The Doors: in the comics, examined!

Writter Jim Cherry has been publishing articles about The Doors for the Examiner.com for some time now.

His The Doors Examiner article of last September 28th was about the band represented in comics (awesome topic!), among others, yours truly The Doors comics!  =]  Read the article:  www.examiner.com/x-21763-The-Doors-Examiner~y2009m9d28-The-Doors-in-the-comics

Jim Cherry already have a lot of articles posted at the Examiner site with thoughtful passages and a lot of information that might surprise both new fans and the old time harcore fan.

Check out all The Doors Examiner articles: www.examiner.com/x-21763-The-Doors-Examiner

The Doors on Freak Out, USA! Feb 1967

Hey y'all, I'm back with my once-in-a-while-post.
Hope you enjoy.

The Last Stage - Book by Jim Cherry

I have finished reading the book yesterday!

For those of you who don’t know this book…”The Last Stage is about a Doors tribute band from it's inception to gaining success that carries it all the way to the Whisky a go-go in Los Angeles”.

I liked it not only as Doors fan but as a reader also. The first part of the book reminded me of the time I was beginning to be a Doors fan, listening to all songs, live performances and then going after the bootlegs, rare material, interviews and books.

The Doors history is in the background and it comes up with the development of the story whenever it's relevant; some aspect of The Doors or Jim Morrison’s biography is always told when it has something to do with the moment in the story. The book is not all about The Doors, it’s an adventure of a guy who decides to form a Doors tribute band. He has his motivations, his history, friends and lives in a moment in time (somewhere around the 80's) which is vividly described.

I think it's an understatement to say it about a writer because these are things all writers should have: I think Jim Cherry has amazing descriptive skills, he makes places and characters very real, all of them have flaws and virtues, you love them and then you hate them. It’s very well written and have some thoughtful passages.

There is always something interesting and exciting happening which makes you want to continue reading.

The book is already in The Doors section on my bookshelf!

Links:

www.jymsbooks.com - author's website

www.amazon.com - find yourself a copy

Whole thing started with...

Ray Manzarek's solo album The Whole Thing Started With Rock N Roll makes a reference to a character named The Shadow a sucess in the genre of detective pulp magazines in the 1930's and featured in a successful radio show in 1931 and then later had a comic book devoted to his stories. Ray's song I Wake up screaming, starts with Ray's fake laugh "Uuuhahaha....uuuhaahaaha!" and then Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Uuuhaahha..." Which was exctly the opening line of The Shadow's radio show! Later in 1938 Orson Welles became the voice of The Shadow.

The character is considered to be the genesis of the super hero genre. The definition of a super hero was already there with The Shadow: a man with super powers fighting crime. The same super hero hype that started to sell millions of comic books in late 30's and 40's - the whole thing started with The Shadow. The character himself made his way into comics in 1940.

The 1940s series of Shadow Comics ran for 9 years, and there was even a daily comic strip. From the 1970s to 1990s, DC Comics took the character from the 1940s to the near future and back again. With the onset of the 1994 movie, Dark Horse Comics released the movie adaptation, a one-shot, and even some crossovers in its wake. In 2000, ACG comics reprinted the 1940s comic strip.

Who knows, Ray must have read one of those comic books...as most kids did in the 40's, asking for their parents to buy one of those 10 cents comic books. Or maybe he caught one of those radio shows with Orson Wells voice behind the speaker...

Did The Doors read any comics?

Mad magazine cover #23

Since I got involved with The Doors comics This question got stuck in my head: Did The Doors members read any comics? I don´t remember any specific comment in the band members books Riders on the storm (John Densmore) and Light My Fire (Ray Manzarek) . The most clear comment about this was from Danny Sugerman´s and Jerry Hopkins book "No One Here Gets Out Alive". They say in september 1957 the Morrison family moved to Alameda in northern California, Jim spent one year and a half there in highschool. From page 9 and 10 :

"He read MAD magazines avidly and adopted several of the catch phrases as his own. He said he was "crackers to slip the rozzer the dropsie in snide". He worked out elaborate ways to answer the telephone, reflecting the sick side of MAD´s humour or the taint of ethnic slur: "Morrison´s Mortuary...you stab´em we slab ´em".

What about the later years? In the late sixties there was a lot of underground comics popping up in underground newspapers and in the form of comic books. Some of them are Zap Comix and Bijou Funnies. Among the artists of these comics are Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Jay Lynch, Gilbert Shelton and many others.

So when I read the Doors bio comic (The Doors, by Jay Sanford and Greg Fox published in 1991 - read more about it) I was really surprised by this specific frame:

"Passed his days smoking, writing and reading Zap Comix?" I had to ask Jay - the script writer of this comic book - "Is that true???" he replied " I don't know if it's true that Morrison collected Zap Comix, but it doesn't seem unlikely. Not sher how one would confirm or disprove other than asking his parents or others who were close to him."

I think Jay is right and I did exactly what he said! I asked everyone I found on the internet range that knew Jim, worked with him or were friends with him. I didn´t find much I´ll tell ya, but there are some interesting replies:

Salli Stevenson - Circus Magazine interview with Jim Morrison and friend

Aside from Mad Magazine and Superman, I think a western genre comic and stuff like Green Hornet and Spiderman, Jim and I did not discuss comics or the works of Robert Crumb. The others were discussed when we were comparing our childhoods and what we read. Sorry I can't be more helpful about Jim's comics favorites. We never got past childhood favorites.

Leon Barnard - the Doors publicist

Before he joined The Doors' crew, Leon graduated in fine arts. He used to draw and do paintings. Leon said that he and Jim sat on a table to start creating a comic book together. Leon remembers:

Our only and Main disagreement was...which came first: My drawings for him to capture with words...or his words for me to illustrate.
The debate ended in a drawing between "The Two Superstars" at the table that evening...and then he began to drink...a full bottle of Courvoisier presented to him as a birthday gift.

Vince Treanor - The Doors road manager

I never saw Jim reading Comics. He usually had much more weighty tomes in hand - anything unusual or redical. Not that there were no comics in those days. It is just that they did not contain what he wanted for input in that time. Mad magazine was quite the sensation and could do and say things not accepted in common conversation.

Jay Lynch - cartoonist and Bijou Funnies editor

The Doors were out of LA. They didn't do be-ins. They were mostly at the Whisky a-go-go. I never ran into those guys in my travels. Only their one-time manager, Danny Fields. Once I wrote an article for Hustler about Howard Hughes called "Showered by Howard". This was in 1979 or so. It was in the October issue. I used one of Fields' Morrison stories in that piece.
Actually Morrison is still alive. He lives across the street. I can see him out the window. He's trying to light up his barbecue pit. Uh-oh! He's using too much starter fluid...I'd better go help him. He isn't too good at lighting fires...he's always shouting for someone to help him with that chore.

Well, I´ll keep searching and maybe someone will have a more accurate answer.

The Doors biography in a comic book

I was very surprised to find comic books about The Doors (not done by me). Ray Manzarek mentioned in a Guitar Legend magazine interview that Jim Morrison´s life "filled tons of books, a lot of websites and a few comic books". So I guess he knows these comics are out there...

The Doors biography was done by artist Greg Fox with scripts by Jay Sanford, printed in 1991 and edited by Revolutionary Comics numbers 26 and 27 (it´s in two parts).

Front cover by Scott Jackson (click the image to enlarge):

The comic book covers all the known events through The Doors career, with some inaccuracies, but pretty good nonetheless, I really enjoyed reading it.

I found Jay (the script writer) on the web and he told me how it was done:

"I seem to recall the letterer complaining that I wrote far too much text and the artist, Greg Fox, really had to squeeze artwork around captions and balloons. I had a good sized stack of research material, mostly magazine clippings thru the years and several books, plus I had done an interview with John Densmore for some of the material.

The two Doors issues sold very well and remained in print thru about 1997 - they're fairly scarce now. Greg Fox kept drawing for Revolutionary thru 1994 and now does a weekly comic in the NYC paper the Advocate. Cover painter Scott Jackson publishes a line of comics now called Heavy Metal Monsters."

I found Greg Fox (the artist) too so we exchanged e-mails about his work:

"I am a huge Doors fan, so it was a thrill for me to get assigned that Doors comic book; I was working for that Rock N' Roll Comics company for about a year at that point, and had illustrated a series of comic books about various bands; (Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Poison, Kiss, Aerosmith, Whitesnake and several others). Led Zeppelin was the only one I'd say I was a huge fan of. And then the Doors assignment came along, which I jumped at, because they are one of my all-time favorite bands. (I was also thrilled that it was a 2-part story, so I got to spend 2 full issues chronicling the band). I wouldn't say I was overjoyed at the script....certainly, it captured the history of the band, but being such a big fan myself, I probably felt I could've scripted it better. But it worked out OK). I do recall that the Oliver Stone Doors movie was released right in the middle of my drawing those 2 issues; not that it affected my drawings in any way, as I already had such a strong visual idea of the band. But I do recall it was a high-media exposure time for the Doors, (probably the reason why the comic book company chose to profile the Doors at that time)."

Here are some samples of the second part of this nice Doors bio comic book (click the images to enlarge):

The plane to Phoenix incidentThe Doors last public appearence (in the middle of the page you´ll see a quote from Salli Stevenson interview - Salli commented: "I think it's great. I liked the fact that he used the Circus Magazine "I think of myself as an intelligent sensitive human being ...clown" quote, but that drawing's the first time I've EVER been mistaken for a man. LOL" - haha!):

Also Jay Sanford was kind enough to send me an unpublished art for the comic book, by Alec Scott:

If you´re interested, there are a couple of places where you can buy it:
http://www.sonic.net/~comix/comp__r.shtml#Revolutionary_Comics
http://www.demicomix.com/

Greg and Jay also did a series of comic strips for the San Diego Reader called Famous Former Neighbors telling stories of people who lived there. Two of them were about Jim Morrison, here´s one:

Alien Mind - featuring Jim Morrison

Here´s another Doors comic book, a science fiction story printed in 1991 by Rock Fantasy - Alien Mind - featuring Jim Morrison. There are no credits in the comic book.

In the forewords by "Michael" (maybe he´s the editor!) he explains the Rock Fantasy series:

"Rock has often taken the attributes of Science Fiction
or Fantasy to fire the imagination of it´s audience. We
thought it might be fun to turn the tables and combine
Rock´n Roll with Fantasy/ Science Fiction for the printed
page. So we´ve created an imaginary universe and peopled
it with characters in the guise of some of our favorite
rock stars."

The front cover by Nik:
Here is how the story begins (click to enlarge):

Inside the ship Jim is told "Don´t be alarmed, we will not harm you, we´ve come very far in need of the magic you posses!", he is taken to the ship´s central room. They drug him there but he doesn´t notice and from then on he starts thinking everything is normal and seems not to mind he is between weird aliens. They show him the ship´s nightlife to distract him...

The ship travels through the galaxy to a faraway planet where they are going to make Jim perform to a huge alien crowd in a large stadium. They get there and Jim starts the concert with "People are Strange"! BUT...in the control room where they are monitoring Jim´s mind the aliens see it´s going out of control! "There is too much psychic feedback! the system can´t handle..." and...BOOM! their mind control system explodes, Jim he regains conciousness and finally sees he is surrounded by aliens.

Jim makes his scape out of the stadium and jumps into a space ship landed nearby...well, I don´t want to take away the surprise in the end of the story...But I´ll tell you it doesn´t end there, they promess a another follow up comic book featuring Jim, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendryx titled "The great gig in the sky"!

I think you still can find this comic through Ebay: www.ebay.com