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.
Although the newspaper strip kept Archie co-creator Bob Montana busy, he did manage to continue to find time to provide comic book pages as well, setting (and ultimately evolving) the house style for the Archie family.
Archie’s Joke Book used a similar formula to the newspaper strips: Short gags, either a half page or full page in length, possibly even recycling or amplifying some of the same gags from those strips.
IDW collected one small volume of these “jokes” from that era to minimal success. The format didn’t appeal to collectors, and the joke themselves in all fairness, don’t appeal all that much to a contemporary audience.
Archie, as noted in the previous blog, rapidly achieved success. Within a few years after the character’s introduction, the Archie family added a hit newspaper strip to the successful comics line. Bob Montana, Archie’s co-creator, worked on the strip for nearly 30 years until his untimely passing in 1975.
IDW and the Library of American Comics intended to publish a complete sequential series of these strips, but ran into a problem: Finding the actual strips themselves. Archie had no strip archive, and collectors, who had kept clipped strips from the era, concentrated primarily on adventure series and mostly ignored Archie.
Fortunately, we managed one book each of dailies and Sundays from the period, and even a cursory glance reveals Montana’s cleverness in cartooning.
Early solicitations for the Montana dailies book included this preliminary cover, but imprint Editor Dean Mullaney ultimately went in a different direction for publication.
Archie Americana Volume 1: Best of the 1940s HC, 2011
Archie Andrews, (along with many of the rest of his timeless Riverdale gang), celebrates his 80th anniversary this year.
Starting as a back-up feature in MLJ’s Pep Comics #22 (cover date December 1941), Archie and his pals gradually took over the whole comic, and eventually, in 1946, the entire company.
Archie’s creation is generally credited to MLJ founder John Goldwater, and cartoonist Bob Montana. Montana apparently based many of the characters on friends and neighbors from his high school days in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
IDW Publishing and Dark Horse both relentlessly chased Archie Comics for archival reprint rights — an area the company itself was slow to develop, and in 2009, Archie ultimately split those reprint rights between the two publishers.
AT IDW, we published hardcover “Best of” collections, based on both era and artist. We also added the Archie strips to our Library of American Comics imprint headed by Dean Mullaney. (More on that later.)
Andrew Pepoy drew era-specific covers for all four Archie’s Americana volumes. This cover from the first volume — Best of the 40s — is a faithful and clever re-working of Montana’s cover for Archie’s Pals and Gals #3. Ironically, Montana’s original is from the 50s (1954), but I don’t think anyone complained.
More Archie coming up in the next few posts as we celebrate his very youthful 80th.
All four volumes in the IDW “Archie’s Americana” series feature era-specific covers by the talented Andrew Pepoy.
Starting as a back-up feature in MLJ’s Pep Comics #22 , Archie and his pals gradually took over the covers, the comic, and in 1946, the entire company.
What happens when you reboot a reboot? What happens when you change some continuity, but not all of it? What happens later when you er… change your mind?
What happens is you get DC superhero continuity for the last 35 years or so, post “Crisis on Infinite Earths.”
This is not a knock, per se, just an observation. Along with these many changes have been some great series and story arcs. Just enjoy the ride while it lasts, because a new one is probably around the corner.
Hawkworld is an early “prestige” re-do of the post-crisis Hawk backstory, nicely told by Tim Truman. It led to an ongoing series, and then later on… more retconning.
I like this page because it uses the art “camera” to heighten drama and increase tension, as opposed to more traditional character action. Coincidentally, I also own a Mark Bagley page that’s similarly cinematic in approach to similar subject matter. (I don’t think it’s an homage or swipe, just a classic case of great minds thinking alike — 25 years apart.)
Greg Land delivers a simple, powerful and striking image of Hawkgirl (“Hawkwoman”*) metaphorically defending Hawkman in front of his Wanted Poster.
Superheroes framed for crimes — or constantly hunted as actual criminals (Spider-man, et al) — is a trope, that for whatever reason, I enjoy. But even if I didn’t, I’d still appreciate this terrific cover.
*Hawkgirl adamantly changes her name to Hawkwoman in issue #272 of World’s Finest (1981) but the moniker doesn’t stick over time. I can’t say I blame her for having a chip on her shoulder. When Hawkman was admitted into the Justice League in 1964, she was denied membership, because, according to League “rules”, only one new member is allowed at a time. Ouch.
Hawkgirl defiantly declares herself Hawkwoman in 1981, a distinct change in tone when she was denied membership in the Justice League years earlier.
Atom and Hawkman (Silver Age versions) both celebrate 6oth anniversaries in 2021. Hawkman (and Hawkgirl) launched in Brave and Bold #34 in March 1961, while The Atom launched in Showcase #34 later that year.
34 must have been the lucky number in 1961.
This beautifully-rendered page is from the first team-up of the two characters in issue #7 of the Atom’s own title in 1963.
Murphy Anderson’s lush inks can often overpower any penciller, but here it’s relatively easy to spot Kane’s trademark style, especially in the final panel. Great storytelling and dynamic action from both characters help make this a terrific example from the issue.
Neither the solo Hawkman title, nor the solo Atom series ended up gaining much traction sales-wise, so as a final ploy later that decade, the two characters were merged together into one title. The gambit didn’t work, and both books disappeared from the stands by the end of 1969.
Doug Hazelwood has been doing some great re-creations of Jack Kirby Marvel Silver Age covers, and Fantastic Four #69 is a terrific example of Doug’s work on these.
Typically, I don’t collect exact cover re-creations illustrated by anyone other than the original artist, but I made an exception here, because, well, its one of my favorite covers from that era.
And a nice way to close out our first tribute to the 6oth anniversary of the Fantastic Four.
The published cover To FF#69 along with a fun retro portrait of Jack by by Brendan Tobin.
The masterful Ken Steacy transforms an important scene from the one-shot story “This Man… This Monster!” (Fantastic Four #51) into a dramatic painting for the inventive Marvel Portraits mini-series in 1995.
That’s not actually Ben Grimm, but rather a villain who ends his own life with this heroic act near the end of the offbeat tale.
Peter David wrote the excellent commentaries for these re-creations of classic Marvel moments in this specific issue, so I think will let him finish telling the story below.
Continuing our multi-part tribute to the 60thanniversary of the Fantastic Four — and the “Marvel Age of Comics.”
Hulk vs. Thing? Think about it. The Thing can give the Hulk a run for his money, I suppose, but in the end Hulk wins. No contest, really.
The “shock ending” here is that after quite a few matches during the years, The Thing takes pity on Hulk and joins forces with him to fight the army and the Fantastic Four (or more accurately, three), and anyone else who might be persecuting the Hulk at that moment.
George Perez, aided by the amazing Joe Sinnott, delivers a great looking action page featuring both characters. Pages from this issue rarely turn up and I’m fortunate that I found one. This is one of my favorite issues from the late bronze era, and it doesn’t hurt that it features a terrific cover by Jack Kirby, one of his earliest from his “return” to Marvel a few months prior.
That said, about the scale accuracy of the Gateway Arch Monument (St. Louis) vs. the occupants as depicted here? The less said, the better.
The Thing vs. The Hulk, becomes the Thing AND The Hulk — vs. everyone — at the end of FF #166.
Continuing our multi-part tribute to the 60thanniversary of the Fantastic Four — and the “Marvel Age of Comics.”
Hardly any fans I know are aware of this three-issue Marvel series featuring shorter-form stories by top creators. All of them are in black and white (hence the series title) and some, like this one by the very-talented Mr. Weeks, use wash-tone to add depth to the art.
Lee brought this page (and a few others) from this Fantastic Four story to a convention years back, and, even though it had a price tag on it, I could tell he was a bit reluctant to part with it. (I believe it’s the very first published story he wrote in addition to drawing, so I understood.) But, ultimately, I think he knew it would be in good hands and he let me pry it away from him.
I’m happy and grateful that he did. And I’d love to see more Weeks art employing gray-tone. It’s beautifully rendered.
