The Rise of the American Comics Artist: Creators and Contexts

3. Signals from Airstrip One: The British Invasion of Mainstream American Comics

31 CHAPTER THREE Signals from Airstrip One: The British Invasion of Mainstream American Comics —CHRIS MURRAY When The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, the American press proclaimed the “British Invasion ” of rock and roll. Exactly twenty years later DC Comics published issue 21 of their then flagging The Saga of the Swamp Thing title, written by Alan Moore, a comics writer from Northampton, England. The British Invasion of American comics had begun. The association between these two waves of cultural crossover is not made frivolously—in both instances British artists appropriated then revolutionized genres that seemed typically American, challenging audience expectations and creating waves of media interest. Also, in both cases the difference between British and American culture and politics created a space where something new and surprising could thrive. As the American success of The Beatles paved the way for The Rolling Stones and countless other British bands, Moore established the career trajectory so many of his contemporaries would follow—success in the small British comics marketplace, which then opened the door to a much larger audience in America. The fact that this new cultural invasion began exactly twenty years after The Beatles were beamed into American homes would no doubt amuse Alan Moore, whose seminal works V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and From Hell are structured around his primary thematic conceit—that events reverberate through history, establishing patterns and resonances that unfold with mathematical precision. Moore’s innovations inspired Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, who joined Moore as the first wave of the British Invasion. 32 CHRIS MURRAY The pattern was completed with a brash, opinionated, and excoriating second wave of British talent in the form of writers Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, and Mark Millar. This chapter will explore the early work of Moore, Morrison, and Gaiman. It will consider their entry into American comics, and will demonstrate that their perspective on superheroes was in large part a response to the complex political and cultural relationship between Britain and America. It will then outline the influence of the second wave—Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, and Mark Millar. However, before exploring the work of these writers it is important to appreciate the interaction between British comics and American popular culture in order to understand the attitude of these writers toward American comics. THE AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON COMICS IN BRITAIN American comic books have always loomed large in the British comics buyer’s consciousness. Since the late 1930s American superhero adventures had been reprinted in Britain, notably by Amalgamated Press (AP), which featured Superman stories in Triumph magazine, while Odhams Press published Disney reprints (Clark and Clark 1991, 34). These colorful American strips were quite different from traditional British comics such as Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips (both 1890–1953), also published by Amalgamated. Firstly, British comics were published weekly, as opposed to monthly like American comics. This meant that stories were episodic and deadlines were much tighter. In addition, the comics had formal differences. The usual AP style was to have a standard nine-panel image grid accompanied by text underneath, without captions or word balloons. Consequently, American comics seemed much more visually appealing and dynamic. AP’s competitor, DC Thomson, based in the Scottish city of Dundee, seized on this new American style and produced The Dandy (1937–present) and The Beano (1938–present), anthology comics that met with immediate success, largely due to the talents of artists like Dudley D. Watkins and James Crichton (Gravett and Stanbury 2006, 70). These comics featured humor strips alongside action and adventure—and even a few short-lived homemade superheroes, such as The Amazing Mr X. The outbreak of World War II brought American troops to British shores in the early 1940s and with them came American popular culture, including comic books. For a time reprints of Captain Marvel stories were incredibly popular, until DC’s court case with Fawcett Publications brought an end to the supply of new material. However, British readers were soon kept happy BRITISH INVASION OF MAINSTREAM AMERICAN COMICS 33 with a character very closely based on Captain Marvel—Marvelman by Mick Anglo (Khoury 2001, 6). In the 1950s the popularity of American horror comics provoked a similar moral crisis as it did in the U.S., with parents’ groups and sections of the media calling for a ban (Barker 1984). This led...