Another minor birthday today. Some guy named Jack Kirby. I can’t find out very much about him, though, so you’ll have to just enjoy the artwork. ;)
Possibly Kirby’s first cover: Champion Comics #10 (Aug. 1940), inks by Joe Simon.
Or was this it? Red Raven Comics #1 (Aug. 1940), inks by Joe Simon, who also co-created the character as his first assignment working for Timely.
Blue Bolt #7 (Dec. 1940), inks by Joe Simon.
Because you can never get enough of Cap punching Adolf in the jaw, Captain America Comics #1 (Mar. 1941), inks by Joe Simon.
Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941), inks by Syd Shores.
Original art for Adventure Comics #73 (Apr. 1942), inks by Joe Simon, featuring the first appearance of Manhunter in a story written and penciled by Kirby.
Green Hornet Comics #7 (June 1942), inks by Joe Simon.
The Sandman and Sandy (sorry, but I hate this version of the costume) face off against Thor (Spoiler Alert: He’s not really the god of thunder, just a guy in a bulletproof suit) in Adventure Comics #75 (June 1942), inks by Joe Simon.
And I’ll leave off with Kirby drawing Batman on the cover of Detective Comics #65 (July 1942), with inks by Joe Simon (the Boy Commandos) and Jerry Robinson (the Dynamic Duo).
Happy 43rd birthday to Jason Pearson! I first met Jason years ago, back when he was still part of Gaijin Studios. He’s a nice guy, and very talented to boot.
Here’s the earliest cover credit I could find for him—he penciled and inked the piece.
I first saw his work when he took over Legion of Super-Heroes—his first ongoing series. A couple of my favorites from his run: Uploaded with ImageShack.us" /> Inks by Gaijin studiomate Karl Story.
Inks by Karl Story.
Jason’s parody of Rolling Stone’s Janet Jackson cover—one of many variant covers for Gen-13 #1 (Mar. 1995).
Jason wrote and penciled the three-issue mini-series Dragon: Blood & Guts in 1995. He was starting to make a name for himself by this time, but this was something of a breakout for him.
Not a fan of the series, but a cool cover:
Jason did a ton of covers for that other time DC had a Villains Month event. This is my favorite:
Though Jason had already done a highly controversial two-issue Body Bags series, this was the first time he drew his characters on a cover. (The previous series featured covers by one of Jason’s biggest influences: Michael Golden.)
Since the late ’90s, Jason has primarily been a cover artist, usually inking and coloring himself. Here’s one of his latest:
Happy 67th birthday to one of my favorite French cartoonists, Jacques Tardi! He’s probably best known for his character Adèle Blanc-Sec, who has been featured in four albums to date, but he’s worked in many different genres.
I've never heard of Tardi, but... that is quite interesting looking stuff.
Guy Davis turned me on to Tardi. He’s a big fan of Tardi, and you can see some similarities there.
Fantagraphics has been reprinting his work in English the past two or three years. They’ve already done four or five volumes, including It Was the War of the Trenches—possibly Tardi’s best work, though much more serious than his usual fare. It’s a pretty intense look at World War I.
There was also a movie made in 2010 adapting his Adèle Blanc-Sec directed by Luc Besson, which gives you an idea of the level of popularity he has in France.
A lot of birthdays in the comic world today—José Ortiz, Gaspar Saladino, Joe Jusko, Joe Kelly—but none bigger than Gene Colan (1926-2011). I had the pleasure of talking with Gene at length on a couple of occasions, and he truly was a “Gentleman.” Did you know he loved building WWII military vehicle models? He was a big fan of Gary Cooper too.
Anyway, Gene started out in comics with a summer job at Fiction House in 1944 when Gene was 17. He actually drew a handful of stories, including some one-page fillers, mostly for Wings during his brief stay—but no covers. A few months later found him drafted in the Air Force as a tail-gunner. Due to catching a case of pneumonia in training camp, the war was pretty much over by the time Gene made it to the Philippines.
Not long after his return to the States, Gene went to Timely looking for work and finding it on his first attempt. Like most artists during this time, he drew horror stories, war stories, romance stories—pretty much everything but superheroes. The earliest definitive cover credit I could find was this cover to Captain America’s Weird Tales #75 (Feb. 1950) possibly inked by Colan himself.
But before long, Gene was also doing work for Ace, DC, Quality, and others—though most of his cover assignments were still through Marvel.
Inks by Colan.
For a time in the mid-’50s, he was a regular on Hopalong Cassidy. Inks by Joe Giella.
In the early to mid-’60s he was mostly drawing romance comics for DC.
Was he using Ann Margaret for photo reference? Inks by Dick Giordano.
Then finally came his first superhero cover in Tales to Astonish #71 (Sept. 1965), inks by Vince Colletta, during which time he slowly began transitioning from DC romance work to Marvel superhero work.
So yesterday was also the birthday of Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose characters and ideas have made a huge impact on the comic book industry. There have been tons of comics produced featuring his characters, so I'm going to focus on them for the next few days.
Sparkler Comics #31 (Mar. 1944), pencils and inks by Burne Hogarth, who drew the Tarzan newspaper strip after Hal Foster.
Tarzan #8 (Mar.-Apr. 1949), pencils by Morris Gollub, inks unknown.
Tarzan #68 (May 1955), painting by Morris Gollub.
Tarzan #120 (Sept.-Oct. 1960), painting by George Wilson.
Tarzan 146 (Oct. 1964), painting by George Wilson.
Korak, Son of Tarzan #12 (Mar. 1966), painting by Morris Gollub.
The final issue of the Dell/Western/Gold Key series (Korak ended the previous month as well), in which he fights the forerunners of Gorilla Grodd. Tarzan #206 (Feb. 1972), painting by George Wilson.
While Dell was putting out their Tarzan comics, Charlton decided to get in on the action. Of course, they didn’t bother to get authorization, but they adapted eight of the twelve short stories in the sixth Tarzan novel, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, in a 1964 four-issue series of the same name. Sam Glanzman and Tony Tallarico provided most of the artwork.
Cover by Pat Masulli.
Cover by Sam Glanzman.
Western’s last issue of Tarzan was issue #206, released with a Feb. 1972 cover date. When DC picked up the license, they continued the numbering with #207, with an April 1972 cover date. Covers, of course, by Joe Kubert, unless otherwise noted.
My first Tarzan comic:
DC also picked up Korak’s numbering, though it didn’t last quite as long as Tarzan.
DC ceased publication of the Burroughs characters in February of 1977, and by that summer Marvel was producing a new Tarzan title. And just as DC had put their big gun on Tarzan, so did Marvel, and so Big John Buscema was put on art duties.
And Buscema got the rare opportunity to ink himself.
The first issue of the Marvel run I bought:
Of the handful of Marvel issues I had, this was my favorite: Inks by Alfredo Alcala.
The series ended in October of 1979, but in 1983—in advance of the Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan film—Marvel released a 48-page graphic novel adaptation of the first Tarzan novel with a very nice cover by Charles Ren and excellent interior work by Dan Spiegle.
I didn’t see this when it came out, but the next year Marvel split it into a two-issue mini-series in the normal comic format, and I did get those. Again, with covers by Charles Ren.
There was a bit of a wait before another Tarzan series would appear.
The tricky thing with identifying L. B. Cole covers is that, for his Star Publications books, he is known to have taken a splash page from an interior story by another artist, use it as a cover for the book, and sign his name to it. How many times he did this, I don’t know, but I think the covers I’m posting here are really his.
As I mentioned in the first post, Star Publications was one of the publishers targeted by the U.S. Senate juvenile delinquency hearings which led to the Comics Code. Cole drew the cover of Spook #24, which was specifically mentioned in Seduction of the Innocent.
Others of his horror covers:
LOVE the exposure of Mr. Cole's artwork... When I was a young teen, I bought an Overstreet Price Guide with his artwork on the cover, and featuring a lengthy article about him. His work has a "blacklight poster" quality about it that I really love. Those Blue Bolt covers are especially nice.
Thanks for exposing us all to such a variety of stuff, through this, your articles, and your books.
DC ceased publication of the Burroughs characters in February of 1977, and by that summer Marvel was producing a new Tarzan title. And just as DC had put their big gun on Tarzan, so did Marvel, and so Big John Buscema was put on art duties.
And Buscema got the rare opportunity to ink himself.
The first issue of the Marvel run I bought:
Of the handful of Marvel issues I had, this was my favorite: Inks by Alfredo Alcala.
The series ended in October of 1979, but in 1983—in advance of the Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan film—Marvel released a 48-page graphic novel adaptation of the first Tarzan novel with a very nice cover by Charles Ren and excellent interior work by Dan Spiegle.
I didn’t see this when it came out, but the next year Marvel split it into a two-issue mini-series in the normal comic format, and I did get those. Again, with covers by Charles Ren.
There was a bit of a wait before another Tarzan series would appear.
Loved those Dan Spiegle issues. One of my favorite artists of all time.
Today marks the birthday of one of the greatest cartoonists to ever put brush to paper: Walt Kelly! I wish I had time for a longer post, but I’ll just have to let the artwork do the talking.
That issue of Fairy Tale Parade with the giant can be found (totally legally) at the Digital Comics Museum, along with some other Walt Kelly issues from Dell...
The tricky thing with identifying L. B. Cole covers is that, for his Star Publications books, he is known to have taken a splash page from an interior story by another artist, use it as a cover for the book, and sign his name to it. How many times he did this, I don’t know, but I think the covers I’m posting here are really his.
As I mentioned in the first post, Star Publications was one of the publishers targeted by the U.S. Senate juvenile delinquency hearings which led to the Comics Code. Cole drew the cover of Spook #24, which was specifically mentioned in Seduction of the Innocent.
Others of his horror covers:
LOVE the exposure of Mr. Cole's artwork... When I was a young teen, I bought an Overstreet Price Guide with his artwork on the cover, and featuring a lengthy article about him. His work has a "blacklight poster" quality about it that I really love. Those Blue Bolt covers are especially nice.
Thanks for exposing us all to such a variety of stuff, through this, your articles, and your books.
“Blacklight poster” is a good way to describe a lot of his work, @Tonebone. And thanks for the kind words.
Tarzan didn’t make it back into American comics until Malibu launched Tarzan the Warrior in 1992—the first of a series of mini-series. The Mark Hempel painted covers and Neil Vokes/Mark Hempel interior art was far more graphic and cartoony that previous artists’ Tarzan work, and it made for a nice change of pace. I thought the series started out fairly strong, but despite the strong artwork throughout, the story slipped as it went along. Still, if you can find it cheap, it’s only five issues and worth a look.
The next two series were co-published by Semic International, a Swedish publisher. First came Tarzan: Love, Lies, and the Lost City, which was pretty good. It also marked the U.S. debut of Danish artists Peter Snejbjerg and Teddy Kristiansen.
I didn’t pick up the second co-published series, Tarzan: The Beckoning, but the seven-issue mini-series was some of Tom Yeates’ earliest work, and his first series. It’s a little rough in spots from what I’ve seen, but Yeates would draw Tarzan again down the road and do some beautiful work. His stuff harkens back to the Hal Foster era of the Tarzan newspaper strip—lush and illustrative.
I didn’t pick up the second co-published series, Tarzan: The Beckoning, but the seven-issue mini-series was some of Tom Yeates’ earliest work, and his first series. It’s a little rough in spots from what I’ve seen, but Yeates would draw Tarzan again down the road and do some beautiful work. His stuff harkens back to the Hal Foster era of the Tarzan newspaper strip—lush and illustrative.
Appropriate, since he is now the artist of Foster's Prince Valiant strip.
But, his earliest work? He'd already been working in the industry for over a decade by that point -- he'd been the regular artist on Saga Of The Swamp Thing in the early 80's just before Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben came along.
Yeah, I had a bit of a brain fart there. Yeates broke into comics in 1978. I’m not sure what I was thinking there. I blame only getting five hours of sleep the night before.
Dark Horse kicked off their line of Tarzan books with a four-issue adaptation of the uncompleted novel Tarzan: The Lost Adventure. These were thick, squarebound issues with each chapter was scripted (and expanded from the original novel) by Joe Lansdale and drawn by a different artist (each artist did full art): the aforementioned Tom Yeates, Charles Vess, Gary Gianni, and Mike Kaluta—and each issue featured a cover by Arthur Suydam. And in the back of each issue were several pages reprinting the 1941 John Carter newspaper strip, which was written and drawn by John Coleman Burroughs, the son of E. R. Burroughs. Talk about starting off strong!
Tarzan vs. Predator at the Earth’s Core was a surprisingly cool story written by Walt Simonson and art by Lee Weeks.
Tarzan/John Carter: Warlords of Mars wasn’t quite as good, but Bret Blevins’ artwork (covers and interiors) was gorgeous.
I did not pick up the ongoing series that followed, but here are some of the standout covers:
Following the ongoing series came the Tarzan/Carson of Venus mini-series with art (covers and interiors) by Igor Kordey.
One of the best Tarzan covers ever. Mark Schultz did this for a reprint of an early ’60s Russ Manning adaptation.
One of Dave Dorman’s covers for the four-issue Batman/Tarzan crossover.
And one of Humberto Ramos’ covers for the three-issue Superman/Tarzan crossover.
Last year, Dynamite Entertainment started their own Tarzan series, Lord of the Jungle. Just as with their Warlord of Mars series, Lord of the Jungle is an adaptation of the original novel, which is in the public domain. Both series are unauthorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., however, so they cannot uses “Tarzan” or “John Carter” in the title. I haven’t read Lord of the Jungle, but here are a couple of the more interesting covers.
Cover by Alex Ross.
Cover by Ryan Sook.
Cover by Francesco Francavilla.
And currently they’re doing a crossover mini-series.
Following the ongoing series came the Tarzan/Carson of Venus mini-series with art (covers and interiors) by Igor Kordey.
A sidebar note: the writer for this series, as well as a few other books for Dark Horse during this period, was Darko Macan, a Czech contributor who was a talented cartoonist in his own right. I believe, in fact, that he was at the heart of the Czech comic community and was involved in a number of projects there. We were just getting underway with ZU, our funny animal/furry anthology at MU Press when we first received a package of work from him. He was breaking into the US market at the time and had been sent our way by a mutual friend, Stan Sakai. Darko contributed a handful of stories about his bear mercenary, Sergei, struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe. Here's his cover to issue #2, where Sergei made his American debut.
Being a small company, I'm sure we didn't pay him nearly as much as Dark Horse did, but he was very happy to accept a lot of copies of the other books we were publishing in addition to what we did pay.
I’m in a sci-fi mood today, so here are the covers to the only two issues of Space Busters from 1952. The first cover is by the great Norm Saunders.
The second is by Allen Anderson.
Saunders and Anderson were best friends after working together at Fawcett in the ’30s, and, of course, they both did many covers for the pulp magazines as well as the comics.
I haven’t read these books yet, but they’ve got some great artists doing stories, including Bernie Krigstein, Murphy Anderson, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Marv Stein, and John Prentice.
More sci-fi, this time Captain Science, which was published by Youthful. Youthful was one of the many short-lived publishing houses that sprang up in the Golden Age. They began publishing in 1949 with Gunsmoke (which predates the popular radio and TV series by several years later), and they closed shop in 1952.
Captain Science ran for only seven issues, and it’s mostly forgettable stuff. It does, however, feature early work by Joe Orlando and Wally Wood—signed with a stylized “OW”—including two covers.
Comments
It's the rare 200AD cover that appeals to me, but this is gorgeous!
Possibly Kirby’s first cover: Champion Comics #10 (Aug. 1940), inks by Joe Simon.
Or was this it? Red Raven Comics #1 (Aug. 1940), inks by Joe Simon, who also co-created the character as his first assignment working for Timely.
Blue Bolt #7 (Dec. 1940), inks by Joe Simon.
Because you can never get enough of Cap punching Adolf in the jaw, Captain America Comics #1 (Mar. 1941), inks by Joe Simon.
Young Allies #1 (Summer 1941), inks by Syd Shores.
Original art for Adventure Comics #73 (Apr. 1942), inks by Joe Simon, featuring the first appearance of Manhunter in a story written and penciled by Kirby.
Green Hornet Comics #7 (June 1942), inks by Joe Simon.
The Sandman and Sandy (sorry, but I hate this version of the costume) face off against Thor (Spoiler Alert: He’s not really the god of thunder, just a guy in a bulletproof suit) in Adventure Comics #75 (June 1942), inks by Joe Simon.
And I’ll leave off with Kirby drawing Batman on the cover of Detective Comics #65 (July 1942), with inks by Joe Simon (the Boy Commandos) and Jerry Robinson (the Dynamic Duo).
"Dis dress, dat dress... I'm distraught!"
Here’s the earliest cover credit I could find for him—he penciled and inked the piece.
I first saw his work when he took over Legion of Super-Heroes—his first ongoing series. A couple of my favorites from his run:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us" />
Inks by Gaijin studiomate Karl Story.
Inks by Karl Story.
Jason’s parody of Rolling Stone’s Janet Jackson cover—one of many variant covers for Gen-13 #1 (Mar. 1995).
Jason wrote and penciled the three-issue mini-series Dragon: Blood & Guts in 1995. He was starting to make a name for himself by this time, but this was something of a breakout for him.
Not a fan of the series, but a cool cover:
Jason did a ton of covers for that other time DC had a Villains Month event. This is my favorite:
Though Jason had already done a highly controversial two-issue Body Bags series, this was the first time he drew his characters on a cover. (The previous series featured covers by one of Jason’s biggest influences: Michael Golden.)
Since the late ’90s, Jason has primarily been a cover artist, usually inking and coloring himself. Here’s one of his latest:
Fantagraphics has been reprinting his work in English the past two or three years. They’ve already done four or five volumes, including It Was the War of the Trenches—possibly Tardi’s best work, though much more serious than his usual fare. It’s a pretty intense look at World War I.
There was also a movie made in 2010 adapting his Adèle Blanc-Sec directed by Luc Besson, which gives you an idea of the level of popularity he has in France.
Anyway, Gene started out in comics with a summer job at Fiction House in 1944 when Gene was 17. He actually drew a handful of stories, including some one-page fillers, mostly for Wings during his brief stay—but no covers. A few months later found him drafted in the Air Force as a tail-gunner. Due to catching a case of pneumonia in training camp, the war was pretty much over by the time Gene made it to the Philippines.
Not long after his return to the States, Gene went to Timely looking for work and finding it on his first attempt. Like most artists during this time, he drew horror stories, war stories, romance stories—pretty much everything but superheroes. The earliest definitive cover credit I could find was this cover to Captain America’s Weird Tales #75 (Feb. 1950) possibly inked by Colan himself.
But before long, Gene was also doing work for Ace, DC, Quality, and others—though most of his cover assignments were still through Marvel.
Inks by Colan.
For a time in the mid-’50s, he was a regular on Hopalong Cassidy.
Inks by Joe Giella.
In the early to mid-’60s he was mostly drawing romance comics for DC.
Was he using Ann Margaret for photo reference? Inks by Dick Giordano.
Then finally came his first superhero cover in Tales to Astonish #71 (Sept. 1965), inks by Vince Colletta, during which time he slowly began transitioning from DC romance work to Marvel superhero work.
Sparkler Comics #31 (Mar. 1944), pencils and inks by Burne Hogarth, who drew the Tarzan newspaper strip after Hal Foster.
Tarzan #8 (Mar.-Apr. 1949), pencils by Morris Gollub, inks unknown.
Tarzan #68 (May 1955), painting by Morris Gollub.
Tarzan #120 (Sept.-Oct. 1960), painting by George Wilson.
Tarzan 146 (Oct. 1964), painting by George Wilson.
Korak, Son of Tarzan #12 (Mar. 1966), painting by Morris Gollub.
The final issue of the Dell/Western/Gold Key series (Korak ended the previous month as well), in which he fights the forerunners of Gorilla Grodd. Tarzan #206 (Feb. 1972), painting by George Wilson.
More of the Jungle Lord tomorrow.
Cover by Pat Masulli.
Cover by Sam Glanzman.
Western’s last issue of Tarzan was issue #206, released with a Feb. 1972 cover date. When DC picked up the license, they continued the numbering with #207, with an April 1972 cover date. Covers, of course, by Joe Kubert, unless otherwise noted.
My first Tarzan comic:
DC also picked up Korak’s numbering, though it didn’t last quite as long as Tarzan.
And Buscema got the rare opportunity to ink himself.
The first issue of the Marvel run I bought:
Of the handful of Marvel issues I had, this was my favorite:
Inks by Alfredo Alcala.
The series ended in October of 1979, but in 1983—in advance of the Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan film—Marvel released a 48-page graphic novel adaptation of the first Tarzan novel with a very nice cover by Charles Ren and excellent interior work by Dan Spiegle.
I didn’t see this when it came out, but the next year Marvel split it into a two-issue mini-series in the normal comic format, and I did get those. Again, with covers by Charles Ren.
There was a bit of a wait before another Tarzan series would appear.
2013AD and Mike McMahon returns to the front cover
Thanks for exposing us all to such a variety of stuff, through this, your articles, and your books.
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=265
The next two series were co-published by Semic International, a Swedish publisher. First came Tarzan: Love, Lies, and the Lost City, which was pretty good. It also marked the U.S. debut of Danish artists Peter Snejbjerg and Teddy Kristiansen.
I didn’t pick up the second co-published series, Tarzan: The Beckoning, but the seven-issue mini-series was some of Tom Yeates’ earliest work, and his first series. It’s a little rough in spots from what I’ve seen, but Yeates would draw Tarzan again down the road and do some beautiful work. His stuff harkens back to the Hal Foster era of the Tarzan newspaper strip—lush and illustrative.
But, his earliest work? He'd already been working in the industry for over a decade by that point -- he'd been the regular artist on Saga Of The Swamp Thing in the early 80's just before Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben came along.
Tarzan vs. Predator at the Earth’s Core was a surprisingly cool story written by Walt Simonson and art by Lee Weeks.
Tarzan/John Carter: Warlords of Mars wasn’t quite as good, but Bret Blevins’ artwork (covers and interiors) was gorgeous.
I did not pick up the ongoing series that followed, but here are some of the standout covers:
Painted by Arthur Suydam.
Pencils and inks by Mike Kaluta.
Pencils and inks by Mark Schultz.
One of the best Tarzan covers ever. Mark Schultz did this for a reprint of an early ’60s Russ Manning adaptation.
One of Dave Dorman’s covers for the four-issue Batman/Tarzan crossover.
And one of Humberto Ramos’ covers for the three-issue Superman/Tarzan crossover.
Last year, Dynamite Entertainment started their own Tarzan series, Lord of the Jungle. Just as with their Warlord of Mars series, Lord of the Jungle is an adaptation of the original novel, which is in the public domain. Both series are unauthorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., however, so they cannot uses “Tarzan” or “John Carter” in the title. I haven’t read Lord of the Jungle, but here are a couple of the more interesting covers.
Cover by Alex Ross.
Cover by Ryan Sook.
Cover by Francesco Francavilla.
And currently they’re doing a crossover mini-series.
Cover by Dan Panosian.
Being a small company, I'm sure we didn't pay him nearly as much as Dark Horse did, but he was very happy to accept a lot of copies of the other books we were publishing in addition to what we did pay.
The second is by Allen Anderson.
Saunders and Anderson were best friends after working together at Fawcett in the ’30s, and, of course, they both did many covers for the pulp magazines as well as the comics.
I haven’t read these books yet, but they’ve got some great artists doing stories, including Bernie Krigstein, Murphy Anderson, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Marv Stein, and John Prentice.
Captain Science ran for only seven issues, and it’s mostly forgettable stuff. It does, however, feature early work by Joe Orlando and Wally Wood—signed with a stylized “OW”—including two covers.