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Re: The Great Silverwolf Controversy! |
| Name: |
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BadComicsFan |
| Date Posted: |
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Dec 5, 05 - 5:24 AM |
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Hehe...hate to disappoint but the issue of Kris' scripting is not very controversial. He has not published ANYTHING in over 12 or 13 years...maybe 14 years.
Kris Silver leaped onto the indie comic book scene back in 1986 during the B&W boom(which, as we all know becasme the B&W BUST of 1988). His company, Silverwolf Comics would have come and gone after 2 issues of a single title or two were published, as most of those indie B&W publishers did back then except for a particularly controversial title he released called "Grips".
Grips was a vigilante book. Superficially, he (Grips) was a cross between Wolverine and the punsiher, except unlike those characters, Grips would butcher street thugs in extremely graphic(for the time) ways, even after they surrendered.
Remember, back in 1986 Marvel was just beginning to realize there was an untapped market for violent anti-heroes like Punisher and Wolverine and were just starting to release regular titles for these characters(sans X-Men for wolvie). This would be a big reason why Marvel rocketed past D.C. in sales for the first time in decades. D.C. was still releasing quality stuff like Watchmen and whatnot but most of their titles still looked like holdovers from the golden age era.
Now, Grips being a bloodthirsty psychopath of a vigilante superhero would not, in itself, have insured KRis' popularity/notoriety for years to come except for one factor...
Tim Vigil.
TIm Vigil was what no other indie B&W comics company had or fan had seen before...a dynamic artist. Where he was particularly noteworthy was in how he depicted violence. WHen GRips chopped off someone's arm, there would be the standard "trail swipe" up to the point of the limb's severance and the swipe would then be replaced by an arc of blood leading to the blade.
The 'victim' of such an attack would be forzen in a position of intense agony...back arched, knees buckled etc.
When Grips punched someone it looked like they got hit by a truck rather than a fist! Teeth adn spittle flying in the direction of the punch. Face of the bad guy contorted in such a way that you could almost make out the bones breaking beneath his skin.
Vigil's stuff was painful to look at but in a GOOD way.
And he didn't draw blood the way other artists drew blood. Vigil's blood was REAL. You would have to have read Grips at the time to know exactly what I am talking about. It took him so long to ink his work that any books Vigil worked on were invariably late getting to print but when he did not put such effort into his inking, the results were so pedestrian you would think some other crappy artist had taken over the pencilling AND inking(re: Grips #4 especially).
Grips was being talked about in magazines such as Comics Buyers' Guide and whatnot quite regularly. The first issue quickly became nearly impossible to find and was usually priced at around $15-$25. Same with the second issue.
If Vigil and Silver had not had a falling out(which was probably due to a combination of the time Vigil took to put out quality work and Kris' own personality/attitude in dealing with others) and Vigil had been allowed to take his time on teh artwork then Silverwolf would have been around for years, even if Grips, Nightmaster, Dragon Quest(all Vigil titles) and possibly a few other titles like Eradicators(Ron Lim did issue #1) and Fat Ninja were all that he was publsihing.
But Silver tried to ride his newfound popularity(due almost SOLELY to Grips and Vigil's work) too hard adn released like a score of titles set in his own superhero universe(which consisted mostly of Sacremento,CA.) and featuring less than impressive artwork by unknown scribblers for the most part.
Vigil, in 1988 had a new book called Faust: Love of the ****ed, written by David Quinn and publsihed by Northstar. This title turned the whole industry on it's head and far surpassed Grips in the department of controversy. An adult horror-action book that was, unlike Grips, extremely well written and Vigil's artwork had reached a whole new level of detailed brilliance. This book was responsible for a number of comic book shopps being raided and shut down by the police and federal authorities for alleged violation of obscenity laws.
Faust is still being publsihed today. Issue #13 was just released(yes, Faust averages over a year between issues) and a number of spin off books have been published by Avatar and Rebel Studios. It was made into a terrible direct-to-video movie a few years back(do NOT rent it. it is as much like the book as "Batman and Robin" is like Frank Miller's bat-books).
Back in 1989 Kris re-surfaced with a slew of new titles reintroducing his characters under the "GReater Mercury Comics" banner. He had a few decent artsits working for him this time around(Juan Muro, Doran Fish, Roman Morales, Daryl Cobbs etc.) but no one of Vigil's caliber. GMC lasted for a couple years and managed to release a bunch of titles that lasted for 7-11 issues. |
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