50 Years Ago This Month: Tales of Suspense #59. Captain America and Iron Man begin sharing billing with this issue featuring the first new solo Captain America story since 1954! Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers provide this famous cover.
50 Years Ago This Month: Tales of Suspense #59. Captain America and Iron Man begin sharing billing with this issue featuring the first new solo Captain America story since 1954! Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers provide this famous cover.
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There are so many "art" rules that get broken on this cover that the fact that it works makes it awesome.
Action Comics 406 November 1971 Art by the legendary team of Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson
Superman as a headless ghost carrying his head around like a sack of groceries and haunting himself with room for two other super-heroes in this book! This issue contained two original stories and one reprint.
Superman as a headless ghost carrying his head around like a sack of groceries and haunting himself with room for two other super-heroes in this book! This issue contained two original stories and one reprint.
This is everything I loved about the late silver-age! Oh, that comics were still issued like this!
Rai #0 (Valiant Comics) November 1992 Cover by David Lapham "The Blood of Heroes"
I've always liked this simply designed cover. It's dramatic yet simple. Inside, this issue covers Rai's history and gives a detailed account of everything from The Unity Saga until the creation of Rai and The Future Force as well as the origin story of Bloodshot.
Some folks have surmised that this cover was actually "swiped" from an OHOTMU Deluxe Edition #10 entry for The Punisher drawn by Mike Zeck. I definitely see the resemblance.
@Adam_Murdough hasn't gotten this far in the alphabet yet for us to follow along, but in the meantime you can judge for yourself if it was a swipe or not. I think it was.
HULK #6 September 2014 Variant cover art by Luke Ross
I completely missed this when it came out and just saw it today. I realize this is an even newer cover than my last post, and this one's a variant cover (which I often tend to miss). In this tale, which takes place after the events of Original Sin, the Hulk is not only very angry, he's also very smart. Sure we've seen this gimmick before, and he's even got a new nickname 'Doc Green' and I'm not reading this series anymore...
The Mark Bagley interior art doesn't come close to matching this "thinking Hulk" variant cover's quality (imo) and the regular cover by Gary Frank isn't much better (again imo).
Back to Bob Haney. Haney wrote the first official Sgt. Rock story, which appeared in Our Army at War #81 (Apr. 1959), featuring a cover (pencils and inks) by Jerry Grandenetti. There was an earlier story written by Robert Kanigher called “The Rock” in G.I. Combat #68 (Jan. 1959), which served as a prototype, but it was Haney who first gave voice to Frank Rock and the Joes of Easy Company.
In honor of the Flash's upcoming 75th anniversary, here's The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #112 June, 1969 Cover artist Bob Oksner
Jerry Lewis is assigned to watch over a tailor's shop where he discovers that the tailor makes costumes for supervillains. Jerry's nephew sidekick finds Abra Kadabra's wand and accidentally changes Jerry into the Flash causing all of the Flash's rogues to show up. Barry Allen eventually shows up and puts all his enemies in jail. If this doesn't sound adequately bizarre, Jerry also teamed up with Batman and Robin after appearing on the Adam West TV show and also appeared with Wonder Woman during her mod-phase.
The writer of this issue isn't credited, but some folks place the blame on E. Nelson Bridwell.
After writing almost exclusively war stories for DC in the late ’50s and 1960, Bob Haney finally got a change of pace when he was brought in to write Sea Devils. Bob Kanigher wrote the 13-page origin story, but Haney wrote the second story of the issue (each issue had two short Sea Devils tales) and most of the stories in the next three issues as well. Again, Haney helped develop and mold one of Kanigher’s creations.
Of course, the best thing about Sea Devils was the gorgeous Russ Heath artwork—some of his best in my opinion. Here’s Heath’s cover (pencils and inks) for Sea Devils #1 (Sept.-Oct. 1961).
After writing almost exclusively war stories for DC in the late ’50s and 1960, Bob Haney finally got a change of pace when he was brought in to write Sea Devils. Bob Kanigher wrote the 13-page origin story, but Haney wrote the second story of the issue (each issue had two short Sea Devils tales) and most of the stories in the next three issues as well. Again, Haney helped develop and mold one of Kanigher’s creations.
Of course, the best thing about Sea Devils was the gorgeous Russ Heath artwork—some of his best in my opinion. Here’s Heath’s cover (pencils and inks) for Sea Devils #1 (Sept.-Oct. 1961).
Do you know who colored the Sea Devils covers, and what technique they used? They never looked like the standard cut-film color separations on every other cover, yet they don't look full-color painted, either. They're quite striking.
After writing almost exclusively war stories for DC in the late ’50s and 1960, Bob Haney finally got a change of pace when he was brought in to write Sea Devils. Bob Kanigher wrote the 13-page origin story, but Haney wrote the second story of the issue (each issue had two short Sea Devils tales) and most of the stories in the next three issues as well. Again, Haney helped develop and mold one of Kanigher’s creations.
Of course, the best thing about Sea Devils was the gorgeous Russ Heath artwork—some of his best in my opinion. Here’s Heath’s cover (pencils and inks) for Sea Devils #1 (Sept.-Oct. 1961).
Do you know who colored the Sea Devils covers, and what technique they used? They never looked like the standard cut-film color separations on every other cover, yet they don't look full-color painted, either. They're quite striking.
The colorist was Jack Adler, but what really made these covers so different from the typical fare was that Heath added gray tones to his line art.
Adler used the standard comic book coloring practices of the time, using 25%, 50%, 75%, and/or 100% of the Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta plates to color the cover. But when the Black plate with Heath’s gray washes in a full range of tone was added to the mix, you end up with a somewhat painterly feel to the image. DC still saved money on the printing, using their limited color separations, but got a more sophisticated looking cover.
Heath, by the way, was not entirely happy with the results. He thought they looked too muddy.
So, yes, Jack Adler was the colorist, and he probably put a bit more thought into the work than usual, having to compensate for the dulling effect of the gray tones, but it was Heath who truly made those covers sing.
After writing almost exclusively war stories for DC in the late ’50s and 1960, Bob Haney finally got a change of pace when he was brought in to write Sea Devils. Bob Kanigher wrote the 13-page origin story, but Haney wrote the second story of the issue (each issue had two short Sea Devils tales) and most of the stories in the next three issues as well. Again, Haney helped develop and mold one of Kanigher’s creations.
Of course, the best thing about Sea Devils was the gorgeous Russ Heath artwork—some of his best in my opinion. Here’s Heath’s cover (pencils and inks) for Sea Devils #1 (Sept.-Oct. 1961).
Do you know who colored the Sea Devils covers, and what technique they used? They never looked like the standard cut-film color separations on every other cover, yet they don't look full-color painted, either. They're quite striking.
The colorist was Jack Adler, but what really made these covers so different from the typical fare was that Heath added gray tones to his line art.
Adler used the standard comic book coloring practices of the time, using 25%, 50%, 75%, and/or 100% of the Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta plates to color the cover. But when the Black plate with Heath’s gray washes in a full range of tone was added to the mix, you end up with a somewhat painterly feel to the image. DC still saved money on the printing, using their limited color separations, but got a more sophisticated looking cover.
Heath, by the way, was not entirely happy with the results. He thought they looked too muddy.
So, yes, Jack Adler was the colorist, and he probably put a bit more thought into the work than usual, having to compensate for the dulling effect of the gray tones, but it was Heath who truly made those covers sing.
Ah! I can see it, now... I've never seen one in person, or I maybe could have seen that. Thanks!
After his short stint on Sea Devils (and during for that matter), it was more war stories for Bob Haney. Finally, in 1963, Haney rejoined with artist Lee Elias to create a new backup feature for House of Secrets—Eclipso! Haney wrote every “Eclipso” story from its debut in #61 (Jul.-Aug. 1963) until the title’s end with #80 (Sept.-Oct. 1966). After issue #68, “Eclipso” ran in the lead spot more often than not, though he wasn't always on the cover (he’s only featured on eight of the twenty covers).
The stories are somewhat forgettable, but it’s worth seeking out the Showcase collection for the artwork alone. After a few issues of Lee Elias, Alex Toth came on to draw several stories. He was followed by Jack Sparling—something of a let-down from Toth, but still interesting.
Here’s Alex Toth’s one Eclipso cover, House of Secrets #67 (Jul.-Aug. 1964).
Yeah, Fiction House didn’t scrimp on their comic book covers like a lot of other publishers did. It helped that they also published a bunch of pulp magazines, and brought those same sensibilities to their comic covers.
Morning all! It's a lovely Wednesday morning here, so I'd thought I'd share one of my favourite Detective silver-age covers with you. I guess we've all moved on since this cover was first drawn! " />
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November 1971
Art by the legendary team of Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson
Superman as a headless ghost carrying his head around like a sack of groceries and haunting himself with room for two other super-heroes in this book! This issue contained two original stories and one reprint.
November 1992
Cover by David Lapham
"The Blood of Heroes"
I've always liked this simply designed cover. It's dramatic yet simple. Inside, this issue covers Rai's history and gives a detailed account of everything from The Unity Saga until the creation of Rai and The Future Force as well as the origin story of Bloodshot.
Some folks have surmised that this cover was actually "swiped" from an OHOTMU Deluxe Edition #10 entry for The Punisher drawn by Mike Zeck. I definitely see the resemblance.
@Adam_Murdough hasn't gotten this far in the alphabet yet for us to follow along, but in the meantime you can judge for yourself if it was a swipe or not. I think it was.
September 2014
Variant cover art by Luke Ross
I completely missed this when it came out and just saw it today. I realize this is an even newer cover than my last post, and this one's a variant cover (which I often tend to miss). In this tale, which takes place after the events of Original Sin, the Hulk is not only very angry, he's also very smart. Sure we've seen this gimmick before, and he's even got a new nickname 'Doc Green' and I'm not reading this series anymore...
The Mark Bagley interior art doesn't come close to matching this "thinking Hulk" variant cover's quality (imo) and the regular cover by Gary Frank isn't much better (again imo).
The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #112
June, 1969
Cover artist Bob Oksner
Jerry Lewis is assigned to watch over a tailor's shop where he discovers that the tailor makes costumes for supervillains. Jerry's nephew sidekick finds Abra Kadabra's wand and accidentally changes Jerry into the Flash causing all of the Flash's rogues to show up. Barry Allen eventually shows up and puts all his enemies in jail. If this doesn't sound adequately bizarre, Jerry also teamed up with Batman and Robin after appearing on the Adam West TV show and also appeared with Wonder Woman during her mod-phase.
The writer of this issue isn't credited, but some folks place the blame on E. Nelson Bridwell.
Of course, the best thing about Sea Devils was the gorgeous Russ Heath artwork—some of his best in my opinion. Here’s Heath’s cover (pencils and inks) for Sea Devils #1 (Sept.-Oct. 1961).
Adler used the standard comic book coloring practices of the time, using 25%, 50%, 75%, and/or 100% of the Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta plates to color the cover. But when the Black plate with Heath’s gray washes in a full range of tone was added to the mix, you end up with a somewhat painterly feel to the image. DC still saved money on the printing, using their limited color separations, but got a more sophisticated looking cover.
Heath, by the way, was not entirely happy with the results. He thought they looked too muddy.
So, yes, Jack Adler was the colorist, and he probably put a bit more thought into the work than usual, having to compensate for the dulling effect of the gray tones, but it was Heath who truly made those covers sing.
Picasso or Dr Caligari?
July 2013
Cover art Mike Mignola
The stories are somewhat forgettable, but it’s worth seeking out the Showcase collection for the artwork alone. After a few issues of Lee Elias, Alex Toth came on to draw several stories. He was followed by Jack Sparling—something of a let-down from Toth, but still interesting.
Here’s Alex Toth’s one Eclipso cover, House of Secrets #67 (Jul.-Aug. 1964).
Summer 1953
Cover: Maurice Whitman
Classic cover. Nothing remotely resembling this cover was found on the interior :)
More on Maurice Whitman's career here