Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

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.

Jack Kirby — The Future Is Now

Original Art and The Artists

Omac #3, January 1975

“Technology is fire in the hands of children, and (Jack) Kirby easily foresaw what the world would look like with wealth, corporations, and technology operating simply for human profit and power, without accountability to any Rule of Law.” — Rob Walton, Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide.

Jack Kirby brought his fertile imagination (back) to DC fifty years ago, and the results, while not always commercially successful, were typically fascinating.

OMAC was one of my personal favorites. It felt vastly different than anything else Jack had done, with one wild futuristic technology idea after another thrown into the mix. (And of course, many of these technologies have come to fruition in the subsequent 50 years. But, as always, we digress.) Ultimately Jack never had chance to fully develop many of these ideas, as he jumped ship and returned to Marvel after just eight issues.

This great “chapter splash” checks off many Kirby flourishes. (Many of Jack’s books had multiple chapters, meaning more great splash pages in each issue.)

Why is this page great?

It features the title character, a personal rocket ship, and the Kirby cosmos — in all its glory! (Earth’s atmosphere never looked this trippy.)

It features the title character’s name prominently in a flashy hand-lettered headline.

And, of course, it has great Kirby Crackle.

We celebrate the King’s reign at DC all this week. Stay tuned.

Wallace Wood — The Truth Is Out There

Original Art and The Artists

Weird Science Fantasy #26, December 1954

I love stories about UFO sightings. As a kid, that was a (small) section of the library I often haunted.

I don’t believe that aliens are touring our planet, but I’d love to find out I’m mistaken. The problem, of course, is that the science, as we understand it today, makes it pretty unlikely. (A fun book on the subject, The Physics of Star Trek, dives into the detail.)

I like UFO stories so much that this was one of the first actual EC back issues I ever forked over my hard-earned allowance for back in the early 70s. 

I don’t own that issue anymore, I sold it when Russ Cochran’s reprints started covering the EC bases.

But I own this great “one-pager” of Wood original art — something I could never have conceived of as a kid.

And who knows? Maybe one day, extraterrestrials actually will land on the White House South Lawn and tell us: “Einstein, nice man, he just had one part of the formula incorrect.”

Happy 50th EC Comics!

Wallace Wood — EC’s Finest Warms Up

Original Art and The Artists

Weird Science #8, July 1951

Earlier in the year, we celebrated EC Comics “New Trend” 50th anniversary with some great original art examples from the legendary Jack Davis. Today — and Saturday — we will celebrate once again, this time with the astonishing Wallace Wood.

Woody hadn’t quite hit his artistic prime yet when he drew this Weird Science tale, “The Probers.” But he was perhaps at his most prolific, pencilling and inking up to three pages a day(!) for EC and other publishers of the day.

That sheer volume would decrease as Woody’s detail became more and more intricate, and the finishes more and more polished. In a very short time, Wood’s peers would pretty much always refer to him as best in class.

Some of Woody’s great SF art (Non EC) can be found in his 50s comic book stories, as well as his illustrations for Galaxy magazine.

Zina Saunders — Vote!

Original Art and The Artists

Mars Attacks #1 Cover Variant, 2012

Vote indeed! (Just not for this guy.)

The terrifically talented Zina Saunders — daughter of legendary Mars Attacks painter Norm Saunders — created this card for our 1994 Topps Mars Attacks “sequel” series. So many good cards were created for that set, including many by Zina, that we ran out of room, and this one went unused…

Until 2012, when we acquired the Mars Attacks comic book license at IDW. Legendary comics marketing guru Dirk Wood had this crazy idea: What if we created 55 variant covers, each featuring one of the original 55 cards? Ha-ha. That’s funny.

Then we went ahead and did it.

And we upped the ante: We added an additional variant cover that you could only get if you bought the complete box set of variant covers.

Honestly, I think we all agreed we were nuts  — until some good orders came in. Collectors actually wanted all the covers. It was a novel way to have a complete “set” of the original Mars Attacks.

Maybe those are unrelated thoughts. We might still be nuts.

But I’m not voting the Martian ticket, regardless. Not this year, anyway.

Steve Ditko — Happiness Or Madness?

Original Art and The Artists

Tales of Suspense #41, May 1963

Happy Birthday to the great Steve Ditko, who would have turned 93 today.

Ditko drew — and possibly wrote (Stan Lee on credits, but that sometimes is overstated) — this neat little science fiction back-up story in the third issue of Iron Man.

These SF and horror stories would soon become rarities as publisher Martin Goodman and Editor Lee replaced them with a new line-up of superheroes, including a certain web-crawler that would bring Ditko more notoriety than anything else he would create.

The Amazing Spiderman #1 had just hit the newsstands. The rest as they say…

Marvel did a nice job reprinting all of Stan Lee’s and Steve Ditko’s horror and SF stories in this two-volume series.

Mike Kaluta — Mr. Orlando’s Neighborhood

Original Art and The Artists

Secrets of the Sinister House #6, August 1972

Joe Orlando brought his EC Comics horror sensibilities with him when he landed at DC in the late 60s.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

DC became a company where artists and visual storytellers (Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Dick Giordano, et al) started moving into upper management and making editorial decisions.

As Joe told writer Jon Cooke in the very first issue of Comic Book Artist in 1998:

“…Many times we were asked to do impossible things by writer/editors who had no sense of the visual-to do things that wouldn’t work and have to argue our way out of it. We just thought that as artists, we would do a better job working with talent.”

In just a few years, Joe turned around the moribund House of Mystery and the already-cancelled House of Secrets with tales of mystery, suspense and of course, horror. He and his team took advantage of the more-relaxed standards at the Comics Code, sometimes creating even more relaxed standards in the process. 

(A few years later, Marvel would follow suit with a glut of horror titles that included vampires, werewolves and zombies. But, as always, we digress.)

And sure enough, Joe’s comics nearly instantly became artistic showcases for veterans like Gil Kane and Orlando’s EC mentor Wally Wood, along with young Turks like Bernie Wrightson, Nestor Redondo, and Mr. Kaluta here.

(Plus great covers often by Neal Adams. Definitely worth 12 or 15 cents.)

By 1972, Joe had built yet another house in the neighbored, and this great Kaluta page featuring both DC horror hosts, Cain and Abel, is the delightful intro to Secrets of Sinister House #6.

Classic.

An early Joe Orlando EC horror tale, and Joe’s caricature rendered by Marie Severin at the 1953 EC Christmas party.

Ron Frenz & Sal Buscema — Ragnarok & Roll

Original Art and The Artists

Thunderstrike # 4, May 2011

FRenz Kirby etc

Ron Frenz goes full on Jack Kirby (with perhaps a dash of John Buscema) with this wonderful Mangog splash from the second Thunderstrike (Thor — sort of) mini-series.

Just because the “Monster Age” at Marvel ended when the superheroes took over the publishing schedule (early 60s), that didn’t mean that Kirby stopped creating great monsters during the era. 

In fact, the monsters had to be fiercer, meaner, and smarter — to provide antagonists worthy of our intrepid heroes.

Take Mangog here. His appearance typically means the end — of everything. Hence, Ragnarok. Stan and Jack introduced him in Thor 154 and 155 back in 1968 and he’s created havoc from time to time ever since.

As for Mr. Frenz? Another great looking effort, with terrific inks by Sal Buscema.

Kirby Crackle included, no extra charge.

To be-eth continued, as always…

John Buscema & Tony DeZuniga — Skull On The Seas

Original Art and The Artists

Savage Sword of Conan #191, October 1991

Roy Thomas returns to Conan for the first time in 10 years, and partners with superstar artist John Buscema, pretty much picking up where the pair left off in terms of innovative and exciting Conan stories.

In addition to astonishing talent, Buscema could be very productive in terms of his total output — in this stretch of Conan he is providing layouts and rough pencils only, freeing him up for other projects. Here Tony DeZuniga provides some nice finishing touches for John. (I think here you can see John’s obvious handiwork, which was not always the case with DeZuniga inks.)

Lots of ink — as it were — has been spilled on who was Buscema’s best embellisher on Conan.  See here, here, and here for illustrative discussions.

My opinions have varied over time, and sometimes from issue to issue. The debate itself is fun.

And the talking skull? Spoiler alert: It belongs to King Kull’s arch nemesis Thulsa Doom. (In fairness, Thulsa eventually gives Conan much grief as well.)

Richard Corben — In The Swamp

Original Art and The Artists

Swamp Thing #20, December 2005

I discovered Richard Corben’s art at about the not quite ripe age of 12. I can’t remember if I saw it in the Warren magazines or in the underground comics first, but doesn’t matter. I was hooked.

(Undergrounds at age 12 or 13?  A longer story, for another day.)

The late Harlan Ellison, award-winning author — and often-vocal critic  — had this to say about Corben:

“It was obvious to anyone with the sensitivity of a doorknob that Corben was a rara avis, that right from the git-go he was first-rank, with a technique and an artistic sensibility wholly original, a technique and sensibility that created their own genre; and if there were to be imitators as there have been ⏤they were doomed forever to live in the shadow of the originator. It was as if Rich was born to illustrate my stories about the world of the hoverpaks and downunders.” 

Many art fans feel the same way about Corben’s work, and original pieces are rarely offered for sale, so I consider myself fortunate to have this great splash page from Corben’s brief visit with Swamp Thing.

Richard Corben turned 80 years old earlier this month. How in the heck is that even possible?

Harlan Ellison’s post-apocalyptic SF, Vic and Blood, lavishly illustrated by Corben.