Sept. 1953: This cover for Marvel Family #89 by Kurt Schaffenberger marked the end of an era—the final appearance of Captain Marvel and company (for the next 20 years anyway). Fawcett would publish only one more comic, an issue of Fawcett’s Funny Animals, before closing the doors on its comic book publishing division.
National Comics (DC) had sued Fawcett way back in 1941 for copyright infringement. When the case finally came to trial, the lawsuit was thrown out basically on a technicality. (National failed to file copyright notices for some of the original Superman newspaper strips.) But National appealed in 1951, and this time things went in their favor. With comic sales in decline, Fawcett decided it was no longer worth fighting the case, settled for $400,000, and began shutting down its comic book operation.
As for Schaffenberger, he got his start in the business at Jack Binder’s studio in 1941, where he produced work for Fawcett—mostly “Ibis the Invincible” to begin with and later mainly “Captain Marvel,” “Marvel Family,” and “Captain Marvel, Jr.” stories. When Fawcett dropped their comics line in 1953, Schaffenberger was sent scrambling for work, but it was hard to come by. He worked for anyone and (nearly) everyone, including drawing a handful of Captain America stories. He even tried selling a newspaper strip idea he’d come up with about a high school baseball team. After two years of this, he finally latched on with ACG where he quickly became their top artist.
In 1957, Otto Binder—younger brother of Jack Binder, and a prolific writer for Fawcett—recommended Schaffenberger to Superman editor Mort Weisinger, who was looking for a regular artist for the Lois Lane book. Weisinger was many things, but he wasn’t an idiot, and Schaffenberger proved to be the perfect artist for the job. But that’s a story for later.
Oct. 1953: This month was the peak of the short-lived 3-D comic book craze—13 different titles were published in 3-D—and what better representative than Captain 3-D #1. The cover and interiors were all penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by the great Mort Meskin with some help from Steve Ditko (and written by Joe Simon and Kirby)—talk about a powerhouse creative team!
3-D movies were in full bloom when Joe Kubert and his partner Norm Maurer created the first 3-D comic book, Three Dimension Comics #1, in the summer of 1953 to great success. In two printings, the issue sold two and a half million copies. Naturally it didn’t take long before every publisher was trying to cash in with 3-D books of their own. But almost as soon as it started, the fad quickly skidded to a halt. By the end of the year, sales of 3-D comics were in the tank, and by the summer of ’54 they were nowhere to be seen.
@mwhitt80 The Green guy with the rosette of Sirius on his forehead is Tharg, the fictional editor of 2000AD since 1977. It was sort of required for British boys' comics back then. Now regarded either as an annoying convention that should be got rid of, or with a certain knowing, amused enjoyment by fans.
The character with the helmet is Johnny Alpha AKA Strontium Dog. Like Dredd he was co-created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra and is a very interesting character indeed, particularly because it's the strip that allowed Wagner, Ezquerra and Alan Grant to do something similar to what Lee and Kirby did in the 60s with the X-Men and use radiation induced mutants as a metaphor to look at predjudice and bigotry in society. Some great Strontium Dog stories in the past, and watch out for a fan film coming out on youtube in May, ny the people who made the Judge Minty film.
Strontium Dog has had some reprint presence here in the States, most notably the Fleetway series back in the late ’80s, which you can sometimes find in the cheap bins. It’s not one I’ve read much of though.
But it's gotta be in the top three or four longest-running series in 2000AD history (if you count the stories after they killed him off), yes, @Caliban? I’ve never been a regular reader, but when I think 2000AD, I think Dredd, Rogue Trooper, and Strontium Dog as their Mt. Rushmore. (Maybe Tharg would be the fourth head?) I'd personally rather read “D.R. & Quinch” or “Zenith” or “The Ballad of Halo Jones”, but those three seem to me to be the backbone of the company.
I've read the first four volumes of the Judge Dredd Complete Casfiles (own up to 9), the judge child saga is in volume 4. So I'm not completely ignorant of 2000ad, but those are just Dredd stories. I also picked up the two Rogue Trooper volumes a few years back.
It looks like Strontium Dog has something similar called agency files. You can get for 15-20 used on Amazon so I picked up volume. Thanks guys.
@nweathington Strontium Dog actually started in another comic called Starlord which was folded into 2000AD in issue 86. Certainly Strontium Dog is one of the longest running and most popular strips in the comic and would be up there on 2000AD's Rushmore.
Picked up the Son of Satan Classic TPB for -- no surprise to many of you -- the Steve Gerber run that's sort of in the middle of the book. As it turned out, I really couldn't get into the stories before and after Gerber's run, but did enjoy revisiting the Gerber stories from Marvel Spotlight, some of which I'd read as a kid, and some not.
The arc that ended the Gerber storyline involved Daimon having his fortune read with tarot cards, which then come true (quite literally) over the remaining issues (interior art by Sal Buscema). There were also two solid issues prior to those with beautiful art by Gene Colan. Those two story arcs were the highlight for me.
Here's a cover from the "tarot" storyline:
Marvel Spotlight #21 (April 1975) Pencils: Gil Kane Inks: Tom Palmer
To quote the well known Jamie D/CGS aphorism "Every comic is improved by an ape on the cover". Jake Lynch provides a gorilla twist on the DRedd 2012 movie poster.
To quote the well known Jamie D/CGS aphorism "Every comic is improved by an ape on the cover". Jake Lynch provides a gorilla twist on the DRedd 2012 movie poster.
Nov. 1953: Back in December 2015 of this thread, I mentioned Dan DeCarlo and Millie the Model, and that I'd likely post one of those covers down the road. Well, it's past due, I'd say, so here’s Millie the Model #51 by Dan DeCarlo. Millie the Model began in 1945 as part of the “career girl” subgenre of humor books. Back then it was drawn in a more straight style, but that changed when Dan DeCarlo took over the book with issue #16 (Feb. 1948), beginning a 10-year run on the title.
DeCarlo broke into comics with Atlas less than a year before taking over Millie, as an artist on another “career girl” book, Jeanie. His work was still rough at that point, barely recognizable as being his. When he took over Millie, he slowly became more and more stylized and confident, and by Millie the Model #20 his work starts to look much more like the patented DeCarlo style. With issue #18, he was not only drawing almost every story in each issue (with Stan Lee writing), but he was signing his name as well. Before long, DeCarlo was writing the stories too. And as Millie was bimonthly, DeCarlo still had time to do other odd jobs for Atlas. In 1951 he began working regularly on My Friend Irma, doing covers as well as some interior work.
He also began to branch out to work for other publishers that year, including a few small jobs for Archie (which didn't pay well), Pines, and Ziff-Davis. He even did some work for Shoney’s Big Boy comics and one-panel cartoons for Atlas owner Martin Goodman’s men’s magazine Humorama during the ’50s. In 1955 a new comic called Homer the Happy Ghost replaced My Friend Irma on DeCarlo’s work schedule, but Millie and its spinoffs were his mainstays until 1958. At that point Atlas was in trouble, and unable to give DeCarlo the amount of work he wanted. So DeCarlo began splitting his time between Atlas and Archie. By the end of 1959, DeCarlo was working mainly for Archie, only doing a few small jobs for Atlas here and there. Millie the Model #94 (cover-dated Jan. 1960) featured his last work for Marvel until 1982, when he did a cover and short story for Smurfs #1. (And he did co-create the Willy Lumpkin newspaper strip with Stan Lee in 1960, but it didn’t last long.)
From that point on, DeCarlo was an Archie man... until he wasn’t. But we’ll get to that a bit later.
Dec. 1953: Success breeds imitation, and Mad was very successful. By now the imitators had begun hitting the stands, and this month alone produced Charlton’s Eh! #2, Atlas’ Crazy #4 and Wild #2, and EC’s Panic #1—because if you can’t imitate yourself, who can you imitate? Eh! and Crazy only lasted seven issues each, and Wild only four. Of the four, Panic stuck around the longest at twelve issues. But Crazy would be revived in the ’70s, first as a comic, and then—à la Mad—as a magazine. The magazine had a fairly lengthy run of 94 issues—a drop in the bucket when compared to Mad though.
This cover is by Joe Maneely, showing a bit of his versatility. Humor wasn’t his forte, but he could hold his own.
Berni Wrightson’s first published comic cover was for the magazine format Web of Horror #3 (Apr. 1970). Below is the original painting and the printed cover.
Wrightson’s first cover for Marvel came a few months later, Chamber of Darkness #6 (Oct. 1970). You can really see the Jack Davis influence in the human figures.
Wrightson had already drawn several short anthology stories for DC by the time this cover, his first for DC, was published. Here’s DC 100-Page Super Spectacular #4 (June 1971).
Wrightson’s first venture into superhero comics (I don’t count the first Swamp Thing story, as it was just meant as a one-off horror story), Detective Comics #425 (July 1972). Wrightson was one of the first artists to really play with the length of Batman’s cape for dramatic effect.
Comments
National Comics (DC) had sued Fawcett way back in 1941 for copyright infringement. When the case finally came to trial, the lawsuit was thrown out basically on a technicality. (National failed to file copyright notices for some of the original Superman newspaper strips.) But National appealed in 1951, and this time things went in their favor. With comic sales in decline, Fawcett decided it was no longer worth fighting the case, settled for $400,000, and began shutting down its comic book operation.
As for Schaffenberger, he got his start in the business at Jack Binder’s studio in 1941, where he produced work for Fawcett—mostly “Ibis the Invincible” to begin with and later mainly “Captain Marvel,” “Marvel Family,” and “Captain Marvel, Jr.” stories. When Fawcett dropped their comics line in 1953, Schaffenberger was sent scrambling for work, but it was hard to come by. He worked for anyone and (nearly) everyone, including drawing a handful of Captain America stories. He even tried selling a newspaper strip idea he’d come up with about a high school baseball team. After two years of this, he finally latched on with ACG where he quickly became their top artist.
In 1957, Otto Binder—younger brother of Jack Binder, and a prolific writer for Fawcett—recommended Schaffenberger to Superman editor Mort Weisinger, who was looking for a regular artist for the Lois Lane book. Weisinger was many things, but he wasn’t an idiot, and Schaffenberger proved to be the perfect artist for the job. But that’s a story for later.
3-D movies were in full bloom when Joe Kubert and his partner Norm Maurer created the first 3-D comic book, Three Dimension Comics #1, in the summer of 1953 to great success. In two printings, the issue sold two and a half million copies. Naturally it didn’t take long before every publisher was trying to cash in with 3-D books of their own. But almost as soon as it started, the fad quickly skidded to a halt. By the end of the year, sales of 3-D comics were in the tank, and by the summer of ’54 they were nowhere to be seen.
Carlos Ezquerra
and David Aja
Who are the other two characters with dredd in the Ezquerra cover?
The character with the helmet is Johnny Alpha AKA Strontium Dog. Like Dredd he was co-created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra and is a very interesting character indeed, particularly because it's the strip that allowed Wagner, Ezquerra and Alan Grant to do something similar to what Lee and Kirby did in the 60s with the X-Men and use radiation induced mutants as a metaphor to look at predjudice and bigotry in society. Some great Strontium Dog stories in the past, and watch out for a fan film coming out on youtube in May, ny the people who made the Judge Minty film.
But it's gotta be in the top three or four longest-running series in 2000AD history (if you count the stories after they killed him off), yes, @Caliban? I’ve never been a regular reader, but when I think 2000AD, I think Dredd, Rogue Trooper, and Strontium Dog as their Mt. Rushmore. (Maybe Tharg would be the fourth head?) I'd personally rather read “D.R. & Quinch” or “Zenith” or “The Ballad of Halo Jones”, but those three seem to me to be the backbone of the company.
It looks like Strontium Dog has something similar called agency files. You can get for 15-20 used on Amazon so I picked up volume. Thanks guys.
Cover by Val Semeiks
The arc that ended the Gerber storyline involved Daimon having his fortune read with tarot cards, which then come true (quite literally) over the remaining issues (interior art by Sal Buscema). There were also two solid issues prior to those with beautiful art by Gene Colan. Those two story arcs were the highlight for me.
Here's a cover from the "tarot" storyline:
Marvel Spotlight #21 (April 1975)
Pencils: Gil Kane
Inks: Tom Palmer
Jake Lynch provides a gorilla twist on the DRedd 2012 movie poster.
April 1971
Don Heck and Dick Giordano
DeCarlo broke into comics with Atlas less than a year before taking over Millie, as an artist on another “career girl” book, Jeanie. His work was still rough at that point, barely recognizable as being his. When he took over Millie, he slowly became more and more stylized and confident, and by Millie the Model #20 his work starts to look much more like the patented DeCarlo style. With issue #18, he was not only drawing almost every story in each issue (with Stan Lee writing), but he was signing his name as well. Before long, DeCarlo was writing the stories too. And as Millie was bimonthly, DeCarlo still had time to do other odd jobs for Atlas. In 1951 he began working regularly on My Friend Irma, doing covers as well as some interior work.
He also began to branch out to work for other publishers that year, including a few small jobs for Archie (which didn't pay well), Pines, and Ziff-Davis. He even did some work for Shoney’s Big Boy comics and one-panel cartoons for Atlas owner Martin Goodman’s men’s magazine Humorama during the ’50s. In 1955 a new comic called Homer the Happy Ghost replaced My Friend Irma on DeCarlo’s work schedule, but Millie and its spinoffs were his mainstays until 1958. At that point Atlas was in trouble, and unable to give DeCarlo the amount of work he wanted. So DeCarlo began splitting his time between Atlas and Archie. By the end of 1959, DeCarlo was working mainly for Archie, only doing a few small jobs for Atlas here and there. Millie the Model #94 (cover-dated Jan. 1960) featured his last work for Marvel until 1982, when he did a cover and short story for Smurfs #1. (And he did co-create the Willy Lumpkin newspaper strip with Stan Lee in 1960, but it didn’t last long.)
From that point on, DeCarlo was an Archie man... until he wasn’t. But we’ll get to that a bit later.
March 1957
Gil Kane & Bernard Sachs
Here is Mike Kaluta’s version (Sept./Oct. 1972) of the Kane/Sachs cover for the reprint of the story, just for comparison.
This cover is by Joe Maneely, showing a bit of his versatility. Humor wasn’t his forte, but he could hold his own.
Ernie Chan