Fletcher Hanks and Stardust

Seems every publishing house is raiding the senior comic book characters. Must be that copyrights have elapsed or the ink well is drying up. Where are the exciting new characters this young generation is creating today? Most likely on the net for free, nobody is ready to gamble on new projects. Word has it that Mike Allred who is a great creator of original concepts is taking on Fletcher Hanks’ character Stardust. I really enjoyed the original comic reprinted by Fantagraphics. A real blast. The early artwork of this new project by Image Comics has me scratching my head. Why? The Golden Age characters did not graduate to the big show because they were not that good to start with. Alex Ross with super-hero realism art for both Marvel and DC of their older characters got him accolades. However, the characters he was given were strong characters with a rich history. All these new Golden Age characters who have not seen the light of day since the 40’s are re-hashed into a formula made famous by Alex Ross. Dynamite Entertainment with Alex Ross and Jim Krueger will be making SUPERPOWERS and with Mike Allred and Joe Keatinge with their attempt at Fletcher Hanks’ Stardust, and Erik Larson will jump into the fold  too. Ambitious or folly?  If they succeed the doors will open for more characters from the old folks home of comics. I’ll sit on the fench for this one. No offence to Allard, but if they really wanted to do justice to Stardust, I would pick a different artist. It looks just too pixelated, where is the flash. Everything looks stiff, homage perhaps to Fletcher’s own stunted art. Some of this stuff looks like an old arcade game of the 90’s. It just does not do it for me. Nice try.