“Striking Sparks” — Page Forty-Three
The Watts Riots did have a notable effect on Los Angeles civic architecture. To this day, most LA police stations do not have exterior windows. They were a particular target during the riots, and afterward, stations with exterior windows had those windows bricked up. New stations were constructed without windows from the get-go. (You may see movies with Los Angeles stations having exterior windows. Those are either sets or Vancouver, depending on whether or not it is raining outside.)
My neighbor (then an LAPD Metro Police sergeant) took me on a tour of the station in downtown Los Angeles (near Skid Row) and it was like walking into a bunker. I’m sure the people who work there never even notice after a while, but to me, it definitely felt like a fortress. All because of a riot back in 1965.
There has certainly been some talk about equipping City Hall with ballistic glass, similar to the White House. I suspect it would have primarily been the fourth floor, where the Mayor’s office is; but for the purposes of this comic and increasing jeopardy, we’re going to go with them having done the whole building. So raging fires above and below, interior structure starting to weaken, and Holbeck and the other office workers are trapped behind walls of concrete and ballistic glass. Things are heating up!
More below!
Bobservations
rrrAAAAGE!
This page is another fine example of The Collaborative Process between generations. I had been chortling over Max’s roughs for these pages because of how he was drawing Holbeck. For the record, I had scripted Holbeck as a pudgy, balding, middle-aged man; an unremarkable civil servant who suddenly reveals a command presence in an emergency. Max preferred to draw him like this, I think because otherwise he would have looked too much like Wallend.
Well, I had no problems with Max’s vision here, except that once he started cleaning up the roughs and I got a better look at the Holbeck character I was struck by his resemblance to a certain pulp hero. Thus this conversation:
ME: Dude! You’ve got Holbeck looking so much like Doc Savage we should just go for it! Do a total homage! Rip his sleeves to shreds except for the cuffs and bust all the buttons off his shirt when his chest expands here so his shirt is open to the beltline!
MAX: What? No! I don’t want to deal with the continuity issues, and besides — who the hell is Doc Savage?
ME: …(senile grumbling about modern generation)
Well, when I was doing the effects for this page, I couldn’t resist doing a text effect in Photoshop that took me way longer than it was probably worth, but I sent it off to Max with a note saying he could take it out if he wanted.
MAX: Actually, it works pretty well! I’ll clean it up a little and leave it.
ME: Thanks! I based it on the original Doc Savage logo.
MAX: He had a logo?
ME: …(more senile grumbling.)
So there you go. We’re not implying that Holbeck is any relation whatsoever to Dr. Clark Savage, Jr., the Man of Bronze; this is just a small indulgence on my part for a bit of additional fun. And whether you recognize the logo style or not, I think it works for selling the emotion of the moment. Hope you enjoy! And upvotes appreciated!
— Bob out
Given all the riots Vancouver has, I’m amazed they haven’t taken a page out of L.A.’s book, and gone windowless.
“All the riots Vancouver’s had” .. Uhm, since ’93 we’ve had three. Three in twenty years. Considering the economic, racial, and all other fun tensions we’ve had, three isn’t bad. Of course, considering we’re on schedule for an 8.x whatever to flatten our cities, all those beautiful glass covered high rises downtown are probably not the brightest idea.
I’ll also say climate change has annihilated our beautiful rainy weather. Our hot weather last year started in June and ended early September. This year, it started in May and is still going. It was 30C here today. *Whiiiiine*
It only took one in L.A.
And you shush about your weather. We had blizzards here in Calgary two weeks ago that really wrecked up the place. I’ll take summer weather over that any day.
That’s what you get for living in AB. 😉 (I survived 3.5 Edmonton winters. NEVER AGAIN!) I just really miss my rain. I can handle 40C and dry and arid, I can’t handle 30C and humidity of a swamp. (Okay, rain forest)
I’m going to claim that Vancouver went with the “We will not let the actions of the few dictate the lives of the many!” attitude, but really, I suspect it was pretty is more important than practical.
‘“All the riots Vancouver’s had” .. Uhm, since ’93 we’ve had three. Three in twenty years. ‘
As someone who does not live in a large urban area, any number of riots greater than zero seems like awful lot.
Uhm.. er, well.. Shyadup! 🙂
Let’s not forget the hockey riots! 😛
I was waiting for that.
They weren’t about hockey.
They were about late teens and early 20 somethings deciding that they were too young for the last riot so they’d totally take SkyTrain into Vancouver to smash [stuff.] (You can “WTF” along with the rest of us.) It was planned via Twitter long before the game started. Win or lose, there was going to be a riot. Because spoiled little suburbanite, middle class, brats decided it would be fun.
Of course, the majority of them also learned the fun of community service, parole, and huge fines their parents got to pay if said brats were under 18. And many parents were like “Oh, no, they just got trapped downtown when they went to watch the game!” .. Gee, so sorry we have them filming themselves smashing the window of London Drugs to steal .. vitamins ..
THOUSANDS went to downtown Vancouver the next day to clean and fix. There wasn’t even gum left on the sidewalk by the time they were done. (A few hours later!)
But hey, let’s not cover the majority of that because it’s not newsertainment and ha-ha, Canada and hockey.
As an aside — my favourite “filmed in Vancouver” is still Rumble in the Bronx. Look! The Bronx, found in lower New York .. as you can tell by the beautiful, majestic mountains!
Vancouver as Hong Kong works. Vancouver as L.A. often works. Vancouver as Seacouver (still my favourite) worked perfectly. Vancouver as Seattle also mostly works. Vancouver as the Bronx?? Not so much!
Love the homage to Doc Savage in the first panel.
Ah Doc… that puts me in a happier place…
I’m DocSavage and I approve of this statement ^_~
Doc Savage… didn’t he fight Spider-Man in the Saturday morning cartoon show?
Get off my lawn.
Oh, uh, oh dear. I did a few Google searches and I mixed him up with Kraven the Hunter. Super sorry! 🙁
Hey I am only 40 and even I know Doc Savage – The Man of Bronze! mainly from originally seeing the camp film when I was a kid. They really should do a reboot of that instead of the umpteenth versions of Batman etc. but nooooooo. *grumbles about modern generation*
That film was a travesty. It was actually painful to watch IMO. Only thing worse would have been if they went through with plans to make another film, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. I think they only dropped that idea when he became the Governator.
Hey, look, he’s unemployed again! Lookin’ for work…. 😉
???
How did you know about Doc and his entourage? I remember reading the books as a small boy and wishing I could meet the author (who died before I was born).
The books were from the ‘older generation’ when I was in grade school. Now I’m old enough to be a (great) grandfather.
Bob is a man of estoric knowledge. He also may be no spring chicken, but that would be rude to say so I wouldn’t dream of saying it. I may type it, but I wouldn’t SAY it.
(I’ll be over here, off the lawn, out of swiping range.)
Careful! My cane gives me unexpected range!
We had a used bookstore near the dorm in college. This introduced me to the works of Robert E. Howard, E.E. “Doc” Smith, and the Doc Savage books (which had a number of writers, but primarily Lester Dent.) My roommates and I, being discerning readers, chose them primarily via cover art, with anything by Frazetta getting top priority. (Naturally.)
I confess that I felt the Doc Savage covers were often better than the stories inside, but they were still cool.
Three writers actually, though Lester Dent wrote close to 90% of the books. One of the writers took a while to learn the style, so Dent had to re-write several of his stories. I much prefer the earlier stories, before new editors tried to change the direction.
Let me give an extra shout-out endorsing Robert E. Howard. He wrote H.P. Lovecraft stories better than H.P. Lovecraft did. I enjoy Lovecraft’s stories, but he could be overly verbose. Robert Howard wrote some great Lovecraftian stories, but written better. “Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors” is one of my favorite books.
Well, I’ll be superamalgamated!!!
I read a reprint of a Doc Savage story when a teenager in the 80s. I do remember the movie9 vaguely) and didn’t think it represented the books much at all. That’s about all I can remember of the Old Boy I’m afraid!
What a pane.
*To add to said windows: emergency escape latches on the inside, much like how the ones in buses work.
This is no time for logic! This is the time for ACTION!
Emergency releases on office windows on the 14th floor.
Hmm
We had those openable-in-an-emergency windows in the office I work in until recently. They recently sealed them all shut incase someone jumps out or something, but what’s to stop them just smashing it with a chair and then jumping out? I guess I can also just smash it in an emergency, but is it really necessary for me to add all that broken glass falling from several storeys up to the equation when there’s an emergency?
As a yoot I had dozens of the paperback Savage stories that I read and reread,thanks for stirring a memory