Hembeck 1980 [Hembeck Series] #2

History

Fred Hembeck (born January 30, 1953) developed his distinctive cartoon style — figures drawn with signature curlicues at the elbows and knees — after failing to break into mainstream comics as a conventional artist, and first found an audience with the 'Dateline: @!!?#' strip in The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom in the late 1970s. FantaCo Enterprises, an Albany, New York comic shop and mail-order business founded by Tom Skulan that had branched into publishing in 1980, became the home for what grew into a seven-volume black-and-white magazine-format series running from 1980 to 1983, with Hembeck 1980 (#2) published in February 1980 as one of the earliest entries. The series ran concurrently with Hembeck's gag-strip work inside DC's own Daily Planet promotional pages (1979–1981), meaning that at the height of the series Hembeck was simultaneously ribbing the companies whose characters he was being paid by those same companies to promote.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Hembeck 1980 is issue #2 of FantaCo's seven-volume Hembeck Series, published in February 1980 — the cover bears the title 'Hembeck 1980,' and the book is also known informally as 'Son of The Best of Dateline @!!?#.'
• The issue is entirely written and drawn by Fred Hembeck (born January 30, 1953), an American cartoonist best known for affectionate parody of Marvel and DC superhero characters.
• The series format is black-and-white, magazine-sized, with Hembeck inserting himself as a cartoon interviewer/interlocutor engaging with the superheroes he depicts — a consistent structural device across all seven volumes.
• The character index for this issue spans both major publishers and multiple eras: Marvel characters include the X-Men (Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm, Iceman, Beast, Marvel Girl), the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch), Dr. Strange and his supporting cast, the Hulk, Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner, and numerous others.
• DC characters in the index encompass Superman and his extended supporting cast, Batman and Robin, the Justice Society (Green Lantern Alan Scott, Hawkman Carter Hall, the Atom Al Pratt, Dr. Fate, Hourman, Mr. Terrific, Starman Ted Knight), the Justice League, the Legion of Super-Heroes (Mon-El, Ultra Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, Shadow Lass, Princess Projectra, and others), and deep-cut figures such as Enemy Ace (Hans von Hammer), the Odd Man, and multiple Starman identities.
• The nearly one-hundred-character roster — crossing publishers and continuities in a single issue — reflects Hembeck's approach of treating the entire superhero canon as one shared sandbox, predating the inter-company crossover boom of the mid-1980s.
• All material in the FantaCo Hembeck Series, including this issue, was later collected in The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus (Image Comics, May 2008), a 900-plus-page compilation with an introduction by Stan Lee.
• FantaCo Enterprises, the publisher, was founded by Tom Skulan and operated out of Albany, New York; the Hembeck Series represented the company's highest-profile publishing output before it pivoted toward horror titles later in the decade.

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