Eclipse Magazine #1 - Eclipse

This is another obscure item, something I didn't know existed until I stumbled upon it on ebay.

Of all the independents of the early 80s, it always seemed to me Eclipse had the best chance of being around a really long time--they had a whole string of high-quality books, done by talented writers and artists, and its diversity was welcome in age where DC and Marvel were divesting themselves of everything but superheroes. cat yronwode's editorials felt like the indy version of Stan's Soapboax, and I bought a few of their titles(like Zot! and Crossfire) for years.

Of course, it didn't turn out that way, which is a shame. It wasn't for lack of trying, and we can see with this that Eclipse was really making an effort to try a little bit of everything--color comics, b/w comics, magazines, even some treasuries!

After the nifty cover painting by Paul Gulacy and an editorial by Dean Mullaney, we open with "Slab" by Steve Englehart and the late great Marshall Rogers, which is the debut of their "Foozle" character, a woman who can transform into a bird, set in a futuristic world full of government oppression and sci-fi adventure.

Next is "Amber III" by Jim Starlin, a tale of a man fighting the Devil for his soul, set to the rhyme of "This Old Man"!

Third is "Death" by Howard Cruse, a short(three pages) piece about how society chooses to deal with the title topic. Fourth is a wordless sequence called "Chimera", done all in pencil by P.Craig Russell. Beautifully rendered tale of adventure, monsters, and sorcery.

Next is "Cartoon Man" by Marc Hempel, a fun piece about how an artist manipulates the characters he draws. Following that is a one-page sequence called "Loose Hips Sink Ships" by Chris Browne and Trina Robbins, a racy tale set in the world of an Orson Welles radio show!

Last is Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty's Ms. Tree in "The Girl in the Red Wedding Dress." According to the TOC, this is the debut of Ms.Tree! I always enjoyed the Ms.Tree comic, so seeing her "origin" story here was an unexpected delight.

Definitely an eclectic mix of material; you could expect nothing less from Eclipse!