Harbinger 1991: Valiant Comics' teen team (like X-Men but realistic) by Jim Shooter and David Lapham
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
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I colored at Valiant back in the day. The way we colored those comics back then was the original art was xeroxed down to print size (8"x10") on a smooth Strathmore paper. Then we used twin tack paper to adhere it to thicker piece of light board. We had to make sure that there weren't any air bubbles when doing that because it would show up once we put water down on the paper. We used Dr Martin dyes right on top of that xeroxed art because those dyes wouldn't grey out the black line. The word balloon bubbles were already on the page and you had to make sure none of your color went into them (or you'd have to clean it up with bleach later). The words themselves were pasted on a piece of acetate and registered on top. Then that art was sent to get photographed and then production would get the individual film of the cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Production would have to clean up the film before sending it out to the printer. If you messed up a panel it was a real hassle. You would have to get that panel re xeroxed and remounted on the thicker board and then the production department would have splice it together with the rest of the page before getting photographed. That always left a shadow and then production would have to go on every plate and wipe it out. It was a real pain in the ass so you tried to get it right the first time.
Appreciate your efforts
Harbinger began life as a screenplay written by Jim Shooter which he actually sold to a major studio. However, about a month after the studio bought it, they signed Eddie Murphy to a multi-picture deal and wanted him to star in the Harbinger film. They asked Shooter to re-write it as a comedy vehicle for Murphy, and he balked, pulling his script away from the studio. Soon after that, he founded Valiant and repurposed the whole thing as a comic.
That universe was awesome. The look was super fresh at the time. The art was gritty and the stories were much more relatable than any of the other big names. Also, the ad "where dead is dead"
Sold the first 4 issues at a convention back in 92 for $80. Couldn't believe it at the time. Funded my box diving for the rest of the weekend.
I loved early 90's Image (art) and Valiant (story and BWS) both have had a lasting influence in my art.
Same here bruh
All that cutting promos on Valiant and now this. I expect a big Shadowhawk episode a couple Sundays from now!
Harbinger was one of my favorites as a kid.
I wonder if Jim rearranges his comics like John Cusack's character arranges his records in High Fidelity... often and in strange ways. Jim is the Rob Gordon of comics! Haha. I just want to say that this channel has single handedly decreased my TV viewing by at least 75%. Instead of reaching for the remote when I sit down and I relax, I'm grabbing my lap top and heading for Cartoonist Kayfabe!
LOL...Autobiographically!
Found Valiant my freshman year in college after my 3 years in the Army. Had jumped back into comics while stationed in Washington D.C. after the required pause for girls in high school. I was all in on DC, Marvel, and Image as well ,but Valiant was by far my favorite thing happening at that time. Our apartment was around the corner from an LCS and even though I was still pre-ordering my books with Westfield Comics (a holdover from the Army when I wasn't always in town to visit my LCS), I would still go every NCBD and buy Valiant books just because I didn't want to wait to see what happened in the story. I wasn't doing that for the latest issue of Younglood or Brigade. Loved the books under Shooter and my memory is that I felt taken advantage of when they started expanding titles (I can be a bit of a completest) but, IMO, the quality of stories and art were dropping off.
For me, I treated the word Harbinger as being synonymous with the word Mutant. The bad guy Harbingers were called Egg Breakers irc.
I found the plain art design a novel idea for what was considered popular at the time, which for me made it stand apart from anything out at the time. The stories were the best out there at the time.
“I store Valiants under V, in chronological release order”
The flirtatious Southern archetype could be Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire.
There’s $600 of comics on that desk according to the Wizard price guide
Have you read the conspiracy that Wizard upped the prices of Valiant books because they had a stake in them somehow in the speculator market that time?
I need to get those classic Valiant comics.
You can always tell when Ed is getting bored when he utters his trademark "Yeah sure"
Valiant is the best comic universe ever formed, sad that corporate greed keeps ruining it.
One of my favorite comic book until Jim Shooter ousted by Valiant.. Strangely enough the anime Mob Psycho 101 story is almost like Sting story
I mentioned the similarties between bith series in a Mob video and was literally "mobbed" by the weebos in the comments.
As a 90s comic kid I was NEVER able to read these or grab 'em from my lcs. Speculators and even the lcs owners immediately bagged and boarded them, marked them way up and kept them out of the hands of many MANY young readers.
totally the same experience. never got around to reading these after that.
90’s kid here too, I am now finally buying them from the dollar bin. So far I don’t fell I missed anything (Eternal Warrior, Archer, Rai & future force, Magnus).
Your video made me want to reread ny Children of the Eight Day TPB. I started reading Valiant back in '95. Love it still.
Holy shit! I have these comics! I got them in a 50¢ box as a graphic novel, 20 years! I'm definitely going to reread it!
Well this is a surprise. I never expected to see Valiant get some coverage here.
If response is good, maybe we'll do more. Like BWS's followup to Weapon X - Solar Alpha and Omega, or the FREE Unity 0 (also BWS). Norm Breyfogle Bloodshots from the Acclaim era. BWS also did Archer and Armstrong...if this video does well, maybe we'll visit the Valiant universe again! Share this video. - Jim
@@CartoonistKayfabe Unity would be sick
My favorite Valiant was the Ernie Colon painted issues of Magnus Robot Fighter, followed up some issues drawn by Steve Ditko and inked beautifully by Ralph Reese!
@@CartoonistKayfabe please do BWS, especially A&A!
@@CartoonistKayfabe would love to hear your thoughts on Archer & Armstrong
Please do an ep on bloodshot 0 and 1. I loved that book back when I was a kid
Great book! Ty for posting!
I also collected the 2012 Reboot of this by Joshua Dryart. It fleshes out Pete Stanchek (sting) and starts with him being recruited by the Harbringer organization and Toyo Harada. In this world Harbingers can only reach their true potential through intense theropy/treatment and Harada realizes Pete already has his power without the process, but can also bring the powers out in others without any drugs or treatments. Well, Pete finds out Harada is manipulating him and killed Pete's friend, so he leaves and starts recruiting people the Harbringer organization thinks aren't worth the treatment while being chased by other Harbringer and Bloodshot at one point. Faith was a much better character and Torque is actually a quadriplegic who has fantasies of being a large Conan type fantasy character in his dreams. When Pete awakens his powers, his psychic energy forms a body around him creating Torque.
Shooter actually did alot of the early covers n gave credit to other artists.
I have wondered how much, if any, of Valiant is recycling ideas from New Universe. That said, I went all in for Valiant back in the day
My uncle has a giant dairy farm in Mass when I was young I almost drowned in manure my uncle paid the 20 year old worker $50 to save me. That was a lot of money in 1980
Glad you made it
Weird! I never read this but have the TPB. I just pulled it off the shelf this morning to finally give it a shot... and now this video! The same thing happened with Doom Force, but in reverse. I saw the video and found the comic for $2 the next day randomly at a book store.
“Yar’s Revenge?” Hahahahahaha!
2 quick things an exclusive edition of Harbinger #0 came poly bagged with the tpb. The Flaming Carrot comic has a cover by Todd Mcfarlane.
Great video and brought back a lot of memories. Valiant came out when I was in my prime comic-buying days (early 20s) and I jumped right on board. I have to say that I agree with your assessment that Harbingers was the only actually interesting book in the Valiant line-up. Since you brought up the NEW UNIVERSE comparison, I felt that this book was a "2.0" version of Mark Gruenwald's DP7... another book that tried to explore what it would mean to be a rag-tag superteazm in the "real world." Not sure what I stopped reading this book, but it was definitely the only one I kept up with after the initial FOMO of buying all the other #1s.
Could be tuberculosis cracked me up. Thanks guys, you rock.
32:18 100% percent
I just dumped 700 Valiant books on a flea market dealer...felt great!
C'mon Valiant, give me an omnibus of classic Harbinger!
I was onboard for all the Valiant titles, but around issues 25 of most of these comics it started to go downhill very fast. I’m looking forward to you guys reviewing OMAC in the future.
The "teen speak" was always off even when I was a kid. The teens in comics (Teen Titans, Jimmy Olsen, X-Men, etc) were always sounding off. We use to joke about it, even if loving the characters and issues. Even Superboy and the LSH (who had some excuse since he was suppose to be a hick from a generation ago and they were from centuries in the future) would vary from very natural to unnaturally "old man teen-fake". Though teens in Black Lightning, Firestorm and a few others we thought were accurate or at least close enough not to pull us out of the story.
Reader copies have no coupons, kids!
You should do the 2012 reboot for contrast.
The Valiant house style minus the superstar artists like BWS reminds me of King of the Hill. Just a lot of mundane looking people that leave an impression due to the mundanity compared to everything else being created at the time
Great series, though I never understood what happened in the third year when Stanchek disappeared never to return... Felt so anticlimactic... 😮
He came back as The Visitor
Oh wow, I had totally conflated this with next men in my memory. I remember enjoying this book at the time 🤔
I liked Next Men too. Same concept in some ways (super powered kids in the real world) but very different books. - Jim
Must be honest the covers, the style, the name... never take me. As an Italian, "harbinger" didn't sound cool. 🤷🏽♂️
anyone who likes harbinger should check out x-statix