Dimension III - "Elfquest and Cerebus"

Thus far, we've looked at mainstream comics and how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles acted as a response to them, but how do those early comics fit in with their contemporary neighbors in independent publishing? As previously mentioned, as with all eras, the era of fringe independent comics is not something that is easy to map, but if you had to put a starting point for it, it would be between late 1977 and early 1978 with the successes of Wendy Pini, Richard Pini and Dave Sim.

Again, it's not that cut and dry, independent publishing technically existed in some form or another since the underground comix of the 1960s, or actually as far back as the 1920s with pornographic comics/Tijuana bibles. For our purposes, the fringe independents was an era that began with a desire to release non-mainstream content with a level of mainstream quality. Content alternative to superheroes, but with the same quality of paper, ink, printing and overall quality control as that from DC Comics and Marvel. The best underground comix had to offer was Bud Plant Inc, which was largely a mail-order distribution service, and Star*Reach, which focused mostly on more adult versions of typical comic book genre stories, and and even they were not adventurous enough to give a Quest for Fire meets Chariot of the Gods meets Star Wars manga-influenced alternative fantasy yarn a chance.

Which is kind of a surprise, because the actual story within Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest is not all that out there. The establishing story is that of a tribe being forced out of their home by a disaster, they have a perilous journey and then join with another tribe, and concluding with a fairly standard love triangle. It's fairly easy to digest in that "three-act structure"/"Joseph Campbell"/"plug and play story" kind of way. What actually made it stand out in 1978 was its Eastern-influenced storybook visuals and complicated lore involving a lot of fantasy and sci-fi genre mashing.

At best, Wendy and Richard could be called casual readers of American comics, and with no serious experience in the field, they largely drew from alternative sources for inspiration, in this case mostly the anime works of Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion) and various manga like Sanpei Shirato's Kamui series and Kyoko Mizuki's Candy Candy, which had been imported to the western United States almost entirely untranslated. Wendy, who did all the art and co-wrote the story, was (and still is) a huge geek (in the good way) and spent a lot of time pouring over these works and trying to understand the visual language of these Japanese productions, even if she couldn't actually follow the story.

Once again, it's Western reappropriation of Eastern imagery, but unlike Frank Miller just seeing things like ninjas and samurais and thinking they looked cool, Wendy made an honest effort to try and work out why things were drawn this way, and what advantages adopting these styles might give to a story. She recognized manga's general feminine sensibility and the stretches of time created with silent panels and lingering moments. Elfquest flows more like animation than a typical comic book, and the large-eyed androgynous look of characters in manga lent themselves well the sensual other-worldly quality of the titular elves, who appear to be the exact midpoint between Tolkien's elves and Keebler's. All in all, Elfquest is pretty damn gorgeous.

Unfortunately, all the style and visual language in the world doesn't mean anything if you have a crappy printing on newsprint, as was the case with Elfquest's first issue, printing under Fantasy Quarterly by Independent Publishers Syndicate, and if you needed any evidence as to the poor state of independent publishing at this time, IPS folded after just printing one single comic book issue. By all accounts the physical quality of the issue was pretty much crap, the entire thing was printed on newsprint, including the cover, meaning heavy discoloration over time and the chance for disintegration if caught out in a light drizzle for a few seconds. It was about the most horrible first experience any comic creator could have, and many might be disheartened to the point of quitting and getting a job as a file clerk. Wendy and Richard Pini didn't do that. They started their own publishing company.

WaRP Graphics, like all small companies, was a huge gamble. Elfquest had yet to prove itself a success, but the Pinis poured as much money as they could into quality publications, with magazine-sized issues and glossy covers that wouldn't look out place next to a DC or Marvel book. It paid off though, and Elfquest was a runaway hit that still has a significant fanbase through seemingly continues rediscovery (from what I've read, it seems Elfquest is a common fixture in public libraries). Over time, WaRP Graphics expanded to other alternative fantasy titles, including Martin Greim's superhero parody Thunderbunny, comic book adaptations of Robert Asprin's fantasy farce novels MythAdventures, and most notably Colleen Doran's New Age pro-gay space opera A Distant Soil (That didn't turn out well for either party, but that's a story for another entry).

WaRP Graphics was not the only model for independent publishing being created at the time. In almost parallel step with the Pinis, Dave Sim and his partner Deni Loubert founded Aardvark-Vanaheim in 1977 to publish Sim's sword-and-sorcery pastiche Cerebus. The main difference between WaRP and Aardvark-Vanaheim is largely that of attitude. Both were created for a singular creator-driven fantasy title when said creators became disillusioned with publication practices, and both strove for the quality of major publications, but while WaRP at least attempted to look the part of a legit publication house (and eventually became one, warts and all), self-publication was a significant part of Cerebus's and Sim's identity.

We presently have a rather odd inconsistency in our attitudes towards self-publication. There's little respect for self-published novels and albums, while Internet video production has become a viable alternative to televisions for many, independent films are popular if rarely seen in the mainstream, and performance art is often a source of mockery. Self-published comics in the late 1970s all the way through to the 1990s fit a bit uneasily on the positive side of the spectrum, largely due to the majority of comic book consumers and creators being part of the same fandom community. Self-publication in comic fandom was often an extension of the resources already present in fandom, with printing experience from producing fanzines and the connections made at conventions. It was a largely self-fed self-congratulatory market.

But even as that scene changed, and even after getting offers from major publishers, and later Hollywood types like George Lucas, Dave Sim insisted on keeping Cerebus self-published and self-distributed, sometimes to the point of alienation (more on that in another article. Believe me, we're going to talk a lot about Sim as this project progresses, and this isn't the time to cover his more... esoteric behaviors). Even during a brief period in which Aardvark-Vanaheim extended itself to publish other titles, the focus remained creator-driven content and control over publication. For Sim, control over your own product was a badge of honor, one that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird would quickly learn and lose.

As for Cerebus itself, which is the fourth and final comic credited as inspiration by Eastman, we have an even simpler and tried form of genre collision, that of "funny animal" cartoon character in a realistic and serious human-based setting. Howard the Duck had defined that genre collision five years prior. The main difference between those two properties, outside of Howard the Duck's modern Marvel superheroes setting vs. Cerebus' swords-and-sorcery setting, was how little Cerebus actually drew attention to the contrast. The titular character, a cartoon aardvark, maintained the attitude and swagger of a Robert E. Howard anti-hero, and while other characters may comment on his unusual appearance upon first meeting him, they none the less recognize Cerebus' abilities as a killer, thief and strategist.

The actual humor of the series does not come from Cerebus himself, but from the various parodies and celebrity caricatures that fill out each issue, with Cerebus always playing the straight man. Micheal Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné is given the personality and dialog of Foghorn Leghorn. Prince Valiant becomes a whiny man-child whose dad is Groucho Marx. Red Sonja became hyper-sexualized eye-candy whose only... actually, wait, no, she pretty much just stayed Red Sonja. Not to mention medieval parodies of Batman and the X-Men running around.

And yet Cerebus shouldn't be mistaken as a gag comic, as all the jokes and parodies hang on a frame of real conflict and forward momentum. Cerebus is constantly gaining and losing, there is never a "status quo" for longer than a couple of issues, and there's a new complication around every corner. In a span of thirty issues, Cerebus could be a wandering barbarian, looking for the next job, only to wind up worshiped by a cult, than made leader of an entire army, which is then defeated, so then he saves a prince and becomes a noble's chief of security, only then to get roped in with a bunch of savages who want to overthrow the noble, but is chemically put under a coma by a secret order only to wake up months later halfway across the globe fending off assassins. Not to mention all the one-off stories with Cerebus encountering wizards, monsters, would-be adventurers and various drunken antics.

There is a lot to say about Cerebus (A LOT), and we'll cover more of it in time, but it's this progression, this outright refusal to get comfortable with itself, that was the most important lesson learned for those early years of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Not the first issue, mind you. Eastman and Laird also used the cartoon animal in realistic human setting, and WaRP and Aardvark-Vanaheim certainty laid out the groundwork on which Mirage and all the other 1980s independent publishers would build up from, but the first issue is completely lacking that forward momentum. It wasn't until they adopted Cerebus' fervor for never sticking to one idea for too long that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was allowed to be immortal.

Out of the four main influences, Cerebus is the most important. The New Mutants was representative of then-current comic book trends to which the Ninja Turtles was a response to. Frank Miller's Daredevil was the comic the Ninja Turtles was a less-than-direct parody of. Ronin gave the Ninja Turtles an art style to aspire to and a how-to guide for cultural reappropriation. All just aesthetics. Cerebus gave the Ninja Turtles the structure, the modifications and attitude it would need to continue. It offered the first significant change to the franchise.

Cerebus was the first mutagen.