So I thought about doing a second EC Comics posting for Today but the material I have left goes more into the war and crime or science fiction realm which for me is not exactly what you think about on Halloween.
So instead I am finally doing a post that I initially wanted to write for Halloween last year but never got around to do. And it is about time that Lady Death ( and by extension Evil Ernie ) got her proper spotlight post.
Especially since I don't know if I have ever written about Lady Death before aside from mentioning her in my earliest spotlight posts for my number one tv crush of all times : 40C - 24 - 36 Power Girl Markie Post.
In preparation for this I also went over my diaries of the International Comic Salon in Erlangen because I thought I wrote about the time my big brother and me met Brian Pulido - creator of Lady Death and Evil Ernie and the mastermind behind Chaos ! Comics - which led to what must be the strangest fan encounters of Brian Pulido's life ( of which I am totally innocent, it was all my brother's doing ) but I couldn't find it anywhere.
Maybe I never did or maybe my memory is failing me again but in any case I suppose a bit of a background is required for all who have never heard of Evil Ernie or only know the Lady Death comics and have no idea that she first appeared in an independent comic that wasn't published by Chaos ! Comics. Because Chaos ! Comics didn't exist at that time. Also Evil Ernie didn't start as a comicbook but as an idea for a horror movie.
If I recall right ( and with the way my memory works that might not be the case ) at he beginning of the 90s Brian Pulido was in the process of getting the necessary funds to make the movie when he realized that the Hollywood studios would have too much influence over the picture and that it probably would not turn out like he envisioned it. So instead - maybe as a failsafe - Brian Pulido decided to turn it into a comicbook because that way Brian would have complete creative control over it.
He turned to independent comicbook company ETERNITY COMICS which published the five issue mini series EVIL ERNIE : YOUTH GONE WILD in black and white. Like TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES the book became viral especially after the appearance of the stunning Lady Death in the first issue very aptly depicted by the late Steven Hughes. I would love to say that I got in on the Evil Ernie hype at the ground floor but the series was already at the third issue when I found out about it's big popularity.
Back then the internet was not what it is now and all the information comicbook afficionados got about coming comicbook series were the solicitations in the catalogues of the various comicbook distributors.
Which were not that easy to get when you lived in Germany. So I had to resort to the trade paperback for the first story and later on I got the single issues of EVIL ERNIE and LADY DEATH, at that time from CHAOS ! COMICS which Brian Pulido founded because of the big success. Now I want to be totally honest here I was not what you call " a completist " collector of CHAOS ! COMICS. I didn't get EVERY issue of every comicbook they published - on one hand because of a lack of funds and on the other hand because there were a lot of series and the issues were not easy to get and I had to resort to the german translations in quite a few cases.
But I did have a big chunk of their output. Especially from the LADY DEATH series once Ivan Reis became the regular artist on the seemingly endless succession of mini series. He was fresh of his GREEN LANTERN run and this was also long before his incredible run as the regular artist on Geoff Johns NEW 52 AQUAMAN run. After that I somehow lost track of which series Ivan Reis did because it was all related to the NEW 52 which for most was one of the worst decisions DC took in their entire history.
There were a few decent books mixed in there - with 52 new series it would be a miracle if there wasn't - but they did irreparable damage to the DC legacies and the initiative did not accomplish what it set out to do : it neither brought new readers to DC Comics in droves and they still haven't manage to put out the digital version of their comics at the same time or even before the printed version. And this was the big crux of the initiative. Coming back to CHAOS ! COMICS back when I still had what a guy can call a comicbook collection a big part of it was from them and since I mentioned the International Comic Salon in Erlangen I remember that there was a comicbook convention where I got a whole bunch of the german hardcovers - all signed and numbered - at a real dumping price.
As for Evil Ernie, I don't want to go too deep into the story. Either you already know it and then you don't need a recap or you don't and then I don't want to spoil it for you and just mention that if it would have been turned into a movie it would have been one of those cult movies that could only be made in the 90s. Thankfully Matthew Peterson at MAJOR SPOILERS did a Retro Review for issue one back in June of 2024 for us.
It's getting really late for me and most of you are probably already bored out of your minds and can't wait to get to the good stuff so I will only add that this is unlike my normal Black And White posts since the first EVIL ERNIE series is in black and white so there are no coloured pages - even if I DID find some original art - and in the second series there are not a lot of original art pages available. Also with the plethora of LADY DEATH mini series there are some original pages where I could not find coloured pages so I didn't include them. And now let's have some fun !
youth gone wild
to be continued
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