Friday, February 6, 2009

Review: Above Top Secret Comics

so in order to get me off my butt and kick off this whole comic review blog for comics that wouldn't normally get reviewed, i'm going to transpose and expand upon some reviews i did back in 2004 on my livejournal. so lets start with...

ABOVE TOP SECRET COMICS "the comic the government doesn't want you to see".
I first stumbled upon ATSC a while back (2002-ish) looking through black and white backstock at Al's comics in San Francisco (backstock being something that al's has in spades check it out if your in town). He only had issue two which is what my original review focused on but now i have finally gotten my hands on issue one... so let's take a look at the entire run.

below are the cover to ATSC #1
Above Top Secret Comics issue one, published by Eyes Only Comics in 1995-1996. Written by and featuring the artwork of Wes Crum. I did a google search to try to find more about the history of the artist and was able to find out a little bit more then i was able to back in 2004. Then all i could find on him was this link, which features some more images from ATSC, but now i've found that since ATSC he's done a lot of covers and more for many an Adult Comic available through last gasp, some even keeping with the alien theme with titles with unfortunate names such as Anal Intruders From Uranus... But i digress. I was immediately drawn to ATSC by the artwork, the format of the book and the subject matter (me being one to have known bouts of obsession with aliens from time to time). Although the same print size as a standard comic it wasn't so much a comic book as a collection of highly rendered pen and ink illustrations.

The first issue ATSC is a whopping 48 pages of the best in alien conspiracy. Issue one focus mostly on documenting in exacting detail the history of landmark alien encounters on earth (starting in 1944), important figures in the field of Xenoarchaeology (not sure if i'm using this terminology correctly), and conspiracy whistle blowers throughout recent human history ...with a few exceptions of pages devoted to important cultural moments such as the release of The Day the Earth Stood Still (the 1951 version), lost in space, and star trek the next generation. Below are some of the weirder images from issue 1.

caption: On the night of october 11, 1973 two very frightened men from Pascagoula, Missisippi presented themselves at the Jackson County Sheriff's department and told and increadible tale. Charley hickson and Calvin Oarker claimed that while they were fishing in a local river they were abducted by three bizarre robot-like creatures, taken aboard a UFO and physically examined. (click on image for larger image)
George Adamski meets with a woman from Venus
While issue one seemed to focused more on the "truth", issue two ( a 32 pager published by Eyes Only Press in 1996) focus' more on the conjectured happenings as imagined by the artist. It still has it's fine figures of humanity in the fight against our alien abductors but where the first issue had paragraphs below each image explaining the history and back story behind the illustration, the second issue has several words, maybe a name or if we are lucky a short descriptive sentence. Mysterious titles for the illustrations such as "Inside the Tent", "Briefing in the Blue Room" or "Childhoods End".

ATSC #2 at your service
There are some really great illustrations. like one on the "ufo's of the third reich" and two of my personal favorites "the night shift of area s-4" and "the weirdest dream".
I think the best thing about Wes Crum's approach to the book's illustrations is that each image is portrayed as being fact or an important facet in the development of humanities relationship and acceptance of alien existence. The art and the context of the text seems to scream these things happened. You can tell how focused and into getting every detail down on paper he is. How carefully planned, researched, and painstakingly built from a combination of photo reference and the mind of the artist each illustration is. The artwork is a tempered mix of skill and planned ugly with just a whiff of outsider. Enough outsider to make it fascinating. Through his ability to create the otherworldly melded with the mundane we get a glimpse into the frightening reality that perhaps the artist lives in.

-a

all artwork appearing in this review copyright wes crum

5 comments:

eleanor hope said...

amazing work. it's cool to read how much you know about comics! i've never heard or seen anything like this. really neat stuff. going to start following your blog. discovered it on the log-in page of blogger.com.

STLrealtor said...

Thanks Elanor that was a great post, I know I wish we had more like this around St. Louis and our comic shops

R. CRUM said...

Wes Crum is my father.. I thought your blog was going to be full of insults considering the title "Dollar Bin," but you seemed to show a general interest, that's nice to see. But you probably could have come up with a catchier title than "Dollar Bin." But, I guess you need to catch the eye of the reader or blogger.

andy ristaino said...

hey r. crum.

thanks for writing. "the dollar bin" was never intended to be a derogatory title. one of my favorite things to do is to look through dollar bins in new comic store for unloved gems, a catagory of which i think your fathers work falls into. I haven't managed to review that many comics on this blog yet, but i definitely only intend to review comics that i'm glad to have stumbled upon and think deserve wider recognition.

I would definitely be interested in hearing more about your father and if he is working on any new artwork, or how he first became interested in UFO's and aliens.

anyway. thanks for writing. i appreciate your comments.

the saucer people said...

As someone with a long interest in all things UFO/alien/non-human intelligences I have seen the work of Wes Crum crop up but I had no idea about the name of the artist or indeed the name of the comic...till now!

A huge thanks for such an informative and well written article and its great to see my assumption that these drawings were by someone with a deep and sympathetic resonance concerning the subject matter.

It was also cool to see the above post by his son...thats what I love about blogs, the way they can generate direct connections with the subject matter....did he ever get back in touch?

I would love to know if prints are available or if there are any more articles on the work of Wes Crum...of course I am going to do a good search but any more info or links would be appreciated.