Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, HRL

How Mike Baron Channelled Bruce Lee, Paul Gulacy And Jim Steranko For Q-Ball – Thanks To Barry McClain

Published Mon, 20 Nov 2017 11:00:23 -0600

Mike Baron writes for Bleeding Cool:

When Bruce Lee burst on the scene, I was ready. I started taking karate and haunting the local newsstand for the next issue of Master of Kung Fu. Paul Gulacy's art ripped the top of my head off. At long last someone had picked up the gauntlet thrown by Steranko. That was the most amazing art I'd ever seen. But even then, I knew right away the martial arts weren't right. They were just poses copied from movie stills. I wanted to see the technique as it unfolded. Comics are a visual medium — there's no reason they can't do that.

I got my chance with Badger, which appeared in 1983, and reached a peak in Badger #9, "Hot August Night," with Bill Reinhold's unbelievable depiction of the fight between Badger and Cobra Crisp.

I worked with Brent Anderson and Val Mayerik on Kato, and Val and I worked on the Bruce Lee comic. An accomplished martial artist, Val's fight drawings were spot on. Next year you'll see his latest Badger.

I wanted to do a balls-to-the-wall martial arts comic. I saw Barry McClain's work and rang him up. Not only is Barry one of the most exciting new artists to break into comics, he's the hardest-working man in the biz. Can't say for sure, but I think he pencils several pages a day.

Barry was up for it. I liked the name Q-Ball.

Chicago homeboy Curtis Ball joined the Merchant Marine and ended up managing a warehouse in Manila. Curtis wanted only two things out of life: to see the world and study Kali/Escrima. But when a pack of tuxedoed sharks muscle their way into his warehouse, Curtis learns the hard way that it's not always smart to mind your own business.

The spooks are looking for Donna Wing, a beautiful Chinese blogger, forced to flee due to her exposes of human rights abuse. Now Curtis and Donna are on the run—from the Chinese government, the tongs, and a group of international cutthroats who will stop at nothing to stop them from reaching the United States and spilling their guts.

Sometimes you have to spill some guts to spill your guts.

I go through back issues of Black Belt and Kung Fu looking for photo how-tos, which show six to eight pictures on a page of a technique as it actually happens. In slo-mo. That's what we want to do with the comic, break down the techniques so you can study every move and see how it works.

Of course, this is a comic, and as Chuck Dixon puts it, comics are opera. So expect big gestures and the occasional anatomical impossibility. Trust us. We know kung fu.

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