Panels and Pages… Art and Artists… Creators and Conventions… Musings and Memories…
Author: Greg Goldstein
Greg Goldstein is a veteran publishing and media executive; most recently, he was the Chief Operating Officer, President and Publisher of IDW Publishing, managing all aspects of the company’s book and games business from 2008 to 2019.
Throughout his career, Greg has developed creative and profitable publishing programs for dozens of the world’s best-known entertainment brands including Star Wars, Transformers, Star Trek, James Bond, TMNT, Spider-Man, Batman and Godzilla.
In 2013, Greg led IDW’s acquisition of Top Shelf, an independent publisher best known for Congressman John Lewis’ March trilogy, which has become the most lauded non-fiction graphic novel series in the history of the medium.
In 2011, Greg won an Eisner award for his editing on the first-ever collection of Bob Montana’s Archie newspaper comic strips. (Published under IDW’s Library of American Comics imprint.)
Prior to joining IDW, Greg was VP of Entertainment and Gaming for Upper Deck, responsible for the company’s blockbuster slate of games, including Yu-Gi-Oh, World of Warcraft and The VS Superhero system. During his tenure, he created Marvel Ultimate Battles, the first-ever trading card game that focused exclusively on Marvel’s popular mass media characters.
As VP of Brand Development for Activision from 2000-2002, Greg established strategic partnerships with the largest Hollywood studios, and worked closely with Marvel Entertainment to successfully develop Spider-man into one of the biggest blockbuster licensed videogame brands in interactive history.
Greg’s career has also included a successful stint at Topps, where he helped launch and manage Topps Comics in the mid 1990s.
Additionally, Greg serves as an adviser for to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBDLF). He is also a frequent guest lecturer at San Diego Sate University and has presented at dozens of panels and conferences throughout the US.
He is also a well-known collector of original comic book art and rues the day he sold his collection the first time around in the late 1990s.
In this goofy, but fun 2004 comic tale, why not? (It’s a tribute to DC Editor Julius Schwartz who died earlier that year.)
It’s the final published Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella Batman artwork (story by Geoff Johns) and this cool page features both the “real” Batman and the TV version.
A nice pick-up from fellow collector Steve Lipsky.
I apparently missed these Schwartz tribute comics when they first appeared 20 years ago, so now I’m going down that rabbit hole. (There were eight one-shot issues, and they’ve never been collected together.) This specific Batman one-shot does however appear in the 2014 Infantino Batman hardcover collection.
Maybe I would change my mind if I saw the original art without the coloring, but as of now, this might be my least favorite Adam Hughes cover of all time. Robin looks like a bizarre cross between Tim Drake and Carrie Kelley.Classic comic book circulation numbers are wild. Nearly 500,000 copes sold, BEFORE Batman had his own TV show.
So… You support much of one party’s political platform, and the other guys win, and you somehow benefit from that opposing victory anyway?
Talk about mixed emotions.
This Bloom County Sunday strip appeared in print six weeks before I had my first “real” job — with a salary that certainly that did NOT benefit from any sort of Reagan tax cut.
And yet this specific strip remained burned in my brain forever. When we (IDW Publishing) added Bloom County reprints to our line-up around 2009, I asked if Berkley still had this specific strip, and if so, would he sell it to me.
He still had it… and he gifted it to me. A gift I treasure, and one that I am indeed very thankful for.
Marvel’s superhero business “blew up” in 1966. A cliché, maybe. But thanks to the Marvel cartoons airing in nationwide syndication that fall, Marvel’s licensing and merchandising business went from pretty much from negligible to ubiquitous, overnight.
I loved those cartoons. I didn’t fully understand that they were pretty much “animating” on the cheap by mostly directly lifting and moving around the actual comic book pages and panels, and at six-years old I didn’t care. (Technically, these cartoons are not much more than primitive motion comics.)
I bought a lot of that merch. The comics of course, were the main thing. But the cards. And the stickers. Dumb gags I admit. But I loved the Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, et al, art in miniature.
So, when I saw Shaky Kane’s original painted tribute to Marvel “bubblegum” cards at the Jack Kirby art exhibit in LA this past summer, it knocked me out, flooding me with (literally) sweet memories.
Unfortunately, it had already sold. This bummed me out of course, until one of my pals with me that day, the brilliant (and extremely logical) designer Stan Madaloni, said to me:
“Why don’t you reach out to him see if he’ll make another one for you.”
Uh. Duh.
Shaky agreed, and, although I hate to use another cliché, the rest, is in fact, history.
The second one is now fortunately, and gratefully, in my possession.
Both Donruss and Philadelphia Gum (“Swell”) beat Topps to the punch in the Marvel business in 1967, with cards and stickers respectively. Topps found a way in with the odd Marvel Flyers collection (designs from Wally Wood’s studio) and the mini-comics satire “Krazy Little Comics”, with art by Wood, Gil Kane and others. (Scripts by Roy Thomas.)
Final thoughts: If I could go back in time and tell seven-year Greg that he would one day work for both Topps AND Marvel, he’d probably tell me I’m nuts and chase me away.
Here’s a terrific early and rare Atlas war page form the legendary artist, Russ Heath.
This page’s great dogfight reminds me of some of Russ’ later DC work, including the classic “Aces Wild” in All-American Men of War #89, otherwise known as Roy Lichtenstein’s favorite comic book. Lichtenstein, the renowned pop art pioneer, “appropriated” (swiped / repurposed / purloined — take your pick) two Heath panels from that story, as well as others in that issue. (See below.)
Those paintings are worth millions of dollars. Multi-millions.
The best 12¢ anyone ever spent.
Happy Veterans Day to all who served!
Fun Fact: Russ, a veteran, used himself as reference for the role of Major Leo Grabeski (also below) in this extremely multi-cultural group of airmen.
Two Heath panels from the same page from “Aces Wild” story (All-American Men of War #89, 1962) became the basis for two well-known Roy Lichtenstein war paintings: “Brattata” and “Blam.”.
A panel from an Irv Novick’s story in the same issue was the basis for Lichtenstein’s “Whaam.”
Scott HannaScott Eder & Vincent ZurzuloLarry HamaTimothy ZahnMiguel MendoncaJim SalicrupTim SeelyTom DerrnicickJae LeeRyan BenjaminTodd NauckSara PichelliChris ClaremontPatrick HorvathDave DormanElenora CarliniAdam KubertSimone Di MeoFreddie Williams IIThomas NachlikMarco ChecchettoAnthony MarquesLee WeeksAndy Park
Geoff Johns, Richard Donner and Eric Powell creating a multi-part Bizarro story?
Sign me up.
Spoiler alert: It’s absolutely terrific — fun and affectionate — start to finish. Powell knocks the art out of the park. Many mainstream superhero readers tracked down Powell’s Goon series after they saw this.
You can bet the farm — Kent’s or otherwise — on that.
One final time — Happy Halloween, 2024!
ScreenshotSilver age comic book readers first encountered Bizarro in Superboy #68, and then another version shortly thereafter in Action #254. But sharp eyed comic strip readers may have caught an even earlier appearance in Supes’ daily newspaper strip. Also above — the house ad in Superboy #67, with the alternative costume logo.
