After finishing up the Gerber Man-Thing TPB, I've moved on to Marvel Masterworks Defenders, Volume 5 for more Gerber.
This run of Defenders is one of my favorite childhood storylines. The crazy "Head men". The elf with a gun. Nebulon's return and his Celestial Mind Control cult. Body/brain/soul-switching with Nighthawk. Valkyrie in prison. It all just blew my mind at the time, and I'm enjoying this volume immensely on a re-read.
Here's two covers from the run.
Defenders #33 (March 1976), one I owned from off the stands, with pencils by Gil Kane and an uncertain GCD suggesting "Frank Giacoia ?; Mike Esposito ?" on inks.
Then, just for fun, here's the original art to Defenders #35 (May 1976) by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito.
This was the storyline that introduced me to the Defenders and it is still one of my favorites
The "head men" saga wrapped up in a Defenders King-Size Annual (November 1976). I can remember being SO excited to read this one back in the day.
Really enjoyed this Masterworks, Volume 5, from beginning to end.
Cover is pencils by Al Milgrom, with inks by Klaus Janson. Klaus inked quite a number of the Sal Buscema interiors in the hardcover and I loved their work together, especially early on when Sal was doing more than layouts.
Aug. 1950: Along with the popularity of the western genre, there were several features, and even a few titles that centered on the First Americans. While most westerns portrayed Native Americans in a fairly stereotypical way, a few at least tried to be respectful and not just entertaining, but educational as well. Dell’s The Chief, first featured here in Four Color #290, and which later got its own series renamed The Indian Chief, was one of those. While some stereotypical elements slipped into the storytelling and there were inaccuracies with some of the character visuals, The Chief was a fairly well researched book focusing on a Pawnee village and its leader War Eagle in a time before European settlers moved into the area. The characters speak in a somewhat stilted English rather than broken English, a real plus for the times, and readers learned how the Pawnee lived and a bit about their culture in between their clashes with neighboring tribes. Future issues of the ongoing series focused on different tribes and different characters, but I can't speak as to whether the level of research was maintained by the later creative teams.
The cover (and interiors) of this issue is by Morris Gollub of Lone Ranger fame. And the stories were by The Chief’s main creator, Gaylord DuBois. DuBois was a prolific writer, mostly for Dell. He specialized in westerns, but also wrote adventure (including several Tarzan stories) and humor (Raggedy Ann, Our Gang, etc.). And he created/co-created several Native American characters during his career, most notably Turok, Son of Stone (later Dinosaur Hunter); and the Brothers of the Spear.
I bought quite a lot of reprints in the early 70's, and there was no way I could pass up Marvel Super-Heroes #46, featuring the Abomination, wrapped in this cover with pencils/inks by Gil Kane (October 1974).
The interior is reprinted from Tales to Astonish #91 (May 1967), with a Stan Lee/Gil Kane Hulk story and a Stan Lee/Bill Everett Sub-Mariner story. I've also included the original cover below...
I bought quite a lot of reprints in the early 70's, and there was no way I could pass up Marvel Super-Heroes #46, featuring the Abomination, wrapped in this cover with pencils/inks by Gil Kane (October 1974).
The interior is reprinted from Tales to Astonish #91 (May 1967), with a Stan Lee/Gil Kane Hulk story and a Stan Lee/Bill Everett Sub-Mariner story. I've also included the original cover below...
Having to shrink down the art to accommodate the huge Marvel Superheroes banner really weakened the cover. The recoloring of the Abomination helped separate the two figures, but they should have stuck with more white area with the bright red surrounding it instead of adding that yellow stripe and making the red so orange, but maybe the orange-red color is the result of a bad scan.
A short break from the series to wish Jerry Lewis a belated birthday. He turned 90 yesterday. But let's face it, it's really just an excuse for me to post another Bob Oksner cover.
Now working my way through Gerber's Howard the Duck, the Complete Collection, Volume 1.
It's funny how all these Gerber books I've been reading overlap. Defenders Masterwork had the HTD Treasury story in it, which is also in this volume. The Gerber Man-Thing collection had the first two appearance of HTD, also in this collection. But I don't mind the overlap -- makes each book feel complete and sometimes they seem a little different, read in a different volume's overall context.
Anyway, enjoying so far. Here's a fun cover from Howard the Duck #3 with pencils by Rich Buckler and inks by Steve Leialoha from May 1976. Interiors on this one by John Buscema, who filled in for an issue between the Frank Brunner and Gene Colan runs.
I will say the list of creators on the cover of the HTD trade paperback would have been enough for me to buy it alone:
Gerber * Mayerik * Brunner * J. Buscema * Colan * S. Buscema
Ken Barr has passed away at age 83. Born in Scotland, Barr started drawing covers in the 1950s for the science fiction magazine Nebula, moving on to covers and posters for Star Wars, Star Trek, and the first 14 issues of the British comic Commando. Barr moved to the United States in 1968 and began drawing covers for comics published by Warren (Creepy, Vampirella, Doc Savage, Planet of the Apes). He also worked on some of Marvel’s black-and-white comics, and continued to create book covers and trading cards until his retirement in 1987.
Sept. 1950: The cover to Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #1 isn't a particularly great cover, but it's indicative of the growing popularity of the Archie comics when the supporting characters were given their own titles. Archie’s Pal Jughead and Archie’s Rival Reggie tested the waters the previous year, and Jughead’s second issue was also released this month, with Reggie’s second issue to come by the end of the year, bringing the Archie titles up to six (along with Archie Comics, Pep Comics, and Laugh Comics)—though none of them were monthlies yet.
The artwork here is credited to Bill Vigoda—and before you ask, yes, he was Abe Vigoda’s older brother. Vigoda was a bit of a chameleon during his 30-year career. He worked almost exclusively for MLJ/Archie, and rarely worked outside of the various Archie line of titles, where he had to draw in whatever the house style was at the time—even when he became the de facto main artist of the Archie books during the war (he had a health condition that kept him out of the service). But Vigoda was never very comfortable drawing humor, particularly in the more minimalist style Dan DeCarlo established for the Archie line. In fact, Vigoda never really wanted to draw comics in the first place, but he couldn't make money as a fine artist early on, and once he was established in the industry, I don’t think he ever felt secure enough (or perhaps confident enough) to leave. He stuck with it until he passed away in 1973.
Forty years ago, in 1976, Steve Gerber & Marvel launched a presidential campaign for Howard the Duck, complete with campaign buttons and other material which (IIRC) Stever Gerber was personally fulfilling via mail order.
Anyway, I'm still working my way through the Gerber/mostly Colan Howard the Duck TPB Collection Volume 1, and in this run-up to the 2016 election, it only seemed appropriate to post up the campaign cover...
Howard the Duck #8 (cover-dated January 1977), per GCD: Pencils: Gene Colan; John Romita ? (alterations) Inks: Steve Leialoha; John Romita ? (alterations)
And, just for fun, a "campaign lithograph" done by Berni Wrightson, and a campaign button, both of which were also available by mail order. Sadly, I don't own a copy of either one!
Hmmm....maybe a "write-in vote" campaign this year? ;)
Oct. 1950: This month is Henry Aldrich #3, based on the very successful Broadway play which inspired the long-running radio comedy The Aldrich Family (1939-52), as well as a TV show and several B-movies. If you remember the great Looney Tunes short, “Hollywood Steps Out,” the line “Heeennry! Henry Fonda!” was a play on the opening of The Aldrich Family.
The cover is by a great cartoonist, Bill Williams, who doesn’t receive a lot of mention these days. In fact, I've found very little information about him, which is a shame. He started out in comics in the ’40s, possibly as an assistant in the Iger shop. His first solo credits start showing up in 1948 in Timely and DC books. (And speaking of which, I'm now beginning to think that the mystery artist for the Tessie the Typist cover I posted back on page 179 might have been penciled by Williams.)
But he's best known for his many collaborations with John Stanley in the ’50s and ’60s—including Henry Aldrich. Stanley wrote the stories in the form of layouts, which Williams then drew magnificently. They would go on to work together not just in comics but on at least one newspaper strip. Williams also did a newspaper gag panel called Dolly for a while in the early ’50s. In the late ’60s he took over art chores on Millie the Model, and ended his comic career drawing Scooby-Doo and Speed Buggy for Charlton, followed by a handful of Harvey stories—not his best work by any means, but he wasn't able to work in his own style.
I really want to find out more about him. There's a bit of Hank Ketcham in his work—which is perhaps why he ended up doing some Dennis comics in the early ’70s.
Just finished up the Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 1, and thereby also finished up my run of Gerber reading (Defenders, Man-Thing, Howard the Duck). Definitely a fun read, and some really great extras (like all the Bullpen Bulletins that covered Howard's '76 run at the White House).
Here's the final issue in that collection, Howard the Duck #16 (September 1977), with cover by the classic team of Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.
This was a very odd issue. Apparently, Gerber missed his deadline for the book, so in lieu of a reprint he wrote an almost stream-of-consciousness prose piece, which mainly consisted of a conversation between Gerber and Howard discussing Gerber's work on the comic. Each set of pages was a splash done by a different artist -- Alan Weiss, Ed Hannigan, Dave Cockrum, Tom Palmer, Al Milgrom, John Buscema, Dick Giordano, and the team of Nasser/Terry Austin.
I can't say I enjoyed the issue, but it was certainly unique and a lot of my love for Gerber comes from his willingness to try different things, so sometimes things work and sometimes not. I found an example of an interior page, shown below, if you're curious...
That issue was the one and only issue of Howard I had as a kid. Imagine how odd it was for me reading it as a seven-year-old. I didn't really have the patience for it back then. I'd read a couple of pages and then flip though the artwork. The next time (which might be a couple of days or a couple of weeks) I'd read the next couple of pages then flip through art. I think I did eventually finish it, but it took a while.
Here's a bit of fun. Giant-Size Marvel Triple Action #1 (May 1975), by John Romita, Sr., repurposed as the cover to Back Issue #86...which just arrived in the mail to me today -- the special "Bronze Age Marvel Giants & Reprints Issue".
Woot! Can't wait to dig in tonight...
And as a bonus, here's the cover to #2, also by John Romita Sr. I owned #1 back in the day, but don't remember ever seeing #2!
Nov. 1950: Despite a couple of Carmine Infantino beauts this month, I'm going with Harvey Kurtzman’s cover of Two-Fisted Tales #18. Not only was it the first issue of Two-Fisted—which took over the numbering from Haunt of Fear, which was relaunced as a new #1 (though it would revert back to its original numbering three issues later)—but it was Kurtzman’s first cover for EC, and marked his emergence as a driving force for the publisher (he also wrote and drew the lead story of this issue). Kurtzman had only done a couple of covers before this, both superhero covers done early in his career. But here the style he developed in his “Hey Look!” features for Timely was carried over into more dramatic storytelling.
Forty years ago, in 1976, Steve Gerber & Marvel launched a presidential campaign for Howard the Duck, complete with campaign buttons and other material which (IIRC) Stever Gerber was personally fulfilling via mail order.
Anyway, I'm still working my way through the Gerber/mostly Colan Howard the Duck TPB Collection Volume 1, and in this run-up to the 2016 election, it only seemed appropriate to post up the campaign cover...
Howard the Duck #8 (cover-dated January 1977), per GCD: Pencils: Gene Colan; John Romita ? (alterations) Inks: Steve Leialoha; John Romita ? (alterations)
It always creeped me out that the sniper is pointing his gun at Carter... even as a kid. I have always wondered if it was intentional.
Nov. 1950: Despite a couple of Carmine Infantino beauts this month, I'm going with Harvey Kurtzman’s cover of Two-Fisted Tales #18. Not only was it the first issue of Two-Fisted—which took over the numbering from Haunt of Fear, which was relaunced as a new #1 (though it would revert back to its original numbering three issues later)—but it was Kurtzman’s first cover for EC, and marked his emergence as a driving force for the publisher (he also wrote and drew the lead story of this issue). Kurtzman had only done a couple of covers before this, both superhero covers done early in his career. But here the style he developed in his “Hey Look!” features for Timely was carried over into more dramatic storytelling.
Interesting that one of these characters has *literally* only one fist.
Discovered this Gil Kane/Frank Giacoia cover (an original on a reprint title that I must've missed on the spinner rack back in the 70's) via the Giant-Size Marvel ish of Back Issue (#86)...
Dec. 1950: It’s another dramatic cover by Dan Barry, this time for Gangbusters #19, as we near the peak of the crime comic genre. This is a great composition made all the better by the flat coloring. A more naturalistic color approach would have taken most of the pop out of this image and made it less readable, but here the busy background actually stays in the background, and the perp is fully the center of attention.
Wulf the Barbarian #2 (Atlas Comics) April 1975 Cover by Hama and Janson, with additional art by Larry Lieber
Alternating with Ironjaw, Wulf the Barbarian debuted in Feb 1975. The art chores had Larry Hama on pencils and Klaus Jansen providing inks In this issue, but also features art assists by the amazing lineup of Neal Adams, Ralph Reese, Ed Davis, Wally Wood, Bob McLeod, Pat Broderick, Vincente Alcazar, Paul Kirchner and Jack Abel. In this tale, Wulf takes up with a swordswoman, a rogue, and a magician to kill a wizard who has plagued the land with drought. Of all of Wulf's adventures this one is closest to the style of Robert E Howard, but the character is more like something out of Lord of the Rings than a Conan imitation.
Atlas would close it's doors within 6 months of this issue.
Fantastic Four 345 October 1990 Cover artist: Walt Simonson (also the writer)
"He found me in there, naked as a jaybird, with this Fantastic Four comic sprawled out before me, and so began a lifelong problem of four-color substance abuse." (circa 1992) @Adam_Murdough
Hear Adam's gateway drug story, courtesy of @Matt, and a lot of great discussion on comics and collecting from @ShaneKelly, Chris Eberle (@wildpigcomics), and @i_am_scifi in the 10-year anniversary podcast from Comic Timing, out this week.
Never underestimate the power of dinosaurs in a comic book to create a gateway to super-hero comics for new readers. My first super-hero comic was Amazing Spider-Man 166
Fantastic Four 345 October 1990 Cover artist: Walt Simonson (also the writer)
"He found me in there, naked as a jaybird, with this Fantastic Four comic sprawled out before me, and so began a lifelong problem of four-color substance abuse." (circa 1992) @Adam_Murdough
Hear Adam's gateway drug story, courtesy of @Matt, and a lot of great discussion on comics and collecting from @ShaneKelly, Chris Eberle (@wildpigcomics), and @i_am_scifi in the 10-year anniversary podcast from Comic Timing, out this week.
Never underestimate the power of dinosaurs in a comic book to create a gateway to super-hero comics for new readers. My first super-hero comic was Amazing Spider-Man 166
First, let the record show "He" was Adam's dad, not me.
Jan. 1951:Big Town was one of the most popular radio dramas on the air. Running from 1937 to 1952, at its peak it boasted 20 million listeners. It also spawned four movies (all in the late ’40s), a television show (1950-54), and a comic book series which ran for 50 issues.
The cover to Big Town #1 was penciled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Sy Barry, brother of Dan Barry, whom I've previously discussed. Sy Barry is best known for his 30-year run on The Phantom newspaper strip, where he often hired ghost pencilers he would ink over, including Carmine Infantino.
I just started up reading the Masterworks Volume 13 of the Avengers (another childhood favorite title), and this is the first issue in the book. Anytime I saw the Zodiac, I knew I wanted that issue!
Avengers #120 (February 1974) Pencils: Jim Starlin Inks: Frank Giacoia
Comments
This was the storyline that introduced me to the Defenders and it is still one of my favorites
Really enjoyed this Masterworks, Volume 5, from beginning to end.
Cover is pencils by Al Milgrom, with inks by Klaus Janson. Klaus inked quite a number of the Sal Buscema interiors in the hardcover and I loved their work together, especially early on when Sal was doing more than layouts.
The cover (and interiors) of this issue is by Morris Gollub of Lone Ranger fame. And the stories were by The Chief’s main creator, Gaylord DuBois. DuBois was a prolific writer, mostly for Dell. He specialized in westerns, but also wrote adventure (including several Tarzan stories) and humor (Raggedy Ann, Our Gang, etc.). And he created/co-created several Native American characters during his career, most notably Turok, Son of Stone (later Dinosaur Hunter); and the Brothers of the Spear.
I bought quite a lot of reprints in the early 70's, and there was no way I could pass up Marvel Super-Heroes #46, featuring the Abomination, wrapped in this cover with pencils/inks by Gil Kane (October 1974).
The interior is reprinted from Tales to Astonish #91 (May 1967), with a Stan Lee/Gil Kane Hulk story and a Stan Lee/Bill Everett Sub-Mariner story. I've also included the original cover below...
It's funny how all these Gerber books I've been reading overlap. Defenders Masterwork had the HTD Treasury story in it, which is also in this volume. The Gerber Man-Thing collection had the first two appearance of HTD, also in this collection. But I don't mind the overlap -- makes each book feel complete and sometimes they seem a little different, read in a different volume's overall context.
Anyway, enjoying so far. Here's a fun cover from Howard the Duck #3 with pencils by Rich Buckler and inks by Steve Leialoha from May 1976. Interiors on this one by John Buscema, who filled in for an issue between the Frank Brunner and Gene Colan runs.
I will say the list of creators on the cover of the HTD trade paperback would have been enough for me to buy it alone:
Gerber * Mayerik * Brunner * J. Buscema * Colan * S. Buscema
The artwork here is credited to Bill Vigoda—and before you ask, yes, he was Abe Vigoda’s older brother. Vigoda was a bit of a chameleon during his 30-year career. He worked almost exclusively for MLJ/Archie, and rarely worked outside of the various Archie line of titles, where he had to draw in whatever the house style was at the time—even when he became the de facto main artist of the Archie books during the war (he had a health condition that kept him out of the service). But Vigoda was never very comfortable drawing humor, particularly in the more minimalist style Dan DeCarlo established for the Archie line. In fact, Vigoda never really wanted to draw comics in the first place, but he couldn't make money as a fine artist early on, and once he was established in the industry, I don’t think he ever felt secure enough (or perhaps confident enough) to leave. He stuck with it until he passed away in 1973.
Anyway, I'm still working my way through the Gerber/mostly Colan Howard the Duck TPB Collection Volume 1, and in this run-up to the 2016 election, it only seemed appropriate to post up the campaign cover...
Howard the Duck #8 (cover-dated January 1977), per GCD:
Pencils: Gene Colan; John Romita ? (alterations)
Inks: Steve Leialoha; John Romita ? (alterations)
And, just for fun, a "campaign lithograph" done by Berni Wrightson, and a campaign button, both of which were also available by mail order. Sadly, I don't own a copy of either one!
Hmmm....maybe a "write-in vote" campaign this year? ;)
Tatjana Wood and Thomas Yeates
Feb 1984
Tatjana Wood and Thomas Yeates
April1984
The cover is by a great cartoonist, Bill Williams, who doesn’t receive a lot of mention these days. In fact, I've found very little information about him, which is a shame. He started out in comics in the ’40s, possibly as an assistant in the Iger shop. His first solo credits start showing up in 1948 in Timely and DC books. (And speaking of which, I'm now beginning to think that the mystery artist for the Tessie the Typist cover I posted back on page 179 might have been penciled by Williams.)
But he's best known for his many collaborations with John Stanley in the ’50s and ’60s—including Henry Aldrich. Stanley wrote the stories in the form of layouts, which Williams then drew magnificently. They would go on to work together not just in comics but on at least one newspaper strip. Williams also did a newspaper gag panel called Dolly for a while in the early ’50s. In the late ’60s he took over art chores on Millie the Model, and ended his comic career drawing Scooby-Doo and Speed Buggy for Charlton, followed by a handful of Harvey stories—not his best work by any means, but he wasn't able to work in his own style.
I really want to find out more about him. There's a bit of Hank Ketcham in his work—which is perhaps why he ended up doing some Dennis comics in the early ’70s.
Here's the final issue in that collection, Howard the Duck #16 (September 1977), with cover by the classic team of Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.
This was a very odd issue. Apparently, Gerber missed his deadline for the book, so in lieu of a reprint he wrote an almost stream-of-consciousness prose piece, which mainly consisted of a conversation between Gerber and Howard discussing Gerber's work on the comic. Each set of pages was a splash done by a different artist -- Alan Weiss, Ed Hannigan, Dave Cockrum, Tom Palmer, Al Milgrom, John Buscema, Dick Giordano, and the team of Nasser/Terry Austin.
I can't say I enjoyed the issue, but it was certainly unique and a lot of my love for Gerber comes from his willingness to try different things, so sometimes things work and sometimes not. I found an example of an interior page, shown below, if you're curious...
Never been a huge BWS fan,but the above cover I love. Got lucky and dug this gem out of my local comic shops dollar bins.
Woot! Can't wait to dig in tonight...
And as a bonus, here's the cover to #2, also by John Romita Sr. I owned #1 back in the day, but don't remember ever seeing #2!
Marvel Triple Action #9
April 1975
Cover by Hama and Janson, with additional art by Larry Lieber
Alternating with Ironjaw, Wulf the Barbarian debuted in Feb 1975. The art chores had Larry Hama on pencils and Klaus Jansen providing inks In this issue, but also features art assists by the amazing lineup of Neal Adams, Ralph Reese, Ed Davis, Wally Wood, Bob McLeod, Pat Broderick, Vincente Alcazar, Paul Kirchner and Jack Abel. In this tale, Wulf takes up with a swordswoman, a rogue, and a magician to kill a wizard who has plagued the land with drought. Of all of Wulf's adventures this one is closest to the style of Robert E Howard, but the character is more like something out of Lord of the Rings than a Conan imitation.
Atlas would close it's doors within 6 months of this issue.
October 1990
Cover artist: Walt Simonson (also the writer)
"He found me in there, naked as a jaybird, with this Fantastic Four comic sprawled out before me, and so began a lifelong problem of four-color substance abuse." (circa 1992) @Adam_Murdough
Hear Adam's gateway drug story, courtesy of @Matt, and a lot of great discussion on comics and collecting from @ShaneKelly, Chris Eberle (@wildpigcomics), and @i_am_scifi in the 10-year anniversary podcast from Comic Timing, out this week.
Listen here: http://comicspodcasts.com/2016/05/01/comic-timing-episode-179-theres-always-time-for-collecting-comics/
Never underestimate the power of dinosaurs in a comic book to create a gateway to super-hero comics for new readers. My first super-hero comic was Amazing Spider-Man 166
And I always figured it went something like this:
M
Luke Cage, Power Man #17 (February 1974)
Pencils: Gil Kane
Inks: Billy Graham
The cover to Big Town #1 was penciled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Sy Barry, brother of Dan Barry, whom I've previously discussed. Sy Barry is best known for his 30-year run on The Phantom newspaper strip, where he often hired ghost pencilers he would ink over, including Carmine Infantino.
Avengers #120 (February 1974)
Pencils: Jim Starlin
Inks: Frank Giacoia