Arrgh! #5: The Some-THING" (Parody of "The Thing from Another World")

Things that make you go ARRGH! Here's a really nifty story from 1975, which I thought was absolutely hilarious when I read it as a kid, called "The Some-Thing." Featuring an alien monstrosity spouting lines like, "Arghhh! Meaning-what's cookin'?," how could it fail to entertain a twelve-year-old? This is an obvious parody of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", which has been adapted twice as a motion picture: rather loosely in 1951 as The Thing from Another World (with James Arness as the Thing for you trivia buffs) and more closely in 1982 by director John Carpenter as "The Thing," which more famously starred Kurt Russell. This parody was produced by notorious team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

A leading exponent of the DC house style of the sixties (as exemplified by Mike Sekowsky, etc.), Ross Andru pencilled Wonder Woman from 1958 to 1967 and Metal Men from 1962 to 968. In the seventies he worked for Marvel on such heroes as Spider-Man. His partner at DC was Mike Esposito, who inked all of his work for that publisher.

Andru had studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in Manhattan, which was co-founded by Burne Hogarth. His first professional cartooning job was penciling, without credit, Hogarth's Sunday Tarzan page. He teamed up with Mike Esposito in the early fifties to turn out Mr. Universe, a nicely done adventure comic book about a world-traveling wrestler. It lasted only five issues. The two also produced an unsuccessful newspaper soap-opera strip titled Martha Hart. By the late fifties they were employed by DC. Andru and Esposito became the first artists to draw Wonder Woman after co-creator H. G. Peter was put out to pasture in 1958. In addition to Wonder Woman and Metal Men, the team also drew Sea Devils, Rip Hunter, and Suicide Squad.

Andru, without Esposito, moved over to Marvel in 1972. While his main assignment was penciling Spider-Man, he also turned out pages for Dr. Strange, The Fantastic Four, and X-Men. Comics historian Michael Vance has said of Andru that "[his] pencils were clean, bold and technically beyond criticism." Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones, in Comic Book Heroes, said "Andru generally produced forceful and dramatic work."

Andru returned to DC in the eighties. Early in the next decade, shortly before his death, he teamed again with Esposito on a Zen Intergalactic Ninja mini-series published by Archie Comics.

I know that I still have some catching up to do with my blogs, but until then I hope you get as much enjoyment from this short story as I did!


Credits

Script: Mike Esposito
Pencils: Mike Esposito
Inks: Ross Andru

Arrgh! #3: "The Mummy Walks" (Carl Burgos art)

Download Arrgh! #3





Things That Make You Go ARRGH! I loved Arrgh! during the "schizoid 70s" and, while I wasn't even alive during the "paranoid 50s," it struck me at the time that Marvel Comics was trying to cash in on the success that DC Comics was enjoying with Plop! That still didn't stop me from picking up the comic book when I spotted it on the stands. But while Arrgh! wasn't as good as Plop!, I still laughed my ass off reading this as a kid and I picked up the remaining issues as they were published.

"The Mummy Walks" is the funniest story in this issue, in my opinion, and the art by Carl Burgos is second only to that of Will Elder.

While not a major artist, Carl Burgos created one of the major superheroes. It was late in 1939, while working for the Funnies, Inc. shop, that Burgos invented the first Human Torch. Introduced in the first issue of Marvel Comics, the torch became one of the three most popular characters publisher Martin Goodman had in the 1940s. The others were Sub-Mariner and Captain America. A primitive rather than a skilled draftsman, Burgos nevertheless had a forceful style and he was good at staging the scenes of conflict and chaos that the flaming activities of his protagonist required. Aware of his limitations, Buros was proud of the fact that he never swiped. "If they wanted Raymond or Caniff," he once said, "they could look at Raymond and Caniff. The miserable drawing was all mine, but I was having fun."

Burgos entered comics in 1938, after working in an engraving plant. He was first employed in the Harry "A" Chesler shop. Next he joined the Funnies, Inc., shop, drawing The Iron Skull for Amazing Man Comics, and The Human Torch for Marvel Mystery Comics. Burgos had a fondness for androids and all three of these characters were androids.

He went into the army in 1942. When he returned, although he again worked for Timely Comics, he never quite fit in with the new look that comics had acquired in his absence. In 1966 he created a dreadful Captain Marvel of his own, a fellow who could do things like detach his fist in order to sock somebody across the street. In his final years he worked for Harris Publications in New York City.


Credits

Script: Unknown
Pencils and inks: Carl Burgos

Reprinted:

• from Crazy (Marvel, 1953 series) #6 (May 1954). (Pictured inset).
  
• in Arrgh! (Marvel, 1974 series) #3.