So we are ALL familiar with superheroes and villains and normally we would say they were human… but for regular readers of comix you cannot ignore the fact that APES and MONKEYS play a rather large role in their history.
We have seen the rise and fall of simian heroes and villains, masterminds and monsters!! Touching every decade of the comic world with the famous names of Grodd, Beppo, Titano, Solovar, Detective Chimp, Ape (as in Angel &) and of course King Kong.
Then we can come to the not as famous or straightforward names as Giganta, Gorilla Man, Sky Ape, Braini Ape, Go-Go (the cutest of all comix apes) and the list could go on making for an awfully long read…
Believe me, I set out to try and collect all major ape stories… I was paying out BIG £££ for some of the golden and silver age issues and soon began to realise that there were so many... unless I was intending to collect every comic published it really was not a viable option so instead I did hold a library of some of the greatest ape covers published; but as times change and money has other priorities most have now been sold on.
It was fun… really... who can object to the Gorilla Witch or Hawkman as a gorilla?? *sigh* to the folk who do!!
We have seen a kind of evolution of knowledge on these animals and even when a time when people thought of the gorilla as a ferocious violent killer of an animal, in many ways comix were producing some very positive messages about them and we saw early Kamandi making a stand against the use of primates in science.
Gorilla Grodd in many ways apart from his little world domination thing he has going on is a very well perceived character when it comes down to not being rude and insulting him!!
Granted I do take issue on some of the more recent interpretations of him but others hit the contrast of intelligence gone badly with this ape very well.
We mustn’t forget that in the last 15 years Denny O’ Neil wrote a fantastic pro-ape book and Grant Morrison also holds the bar high.
But rather try to touch upon all the various milestones there is one book out there which gives a great rundown to the highest points and history of our love for our hairier brothers… and this book is:
Comics Gone Ape! By Michael Eury published in 2007 by TwoMorrows.
I would safely say this book holds what most would be contented with knowing about this subject.
It is packed full of rare art and sketches of our most beloved of monkeys and has many interviews with the greats like Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Arthur Adams, Bob Oksner, Nick Cardy and many others.
It is comprised of 140 pages of in depth research from the 1950s horror comix to the likes of Tony Millionaires Sock Monkey.
If anyone did want to take this subject a little further it would serve as a great guide as to where to start and it comes with the most awesome Avengers cover by Arthur Adams…
I have never seen Cap looks so dashing!!
But behind every great comic, written, drawn, coloured and printed there has to be a great man or woman to give the nod and I believe we got all these monkeys and apes thanks to Julius Schwartz bringing back the genre that kids and adults have had a fascination with for years and years and the more we learn and love about these magnificent creatures I hope to see apes and monkeys in comix for years to come.
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