Sat urdoy, August 6, 1977?
THE MtICHIGAN DAILY
Page Seven
Saturday, August 6, 1977 THE MICHIGAN DAiLY Page Seven
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A omic book progression
By GREGG KRUPA ingful work that will appeal to adults as well as chil-
IMIC BOOKS. dren."
hen I was a kid I had to hide mine. I would tell In trying to appeal to a more difficult readership,
mother I was going to the store to buy baseball Brennan has brought deep physical drama into many
a, then I wouldsmuggle the comics into the house of his stories. An example of this is the dialogue of his
hide them in a bottom drawer, under my sports main character in "A Gift Of Wonder," which appear-
graph collection, on top of some girlie magazines. ed in Power Corfics number one, earlier this year.
my comics were found, the consequences were
ble nough, if mom ever found those girlie mgsr- s........ ..:.........
. my God! "I turned myself into a comic book
it of course that was part of the fun. Superhero# parody ewhole
WERE THE NIGHTMARES. The nightmares in- spr r to dy the w con-
d by those fantastic creatures that passed through cept, to show how ridiculous it really
horror comic book pages.They would come alive - i
e 'k mtot in thv iiddlr of the ni ht Pxe t fnr IS' ' r -
are s ex me vu n te mit me ein , exc~p pu
Vampirella, she stimulated an entirely different sort of
dream-my first crush.
For most of us comic books are a nostalgic memory,
they appeal to adolescents. But some writers are try-
ing to change that. One of them is a local writer, T..
Casey: Brennan, who contribute4 to the Vampirella
series.
"There's nothing in the comic book medium =that
makes it inherently for children," explains Brennan.
"They've progressed from the days when they were
considered to be strictly funny books. A lot of comic
book writers and artists are trying to do very mean-
JWhile OP 5helher sidedo the e ~nj ~ve
s~h10tat nrat'H 1!i! M ' +j BR
m stlbw FiGURE MY$TEit., 1. C1 pl/ RE
"YOU ARE USELESS, you Gods! You have taken
from us our sense of wonder; In the beginning . . . in
us was that terrible, wonderful, beautiful knowledge
that we did not know what lay beyond . . . NTow there
are cities through which we run, still searching for
those magic things, but forgetting just what they were.
Our hope is gone, wrenched from our souls, our sense
of wonder has died."
Another facet of $rennan's appeal to adults is paro-
dy. Brennan accomplishes a marvelous parody of the
comic book superhero in'I"T. -Casey'Brennan, Figure of
Mystery, which appeared in Power Comics number two.
"t turned myself into a comic book superhero to
parody the whole concept, to show how ridiculous it
really is," explains Brennan.
BRENNAN, 28, has been writing and selling comics
since 1968. He has written for Creepy, Eerie, Vampir-
ella, Nightmare, Sorcery, Ghostly Haunts, Orb, and
Power Comics.
In his spare time Brennan has worked for the Mus-
cular Dystrophy Association in Ann Arbor.
Brennan's work has been highly acclaimed. In 1971
he won the Ray Bradbury Cup for his story, "On the
Wings of a Bird." This prestigious award is given to
the writer of the best comic story of the year printed
by the Warren Publishing Company.
He was also nominated for the 1971 Shazapn Award
given by the Academy of Comic Book Arts and the
1971 Goethe Award given by comic book fans.
"I CONSIDER THE COMIC BOOK to be potentially
T. Casey Brennan
a work of art, that's why I am so pleased that Power
Comics has given me a lot of room, in allowing me
to do what I want to do with my scripts," said Bren-
nan.
Power comics is one of a very few comic books pro-
duced in Michigan. Brennan's works have appeared in
the first three editions and all of them can be pur-
chased at the Eye of Agamatto on State Street in Ann
Arbor. His newest comic, "T. Casey's Mystic Tales"
will appear in November.
Brennan is also making other progressions in his
literary career.
"I don't intend to stop with just comics," said Bren-
nan. "I have a science fiction novel now in progress."
Gregg Krapa is a Daily staff eporter.
Feminist retrospective
(Continued from Pge 6)
from other feminists that
the fifty-year treadmill to-
ward ulcers and a gold
watch should be dismantled
rather than ridden.
The subtitle of the second
section, "Actions," disturbs
me. Although I acknowl-
edge that speaking is an
action, I am not so sure
that to call "actions" the
texts of speeches delivered
to conferences of elite wo-
men co-opts t h e activist
sense of "action." (Like it
or not-and Friedan doesn't
-they were elite women, as
were the women in the most
carefully distilled radical
groups.) This is where ,Frie-
dan starts slanging any-
body who doesn't want into
Mainstream America "in
truly e q u a l partnership
with men."
IN MANY WAYS, the
third section, "Betty Frie-
dan's Notebook" from Mc-
Call's, is the sturdiest part
of the book, for both its
thought and its style. Per-
haps these articles survive
better and are more appeal-
ing because they are less
occasion-oriented than the
speeches and manifestos.
The section is sub-subti-
tled "Struggling for Per-
sonal Truth;" 'this is Frie-
dan's way of w o r k i n g
through the "personal is
political" equation, and her
way is perhaps livelier than
th e standard mad-house-
wife and/or frustrated-ca-
reerist confession because
she recognized e a r 1y the
poverty of both those liter-
ary modes.
"A Dialogue with Simone
de Beauvoir" and "Scary
Doings in Mexico .City"
(from the fourth seetiors,
"Transcending Polarities')
are great big windows on an
important personality and
an important event which
are inaccessible to most of
us and, worse, have been
the subject of so much
print and electronic blather
as to become more inacces-
sible. These two a r t i c 1 e s
more than make up for sec-
tion five, "An Open Letter
to the Women's Movement,"
which is opaque, pedantic,
and sectarian.
MORGAN sorts the mate-
rial in Going Too Far ac- dence of Morgan's growing
cording to her own not- freedom and competence as
c om p 1 e t e 1 y - intelli- an artist: this prose is more
gible scheme of feminist prosaic than the things she
consciousness. In "Letters wrote when she-couldn't do
from a Marriage," she at- poetry.. These pieces seem
tempts to document her flat and unfinished, wi th
g r o w i n g awareness that the exception of "Metaphy-
something is rotten in the sical Feminism," which of-
state of matrimony and fers breathtaking insights
that sex roles are as boring into the ways that new-
to play as any other two- born feminist ethics and
dimensional part. Her com- feminist aesthetics might
mentary between letters is work. The reading list at
more enlightening than the the end of the book is a
letters are, treat.
The articles which make
up "The Emergence of Wo- I feel privileged to have
wen's Liberation" are, on these books, although I
one hand, mortifying for wish that there were more
their intellectual and styl- new material here, and es-
istic j a r g o n (as Morgan specially more m a t e r i a l
notes), and, on the other which did not simply alibi
hand, pleasantly nostalgiac. and apologize for the old,
Myth America, the WITCH In conclusion, a caveat for
series, "The Wretched of the authors (for a change):
the . Hearth," "Barbarous - I will hold still for no more
Rituals" are as bright, hu- u n m a r k e d post - scripts
morous, and stimulating as which appear to be simple
I remember them to be, de- pointless s n i p i n g s over
spite their juvenile char- w h i c h feminist speaker /
acter. a r t i s t / theorist / bottle-
washer is a covert agent for
"FEMINIST LEANINGS" whatever conspiracy or, al-
includes M o r g a n 's k e y ternately, a numbskulled
pieces for the Rat. Much of sellout. E i t h e r name the
it seems as dated now a names and present the evi-
Kim A g n e w jokes, but
"Goodbye to All That" is dence, or drop it and go on
as moving and mind-ex- to something else. We have
panding as it ever was, and too much w o r k and too
as prophetic today as it was little time to f r i s k about
seven years ago. And "A slinging spite.
Brief Elegy for Four Wo-
men" still calls forth tears
of rage and grief. Marnie Heyn is a graduate
"B e y o n d the Seventh sctdent in Esglish and a formtr
Veil" is backhanded evi- Da ly Editorial Director.