[Mystikos]

Fletcher Hanks is my new hero!

Stardust is a crazy blast! He's got more rays than Batman has tricks and Manadarin's got rings. His way of dealing with goons is to throw them out a window or into space. He grabs them and squeezes until their torsos are twisted. In one issue he makes the villians hover in the air face to face with the skeletons of their victims. The sound his punch makes is... SOCKO! Crazy, weird stuff -- I love it!

I like weird. Bwa haa haa!! Stardust is up there with Wolverton's Spacehawk!

http://www.fletcherhanks.com/HOME.html

I didn't know Fantomah was his work. Too cool, man! I am getting my geek on... hardcore!

Apparently there are two books collecting his work. I would love to get them. But the t-shirt is sold out -- drag.

[Roygbiv666]

Fletcher Hanks is my new hero!

Stardust is a crazy blast! He's got more rays than Batman has tricks and Manadarin's got rings. His way of dealing with goons is to throw them out a window or into space. He grabs them and squeezes until their torsos are twisted. In one issue he makes the villians hover in the air face to face with the skeletons of their victims. The sound his punch makes is... SOCKO! Crazy, weird stuff -- I love it!

I like weird. Bwa haa haa!! Stardust is up there with Wolverton's Spacehawk!

http://www.fletcherhanks.com/HOME.html

I didn't know Fantomah was his work. Too cool, man! I am getting my geek on... hardcore!

Apparently there are two books collecting his work. I would love to get them. But the t-shirt is sold out -- drag.

I did a compilation of the Stardust stories, I'll see if I can upload it again at home.

[Roygbiv666]

Fletcher Hanks is my new hero!

Stardust is a crazy blast! He's got more rays than Batman has tricks and Manadarin's got rings. His way of dealing with goons is to throw them out a window or into space. He grabs them and squeezes until their torsos are twisted. In one issue he makes the villians hover in the air face to face with the skeletons of their victims. The sound his punch makes is... SOCKO! Crazy, weird stuff -- I love it!

I like weird. Bwa haa haa!! Stardust is up there with Wolverton's Spacehawk!

http://www.fletcherhanks.com/HOME.html

I didn't know Fantomah was his work. Too cool, man! I am getting my geek on... hardcore!

Apparently there are two books collecting his work. I would love to get them. But the t-shirt is sold out -- drag.

I did a compilation of the Stardust stories, I'll see if I can upload it again at home.

Yeah, Im not having luck uploading.

[Crocodilian]

Fletcher Hanks is my new hero!

A mad genius. Its the combination of the graphic style, which could maybe described as "Magritte takes acid" and the text, which defies description, maybe its somewhere between David Mamet and Lewis Carroll? The combination is more "outsider art" than it is "comic book" . . . you can compare to the art of someone like Howard Finster. He is an American original.

Apparently there are two books collecting his work. I would love to get them. But the t-shirt is sold out -- drag.

Beautifully produced books from Fantagraphics, very much worth buying, I have both.

[josemas]

I have the two Fantagraphics books myself and enjoy his work.  Too bad he appears to have been such a  an awful person, what with the allegations of wife and child beating.

Best

Joe

[Crocodilian]

I have the two Fantagraphics books myself and enjoy his work.  Too bad he appears to have been such a  an awful person, what with the allegations of wife and child beating.

I think its fair to say that the personal lives of artists don't really change how I feel about the art. There are perfectly nice people who sadly have little talent, and rats who can draw like angels. Not a lot of point in trying to figure it out. Reading Hanks' story, I tried to see if I could pick out elements in his work that seemed to be influenced by the person he was, but I couldn't tell.

Its very "over the top" . . . but what can you infer from that? Anything?

[josemas]

I think its fair to say that the personal lives of artists don't really change how I feel about the art. There are perfectly nice people who sadly have little talent, and rats who can draw like angels. Not a lot of point in trying to figure it out. Reading Hanks' story, I tried to see if I could pick out elements in his work that seemed to be influenced by the person he was, but I couldn't tell.

Its very "over the top" . . . but what can you infer from that? Anything?

Oh I certainly can get past that and as I said I do appreciate his talent.  Still it's always there lurking in the background.

I do know people who can't get past such things at all-people who refuse to watch any film by Woody Allen or Leni Riefenstahl.   The former because of the whole Mia Farrow/Soon Yi Previn scandal and the later because a large body of her work was done under (and sometimes in support of Hitler's Nazi regime).

Best

Joe

[builderboy]

I can certainly see some anger issues in how his heroes dole out the punishment to the bad guys, but I am with Crocodilian's position.  There is so little we (reliably) know about artists, and the choice, in and of itself, to pursue a career in art puts enormous economic stress on people.  I have heard stories about other artists being either tempermental or just plain jerks...Dave Stevens for example.  That doesn't make me bat an eye when I take in his gorgeous work.

People are fragile, imperfect things.  All the more reason to celebrate when they are able to create beauty on paper, if not in real life.

I get where you are coming from, tho, Joe...domestic violence is hideous and a blemish on the world.

[Kevin Yong]

Oh I certainly can get past that and as I said I do appreciate his talent.  Still it's always there lurking in the background.
I do know people who can't get past such things at all...

I find that I have an easier time separating the flawed artist and their art when the artist is no longer around directly profiting from it. If such artists are still alive, then I'm stuck trying to reconcile the fact that by buying their beautiful art, I'm also financially supporting someone I heartily disapprove of.

Thankfully, enough time has passed with these comics that I'm able to enjoy Stardust the Super Wizard on its own merits and not have to worry about whether my enjoyment of it is directly funding a man who kicks his children down flights of stairs. 

-- Kevin Yong

[bchat]

The only story I've seen about Fletcher Hanks' personal life comes from his son, talking about an incident that happened in the 1920s.  Hanks left his family around 1930, basically a decade before he started doing his comic work.  There's literally no telling how much Hanks may have changed between the time he left his family and when he started working in comics because the only mention of him I've ever seen from a comic pro who dealt with him was from Will Eisner, who stated that Hanks always got his work done on time.

9-10 years is more than enough time for someone to change.  I'm not saying the man became a saint by the time he started working on Stardust, etc.  In fact, nobody can really say anything about him for the period of 1939-41 (when he was working in comics) because nobody who knew him personally during that period of his life has ever been interviewed. 

So, for me, it's easy enough to just ignore the stories of his personal life and enjoy his artwork & stories for what they are.  If I let a creator's personal life affect my opinion of their comic book work, I'ld have to stop reading a heck of a lot of comic stories because there are a lot of "bad apples" out there.