Next up: Ross Andru (1927-93). Ross Andru and Mike Esposito are practically inseperable. In fact, some of Andru’s earliest work—and his first cover—was done for a publishing company he and Esposito founded together in 1951, MR Publications (the M and R standing for their first names). He still freelanced during this time as well. You can see that right out of the gate (he’d only been working professionally for two or three years at this point) Andru had a great sense of design and anatomy. Mr. Universe (their sole publication) only lasted five issues, but it wouldn’t be their last attempt at publishing.
Mister Mystery #1 (Sept. 1951), inked by Esposito, for Key Publications.
His work on Joe Yank showed he could adapt his style to humor while still being recognizable as his style.
In 1953 Andru and Esposito tried again with Mikeross Publications, with little more success. Playing on the fads of the day, they produced two 3-D comics, a romance title, and a Mad takeoff, titled Get Lost!
Around that same time, Andru and Esposito began working as a team for DC, mostly drawing war comics, and by 1955, DC was their primary employer. From what I can find, their first DC cover was for Robin Hood Tales #9 (May-June 1957).
Their first Wonder Woman cover, the series they were best known for at DC, issue #95 (Jan. 1958). It would be three issues later when they took over the interior art as well—a run that would last about nine years.
I have to say, though, that I’m partial to their Metal Men work.
Their first of many Flash covers, issue #177 (Mar. 1968).
This is getting rather long, so I’ll end with the title I knew him from as a kid, Amazing Spider-Man. Though I’d seen his interior work in earlier issues, Amazing Spider-Man #176 (Jan. 1978) was the first I had with an Andru cover—this one inked by Frank Giacoia. I liked his artwork, but even then I thought he drew Spidey a little too bulky. I was reading as many of the Ditko stories in Marvel Tales as I was the Andru stories in Amazing at that time, and I preferred the skinnier Spidey. It just made more sense to me. But I can’t argue with Andru’s storytelling.
Wow. Here's an artist who I started out hating with a passion, and wound up loving his work. In my earliest days of comic reading, the team of Andru & Esposito were drawing Wonder Woman and Metal Men (and a bunch of war comics, but I didn't read many of those at the time). I enjoyed them on the MM, but I really hated their WW. (Of course, I didn't think very highly of WW at the time anyway -- I was young and I thought the books were too goofy to be taken seriously.) Later, I was horrified to find them taking over The Flash from Carmine Infantino when the latter was promoted to art director -- and right when Flash was getting ready to race Superman in a rematch! I despised their work on Flash and thought it lacked the elegant sleekness of Infantino. (I was further horrified when they did a Spider-Man tryout for Marvel Super-Heroes -- I thought it was very ugly.)
Funny thing is, that their work on Flash slowly began settling into something stable and attractive, and while I still wasn't a fan of it, it was getting better and more interesting -- at least, to my still-young-and-untrained eyes. After they took the jump to Marvel and Andru took over the penciling of Amazing Spider-Man, I thought his work took some real jumps ahead in layout and compositions. His overhead panoramas were spectacular and his figure work became more dynamic. I think the pinnacle of his work during that period was on the big intercompany crossover, Superman vs Spider-Man, where he drew a lot of great action panels and loads of those wonderful bird's-eye view panoramas.
I was kind of sorry when he rose to the editorial ranks -- not because I had a poor opinion of his editorial skills, but because he didn't draw as many stories. He was a solid talent, sometimes unappreciated by the fans. (Such as myself -- I still hate his early Wonder Woman stories, but I've reassessed many of his other earlier series.)
Wow. Here's an artist who I started out hating with a passion, and wound up loving his work. In my earliest days of comic reading, the team of Andru & Esposito were drawing Wonder Woman and Metal Men (and a bunch of war comics, but I didn't read many of those at the time). I enjoyed them on the MM, but I really hated their WW. (Of course, I didn't think very highly of WW at the time anyway -- I was young and I thought the books were too goofy to be taken seriously.) Later, I was horrified to find them taking over The Flash from Carmine Infantino when the latter was promoted to art director -- and right when Flash was getting ready to race Superman in a rematch! I despised their work on Flash and thought it lacked the elegant sleekness of Infantino. (I was further horrified when they did a Spider-Man tryout for Marvel Super-Heroes -- I thought it was very ugly.)
Funny thing is, that their work on Flash slowly began settling into something stable and attractive, and while I still wasn't a fan of it, it was getting better and more interesting -- at least, to my still-young-and-untrained eyes. After they took the jump to Marvel and Andru took over the penciling of Amazing Spider-Man, I thought his work took some real jumps ahead in layout and compositions. His overhead panoramas were spectacular and his figure work became more dynamic. I think the pinnacle of his work during that period was on the big intercompany crossover, Superman vs Spider-Man, where he drew a lot of great action panels and loads of those wonderful bird's-eye view panoramas.
I was kind of sorry when he rose to the editorial ranks -- not because I had a poor opinion of his editorial skills, but because he didn't draw as many stories. He was a solid talent, sometimes unappreciated by the fans. (Such as myself -- I still hate his early Wonder Woman stories, but I've reassessed many of his other earlier series.)
Yeah, the Wonder Woman comics they were drawing was aimed squarely at very young readers, and I think even then they were dumbed down. I’m not a fan of Andru’s Flash, either. I don’t think he was as inventive with depicting super-speed as Infantino or Novick.
One more Saturday birthday I didn’t have time to get to yesterday: Happy 58th to Brent Anderson! While Brent’s claim to fame these days is his excellent work on Astro City (newly relaunched I might add), I first knew him from his work with Bruce Jones in Ka-Zar, Brent’s first regular gig, which I highly recommend.
Brent’s first professional cover, inked by Klaus Janson.
My first Brent Anderson comic, cover pencils and inks by Brent.
In 1982, there was the classic God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel.
In 1983, Anderson and Jones teamed up again for Somerset Holmes, which Brent co-plotted as well as penciled and inked. He also painted the covers. Four issues were published by Pacific, and two by Eclipse.
For good or ill, Brent was the regular artist for the first 20 issues of Strikeforce: Morituri.
Of course, Brent doesn’t do the covers for Astro City, but he did do some work for Rising Stars in between.
And he was an excellent choice for the current Phantom Stranger series.
Yesterday was Wallace Wood’s birthday. Wood (1927-81) was one of the greatest inkers the comics industry has ever known. He was especially known (and imitated) in the industry for his use of double-source lighting, made famous in his work for EC comics. He was also a folk singer/guitarist (part of the reason I suspect that he was nicknamed Woody, as in Guthrie), a gun enthusiast (he had a shooting range behind his house), and suffered from depression, made worse by his alcohol abuse.
In his way, he was very much cut from the same mold as Will Eisner. He was just as influential (if not more so) on his peers—see his famous “22 Panels That Always Work,” along with the aforementioned double-lighting inking approach. He was a big believer in creator ownership—besides several properties he created over the years, he also started a publishing house to compete with DC and Marvel, for which he created T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, et al. He even went a step further than Eisner in this regard with his witzend magazine, with which he encouraged other artists to create their own properties. His work appeared in military newspapers/magazines (Sally Forth and Cannon were both strips created for that purpose). And he had his own studio that kickstarted the careers of many good artists (Dan Adkins for one).
Unfortunately, Wood’s depression and alcoholism (and timing to some extent) limited his success. But at least he left us with some of the most beautiful work ever to grace the pages of a comic book.
The earliest cover credit for Wood I could find was My Secret Life #23 (Sept. 1949), which he penciled and inked.
This August 1951 one-shot is an early glimpse into the direction Wood’s work was headed.
Wood’s first cover for EC, Weird Science #9.
One of his best known covers:
His best known (and simply best) cover for Marvel. " />
Happy 63rd birthday to John Workman! Though known mainly as a letterer these days—especially for his collaborations with Walt Simonson—John is also a writer and artist, as well as an editor and designer. He hasn’t done a ton of penciling in his career, but probably more than most people think, as most of it has been shorter creator-owned work that usually appeared in anthology books and was overlooked somewhat as a result.
Homework time! As you go through the covers here, see if you can spot a pattern?
“Roma” was serialized over five chapters in Dark Horse Presents, and ran sideways (in a landscape format). John did everything: writing, penciling, inking, and lettering.
John’s cover (again, he did everything) for Time Twisters #12, a series which reprinted “Time Twisters” stories from 2000 AD. John did a handful of covers for the series.
Sindy was a five-issue series that reprinted John’s first professional work: Sindy and Fallen Angels, two adult sci-fi comic features (usually four pages long each) he did for a couple of men’s magazines (if you know what I mean) from 1972–75. He did everything on these stories, though the lettering in most of the stories was typeset rather than hand-lettered.
And I think I’ll skip his covers for Fantagraphics’ XXX Women series.
So, boys and girls? Did you spot the pattern? That’s right! When John draws, he not only pencils, but inks and letters his own stuff.
I bet you thought I was going in another direction with that question. You people have such dirty minds!
A Superman cover today, just because. One of the more eye-popping Superman covers of the Golden Age, the cover of Action Comics #61 (June 1943) was penciled and inked by my favorite Superman artist of the period, Jack Burnley. Burnley also drew some beautiful “Starman” stories and covers for Adventure Comics. Maybe I’ll post more on him tomorrow.
A Superman cover today, just because. One of the more eye-popping Superman covers of the Golden Age, the cover of Action Comics #61 (June 1943) was penciled and inked by my favorite Superman artist of the period, Jack Burnley. Burnley also drew some beautiful “Starman” stories and covers for Adventure Comics. Maybe I’ll post more on him tomorrow.
I never read Darkhold when it was coming out. But a few years back got about half of the series real cheap. And it is damn good. I prefer the issues Richard Case drew,but the later issues are decent.
Happy birthday to Armando Gil. Born in 1959 in the Dominican Republic, his family moved to the States in 1963. While in 10th grade at the High School of Art & Design, he started submitting samples to Marvel—in person. He and fellow classmate Denys Cowan spent a lot of time in the Marvel offices, where Ron Wilson took Gil under his wing and began teaching him the ropes. Before long he became Rich Buckler’s assistant, eventually striking out on his own.
He did more inking work than penciling, and you can see a similar approach as those of Bernie Wrightson, Michael Golden (one of his first inking assignments), and Paul Gulacy in his work. He left comics in the ’90s after the speculator crash to work in animation, though he has occasionally done comics work since then.
Some of his earliest penciling was on Ka-Zar, where he took over from Brent Anderson.
Mike Wieringo would have been 50 today. I’ve talked about Mike several times on these boards and in this thread, so I'm just going to post a few covers and try not to get depressed.
Inks by Jose Marzan Jr.
Inks by Karl Kesel.
Inks by Richard Case.
Cover art for Sins of Youth: JLA Jr. #1, with inks by Terry Austin.
Last year got Team America issues 1,2,11,12. Really enjoyed it cause of how goofy it is. I would love a trade of this series but I know cause of rights issues that most likely won't happen.
Today is the birthday of one of the grandmasters: Alex Toth (1928-2006)! Alex became a professional comic book artist at the age of 15 while still attending the High School of Industrial Arts. When he graduated two years later, he got work at DC where he (along with Joe Kubert and Carmine Infantino) was taken under the wing of editor/cartoonist Shelly Mayer. His first cover art was for Green Lantern #28 (Oct.-Nov. 1947), pencils and inks by Toth (as will be the case for these covers unless otherwise listed).
He improved by leaps and bounds over the next few months and years. Just compare his first cover with his second cover, All-American Comics #92 (Dec. 1947).
In this early work, you can readily see the influence of Noel Sickles, a newspaper strip artist and friend/studio mate of Milt Caniff. Sickles and Caniff very similar in many ways, but where Caniff’s work was defined by bold, lush blacks, Caniff had a much cleaner, more design-oriented approach. Toth was something of a blend of the two (along with Mayer, Irwin Hasen, and many others), but the sense of design remained prevalent in his work and became stronger over time.
All-American Western #114 (Jun.-Jul. 1950), inks by Joe Giella.
In 1952, Toth quit DC, moved to California, and began working for Standard, where he would hone his approach to storytelling to a razor-sharp point.
Joe Yank #8 (Oct. 1952).
In 1954, he began taking on work for Lev Gleason before being drafted into the army.
Crime and Punishment #66 (Mar. 1954).
1957 saw his return to civilian life and his Dell became his main comic client for the next several years. Unfortunately, he did no covers for them. In 1960 he entered the field of animation which would be his full-time job until his retirement. But he still did the occasional comic book assignment, mainly for DC and Western.
Hot Wheels #1 (Mar.-Apr. 1970), inks by Dick Giordano.
Toth’s love of swashbuckling epics (he even had a couple of swords of a similar make, probably purchased when he illustrated Zorro) were on display in the cover for Johnny Thunder #3 (Jul.-Aug. 1973).
But this is where I first became aware of Toth: Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41 (Dec.-Jan. 1975-76)—the Superman face was redone by Curt Swan and George Klein—a.k.a., the Super Friends treasury edition. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing/reading this, it not only featured a cover and interior sequential art by Toth, but a behind the scenes look as his animation work and a short biography. This book is largely responsible for my interest in comics history and the craft of making comics.
The figures may be a bit wonky at this point in his work, but that biplane is gorgeous.
My first exposure to Toth's work (by name, I'd of course seen his animation work for years) also involved biplanes, his only Batman story, "Death Flies the Haunted Sky!" in Detective #442.
The figures may be a bit wonky at this point in his work, but that biplane is gorgeous.
My first exposure to Toth's work (by name, I'd of course seen his animation work for years) also involved biplanes, his only Batman story, "Death Flies the Haunted Sky!" in Detective #442.
Yeah, he had a thing for biplanes. Goodwin wrote that one specifically for Toth.
I should have looked a little longer. This cover is actually a reprint of an All-American Western cover, but I actually have two of the three Johnny Thunder reprint books that I found fairly cheaply, so I went with it—plus it was the one I found first.
This is from 1951 originally, with inks by Sy Barry. It’s probably my favorite Toth cover. Covers weren’t generally his forte, but he had a handful of great ones.
Happy birthday to Warren Kremer (1921-2003)! Kremer was best known for his work on Casper the Ghost, Richie Rich (which he co-created), Hot Stuff (which he created), Stumbo the Giant (which he created), and Little Audrey among others. Just as Carl Barks was “the good duck artist,” Kremer was regarded as “the good Harvey artist.”
Kremer started out working for the pulps and magazines, but soon got into the comic book industry working for Ace. His first cover was for their Banner Comics #5 (Jan. 1942), which he penciled and inked. As you can see, his drawing was pretty well developed from the start.
Another Ace cover, Super-Mystery Comics vol. 6, #3 (Dec. 1946), pencils and inks by Kremer.
His first humor comics work was probably this cover for Fawcett’s Wow Comics #68 (July 1948).
Kremer started working for Harvey in 1948, but the earliest cover credit I could find was for Warfront #1 (Sept. 1951).
Kremer did a wide variety of material for Harvey, including war, humor, romance, and horror, such as this gorgeous cover for Black Cat Mystery #37 (July 1952).
Comments
Mister Mystery #1 (Sept. 1951), inked by Esposito, for Key Publications.
His work on Joe Yank showed he could adapt his style to humor while still being recognizable as his style.
In 1953 Andru and Esposito tried again with Mikeross Publications, with little more success. Playing on the fads of the day, they produced two 3-D comics, a romance title, and a Mad takeoff, titled Get Lost!
Around that same time, Andru and Esposito began working as a team for DC, mostly drawing war comics, and by 1955, DC was their primary employer. From what I can find, their first DC cover was for Robin Hood Tales #9 (May-June 1957).
Their first Wonder Woman cover, the series they were best known for at DC, issue #95 (Jan. 1958). It would be three issues later when they took over the interior art as well—a run that would last about nine years.
I have to say, though, that I’m partial to their Metal Men work.
Their first of many Flash covers, issue #177 (Mar. 1968).
This is getting rather long, so I’ll end with the title I knew him from as a kid, Amazing Spider-Man. Though I’d seen his interior work in earlier issues, Amazing Spider-Man #176 (Jan. 1978) was the first I had with an Andru cover—this one inked by Frank Giacoia. I liked his artwork, but even then I thought he drew Spidey a little too bulky. I was reading as many of the Ditko stories in Marvel Tales as I was the Andru stories in Amazing at that time, and I preferred the skinnier Spidey. It just made more sense to me. But I can’t argue with Andru’s storytelling.
Funny thing is, that their work on Flash slowly began settling into something stable and attractive, and while I still wasn't a fan of it, it was getting better and more interesting -- at least, to my still-young-and-untrained eyes. After they took the jump to Marvel and Andru took over the penciling of Amazing Spider-Man, I thought his work took some real jumps ahead in layout and compositions. His overhead panoramas were spectacular and his figure work became more dynamic. I think the pinnacle of his work during that period was on the big intercompany crossover, Superman vs Spider-Man, where he drew a lot of great action panels and loads of those wonderful bird's-eye view panoramas.
I was kind of sorry when he rose to the editorial ranks -- not because I had a poor opinion of his editorial skills, but because he didn't draw as many stories. He was a solid talent, sometimes unappreciated by the fans. (Such as myself -- I still hate his early Wonder Woman stories, but I've reassessed many of his other earlier series.)
Brent’s first professional cover, inked by Klaus Janson.
My first Brent Anderson comic, cover pencils and inks by Brent.
In 1982, there was the classic God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel.
In 1983, Anderson and Jones teamed up again for Somerset Holmes, which Brent co-plotted as well as penciled and inked. He also painted the covers. Four issues were published by Pacific, and two by Eclipse.
For good or ill, Brent was the regular artist for the first 20 issues of Strikeforce: Morituri.
Of course, Brent doesn’t do the covers for Astro City, but he did do some work for Rising Stars in between.
And he was an excellent choice for the current Phantom Stranger series.
In his way, he was very much cut from the same mold as Will Eisner. He was just as influential (if not more so) on his peers—see his famous “22 Panels That Always Work,” along with the aforementioned double-lighting inking approach. He was a big believer in creator ownership—besides several properties he created over the years, he also started a publishing house to compete with DC and Marvel, for which he created T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, et al. He even went a step further than Eisner in this regard with his witzend magazine, with which he encouraged other artists to create their own properties. His work appeared in military newspapers/magazines (Sally Forth and Cannon were both strips created for that purpose). And he had his own studio that kickstarted the careers of many good artists (Dan Adkins for one).
Unfortunately, Wood’s depression and alcoholism (and timing to some extent) limited his success. But at least he left us with some of the most beautiful work ever to grace the pages of a comic book.
The earliest cover credit for Wood I could find was My Secret Life #23 (Sept. 1949), which he penciled and inked.
This August 1951 one-shot is an early glimpse into the direction Wood’s work was headed.
Wood’s first cover for EC, Weird Science #9.
One of his best known covers:
His best known (and simply best) cover for Marvel.
Homework time! As you go through the covers here, see if you can spot a pattern?
“Roma” was serialized over five chapters in Dark Horse Presents, and ran sideways (in a landscape format). John did everything: writing, penciling, inking, and lettering.
John’s cover (again, he did everything) for Time Twisters #12, a series which reprinted “Time Twisters” stories from 2000 AD. John did a handful of covers for the series.
Sindy was a five-issue series that reprinted John’s first professional work: Sindy and Fallen Angels, two adult sci-fi comic features (usually four pages long each) he did for a couple of men’s magazines (if you know what I mean) from 1972–75. He did everything on these stories, though the lettering in most of the stories was typeset rather than hand-lettered.
And I think I’ll skip his covers for Fantagraphics’ XXX Women series.
So, boys and girls? Did you spot the pattern? That’s right! When John draws, he not only pencils, but inks and letters his own stuff.
I bet you thought I was going in another direction with that question. You people have such dirty minds!
This is spectacular.
Darkhold #7
Cover Artist(s):
Bud LaRosa - 'Nekros'
Rurik Tyler - 'Madman'
I never read Darkhold when it was coming out. But a few years back got about half of the series real cheap. And it is damn good. I prefer the issues Richard Case drew,but the later issues are decent.
He did more inking work than penciling, and you can see a similar approach as those of Bernie Wrightson, Michael Golden (one of his first inking assignments), and Paul Gulacy in his work. He left comics in the ’90s after the speculator crash to work in animation, though he has occasionally done comics work since then.
Some of his earliest penciling was on Ka-Zar, where he took over from Brent Anderson.
Inks by Jose Marzan Jr.
Inks by Karl Kesel.
Inks by Richard Case.
Cover art for Sins of Youth: JLA Jr. #1, with inks by Terry Austin.
Inks by Steve Firchow.
Inks by Karl Kesel.
Inks by Mike Manley.
Dave Simons
Last year got Team America issues 1,2,11,12. Really enjoyed it cause of how goofy it is. I would love a trade of this series but I know cause of rights issues that most likely won't happen.
He improved by leaps and bounds over the next few months and years. Just compare his first cover with his second cover, All-American Comics #92 (Dec. 1947).
In this early work, you can readily see the influence of Noel Sickles, a newspaper strip artist and friend/studio mate of Milt Caniff. Sickles and Caniff very similar in many ways, but where Caniff’s work was defined by bold, lush blacks, Caniff had a much cleaner, more design-oriented approach. Toth was something of a blend of the two (along with Mayer, Irwin Hasen, and many others), but the sense of design remained prevalent in his work and became stronger over time.
All-American Western #114 (Jun.-Jul. 1950), inks by Joe Giella.
In 1952, Toth quit DC, moved to California, and began working for Standard, where he would hone his approach to storytelling to a razor-sharp point.
Joe Yank #8 (Oct. 1952).
In 1954, he began taking on work for Lev Gleason before being drafted into the army.
Crime and Punishment #66 (Mar. 1954).
1957 saw his return to civilian life and his Dell became his main comic client for the next several years. Unfortunately, he did no covers for them. In 1960 he entered the field of animation which would be his full-time job until his retirement. But he still did the occasional comic book assignment, mainly for DC and Western.
Hot Wheels #1 (Mar.-Apr. 1970), inks by Dick Giordano.
Toth’s love of swashbuckling epics (he even had a couple of swords of a similar make, probably purchased when he illustrated Zorro) were on display in the cover for Johnny Thunder #3 (Jul.-Aug. 1973).
But this is where I first became aware of Toth: Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41 (Dec.-Jan. 1975-76)—the Superman face was redone by Curt Swan and George Klein—a.k.a., the Super Friends treasury edition. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing/reading this, it not only featured a cover and interior sequential art by Toth, but a behind the scenes look as his animation work and a short biography. This book is largely responsible for my interest in comics history and the craft of making comics.
The figures may be a bit wonky at this point in his work, but that biplane is gorgeous.
My first exposure to Toth's work (by name, I'd of course seen his animation work for years) also involved biplanes, his only Batman story, "Death Flies the Haunted Sky!" in Detective #442.
Good Googly-Moogly that's gorgeous!
This is from 1951 originally, with inks by Sy Barry. It’s probably my favorite Toth cover. Covers weren’t generally his forte, but he had a handful of great ones.
Crazyman vol 2 issue 2
Neal Adams and Joe Schiettino
I love how this and the previous issue are a tribute to the UK classic tv show "The Prisoner".
Kremer started out working for the pulps and magazines, but soon got into the comic book industry working for Ace. His first cover was for their Banner Comics #5 (Jan. 1942), which he penciled and inked. As you can see, his drawing was pretty well developed from the start.
Another Ace cover, Super-Mystery Comics vol. 6, #3 (Dec. 1946), pencils and inks by Kremer.
His first humor comics work was probably this cover for Fawcett’s Wow Comics #68 (July 1948).
Kremer started working for Harvey in 1948, but the earliest cover credit I could find was for Warfront #1 (Sept. 1951).
Kremer did a wide variety of material for Harvey, including war, humor, romance, and horror, such as this gorgeous cover for Black Cat Mystery #37 (July 1952).
But on to what he’s best known for: