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The Webcomics Weekly #265: Flash! Ah ah! Savior of the Comicsverse! (1/9/2024 Edition)

By | January 9th, 2024
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life and ready to take a trip to the Golden Age. Back when newsprint melted in your hands and comics were ten cents a pop and worth maybe half that (I kid,) a comics strip featuring a sci-fi action hero called Flash Gordon began. He ended his funny pages journey in 2003 but you could never keep a good syndicated strip down! Mike may have other thoughts but that’s what these reviews are for.

Flash Gordon
Episodes October to Present
Schedule: Daily
By Dan Schkade
Reviewed by Michael Mazzacane

A new year is an opportunity to try new things. Or, well, old things in a new way in the case of “Flash Gordon” by Dan Schkade. “Flash Gordon” is the reboot of the syndicated strip of the same name which originally ended in 2003. Schkade’s strip is a reboot in the functional sense of the word, to restart, as the continuity of the previous series at least dating back to the previous run is not being reset or started over. This is perhaps antithetical to the general consensus of IP management, to as Stan Lee would say give the “illusion” of change. It is, however, an example of how smart writing can tackle a supposed problem like this and turn it into an advantage.

I was 12 when the “Flash Gordon” strip originally ended in 2003. Other than seeing the film and listening to the Queen title song, alongside “Princes of the Universe” from Highlander of course, I have no real affinity for or knowledge of “Flash Gordon” as a meta property or this strip specifically. I’m the kind of audience’s member that some editor, understandably, would imagine that justifies ‘why’ you start everything over. Here’s the thing where the strip originally appears to have ended, with Ming the Merciless and the revolution in one last final pitched battle, is pretty dramatic. That drama is accessible right away and would not be subject to days and days of buildup. By starting where we last left off, Schkade is able to throw everyone into a situation that relies on this cast of characters showing us who they are versus his omniscient narration telling us who they are. Yes, there is a level exposition via omniscient narration, but it is the kind that is functional and not the sort that bludgeons the reader in a desperate attempt to make you care. The inherent dramatic stakes of the scenario are easily understandable and give the core cast a chance to demonstrate both their competency and character. By starting the strip mid-stream I am able to become emotionally engaged with these characters quicker than if I had to spend months going through an origin story, the plot structure of which is too much of a pat hand at this point for the superhero/adventure genre.

Besides this being Schkade’s follow up after an excellent run with “Lavender Jack”, the prospect of reading an old school comic strip after spending so much time interacting with the webtoon format was intriguing. Each daily strip minus Sundays is limited to pretty much four panels. All arranged in a horizontal left to right line. It made me nostalgic for how Linda Sejic originally syndicated “Blood Stain” although she had a much wider canvas to draw on. Four panels creates, like the decision to pick up the narrative, interesting problems to solve. “Tomo-chan Is a Girl!” by Fumita Yanagida similarly follows the 4-panel structure albeit with a different and more varied layout structure due to the use of traditional page-like formatting. With such a limited space to work in Schkade’s structure becomes very episodic, most strips are about completing a single action. It’s only through the imposition of the reader and their understanding of the series as a serialized narrative that “Flash Gordon” becomes legible as something of greater depth. Don’t take this as a a call to say you need to read this from the beginning, although the relative ease of picking it up from the October 2023 reboot doesn’t make this a hard task. The repetitive act of reading will develop this serialized muscle, and over time it will transform into something more.

Continued below

I don’t really remember when I stopped getting a physical newspaper. I do remember the Sunday paper the most because that is when the comic strips would be in color and longer, about two to three times normal length. These Sunday strips for the first two months or so are used by Schkade as one part character introduction, one part plot recap. He uses these strips to switch the POV away from Gordon and onto the supporting cast which allows them to be quickly given dimension and recap the last week’s worth of strips and set up what is to come. It takes advantage of a unique attribute of this kind of web strip.

One of the main reasons I wanted to check this strip out after discovering that it existed in the first place was the opportunity to see how Schkade handled golden age sci-fi aesthetics. “Lavender Jack” had this retro stylized Golden Age look to it, but this would be something different from that. The artist I’m perhaps most familiar with when it comes to “Gordon” is Evan ‘Doc’ Shaner stuff due to social media. Schkade’s art style exist in that vein of real, just clean line work think Shaner, Steve Rude, or Alex Toth. Unlike them, however, he tends to use like a blockier thicker line; it’s less elegant and bolder and more graphic. On one hand I’m kind of bummed that the Monday-Saturday strips aren’t in black and white. But getting more of the color play is worth the trade off, as with “Lavender Jack” art is rendered in these bold colors with a sort of flat understanding of rendering. In the October 28th strip the final panel gives readers their first full shot of Ming the Merciless and his visage is at once this sort of granite like chiseled surface due to the inking but is also awash in this eerie space green. Imagine Jack Kirby but colored in a more graphic pop art style. I can’t find it credited anywhere but the use of color makes me wonder if “Lavender Jack” colorist Jenn Manley Lee is also involved.

“Flash Gordon” is both syndicated in various newspapers but is also available to be read on the comicskingdom website, full access to the archive is put behind a subscription. The value of that subscription compared to the price is up to you, however the current stuff with a limited archive and the beginning is available for free. The craft that is on display when paired with the accessibility makes it worth checking out.


//TAGS | Webcomics

Michael Mazzacane

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