Monday, December 30, 2013

Not a Real Doctor

I am always on the lookout for new and great artwork in the world of comics. (I watched the late 1970s evolution of the style of Frank Miller before he was Frank Miller, if you know what I mean.)

I stumbled across a drawing or two of Superman that made me take notice the other day. What do I like about these images? What do they remind me of? The modern edge of Chris Samnee, angularity reminiscent of Garcia Lopez, a line as bold as Alex Toth's. Nice.

The artist is Evan (Doc) Shaner, who will be drawing some Superman stories in the near future. I look forward to seeing much more from the gentleman!


Saturday, December 28, 2013

Stan Lee Speaking in 1966


Sean Howe (author of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story) has uncovered a 1966 audio tape of Stan Lee speaking at Princeton University. I first enjoyed seeing Mr. Lee on a stage at the first Chicago Comicon in 1976 but, of course, 1966 was a lifetime or two before 1976.

In this recording Jack Kirby gets a couple of nice mentions and there are boos when Stan announces that Steve Ditko is leaving Spider-Man. The audio is challenging in places but your patience will pay dividends. As I write this the youtube clip has just 143 views but I expect that count will rise dramatically in short order. You can add one to that count by going right over here.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Batman and The Gotham Evening Post

Nice job, Mark Dos Santos! The gentleman has tapped into a Norman Rockwell vibe with spectacular results. I'm focusing here on a couple of his Batman-related works, but Mr. Dos Santos (an alumnus of The Joe Kubert School) does just as nice a job with the worlds of Sandman and X-Men and Doctor Who. See for yourself over here on the artist's website.



Sunday, December 22, 2013

Marvel Comics Characters as Animals


Marvel Comics is releasing a bunch of their comics with variant covers that show the characters as animals. Enjoy Chris Samnee's Wolverine Kitty in the Danger Room down below, and you can see a dozen or two more drawings in this same vein over at the (?) Wired Magazine website.



Thursday, December 19, 2013

Alan Moore and The Killing Bluff


Fun artwork, right?

You can order a print over here from artist J.K. Woodward.


Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Mick Is Wolverine


When Mick told me on the phone that he was growing a beard I didn't know what I'd be seeing, but never in one TRILLION years did I expect Wolverine! Move over Hugh Jackman.

And Snikt!

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Rich Buckler's Paintings


Rich Buckler was drawing comics wall to wall back in the 1970s and I remain very fond of his work. I used to own a number of pages of his excellent artwork and I'll show them to you a different day but, for now, I want to bring you up to date on what the gentleman is doing now that he's not drawing for comics anymore.

He paints! I stumbled upon Mr. Buckler's website when researching a different matter and I knew I had to share what I had found. A couple of the paintings are shown on this page and you can see many more over at www.richbuckler.com.



Sunday, December 08, 2013

Jack Kirby's OMAC via Keith Giffen


Back in the 1970s, Keith Giffen drew a string of Kamandi issues after Jack Kirby left the title and some of those issues were inked by Mike Royer. I remember liking that artwork as it was published and I have always wanted to own one of those Giffen/Royer pages.

No luck yet.

But after all these decades I'm getting impatient so I've gone ahead and bought a sort-of substitute while I continue my hope for one of the Kamandi pages. Above you can see a Keith Giffen OMAC page I have purchased. This is the New 52 version and yes, OMAC is tussling with the (sniff) New 52 version of Superman. (I am by the way very, very impressed with the line quality of inker Scott Koblish on this artwork.)

I decided while writing the preceding paragraphs to look up exactly how many of those 1970s Kamandi issues were drawn by the Giffen/Royer team, and the answer surprised me. One! One issue! Kamandi #44 from August 1976 was the one and only, and just eleven pages were devoted to the Kamandi story because there was a Tales of the Great Disaster backup. This accounts for why I've had such difficulty finding one of those pages, but I will keep looking.

That's the fun of collecting.