On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Blue Bolt Vol 3 #7 December 1942 Cover art by Ray Gill (I think, perhaps @nweathington can confirm?)
No, it's Harold De Lay, who among other things illustrated several Blue Bolt interior stories. Ray Gill wrote some of those stories, which probably caused the credit confusion. Ray Gill (brother of writer Joe Gill) was also an artist and editor. He drew a few adventure stories, but he had a slicker, cartoonier style, and was better known art-wise for his humor work, which of course was completely cartoony.
Sept. 1948: It's another John Stanley cover, this time for Marge’s Little Lulu #5. This bi-monthly series ran for 164 issues, ending in 1962. John Stanley had long since left the book by then though.
This was a well-used gag, but Stanley flipped it with Lulu as the aggressor, and the postures and expressions here, particularly with Lulu, sell the joke brilliantly.
Sept. 1948: It's another John Stanley cover, this time for Marge’s Little Lulu #5. This bi-monthly series ran for 164 issues, ending in 1962. John Stanley had long since left the book by then though.
This was a well-used gag, but Stanley flipped it with Lulu as the aggressor, and the postures and expressions here, particularly with Lulu, sell the joke brilliantly.
Hoping to post up a holiday (non-custom calendar) cover this weekend, once I get time to scan it...
For August, I went with Captain America #157 (January 1973 with pencils by Sal Buscema and art by John Verpoorten). I don't know who wrote the little "22" in the Falcon's white circle, but it looks like my grandfather's handwriting. Of course, inside I traced over many panels in ink myself, so the "22" doesn't make any difference really. ;)
Yes, the Cap cover should have been July, but I wanted the Sub-Mariner cover in July! The benefit of it being my own custom calendar is I could do stupid stuff I wanted to do. (ha)
Oct. 1948: I’m really torn this month. Not that there are a lot of truly great covers, but there are several fairly strong covers that appeal to me for different reasons. There's Carl Barks’ cover for Four Color #199 featuring Donald and his nephews. There’s Reed Crandall’s expertly drawn (but frankly a little boring) cover for Modern Comics #58 featuring Blackhawk in the clutches of Madame Butterfly. There’s Ken Bald’s cover for Sub-Mariner #28 that prominently features a figure of Namora that is quite lovely in spots and a bit off in other spots. But I'm instead going with a different Ken Bald cover: Sun Girl #2.
I mentioned Sun Girl a couple of posts back. A bimonthly series which lasted only three issues, Sun Girl featured a heroine dubbed “the Mysterious Beauty,” and boy, she lived up to the moniker. Like quite a few other Golden Age heroes, Sun Girl is never given an origin story, and her abilities are never quite defined. She knows some martial arts, appears to have super-speed (though it's unclear exactly how fast she is), and carries a lariat for emergencies. She gets her name from the sunbeam ray device she wears on her wrist. She also appeared in a few other Marvel books, most notably as a replacement sidekick for Toro (who had to go on leave to tend to his sick mother) in the last few issues of Human Torch, but even there she remained a mystery. And seven months after her first appearance, she was gone, not to be seen again until a 1990 Human Torch miniseries by (who else?) Roy Thomas.
Anyway, while the drawing on the cover isn't quite A-level, it’s a solid B+. I like the juxtaposition of the more illustrative Sun Girl figure and the somewhat cartoony male passengers, all reading about Sun Girl while she stands in their midst.
And just to counterbalance the slight preponderance of US Christmas covers here, here's UK's own Viz Comic's Christmas 2010 comic cover. Art by Graham Dury.
For November on the custom calendar, one of my all-time favorite "childhood" comic books. From April 1972, when I was about 6, a cover by John Severin (pencils/inks), who also penciled the interior (with interior inks by his sister, Marie).
First appearance of Santa Claus on a comic book cover, Famous Funnies #5 by Victor Pazmiño from December 1934. Pazmiño was born in Ecuador, but came to America as an infant, eventually graduating from the famous Pratt Institute. Though he started as a newspaper strip artist, he became a regular contributor to the new medium of comic books starting with the cover of the second comic book published, Famous Funnies #2. Of course, Famous Funnies was almost entirely made up of reprints of newspaper strips, but Pazmiño drew nearly ever cover from issue #2-65. He also wrote and drew original one-pagers—“Goofie Gags” and “Seaweed Sam”—in all but a couple of those issues. He also did humor work for other publishers, but was mostly out of comics by the end of 1946. There a handful of jobs in 1947 and ’48, and a few more in 1955, and that was the end of his comic book career.
He was never a great cartoonist, but he was one of the pioneers of the field.
I'm thinking it's either some random production artist imitating Romita, probably using a style guide as reference, or possibly Romita layouts or pencils with a production artist inking him. The faces and figures look like Romita's work, but they're too stiff and the inking isn't as strong as his tended to be.
For December in my custom calendar for 2016, I went with Walt Disney Showcase #9 (1970 - pencils and inks by Al Hubbard), which does a pretty good job of adapting and compressing the entire film into a single issue.
So, this cover really has nothing to do with the holidays, but I still put it in December, mainly because of the happy memories of family members it evokes. The film was re-released to theaters in January 1969, and my grandfather took me to see it in the theater something on the order of seven times. (That's the family story, but it seems hard for me to believe it was actually SEVEN. I was so little, he had to hold the theater folding seat down so it didn't flip up with me in it.) So, the comic got a lot of love, as did the "Soundtrack LP" which I still have around here somewhere, even though I have no way to play it...
On the Christmas front, I DO have an ornament that's those two puppies playing tug of war, like on this cover.
OK, joining in the holiday covers at the last minute! (Just like last minute holiday shopping.) I think this is the only remaining holiday cover I have in my collection; as you can see it was "handled" a bit back in the day; more tape than comic. No actual Santa Clauses were harmed in the making of this comic. (Well, maybe one fictional department store one.)
Justice League #110 from (cover date) March-April 1974 (so release date, December 1973, I believe) with pencils/inks by Nick Cardy...
The cover below is from the first comic book appearance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1950). DC released one of these each year from 1950 through 1961, with Rube Grossman doing the bulk of the work, covers and interiors, throughout the run. GCD has Grossman as the probable artist of this cover. However, he usually drew Rudolph’s nose a bit longer than on this cover, and with a bend, and his Santa here is a bit different than work known to be his as well (Grossman also drew a seasonal Rudolph newspaper strip for a few years, which he signed). But this would have been his first time drawing the characters, and he could well have tweaked his designs later. And Grossman drew with a fairly dead line, a quality this cover certainly has. So I can neither confirm nor deny the credit with any certainty.
Grossman started out in advertising, then moved to animation in the 1930s. In 1943 he began working in the comic book field, doing a few humor jobs for Standard, Dell, and ACG. In early 1945 he went all in and began drawing funny animal stories for DC, where he spent the majority of his comic book career, most notably on the features “Nutsy Squirrel,” “The Three Mouseketeers,” and “Peter Porkchops.”
In 1958 he set up a studio with Otto Feuer and Graham Place doing merchandising art, but he kept doing comics for DC and later Western during that time. He also got back into animation as a director for Felix the Cat and Mighty Hercules before his death in 1964.
Comments
This was a well-used gag, but Stanley flipped it with Lulu as the aggressor, and the postures and expressions here, particularly with Lulu, sell the joke brilliantly.
Howard the Duck Magazine #3
February 1980
Cover art by Jack Davis
For August, I went with Captain America #157 (January 1973 with pencils by Sal Buscema and art by John Verpoorten). I don't know who wrote the little "22" in the Falcon's white circle, but it looks like my grandfather's handwriting. Of course, inside I traced over many panels in ink myself, so the "22" doesn't make any difference really. ;)
Yes, the Cap cover should have been July, but I wanted the Sub-Mariner cover in July! The benefit of it being my own custom calendar is I could do stupid stuff I wanted to do. (ha)
I mentioned Sun Girl a couple of posts back. A bimonthly series which lasted only three issues, Sun Girl featured a heroine dubbed “the Mysterious Beauty,” and boy, she lived up to the moniker. Like quite a few other Golden Age heroes, Sun Girl is never given an origin story, and her abilities are never quite defined. She knows some martial arts, appears to have super-speed (though it's unclear exactly how fast she is), and carries a lariat for emergencies. She gets her name from the sunbeam ray device she wears on her wrist. She also appeared in a few other Marvel books, most notably as a replacement sidekick for Toro (who had to go on leave to tend to his sick mother) in the last few issues of Human Torch, but even there she remained a mystery. And seven months after her first appearance, she was gone, not to be seen again until a 1990 Human Torch miniseries by (who else?) Roy Thomas.
Anyway, while the drawing on the cover isn't quite A-level, it’s a solid B+. I like the juxtaposition of the more illustrative Sun Girl figure and the somewhat cartoony male passengers, all reading about Sun Girl while she stands in their midst.
Liberty Meadows #29
December 2002
Cover art by Frank Cho
FYI - I can see that pic now. That's weird. Perhaps the hosting site was down when I was trying to view it the other day.
For September on the custom calendar, I went with Fantastic Four #142 (January 1974 by Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott.
Huge Darkoth fan as a kid because...y'know...monster....
Walt Scott's The Little People
Four Color #868
December 1957
Cover art by Mel Crawford.
Tom and Jerry #239
December 1967
Cover art by Lynn Karp
Frankenstein #14, January 1975, by Ron Wilson and Klaus Janson. I loved these last few issues of this series, with interior art by Val Mayerik.
As part of the Christmas celebrations, here's Xmas Comics 1941. cover by Mac Raboy.
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Dell Giant #26
December 1959
Cover by Tony Strobl & Norm McGary
The Witching Hour #28
February 1973
Cover by Rick Cardy
For November on the custom calendar, one of my all-time favorite "childhood" comic books. From April 1972, when I was about 6, a cover by John Severin (pencils/inks), who also penciled the interior (with interior inks by his sister, Marie).
He was never a great cartoonist, but he was one of the pioneers of the field.
Batman #27
February 1945
Cover by Jack Burnley
Eric....?
For December in my custom calendar for 2016, I went with Walt Disney Showcase #9 (1970 - pencils and inks by Al Hubbard), which does a pretty good job of adapting and compressing the entire film into a single issue.
So, this cover really has nothing to do with the holidays, but I still put it in December, mainly because of the happy memories of family members it evokes. The film was re-released to theaters in January 1969, and my grandfather took me to see it in the theater something on the order of seven times. (That's the family story, but it seems hard for me to believe it was actually SEVEN. I was so little, he had to hold the theater folding seat down so it didn't flip up with me in it.) So, the comic got a lot of love, as did the "Soundtrack LP" which I still have around here somewhere, even though I have no way to play it...
On the Christmas front, I DO have an ornament that's those two puppies playing tug of war, like on this cover.
Justice League #110 from (cover date) March-April 1974 (so release date, December 1973, I believe) with pencils/inks by Nick Cardy...
Marvel Treasury Edition #8
Featuring Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag
Winter 1975
Cover by John Romita Sr
Grossman started out in advertising, then moved to animation in the 1930s. In 1943 he began working in the comic book field, doing a few humor jobs for Standard, Dell, and ACG. In early 1945 he went all in and began drawing funny animal stories for DC, where he spent the majority of his comic book career, most notably on the features “Nutsy Squirrel,” “The Three Mouseketeers,” and “Peter Porkchops.”
In 1958 he set up a studio with Otto Feuer and Graham Place doing merchandising art, but he kept doing comics for DC and later Western during that time. He also got back into animation as a director for Felix the Cat and Mighty Hercules before his death in 1964.