May 1945: When I was a kid, I had a Raggedy Ann & Andy comic. I don't remember much about it other than I liked the artwork, and the story was actually pretty good with a slightly creepy edge to it. So here's Four Color #72 with a cover by George Kerr.
Like Voight, Kerr was an older man when he entered the comic book industry. Born in Brooklyn in 1870, his first professional work was as a staff artist for the New York Herald, starting in 1890. Two years later he left to become an illustrator for The New York American magazine, which he continued for many years. He also illustrated many children’s books throughout his career, including several he created and wrote himself. His illustrations for Peter Rabbit and Frank Baum’s American Fairytales in particular won him a large number of fans, and he was very well off.
And then the Great Depression came, and he lost much of his work, plus his eyesight started failing. In 1940 he started drawing Raggedy Ann & Andy comics for Dell, but his eyesight got much worse in 1946, and by 1950 he was blind. It's a shame, because while his style was a bit outdated towards the latter part of his career, he was a very good cartoonist.
June 1945: This month is a no-brainer. What else would I go with but Dick Briefer’s cover to Frankenstein #1, spinning out of the pages of Prize Comics. Briefer was part of the comic book industry from the very beginning. His first published work appeared in Jerry Iger’s Wow, What a Magazine! (the same place Will Eisner got his start), one of the precursors to the comic book format. Briefer was never a staff member of the Eisner-Iger Shop, but he did freelance work for them for the first few years of his career. Though Briefer created several characters, Frankenstein is easily his greatest achievement. When Frankenstein (which at the time was back to its horror origins) was canceled amidst the Kefauver hearings and its subsequent uproar, Briefer left comics and went into advertising. Sigh.
Coming up on September 30th is 2000AD #1950 which is one of the twice yearly jumping on Progs with all new stories including a new Judge Dredd story by his creator John Wagner and a cover image by Chris Burnham.
Digital copies will be available on the 2000AD online store or through their iTunes and Android apps.
Superman #416 Cover: Eduardo Barreto February 1986
While Superman is chasing Luthor, he sees a hologram message from his future self, almost 100 years in the future. The future Superman convinces his younger self to temporarily cease his pursuit of Luthor, as Luthor will soon save a child who will grow up to one day cure him of his obsessive hatred for Superman; No longer focused on defeating Superman, Luthor will then go on to benefit mankind with his inventions.
July 1945: Walter Johnson wasn't a great artist (a better inker than penciler), but his cover for 4 Most #15 is nice. At the very least it's much different than the typical fare of the day.
Johnson only drew comics from the mid-’40s to the early ’50s. Before working in comics he was an inker on the Li’l Abner strip, which he went back to after leaving comics.
Superman #416 Cover: Eduardo Barreto February 1986
While Superman is chasing Luthor, he sees a hologram message from his future self, almost 100 years in the future. The future Superman convinces his younger self to temporarily cease his pursuit of Luthor, as Luthor will soon save a child who will grow up to one day cure him of his obsessive hatred for Superman; No longer focused on defeating Superman, Luthor will then go on to benefit mankind with his inventions.
I would I.love nda like to read a SuperHermit miniseries. I really like that cover.
My Love #23 May 1973 Cover artists: John Romita, Morrie Kuramoto, and Sam Rosen
The talent inside this romance comic is a literal "who's who" of comics at the time. Frank Giacoia, Gene Colan, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, John Romita Sr, and of course Stan Lee! I never even glanced at these kinds of books back in the Bronze Age, but am fascinated that most of these guys cut their teeth on romance books, and demonstrate their talent with some of the best art you never saw right here.
My Love #23 May 1973 Cover artists: John Romita, Morrie Kuramoto, and Sam Rosen
The talent inside this romance comic is a literal "who's who" of comics at the time. Frank Giacoia, Gene Colan, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, John Romita Sr, and of course Stan Lee! I never even glanced at these kinds of books back in the Bronze Age, but am fascinated that most of these guys cut their teeth on romance books, and demonstrate their talent with some of the best art you never saw right here.
Several artists seemed to do far better work in the romance era than they did in the superhero era. Don Heck, for one, was magnificent at drawing beautiful girls in pretty clothes, but just didn't seem to have much interest in drawing dudes in costumes fighting each other.
For anyone interested, in light of all the discussion, I thought I'd build on the splash that @rebis kindly tracked down and show the first 3 pages... in case it motivates anyone to look for the issue. All those 100-pagers are fun, too...
My Love #23 May 1973 Cover artists: John Romita, Morrie Kuramoto, and Sam Rosen
The talent inside this romance comic is a literal "who's who" of comics at the time. Frank Giacoia, Gene Colan, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, John Romita Sr, and of course Stan Lee! I never even glanced at these kinds of books back in the Bronze Age, but am fascinated that most of these guys cut their teeth on romance books, and demonstrate their talent with some of the best art you never saw right here.
Several artists seemed to do far better work in the romance era than they did in the superhero era. Don Heck, for one, was magnificent at drawing beautiful girls in pretty clothes, but just didn't seem to have much interest in drawing dudes in costumes fighting each other.
Heck preferred drawing war stories and westerns (that's how he started in comics, and they were what he was best at), but he enjoyed doing “Iron Man”—at least up until the point Stan told him to make Pepper prettier and Happy more handsome. But, really, I think if there is any lack of enthusiasm visible in his superhero work, it comes from when he was saddled with lousy inkers, or good inkers that just didn't work over his pencils. Look at Heck’s Flash stories where he inked himself, and he went to town. They're as good as just about anything else he did.
Sept. 1945: Blue Bolt #59 has a very nice cover by James Wilcox. Wilcox got a bit of a late start in his art career, being unable to attend art school until after he returned home from serving in the Army during WWI. He was 28 when he started out in advertising, and 38 by the time he started illustrating for pulp magazines in 1933.
Fun fact: Later in 1933 he became the first artist to draw Conan, as he illustrated the first Conan story in Weird Tales (Dec. 1933).
Four years later he began drawing comics on the side, which he continued until 1948, primarily the “Dick Cole” feature in Blue Bolt.
Oct. 1945:Four Color #85 features a cover by Dan Gormley. I have a 1951 issue of Four Color that also features a Dan Gormley Andy Panda story, and he's an above average cartoonist. Maybe not a Walt Kelly or someone of that level, but better than most of the humor artists of the time period. And he was a versatile artist too, as he also did superhero and adventure features.
My Love #23 May 1973 Cover artists: John Romita, Morrie Kuramoto, and Sam Rosen
The talent inside this romance comic is a literal "who's who" of comics at the time. Frank Giacoia, Gene Colan, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, John Romita Sr, and of course Stan Lee! I never even glanced at these kinds of books back in the Bronze Age, but am fascinated that most of these guys cut their teeth on romance books, and demonstrate their talent with some of the best art you never saw right here.
Several artists seemed to do far better work in the romance era than they did in the superhero era. Don Heck, for one, was magnificent at drawing beautiful girls in pretty clothes, but just didn't seem to have much interest in drawing dudes in costumes fighting each other.
Heck preferred drawing war stories and westerns (that's how he started in comics, and they were what he was best at), but he enjoyed doing “Iron Man”—at least up until the point Stan told him to make Pepper prettier and Happy more handsome. But, really, I think if there is any lack of enthusiasm visible in his superhero work, it comes from when he was saddled with lousy inkers, or good inkers that just didn't work over his pencils. Look at Heck’s Flash stories where he inked himself, and he went to town. They're as good as just about anything else he did.
Boy, I agree with that. I loved Heck's work and thought that his best work shone when he did his own inking. But I enjoyed his layouts and storytelling as well, and thought that he turned in a good visual story even with the poor inkers. I remember being surprised when I discovered that not many other fans were as fond of his work as I was. My reaction was always, "How can you NOT love this guy's work?" Years later, I still think of him as THE Iron Man artist, or as THE Avengers artist.
(To be fair, there -were- times when it seemed that he was less than inspired by what he was drawing...)
That cover was painted by Ernest Nordli. Nordli primarily worked in animation as a designer and layout artist, but he moonlighted in the ’50s as a cover artist for Dell. He only worked on their western titles, mostly Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. He was the art director for Dumbo and one of the segments in Fantasia, a designer for 101 Dalmations, and the layout artist for Sleeping Beauty and several Disney and Warner Brothers shorts. In other words, the guy knew what he was doing at the art board.
Tomb Of Dracula was one of my absolute favorite titles in the 70's -- I had nearly a full run. And this cover from November 1974 by Gil Kane and Tom Palmer is among my all-time favorite covers.
I saw Tom Palmer at a panel at the Baltimore Comic Con this past weekend, being interviewed by Jose Villarrubia -- it was so great hearing him talk about working with Colan, John Buscema, Neal Adams, etc... fantastic panel.
Dec. 1945: Having perhaps not the best cover of the month, but certainly a very good one, Picture Stories from American History #1 was the first comic book to appear under the EC banner (Picture Stories from the Bible #3—continuing a title Max Gaines had kept the rights to when he sold All-American to DC in 1945—was the second). Of course, at this point EC stood for Educational Comics rather than Entertaining Comics, and those early EC books tried to live up to that name.
The cover artist, Allen Simon, also drew all the interior stories—about 51 pages of comics, plus some spot illustrations. Simon worked primarily for Marvel throughout the ’40s, mostly drawing Sub-Mariner and Human Torch stories, though he also drew several of the early issues of Classics Illustrated (then still called Classic Comics). Likely it was those Classics that got him the job for EC.
Jan. 1946: Not the best drawn cover of the month, but the most interesting design. The artist is probably Bud Thompson, who was the primary artist Fawcett called upon to replace Mac Raboy on the Captain Marvel Jr. features. It was right around this time that Raboy left comics for to do full-page illustrations for The Philadelphia Enquirer, and in early 1948 Raboy began drawing the Sunday Flash Gordon strips.
Thompson, who had started his career at Fawcett around 1930 when they were still based in Minnesota (he has illustrations in Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang magazine), stuck with them until they closed shop in 1953. After that Thompson was only able to get a few jobs for Dell before leaving comics behind. He moved to Connecticut and helped open the Famous Artists School (principally founded by Albert Dorne and Norman Rockwell), and also became one of the teachers. He did a variety of illustration jobs over the years, including some for Playboy as well as for Fawcett books and magazines.
But arguably his greatest creation was Aunt Fanny Marvel, a member of the Marvel Family who only appeared in office sketches for the amusement of the staff. Her costume was the trademark Marvel cape and boots... and nothing else.
Comments
Like Voight, Kerr was an older man when he entered the comic book industry. Born in Brooklyn in 1870, his first professional work was as a staff artist for the New York Herald, starting in 1890. Two years later he left to become an illustrator for The New York American magazine, which he continued for many years. He also illustrated many children’s books throughout his career, including several he created and wrote himself. His illustrations for Peter Rabbit and Frank Baum’s American Fairytales in particular won him a large number of fans, and he was very well off.
And then the Great Depression came, and he lost much of his work, plus his eyesight started failing. In 1940 he started drawing Raggedy Ann & Andy comics for Dell, but his eyesight got much worse in 1946, and by 1950 he was blind. It's a shame, because while his style was a bit outdated towards the latter part of his career, he was a very good cartoonist.
Digital copies will be available on the 2000AD online store or through their iTunes and Android apps.
Cover: Eduardo Barreto
February 1986
While Superman is chasing Luthor, he sees a hologram message from his future self, almost 100 years in the future. The future Superman convinces his younger self to temporarily cease his pursuit of Luthor, as Luthor will soon save a child who will grow up to one day cure him of his obsessive hatred for Superman; No longer focused on defeating Superman, Luthor will then go on to benefit mankind with his inventions.
Toth's only Batman story is a goddamned masterpiece.
Johnson only drew comics from the mid-’40s to the early ’50s. Before working in comics he was an inker on the Li’l Abner strip, which he went back to after leaving comics.
Available tomorrow
May 1973
Cover artists: John Romita, Morrie Kuramoto, and Sam Rosen
The talent inside this romance comic is a literal "who's who" of comics at the time. Frank Giacoia, Gene Colan, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, John Romita Sr, and of course Stan Lee! I never even glanced at these kinds of books back in the Bronze Age, but am fascinated that most of these guys cut their teeth on romance books, and demonstrate their talent with some of the best art you never saw right here.
Fun fact: Later in 1933 he became the first artist to draw Conan, as he illustrated the first Conan story in Weird Tales (Dec. 1933).
Four years later he began drawing comics on the side, which he continued until 1948, primarily the “Dick Cole” feature in Blue Bolt.
(To be fair, there -were- times when it seemed that he was less than inspired by what he was drawing...)
damn
Guardians of the Galaxy #21
awesome cover
I saw Tom Palmer at a panel at the Baltimore Comic Con this past weekend, being interviewed by Jose Villarrubia -- it was so great hearing him talk about working with Colan, John Buscema, Neal Adams, etc... fantastic panel.
The cover artist, Allen Simon, also drew all the interior stories—about 51 pages of comics, plus some spot illustrations. Simon worked primarily for Marvel throughout the ’40s, mostly drawing Sub-Mariner and Human Torch stories, though he also drew several of the early issues of Classics Illustrated (then still called Classic Comics). Likely it was those Classics that got him the job for EC.
Thompson, who had started his career at Fawcett around 1930 when they were still based in Minnesota (he has illustrations in Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang magazine), stuck with them until they closed shop in 1953. After that Thompson was only able to get a few jobs for Dell before leaving comics behind. He moved to Connecticut and helped open the Famous Artists School (principally founded by Albert Dorne and Norman Rockwell), and also became one of the teachers. He did a variety of illustration jobs over the years, including some for Playboy as well as for Fawcett books and magazines.
But arguably his greatest creation was Aunt Fanny Marvel, a member of the Marvel Family who only appeared in office sketches for the amusement of the staff. Her costume was the trademark Marvel cape and boots... and nothing else.