Take the way-back machine and go back more than 5 years to the start of this blog with the Outdated Zine version! Just a fun way to spend the time, attempting archives in pdf form. I wrote one new piece of text for the thing, reproduced here for completeness' sake.Bob Haney - Mad Genius
There are certain comic book writers who have a particular appeal to comic book bloggers. Obviously, we like great story telling and quality comics, but everyone does (or should). What separates a chosen few, however, is that their stories - especially their vintage stories - are, to put it simply, COMPLETELY INSANE! And for some of us, that is what comics is all about.
Think about it. Comics is the one medium that’s visual enough to include the ideas that would cost too much elsewhere, and disposable enough that anything can be tried within their pages. For many comic book bloggers, the crazier the better, and some writers definitely embraced that philosophy as well. Robert Kanigher, Bill Mantlo, Jack Kirby, and Bob Haney. Most definitely Bob Haney.
Haney’s is a special brand of craziness because though he was middle aged (born 1926) when he started the Teen Titans (1964), he still insisted on giving his heroes their own brand of teen-speak, which provides the modern reader with an extra layer of surrealism. Not to same the plots didn’t do that by themselves. Filled with wacky villains as disposable as the books themselves, Haney’s work had an “anything goes” quality that borders on the naive, or “outsider art”. In his Brave and the Bold, he was notorious for ignoring DC continuity to tell the stories he wanted to tell, whether that meant giving the modern Batman a career during World War II or turning Black Canary into Bruce Wayne’s secretary. Metamorpho, the Super-Sons, the House of Mystery’s Cain... His contribution to the DC Universe are as varied as they are memorable.
And thanks to the Showcase Presents series, the SBG got very interested in Haney’s work and featured it frequently. We hope you’ll enjoy the blog’s look at the early issues of the Teen Titans, which started last issue (all the appearances before they got their own series) and will continue in the next few (up through the first volume of Showcase Presents Teen Titans).
Mister Haney, we send our thanks from this world to the next.
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