Tom On TV, occasionally I like to talk about other things I like: movies, books, and comic books. This is one of those times.  

 Anyone who knows about Batman can tell you he was a pretty vicious guy in his early days. The Batman stories I read in the 1980s and 90s always talked about his refusal to kill. Fifty years earlier, the character had no such code.

 Still, the dark version of the Dark Knight has nothing on Stardust, the Superwizard, the vengeful, godlike "hero" of a series of comic books from the earliest days of the medium. He turns criminals into rat-like creatures, exiles them to faraway planets and imprisons them in ice.

 Stardust was created sometime between 1939 and 1941 by aritst Fletcher Hanks. If you haven't heard of Hanks, or Stardust, don't worry. They might have been forgotten altogether if not for cartoonist/writer Paul Karasik, who has collected all of Hanks' known work into two volumes: 2007's "I Will Destroy All the Civilized Planets!" and "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!" which was published a few weeks ago.

 Hanks' work is like nothing else I've seen in comics. To start with, he's a terrible writer, even by the standards of the "Golden Age." He recycles the same plots over and over, and his dialogue is childish (again, even for comic books of the era).

 He does better as an artist. Hanks' stories are filled with bizarre, even nightmarish imagery (sadly, you find more of this in the first volume than the second): an army of giant, disembodied hands attacking a jungle, the mobster who's turned into a rat, another who's reduced to just a head. Even Stardust is rather unsettling to look at, towering over everyone else, his face frozen into a sneer. His female counterpart Fantomah ("the jungle queen") fares even worse, her face turning into a skull whenever she springs into action.

 Because these aren't heroes as we've come to understand them. In most comic books, the heroes swoop in and save the day. Hanks' characters are more interested in punishing the wicked than helping the righteous. And "righteous" seems like the wrong word to use here. In Hanks' world, humans are either weak, clueless or evil. Stardust has a group of boys who apparently act as his support squad on earth, but they seem to exist mostly to cheer him on.

 That last fact is interesting when you consider that the real life Hanks was apparently hated by his children. According to Karasik's forward, Hanks was a violent alcoholic who terrorized his family for years before stealing his son's piggy bank in 1930 and skipping town. Aside from the two years his comics were published -- mostly under pen names -- not much is known about his later life. He died in 1976, freezing to death on a New York City park bench. It's the type of ending Stardust would approve of.

 Tom Coombe

Comments

[Holden Caulfield]

We will find some way to connect this to "Lost." Stardust is the Smoke Monster: "more interested in punishing the wicked than helping the righteous." Stardust is an anagram for "Arts Dust" which is a veiled reference to the death of Dr. Arzt (sure it is spelled different but that is how Darlton tries to throw us off the scent.) It is so clear . . . that Lost viewers like myself need hobbies.

[Tom Coombe]

Not bad, not bad...actually, in his latest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic, Alan Moore makes reference to Stardust. Moore has been -- I think -- cited as an influence by the Lost writers.

[Paul Karasik]

Thanks for taking the time away from T.V. chat to share your kind and astute words about my books.

Pardon the plug, but:

I even put out a mini-Fletcher Hanks coloring book. Presently the only way to get the coloring book (with a swell cover by Charles Burns) is to either order “You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!” via Fantagraphics (the value of the coloring book to you may be worth the difference of ordering through Amazon plus you support Fantagraphics):

http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=1589&category_id=396&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=62

Or get a copy by showing up at one of my signings.

At these signing I will be presenting “The Fletcher Hanks Experience” narrated by Fletcher Hanks, Jr.

September 16, 7:00 The Strand Bookstore, NYC, NY
September 27 SPX, Small Press Expo, Bethesda, MD
October 18 7:00: Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

BTW: The book got a nice review over at Publisher’s Weekly:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6677232.html

“I must have this book for my library.” -R. Crumb