That scene--where the gangster is going "Ow-w-w-w!" and "Stop it" when Stardust is shrinking his body but not his head, has always frightened me, because Hanks' son told Karasik Hanks used to abuse him(ie hitting) and, well...that dialogue sounds like a child being hurt. As a onetime bullying and abuse victim, it seems familiar. Another example of the psychodrama from hanks' messed up mind leaking onto the page.
"Oh no here comes Stardust to turn my feet into fish and force me for all of time to live in the ocean with fish feet!!! I never should have stolen that gold!!"
@@raycearcher5794 That's what you get for being a commie! A ginormous head! Yeah!! Now, go and think about what you've done. COMMIE: I can't move!... agony all my days!! STARDUST: Because crime does not pay.
I like Hanks because he IS so vindictive. "Stardust... I'm sorry for stealing that woman's handbag, please don't punish me too harshly!" "I sentence you to immortality!" "... that's... unexpected..." "And I'm throwing you into the Sun where you will burn forever!"
@@VorpalDerringer Having seen some Hanks stories, I was curious to hear Darth Perkins' answer, because his "hypothetical" punishment (being made immortal, then thrown into the Sun) is 100% Fletcher Hanks!
He stole his kids piggy bank, and all his villains are people who try to steal or otherwise illegitimately acquire wealth, who meet terrible fates. I don't think that Fletcher Hanks was drawing his wishes. I think that he was drawing his fears.
stardust actually appears in league of extraordinary gentlemen, where he was a drunk that accidently wandered into his own freezing machine and froze himself
@@moyza_ It's talked about at one point in The Black Dossier, where Captain Universe (a Captain Marvel knock-off created by British comics creator Mick Anglo) tells Mina the story of Stardust, and how he froze to death in a chunk of Ice 9. Captain Universe is also shown to have taken over Stardust's base after the fact.
They also make a point that he has too many abs for a human so it looks like a weird attempt at making a strong person. I think it's in volume 3 when they talk about Mina being in a super team in the early 60s?
@@davidmelon9409 And weirder..... he is like a bizarro combo of segata sanshiro, spectre, kool aid man and the punisher but without a reason Does Stardust punishes people for fun? For the greater good? because he was bored? given how little we know about his creator, we might as well make our own lore how stardust was like flex mentallo: a comic book character given life by his own creator to pursue his creator's ideas of jsutice
Stardust strikes me as a vaguely lovecraftian superhero. No understandable reason for his actions, no rational explanation to how his powers function. He just is and serves one exact and terrible purpose that nothing can save you from.
I can't help but imagine it as some sort of horror movie akin to Friday the 13th of Nightmare on Elm Street but with criminals as the main characters running from a brightly clad super powered Lex Luger.
A Stardust movie would single handedly grind the superhero movie boom to a halt. There'd just be no way to follow this up with your Batmans and Spidermans. The description of this comic sounds like it could be the best "so bad it's good" movie ever. Just him flying without looking where he's going is the shit lol! 😂😂😂
@@kingmclaughlin5988 Brilliant idea. Imagine the horror of being a ordinary human in Stardusts world. He is always out there watching and waiting to do something horrible to someone.
The best thing about being a comics fan is that after over 30 years in the fandom, I can still find a creator and a fascinating body of work I've never even heard of. Thanks for this one, really interesting stuff. I basically feel like when I first found out about R. Crumb or Jack Chick, to a lesser extent.
So you're comparing Robert Crumb, one of the greatest artists who has ever lived, with Jack Chick, not an artist at all, and Fletcher Hanks, known mostly for being so bad it's hilarious. Kinda fuck you.
@@Bonzulac C'mon now, whether you love or hate the message, you have to admit that Jack Chick is as much of an artist as beloved artists like Crumb, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Al Jaffee, and even the legendary Jack Kirby. The art of Jack Chick, as much as I hate his religious proselytizing and dehumanizing messages, demonstrates a masterful grasp of line, weight, perspective, and form.
@@ClockworkWyrm Yah, I think Bonzi wants to be the Minister of Not-Art in the One Woke Order. Hanks has a kind of "outsider art" appeal, kind of awful, kind of unique. The stories though...why did they not find a writer for him?
One thing I remember reading about him was a comment from someone who used to work with him, was that Hanks was like twice the age of all the other cartoonists in the studio.
Fantomah is a beauty that turns her face into a horrifying rageful one and deals out severe punishment, It's not hard to imagine Hanks' mother has something to do with this
Such a terrible person but even so his death is horrifying. He was obviously plagued by fears of death and solitude, and I guess it’s ironic a force of nature sort of came down and did him in in the end
Imagine a story where Stardust discovers a dead body and whimsically decides to avenge it, which draws him deeper and deeper into a large corporate coverup as he inexorably pursues the chain of guilt step by step with his borderline omniscient machines, to the horror of the perplexed conspirators.
I could see a modern version of Stardust being used as a kind of Homelander-esque evil Superman. In fact, it would probably work better than Homelander and the like, since you're building off of a superhero that actually has disturbing baggage and disturbing morals attached, rather than just "Superman but evil." As for Fantomah, I think a reimagining of her could just be as a female, superhero version of Colonel Kurtz. I'd read that.
Hanks' stories really stand out because they seem to pretty accurately show what someone with zero social skills and the inability to convey complex emotions in his work (and perhaps his life) can produce when not guided by an editorial hand. I think one could draw quite a few possible insights about the man himself and the struggles that he might have faced within himself. I just find some of the possible psychology that could be inferred from his work so very interesting. It's not difficult for me to see Fletcher Hank's work and draw a line to a life where he had a real difficulty relating to others, developing or maintaining intimate relationships, or correctly interpreting the social ques of people around him.
@@qty1315 I adore Darger's work as much as I am mystified and deeply concerned about it. The Realms of the Unreal is absolutely incredible. I got into outsider art in my mid 20's and my interest has only grown in the couple decades since. That's one of the reasons I appreciate Jim and Ed covering the black and white explosion because much of that is very much outsider art adjacent. You have people with no real formal training compelled to manifest their ideas and thoughts into the world with some of them choosing to do it with comics that feature Olympic sized swimming pools worth of the darkest blood you've ever seen. Sure Tim Vigil's is more refined than Darger's because of his familiarity with the form in which he was creating, but the work still has a very similar energy that I absolutely love. There is just something that translates to the page, canvas, or other medium when someone is possessed with that energy that they desperately need to get out into the world.
Stardust actually has a fanmade webcomic that looks at a possible future where he's been gone for decades and returns to find that his presence had irrevocably changed Earth... and not always for the better. Check it out, it's called The Super Wizard Returns IIRC.
Some of the art is genuinely arresting, almost Robert Crumb or Bevis and Butthead at times. I really really dig some of the images. I need that book now. thank you for a great episode!
I love the way he illustrates Stardust's face and head. Especially when limply flying through the sky the way he does. Just an empty-headed jacked noodle bopping around doing whatever.
@@cjhepburn7406 He's the director/producer/author etc of hilariously bad movies that are all about some insanely powerful hacker or terrorist or angel or time travelling robot (always played by himself) who brutally murders millions of people as punishment for their greed. So the comparison absolutely works.
Hanks and his works kinda remind me of the story of Henry Darger and the Vivian Girls, in that it was basically a window into the mind of an individual who clearly had some serious trauma and fears influencing their art
How to punish the guy who tried to steal the gold from Fort Knox: 1. Tell him "I will hand you over to the Golden Octopus. This is an ironic punishment." 2. Grab him, then head towards an island. Flood the island with a giant wave for some reason. 3. Lift the entire island out of the water. The one you just flooded. Now it is floating high and dry. 4. Take the villain into a cave inside the floating island. Remind him to get ready for the Golden Octopus. To be fair, he probably forgot about it at this point. I know I would have. 5. Flip the entire island upside down in mid-air, making it even less flooded than it was before, then drop it back into the ocean. Now the top half that was at one point needlessly flooded is completely and permanently underwater. 6. This causes the villain to be tossed out of the cave that he had been carefully placed into, and onto the new shoreline of the flipped-over island, apparently unhurt. 7. Golden Octopus finally shows up, picks up the guy and drags him to its lair, which presumably is not in the cave of the flipped-over flooded island, making steps 2 thru 6 completely pointless.
I didn't think I was a superhero guy (other than in a Chris Ware style) but holy pizookie, I ran over to ebay and bought a collection immediately, I absolutely LOVE these illustrations and the ridiculous absurdity of it all. Those floaty drawings he does, they're very pleasing, he creates great patterns and movement in his panels, very ahead of his time. Thanks for informing me about him
At this point it’s just easier to embrace the insanity. Just imagine a 60’s marvel style cartoon series staring Stardust. I don’t know if it would have had an incredibly catchy but stupid theme song or just some dude shouting STARDUST over a title card and that’s it.
The great thing about this sort of unfiltered imaginative work is that everyone can get something different from it. I noticed he seemed to have a preoccupation with pipes / tubes / telescopes being close to people's heads, on their heads or against their eyes. I wonder where that came from? You mentioned his backgrounds where complex for the time; I agree. At 19:40 the forest and the face remind me of (and predate) surrealist Rene Magritte's famous forest series, including The Blank Signature and Les enfants trouvés. Again, the mystery of this work deepens. Thanks so much for this video; obviously, it got me thinking!
I would almost call it Dr Susse inspired with all the weird nobs and stuff on the machines. I find the story to feel very much like superjail, mean spirited and spiteful with a feeling there is something deep inside that I can't quite pick through.
@@notaraven superjail is masterfully hand animated, abrasive, absurdist, eye candy. This is actual derangement I know what you mean story wise though!!!
As ever, I'm amazed at your ability to summarise someone's life so completely and succinctly. You make something that must be pretty difficult look incredibly easy. I wish I had that superpower! Many thanks.
The SpongeBob comic books actually parodied Stardust once. The annual issues were all superhero themed and the final story of the second annual was a parody of Stardust. In the story Patrick takes the role of the hero (and he's called Duststar) and he tries to punish Plankton for stealing the formula, but each time Plankton actually enjoys his punishment, so when Duststar gives up trying to torture him Plankton breaks down in tears.
10:16 Then Stardust releases a secret ray that brings in front of the spies, the skeletons of innocent people they have killed... "GAZE AT THEM, FOR AWHILE!" I love how hilariously mild this threat is. It's not "GAZE AT THEM FOREVER!" or "GAZE AT THEM FOR ALL ETERNITY!" It's just...a while. Because yeah, Stardust is all about making people gaze at skeletons, but he's not a monster or anything. These spies have places to be, and he isn't going to make inordinate demands of their time. I appreciate that.
This might be the most fascinating creator you've highlighted. It is also a very illustrative story of why Superman became so iconis. It wasn't that he was "first" or "most powerful", but rather the way they created a compelling and interesting character with a good supporting cast and good storytelling in general. Or instead of Superman and Wonder Woman, we'd have movies with Stardust and Fantomah. (I still feel Fantomah deserves a live action movie 'cause wow!)
Stardust may be how Fletcher Hanks saw himself (complete with working alone and perhaps not being interested in talking to people), while the thugs could be how other people saw Hanks.
This feels like either the artist wants somebody to punish him, or somebody angers him and he needs to use the comics as some form of revenge. It's the same way that people who do harem manga are.
Stardust sounds like a generic Spectre. They kinda kept his origins very vague, until they finally revealed his as the "wrath of God" that needs a human form now.
@@raycearcher5794 With the skull face, Fantomah is more like Ōgon Bat ("Golden Bat"; Japanese superhero who came even before Superman...and is even named "Phantoma" in an Australian dub of his 60s anime adaptation).
@@NovaSaber Fun Fact: here in Brazil, Ōgon Bat is called Fantomas, who is also the name of a famous French fictional villain and of a Mexican comic book character.
2:06 The segue from his mum buying him a comic book course, in to him marrying Margaret and having four children, it sounded like he'd married his mum 😲 This work reminds me of Basil Wolverton.
Yesssss! Great to see you talk about Fantomah and Stardust the Super Wizard. Ever since I first saw a pic of Stardust squeezing a man's torso like a tube of toothpaste, I knew my life would never be the same.
The art is super fresh, and the stories even have a certain absurdist appeal to them. Whatever you feel about his life of apparent violence, irresponsibility and negativity, he is definitely not "the worst" auteur. Any artist who is genuinely different and weird in interesting ways deserves a certain respect as an artist. It's like some folk art that seems to give you insight into someone's head who is wired very, very differently. ;) I really like him.
Cool stuff. Despite some of the darker parts of Fletcher Hanks’ life, the weirdness of his comics has been a huge inspiration to me as an artist who also like to write my own stories. It helped me realize that not everything has to be technically correct, and by the book. Helped me think outside the box a bit more.
This is the kind of stuff I love to see from this channel. Weird old comics or bizarre storylines as well as artist or story features. Still miss Infotron though... :-)
Chris: "Almost everything I've said about Stardust, applies to Fantomah." Me: "Oh, does that mean Fantomah also took a damsel in distress to her lair? Looks like Fletcher was ahead of his time!"
The expressions on these characters are just...Amazing. The guy being shrunken down to a head looks less like he's horrified at the cosmic nightmare enacting a hellish punishment upon him, and more like a kid being told he has to clean his room before he can go to the arcade.
You were SO close to giving us a "Oh hai, you caught me shuffling in sideways" Come on Chris bring those great intros back!! Anyway great and funny look at this guy..never heard of him
Thanks so much for that Chris - I actually had that copy of Raw magazine from years back - and I was always struck by the stardust strip - just bizarre and surreal - but fascinating. I wasn’t aware of the fantagraphics book - immediately ordered it last night after watching your piece and I’m reading it tonight! Thanks so much
The bizarre and violent ends the villains in these comics met reminds me of the Spectre stories in the 70s. I wonder if Hanks' stories served as an inspiration?
8:42 Wish I had known back when this came out, but the 5th column actually refers to a group of people trying to undermine the government in sympathy with said government's current enemy, and it generally refers and has referred to multiple groups both real and imagined. Back during the second world war, it was commonly used in reference to secret Nazi agents sent here to recruit sympathizers and overthrow the government, which was a real initiative by the Nazis, but there was a lot of speculation and rumors about them that were less true, about how big they were, how deep their claws were in U.S. affairs. In all but name, the fifth column were the villains of the Rocketeer, and the term was used significantly to refer to the villains of All Through the Night. (a great old movie with Humphry Bogart, one or two racist parts, namely a character who is a really bad black stereotype, as you see in old films, but it's hardly the worst you can find, I recommend watching with that notable trigger warning in mind. Beleive it or not, the film in many ways, for the time, was rather progressive, but this was back in the 40's, so, you know how that is. Ultimately, if you wanna see old mobsters fight Nazis, it's a good watch) So when Fletcher Hanks wrote that faction into Stardust, he might've just been referring to a big conspiracy theory, which is very him I think.
I first learned of Hanks about six or seven years back, when Karasik published the two-part collections of his works, "I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets" and "You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation". I was so intrigued by the bizarre works of Hanks, that I ended up doing a couple of pieces of them as well: Here's a brusk inking of Fantomah: www.deviantart.com/tomimt/art/Fantomahs-throne-280780845 A Leopard Woman from Venus: www.deviantart.com/tomimt/art/Leopard-woman-from-Venus-197130587 A 360-rendition of Stardust model: th-cam.com/video/pJ5Ah2jwfV4/w-d-xo.html A poster of Fantomah's faces: www.deviantart.com/tomimt/art/Fantomah-435422295
Terrifying. Interesting similarity between Civilian Justice's Craig Weich and Fletcher Hanks, though. Both are self-published, writer-artists, who perhaps see themselves as "cool", merciless agents of vengeance and punishment. I guess some things never change in comics - some people just have to live out their violent, macho fantasies however they can.
I seriously might buy this book, this guy had some serious issues that were coming out on the page. It will be fascinating just to go through the book and try my damndest to figure out where this guy's head was at.
I remember having the time of my goddamn life learning about this comic on 2017 /co/ Stardust is so bizarre that it feels downright avant garde. And the story of Fletcher’s death is morbid as hell.
I found a sample of Hanks' work on Mister Kitty years back and got both of the compilations shortly after. Certainly a crazy experience and perhaps a cautionary tale about the excesses of power golden heroes possessed. Since he's in the public domain, it probably will be a matter of time that Stardust might surface again...as a villain.
Oh man, how I love Fletcher Hanks. I came across some random panels a few years ago with no context (mainly the ones of Destructo's flying head) and got hooked on it. It's rare to see something so bizarre allowed to exist without any kind of filter.
I own a couple of original Golden Age Comics with Fletcher Hanks art mainly his Stardust stories in Fantastic Comics #4-#5, It’s interesting to see his art when it was published alongside giants such as Joe Simon & Lou Fine in the same comic. When I first saw his art I could tell there was something gonzo about it but also mind blowing about it as well.
Sorry I love Fletcher Hanks, his work is so weird it's good. I love the sadistic ways Stardust punishes villains like, "Oh you love gold do you? Well how about you get crushed forever by this giant GOLD octopus!!!"
Yeah, there's definitely some undiagnosed mental illness going on with that dude. What's even more terrifying is that even now in 2023 there are psychopaths walking around like that free as a bird who need to be put away ASAP.
By his description it seems like his characters are like Demons, Angles , Satan or God administering punishment for the wicked. Whatever Fletcher thought was evil anyways. I wonder if he was a religious guy? I kept thinking of Dante's Inferno or something listening to the punishments. He must have had a very cynical world view and liked the idea of vengeance. The art is appealing in it's crude proportions and strange twisted anatomy and faces. I see some Basil Wolverton faces in there too! Thanks again for another great look into the comics world!
The grumpy gangster's head flying through space and saying "have mercy" is absolutely hilarious
That scene--where the gangster is going "Ow-w-w-w!" and "Stop it" when Stardust is shrinking his body but not his head, has always frightened me, because Hanks' son told Karasik Hanks used to abuse him(ie hitting) and, well...that dialogue sounds like a child being hurt. As a onetime bullying and abuse victim, it seems familiar.
Another example of the psychodrama from hanks' messed up mind leaking onto the page.
It's both funny and weirdly disturbing at the same time.
The fact that the guy's face is just grumpy instead of terrified the whole time really sells the comedy.
He doesn't even look terrified, just angry.
"Oh no here comes Stardust to turn my feet into fish and force me for all of time to live in the ocean with fish feet!!! I never should have stolen that gold!!"
He may have been a asshole weirdo but he certainly had a impressive imagination.
Stardust made my head gigantic! How I regret my life of communism!
@@raycearcher5794 That's what you get for being a commie! A ginormous head! Yeah!! Now, go and think about what you've done.
COMMIE: I can't move!... agony all my days!!
STARDUST: Because crime does not pay.
I like Hanks because he IS so vindictive.
"Stardust... I'm sorry for stealing that woman's handbag, please don't punish me too harshly!"
"I sentence you to immortality!"
"... that's... unexpected..."
"And I'm throwing you into the Sun where you will burn forever!"
Makes the punisher sound tame D:
Is that is an actual example?
@@VorpalDerringer No. But an actual example is Stardust turning criminals into mice and having them chased by cats for all eternity.
Hanks had issues.
@@go-away-5555 I think this guy wanted to outdo the Specter when it came to punishment.
@@VorpalDerringer Having seen some Hanks stories, I was curious to hear Darth Perkins' answer, because his "hypothetical" punishment (being made immortal, then thrown into the Sun) is 100% Fletcher Hanks!
I love how inconsistent the size of Stardust is. Sometimes he's 6 feet tall, sometimes he's 10 feet tall.
Sometimes he has a forehead, sometimes he has a fivehead
And most times, Stardust's head is alarmingly small for his over-developed body. It's like seeing the head of a child on the Hulk's body.
Glaringly inconsistent artwork must be one of Stardust's many super powers.
confirmed shrink/grow powers
It's so brilliant
He stole his kids piggy bank, and all his villains are people who try to steal or otherwise illegitimately acquire wealth, who meet terrible fates. I don't think that Fletcher Hanks was drawing his wishes. I think that he was drawing his fears.
Or his guilt.
He left his family and died alone…I guess that his characters having no supporting cast was based on his life
As hard as they may try, storytellers can't help but insert themselves at least a little in their stories.
That's kinda sad :(
@@antonydrossos5719 They write what they know.
It's sad but also poetic in a way
i think hes great, he invented smartphones.
stardust actually appears in league of extraordinary gentlemen, where he was a drunk that accidently wandered into his own freezing machine and froze himself
I was thinking of Alan Moore's marvel man/miracle man in the sense that stardust might be open to a modern interpretation by someone like Moore.
It's some time since I read the League, do you know which issue it happened?
@@moyza_ It's talked about at one point in The Black Dossier, where Captain Universe (a Captain Marvel knock-off created by British comics creator Mick Anglo) tells Mina the story of Stardust, and how he froze to death in a chunk of Ice 9. Captain Universe is also shown to have taken over Stardust's base after the fact.
@@petehill7280 I'll look up! Thanks for your time!
They also make a point that he has too many abs for a human so it looks like a weird attempt at making a strong person. I think it's in volume 3 when they talk about Mina being in a super team in the early 60s?
Stardust is the scariest character in comics.
I don’t know if he’s the most powerful character, but he’s absolutely the most terrifying.
He's basically DC's The Spectre, minus the self-awareness.
@@davidmelon9409 And weirder..... he is like a bizarro combo of segata sanshiro, spectre, kool aid man and the punisher but without a reason
Does Stardust punishes people for fun? For the greater good? because he was bored?
given how little we know about his creator, we might as well make our own lore how stardust was like flex mentallo: a comic book character given life by his own creator to pursue his creator's ideas of jsutice
Innocent or guilty, we must live in fear whenever Stardust is around.
Who knows what he considers a unforgivable crime at the moment we encounter him.
Enough to make Dr. Manhattan shake in his (non-existent) boots?
Stardust strikes me as a vaguely lovecraftian superhero. No understandable reason for his actions, no rational explanation to how his powers function. He just is and serves one exact and terrible purpose that nothing can save you from.
This stuff looks like something I would imagine somebody would make to mock the Golden Age of Comics... it is kind of beautiful...
we need a stardust movie thats completely comic book accurate.
It will be cult horror classic, that all people watch only once and just before taking psychotherapy for eternity
Yes
Complete with a Stardust who always st.ands straight up with his arms stiff and straight by his side.
I can't help but imagine it as some sort of horror movie akin to Friday the 13th of Nightmare on Elm Street but with criminals as the main characters running from a brightly clad super powered Lex Luger.
More yes
A Stardust movie would single handedly grind the superhero movie boom to a halt. There'd just be no way to follow this up with your Batmans and Spidermans. The description of this comic sounds like it could be the best "so bad it's good" movie ever. Just him flying without looking where he's going is the shit lol! 😂😂😂
There is only one way to top that: a Fantomah movie.
*A stardust HORROR movie
@@kingmclaughlin5988 Brilliant idea. Imagine the horror of being a ordinary human in Stardusts world. He is always out there watching and waiting to do something horrible to someone.
@@rojaws1183 And then crossover stardust v fantomah dawn of sanity
@@rojaws1183 kinda gives me Laughing Salesmen vibes
The best thing about being a comics fan is that after over 30 years in the fandom, I can still find a creator and a fascinating body of work I've never even heard of. Thanks for this one, really interesting stuff. I basically feel like when I first found out about R. Crumb or Jack Chick, to a lesser extent.
So you're comparing Robert Crumb, one of the greatest artists who has ever lived, with Jack Chick, not an artist at all, and Fletcher Hanks, known mostly for being so bad it's hilarious. Kinda fuck you.
@@Bonzulac Don't try to map the atlas of clouds in a human heart if you have no imagination.
@@Bonzulac Fletcher Hanks' comics are great.
@@Bonzulac C'mon now, whether you love or hate the message, you have to admit that Jack Chick is as much of an artist as beloved artists like Crumb, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Al Jaffee, and even the legendary Jack Kirby. The art of Jack Chick, as much as I hate his religious proselytizing and dehumanizing messages, demonstrates a masterful grasp of line, weight, perspective, and form.
@@ClockworkWyrm Yah, I think Bonzi wants to be the Minister of Not-Art in the One Woke Order. Hanks has a kind of "outsider art" appeal, kind of awful, kind of unique. The stories though...why did they not find a writer for him?
So many cursed images in Stardust alone. I’ve always heard about this book but never gazed into the long abyss of this rabbit hole
One thing I remember reading about him was a comment from someone who used to work with him, was that Hanks was like twice the age of all the other cartoonists in the studio.
Fantomah is a beauty that turns her face into a horrifying rageful one and deals out severe punishment, It's not hard to imagine Hanks' mother has something to do with this
Such a terrible person but even so his death is horrifying. He was obviously plagued by fears of death and solitude, and I guess it’s ironic a force of nature sort of came down and did him in in the end
Imagine a story where Stardust discovers a dead body and whimsically decides to avenge it, which draws him deeper and deeper into a large corporate coverup as he inexorably pursues the chain of guilt step by step with his borderline omniscient machines, to the horror of the perplexed conspirators.
As long as he stays equally vindictive and violent in his punishments.
Didn't Marvel already do that with the Nomad mini-series back in the 1980's?
It's incredible there is no confirmed photograph of him even though he lived up to the 1970s.
I could see a modern version of Stardust being used as a kind of Homelander-esque evil Superman. In fact, it would probably work better than Homelander and the like, since you're building off of a superhero that actually has disturbing baggage and disturbing morals attached, rather than just "Superman but evil."
As for Fantomah, I think a reimagining of her could just be as a female, superhero version of Colonel Kurtz. I'd read that.
Hanks' stories really stand out because they seem to pretty accurately show what someone with zero social skills and the inability to convey complex emotions in his work (and perhaps his life) can produce when not guided by an editorial hand. I think one could draw quite a few possible insights about the man himself and the struggles that he might have faced within himself. I just find some of the possible psychology that could be inferred from his work so very interesting. It's not difficult for me to see Fletcher Hank's work and draw a line to a life where he had a real difficulty relating to others, developing or maintaining intimate relationships, or correctly interpreting the social ques of people around him.
That's the appeal of outsider art. Just look at Henry Darger.
@@qty1315 I adore Darger's work as much as I am mystified and deeply concerned about it. The Realms of the Unreal is absolutely incredible. I got into outsider art in my mid 20's and my interest has only grown in the couple decades since.
That's one of the reasons I appreciate Jim and Ed covering the black and white explosion because much of that is very much outsider art adjacent. You have people with no real formal training compelled to manifest their ideas and thoughts into the world with some of them choosing to do it with comics that feature Olympic sized swimming pools worth of the darkest blood you've ever seen. Sure Tim Vigil's is more refined than Darger's because of his familiarity with the form in which he was creating, but the work still has a very similar energy that I absolutely love. There is just something that translates to the page, canvas, or other medium when someone is possessed with that energy that they desperately need to get out into the world.
He seemed to suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder.
it's like a histrionic narcissist's intrepretation of hero comics.
Stardust actually has a fanmade webcomic that looks at a possible future where he's been gone for decades and returns to find that his presence had irrevocably changed Earth... and not always for the better. Check it out, it's called The Super Wizard Returns IIRC.
It's funny how most of the characters are smaller than stardust arm alone
Some of the art is genuinely arresting, almost Robert Crumb or Bevis and Butthead at times. I really really dig some of the images. I need that book now. thank you for a great episode!
Book is expensive sadly.
@@Clay3613 true, its about £30 here in the UK, but it looks like a lovely edition. I think the WTF artwork is worth it.
I agree, the first thing I thought when I saw the artwork is that Robert Crumb must have been a fan. Definitely could see an influence.
I love the way he illustrates Stardust's face and head. Especially when limply flying through the sky the way he does. Just an empty-headed jacked noodle bopping around doing whatever.
😂😂😂😂Amazing stuff to be unearthed way down here in the comments section😂
I like these characters, they really have memorable designs and characteristics. Fantoma looks awesome
Hearing Chris name drop Neil Breen has made my week.
Who's Neil Breen?
@@cjhepburn7406 A filmmaker
@@EndlessLaymon arguably
@@cjhepburn7406 He's the director/producer/author etc of hilariously bad movies that are all about some insanely powerful hacker or terrorist or angel or time travelling robot (always played by himself) who brutally murders millions of people as punishment for their greed. So the comparison absolutely works.
Hanks and his works kinda remind me of the story of Henry Darger and the Vivian Girls, in that it was basically a window into the mind of an individual who clearly had some serious trauma and fears influencing their art
poor Fletcher, he died the death he was most afraid of, unknown and alone.
We need a Fletcher Hanks cinematic universe where every movie abruptly goes to credits at the end
This guy is a genius. Each panel is beautifully composed and the ideas are just so bizarre. They're like mini pop art images. Fantastic.
How to punish the guy who tried to steal the gold from Fort Knox:
1. Tell him "I will hand you over to the Golden Octopus. This is an ironic punishment."
2. Grab him, then head towards an island. Flood the island with a giant wave for some reason.
3. Lift the entire island out of the water. The one you just flooded. Now it is floating high and dry.
4. Take the villain into a cave inside the floating island. Remind him to get ready for the Golden Octopus. To be fair, he probably forgot about it at this point. I know I would have.
5. Flip the entire island upside down in mid-air, making it even less flooded than it was before, then drop it back into the ocean. Now the top half that was at one point needlessly flooded is completely and permanently underwater.
6. This causes the villain to be tossed out of the cave that he had been carefully placed into, and onto the new shoreline of the flipped-over island, apparently unhurt.
7. Golden Octopus finally shows up, picks up the guy and drags him to its lair, which presumably is not in the cave of the flipped-over flooded island, making steps 2 thru 6 completely pointless.
Wow. What kind of wild creativity. I wonder what kind of comics, he would draw today?
"Fletcher Hanks was an asshole..."
- Chris Piers quoting everyone who ever knew him, apparently.
I didn't think I was a superhero guy (other than in a Chris Ware style) but holy pizookie, I ran over to ebay and bought a collection immediately, I absolutely LOVE these illustrations and the ridiculous absurdity of it all. Those floaty drawings he does, they're very pleasing, he creates great patterns and movement in his panels, very ahead of his time. Thanks for informing me about him
At this point it’s just easier to embrace the insanity. Just imagine a 60’s marvel style cartoon series staring Stardust. I don’t know if it would have had an incredibly catchy but stupid theme song or just some dude shouting STARDUST over a title card and that’s it.
Second option
FUUL STOP
XD
If this is what baseline Stardust The Super Wizard is, then imagine what the grim and gritty reboot would be like.
@@TerrenceNowicki he’d get his powers from magic space coke, or ‘stardust’ that he had to snort.
@@russellharrell2747 Zack Snyder's Stardust The Super Wizard
Stardust The Super-Wizard written, directed by, and starring Neil Breen: this needs to happen.
That would be tailor made for me.
I wish I had a big comic books studio to back my petty revenge fantasies.
I mean, these days we got the internet so have at it
Hey, Zack Snyder got Warner Bros to back his petty revenge fantasies and got to use DC characters to do it, sky's the limit
You kinda have to love his insane non-sequitur stories and gonzo art, whatever the guy was like in his life. Great stuff.
Shrinking someone down to their head and throwing them into space is pretty damn hilarious
The levitating people drawings are pretty neat, too!
Great episode.
"It's ugly, but it's unlike anything else."
Why does that describe me so well?
i have two books collecting this man's amazing works. I love it and cannot stop recommending his works to people. Fletcher is such a weird study.
The great thing about this sort of unfiltered imaginative work is that everyone can get something different from it. I noticed he seemed to have a preoccupation with pipes / tubes / telescopes being close to people's heads, on their heads or against their eyes. I wonder where that came from? You mentioned his backgrounds where complex for the time; I agree. At 19:40 the forest and the face remind me of (and predate) surrealist Rene Magritte's famous forest series, including The Blank Signature and Les enfants trouvés. Again, the mystery of this work deepens. Thanks so much for this video; obviously, it got me thinking!
I would almost call it Dr Susse inspired with all the weird nobs and stuff on the machines.
I find the story to feel very much like superjail, mean spirited and spiteful with a feeling there is something deep inside that I can't quite pick through.
@@notaraven superjail is masterfully hand animated, abrasive, absurdist, eye candy. This is actual derangement I know what you mean story wise though!!!
@@notaraven Stardust could make a good character in Superjail.
As ever, I'm amazed at your ability to summarise someone's life so completely and succinctly. You make something that must be pretty difficult look incredibly easy. I wish I had that superpower!
Many thanks.
Acid-blocking dust? This dude keeps Pocket Baking Soda because Pocket Sand isn't useful enough!
Direct description of what happens in this comic is more unsettling than most intentional horror I've experienced.
Stardust is more unnerving than Jonny the homicidal maniac. He feels like he was written by a complete sociopath
This stuff is SO unsettling, really gives me the creeps. Never seen anything more unintentionally creepy.
The SpongeBob comic books actually parodied Stardust once. The annual issues were all superhero themed and the final story of the second annual was a parody of Stardust. In the story Patrick takes the role of the hero (and he's called Duststar) and he tries to punish Plankton for stealing the formula, but each time Plankton actually enjoys his punishment, so when Duststar gives up trying to torture him Plankton breaks down in tears.
@emptyglass7867 why do you think he stays with Karen
10:16 Then Stardust releases a secret ray that brings in front of the spies, the skeletons of innocent people they have killed...
"GAZE AT THEM, FOR AWHILE!"
I love how hilariously mild this threat is. It's not "GAZE AT THEM FOREVER!" or "GAZE AT THEM FOR ALL ETERNITY!" It's just...a while. Because yeah, Stardust is all about making people gaze at skeletons, but he's not a monster or anything. These spies have places to be, and he isn't going to make inordinate demands of their time. I appreciate that.
I'm glad you covered this guy, I find him absolutely fascinating.
Hey it's the train guy, you into comics?
This story was horrible and shocking and I was rivetted to every moment of it!
I cant imagine what happened to this guy.
Thanks Chris!
This might be the most fascinating creator you've highlighted. It is also a very illustrative story of why Superman became so iconis. It wasn't that he was "first" or "most powerful", but rather the way they created a compelling and interesting character with a good supporting cast and good storytelling in general. Or instead of Superman and Wonder Woman, we'd have movies with Stardust and Fantomah. (I still feel Fantomah deserves a live action movie 'cause wow!)
Stardust may be how Fletcher Hanks saw himself (complete with working alone and perhaps not being interested in talking to people), while the thugs could be how other people saw Hanks.
Fletcher Hanks makes HP Lovecraft look like a winner
There certainly is a charm to the bad old days, the Wild West of comics, when any loonbat could get studio backing.
An era that has enduring wacky concepts rather the groaners of today’s era of comics.
It was a cash grab and factory farming of comic artists. It remind me Lou the business guy behind the boy bands in the 90s.
@@rayvenkman2087
To be fair there were some groaners in that era too, but most of them are lost to time entirely.
This feels like either the artist wants somebody to punish him, or somebody angers him and he needs to use the comics as some form of revenge. It's the same way that people who do harem manga are.
Stardust sounds like a generic Spectre. They kinda kept his origins very vague, until they finally revealed his as the "wrath of God" that needs a human form now.
Fantomah is more like the Spectre. Stardust is more like Dick Tracy but also Jesus but also a sadistic bodybuilding murderer
@@raycearcher5794 With the skull face, Fantomah is more like Ōgon Bat ("Golden Bat"; Japanese superhero who came even before Superman...and is even named "Phantoma" in an Australian dub of his 60s anime adaptation).
@@NovaSaber Fun Fact: here in Brazil, Ōgon Bat is called Fantomas, who is also the name of a famous French fictional villain and of a Mexican comic book character.
@@GabrielRodrigues-zn9zl And Fantomas is the inspiration for Grant Morrison's Fantomex, in X-Men comics.
2:06 The segue from his mum buying him a comic book course, in to him marrying Margaret and having four children, it sounded like he'd married his mum 😲
This work reminds me of Basil Wolverton.
Damn, frozen to death on a park bench that's crazy
Always love these crazy stories from the Golden Age!
Watching your videos about the golden age inspires me to draw comics no matter how crazy it may be after what I’ve seen. Awesome video Chris!!
Yesssss! Great to see you talk about Fantomah and Stardust the Super Wizard. Ever since I first saw a pic of Stardust squeezing a man's torso like a tube of toothpaste, I knew my life would never be the same.
The art is super fresh, and the stories even have a certain absurdist appeal to them. Whatever you feel about his life of apparent violence, irresponsibility and negativity, he is definitely not "the worst" auteur. Any artist who is genuinely different and weird in interesting ways deserves a certain respect as an artist. It's like some folk art that seems to give you insight into someone's head who is wired very, very differently. ;) I really like him.
Stardust also has the power to fit "slant-eye" in a sentence, and make it look effortless!
His stories sound more like folklore than than superhero comics.
Cool stuff. Despite some of the darker parts of Fletcher Hanks’ life, the weirdness of his comics has been a huge inspiration to me as an artist who also like to write my own stories. It helped me realize that not everything has to be technically correct, and by the book. Helped me think outside the box a bit more.
Man, I just love Fantagraphics' books. They're just the best.
Chris, you have to talk about Richard Sala one of these days!
This is the kind of stuff I love to see from this channel. Weird old comics or bizarre storylines as well as artist or story features. Still miss Infotron though... :-)
Chris: "Almost everything I've said about Stardust, applies to Fantomah."
Me: "Oh, does that mean Fantomah also took a damsel in distress to her lair? Looks like Fletcher was ahead of his time!"
if she did, she also probably just ignored her too LOL
The expressions on these characters are just...Amazing. The guy being shrunken down to a head looks less like he's horrified at the cosmic nightmare enacting a hellish punishment upon him, and more like a kid being told he has to clean his room before he can go to the arcade.
Stardust visually strikes me as an inspiration for the Marvelman/Miracleman costume. Interesting video, thanks Chris!
Fletcher Hanks art reminds me of the great Basil Wolverton
You were SO close to giving us a "Oh hai, you caught me shuffling in sideways" Come on Chris bring those great intros back!! Anyway great and funny look at this guy..never heard of him
I love the multiple pairs of eyebrows on some of these villains
Thanks so much for that Chris - I actually had that copy of Raw magazine from years back - and I was always struck by the stardust strip - just bizarre and surreal - but fascinating.
I wasn’t aware of the fantagraphics book - immediately ordered it last night after watching your piece and I’m reading it tonight!
Thanks so much
Wow that bio was all over the place! Definitely an interesting story and some characters Id never heard of before. Kudos.
The bizarre and violent ends the villains in these comics met reminds me of the Spectre stories in the 70s. I wonder if Hanks' stories served as an inspiration?
5:09 that piece is just glorious. Well done.
8:42 Wish I had known back when this came out, but the 5th column actually refers to a group of people trying to undermine the government in sympathy with said government's current enemy, and it generally refers and has referred to multiple groups both real and imagined. Back during the second world war, it was commonly used in reference to secret Nazi agents sent here to recruit sympathizers and overthrow the government, which was a real initiative by the Nazis, but there was a lot of speculation and rumors about them that were less true, about how big they were, how deep their claws were in U.S. affairs. In all but name, the fifth column were the villains of the Rocketeer, and the term was used significantly to refer to the villains of All Through the Night. (a great old movie with Humphry Bogart, one or two racist parts, namely a character who is a really bad black stereotype, as you see in old films, but it's hardly the worst you can find, I recommend watching with that notable trigger warning in mind. Beleive it or not, the film in many ways, for the time, was rather progressive, but this was back in the 40's, so, you know how that is. Ultimately, if you wanna see old mobsters fight Nazis, it's a good watch) So when Fletcher Hanks wrote that faction into Stardust, he might've just been referring to a big conspiracy theory, which is very him I think.
It's crazy that parents were upset about this stuff.
I've been waiting many a year for this episode.
I first learned of Hanks about six or seven years back, when Karasik published the two-part collections of his works, "I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets" and "You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation".
I was so intrigued by the bizarre works of Hanks, that I ended up doing a couple of pieces of them as well:
Here's a brusk inking of Fantomah: www.deviantart.com/tomimt/art/Fantomahs-throne-280780845
A Leopard Woman from Venus: www.deviantart.com/tomimt/art/Leopard-woman-from-Venus-197130587
A 360-rendition of Stardust model: th-cam.com/video/pJ5Ah2jwfV4/w-d-xo.html
A poster of Fantomah's faces: www.deviantart.com/tomimt/art/Fantomah-435422295
Absolutely fascinating. The story just builds and builds.
shows up
beats the villain
doesn't elaborate further
leaves
reminds me of those memes featuring the grayscale dude ha ha
Please cover Dave Stevens, the creator of Rocketeer that was taken too soon. I love the rocketeer almost as much as I love your videos!
Terrifying. Interesting similarity between Civilian Justice's Craig Weich and Fletcher Hanks, though. Both are self-published, writer-artists, who perhaps see themselves as "cool", merciless agents of vengeance and punishment. I guess some things never change in comics - some people just have to live out their violent, macho fantasies however they can.
every time you explain the basic plot progression of a Stardust comic, it just sounds like the wackiest crap ever makes me laugh
I seriously might buy this book, this guy had some serious issues that were coming out on the page. It will be fascinating just to go through the book and try my damndest to figure out where this guy's head was at.
I remember having the time of my goddamn life learning about this comic on 2017 /co/
Stardust is so bizarre that it feels downright avant garde. And the story of Fletcher’s death is morbid as hell.
I found a sample of Hanks' work on Mister Kitty years back and got both of the compilations shortly after. Certainly a crazy experience and perhaps a cautionary tale about the excesses of power golden heroes possessed. Since he's in the public domain, it probably will be a matter of time that Stardust might surface again...as a villain.
Stardust is public domain material in America, but not the rest of the world yet.
@@SlapstickGenius23
He would be considered an “orphan work” elsewhere.
Oh man, how I love Fletcher Hanks. I came across some random panels a few years ago with no context (mainly the ones of Destructo's flying head) and got hooked on it. It's rare to see something so bizarre allowed to exist without any kind of filter.
I own a couple of original Golden Age Comics with Fletcher Hanks art mainly his Stardust stories in
Fantastic Comics #4-#5,
It’s interesting to see his art when it was published alongside giants such as
Joe Simon & Lou Fine in the same comic.
When I first saw his art I could tell there was something gonzo about it but also mind blowing about it as well.
Thank you, Chris.
Unlimited rays? Super strength? Can tun invisible? Sounds like Space Ghost. Wonder if Alex Toth was a fan.
Sorry I love Fletcher Hanks, his work is so weird it's good. I love the sadistic ways Stardust punishes villains like, "Oh you love gold do you? Well how about you get crushed forever by this giant GOLD octopus!!!"
I’m amazed you could talk about Fletcher Hanks and keep it under 30 minutes.
Me: *steps on bug
Stardust: you must now live on this jungle planet by yourself.
Fletcher Hanks
The Original "Punisher"
Yeah, there's definitely some undiagnosed mental illness going on with that dude. What's even more terrifying is that even now in 2023 there are psychopaths walking around like that free as a bird who need to be put away ASAP.
By his description it seems like his characters are like Demons, Angles , Satan or God administering punishment for the wicked. Whatever Fletcher thought was evil anyways. I wonder if he was a religious guy? I kept thinking of Dante's Inferno or something listening to the punishments. He must have had a very cynical world view and liked the idea of vengeance. The art is appealing in it's crude proportions and strange twisted anatomy and faces. I see some Basil Wolverton faces in there too! Thanks again for another great look into the comics world!