Original Art and The Artists – Page 55 – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Jack Davis — Casualty Of War

March 21, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Frontline Combat #5, March 1952

Concluding (for now) our 60th anniversary celebration of the legendary EC “New Trend” comics with another classic piece of great art from the legendary Jack Davis.

“We got into the Civil War thing. It was a favorite project of mine. We were hot to do the story of the Civil War from front to back.”
— Harvey Kurtzman, 1972 EC fan convention panel.

War stories were among EC’s many strengths, and many of those, thanks to Harvey Kurtzman’s obsessive editorial attention, were accurately based on historical events.

“Stonewall Jackson!” is a perfect example. Jackson, a brilliant Confederate military tactician, was accidentally shot by his own men in a nighttime battle. This Kurtzman story retells that tale through the voice of the supposed soldier who shot him.

Lighting is an illusion created by a creative combination of black ink and negative space. On this splash, one of my personal favorites, Davis indeed creates a beautiful illusion of campfire light. There is no actual illumination here of course, but thanks to the well-crafted art, our mind’s eye sees it.

The storytelling is equally effective. The camera work closes in on one figure through multiple panels — we instinctively know that this is our narrator and his story, even without reading the dialogue.

Kurtzman and Davis were a terrific team.

All our stories really protested war. I don’t think we thought war was very nice generally. The whole mood of our stories was that war isn’t a good thing. You get killed. That’s the way war is; you get killed suddenly for no reason. — Harvey Kurtzman, 1972 EC fan convention panel.

*The splash makes the cover of Fantagraphics collection of Kurtzman / Davis collaborations.*

*EC’s creators discuss the legendary Jack Davis for his profile in the 1972 EC fan convention.*

In 2011, Davis told The Wall Street Journal about his early career and his breakthrough with EC:

I was about ready to give up, go home to Georgia and be either a forest ranger or a farmer. But I went down to Lafayette St., up in an old rickety elevator and through a glass door to Entertaining Comics where Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines were putting out horror comic books. They looked at my work and it was horrible and they gave me a job right away!

Every time you went in to see Bill Gaines, he would write you a check when you brought in a story. You didn’t have to put in a bill or anything. I was very, very hungry and I was thinking about getting married. So I kept the road pretty hot between home and Canal Street. I would go in for that almighty check, go home and do the work, bring it in and get another check and pick up another story. [Edit: the actual cross street to Lafayette was Spring Street, not Canal.]

Jack Davis — Kurtzman’s Obsession

March 19, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Two-Fisted Tales #21, May 1951

Continuing our 60th anniversary celebration of the legendary EC “New Trend” comics with another classic piece of great art from the legendary Jack Davis.

This is actually the fourth issue of EC’s Two-Fisted Tales. William Gaines — and other publishers — used a variety of title and numbering gimmicks to ensure they didn’t lose a slot in the challenging newsstand system.

It’s a Korean War story — ongoing at the time of publication — and one of many published prior to the “ceasefire” that ended the war.

Davis, in one of his early war stories, does a fantastic job following — and enhancing — Harvey Kurtzman’s very specific layouts.

Very specific layouts? Kurtzman was obsessive about the storytelling and the detail. If he couldn’t draw the story himself, e wanted to ensure that the finished result would be as close to his own material as possible. Again, because this is an early Davis war story, even the art style itself is mimics Kurtzman’s in places.

Davis and Kurtzman (and others) discussed Kurtzman’s methodology at the 1972 EC fan convention, and took a question from the audience…

QUESTION: I’d like to know how the individual artists felt working with the very strict layouts.

KURTZMAN: I’d like to hear that, too.

DAVIS: I don’t know. I think the end product came out pretty good – the detail and all. There are a lot of people that appreciate detail and there are a lot of people that don’t. Once you do something you like it to be authentic. Where doing the horror books you didn’t have to be authentic, this was something that you’d like for it to come across as true, and Harvey felt very strongly about truth – the way the weapons worked and everything. We did the best we could, and I enjoyed it. It wasn’t that bad. I’d hate to do it all the time.

*Marie Severin’s caricature of Harvey Kurtzman (in the 1972 EC convention program) captures perfectly his obsessive attention to detail and accuracy, especially on his beloved war stories.*

Jack Davis — Wolfman Jack

March 17, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Tales From The Crypt #46, March 1955

2020 is the 60th anniversary of the legendary EC “New Trend” comics. William Gaines and his masterful crew published some of the most enduring comics and stories in the medium’s history, raising the bar in all categories — humor, science fiction, war, crime, and of course, legendarily, horror.

To celebrate this anniversary, we take a look at one of EC’s greats — Jack Davis.

This Davis page is from Jack’s last horror story, “Upon Reflection,” from Tales From The Crypt #46, the final issue. Gaines, under censorship pressure — and unable to ensure distribution — raised the white flag and cancelled his horror and crime titles.

Davis telltale style drips all over this page. The old crone, the angry mob, and the tense claustrophobia in each panel spell out impending doom… for someone. (If we know the EC M.O., it will be a twist.)

The cover from this werewolf story has become one of the most iconic in horror comics history.

By 1955, Davis had easily become one of the most important artists in the EC “bullpen.” He was unfailingly reliable, tremendously gifted, and ridiculously prolific. Under the gun, he could pencil and ink three pages in day, without taking quality shortcuts.

Gaines, Davis, and nearly all of the rest of the EC mainstays reunited at the 1972 EC fan convention, organized by fans Bruce Hershenson and Ron Barlow. At various panels throughout the event, they reminisced about EC’s halcyon days, and the two spoke about Jack’s association with horror stories:

JACK DAVIS: I enjoyed doing the horror bit and they liked it, and so I kept at it. But when I looked back on it after things began to get very ticklish with the Code and everything, I began to ask – am I doing something constructive or good. I still, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s really that bad.

WILLIAM GAINES: You have to understand Jack comes from another era, and another kind of background. Jack was, and still is, a very moral, religious person. He came up here from Georgia… [laughter]…I’m serious now…and Jack did this stuff because it was his job as an artist. Jack has always had some misgivings about it, and I respect his misgivings. Jack has been more comfortable with other types of material than horror. But the fact that he’s a real pro is evident from the fact that although he wasn’t 100% comfortable with it, you see the job he did.

*“Upon Reflection” is collected in both black and white and color versions, and the Tales From The Crypt cover adorns the Jack Davis EC Stories Artist’s Edition* *from IDW.*

Three EC-related publications that warped my (very young) brain, and the rest, as they say, is history: The 1971 bio of Gaines that includes tremendous detail about EC’s rise and fall — and rise; Woody Gelman’s 1971 Nostalgia Press oversize collection of EC stories was my intro to the tales themselves; and the brilliant 1972 EC fan convention program which featured bios and caricatures of all the EC creators.

Eric Powell — That’s Gotta Hurt

March 15, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Will Eisner’s The Spirit # 11, 2016

Concluding our celebration of the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with additional creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.

Looks like the Spirit forgot to beware the Ides of March.

Matt Wagner brought the Spirit back to life for Dynamite in 2015 with an ongoing series. Although Matt drew the cover for the first issue, the amazing Eric Powell created many of the rest of the main covers, including this terrific one.

I first discovered The Spirit via the over-sized, black & white reprints from Warren Publications in the mid 70s. I was bowled over by Eisner’s artistry and sophisticated use of sequential narrative but also by the enormous emotional punch these stories seemed to pack into a brief seven pages. Whether it was humor, romance, pathos or irony, I found a depth of character and resonance that seemed to be missing from the mainstream comics of the day. I can honestly say The Spirit changed my perceptions of a comics creator and made me consciously aware of the artistry involved in rendering these tales. I’m a comics artist and writer today because of Will Eisner and The Spirit.

— Matt Wagner, quoted in the Westfield Comics Blog

Kitchen Sink started the tradition of all-star creators working on the Spirit, a tradition that continues today…

Tim Bradstreet — Hard Boiled

March 14, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

The Spirit New Adventures #6, 1998

Continuing our celebration of the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with additional creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.

Tim Bradstreet — with Eisner’s blessing — redraws some of the Spirit’s backstory in Will’s style for the cover of The Spirit New Adventures #6.

The foreground? Bradstreet reimagines The Spirit a bit more hardboiled, a bit darker, less whimsical version of the character. And he sports possibly the greatest comic book trench coat ever.

(As you can see from the original vs. published cover, The Kitchen Sink trade design cropped much of the background.)

The complete collection of the New Adventures, which includes contributions by Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and others is available from Dark Horse Comics.

On June 2, 1940, Denny Colt made his debut… and promptly died.

Eisner introduced his detective with jaunty body language, lots of attitude and over-confidence, and a close relationship with Police Commissioner Dolan (and that was all in the first half dozen panels.) The cartoonist already knew his character well. Colt went off to capture the villainous Dr. Cobra and was found dead, drowned in a flood of toxic chemicals. After his funeral, Colt woke from suspended animation, dug himself out and assumed a new role as the Spirit, haunting Wildwood cemetery and keeping his city safe with Dolan’s connivance.

— Paul Levitz, summarizing the Spirit’s origin in his book, Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel

The classic film noir trench-coated detective: Alan Ladd with Veronica Lake in This Gun For Hire; Robert Mitchum (with Jane Greer) in Out of The Past; and Humphrey Bogart — in pretty much everything. (Ladd would have made an excellent Spirit back in the day.)

John Paul Leon — Spirit In The Sky

March 12, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Spirit #16, September 2011

Continuing our celebration of the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with additional creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.

David Hine (Spider-Man Noir) authors a clever tale where pretty much every page is a splash — with the Spirit title included as part of the art. John Paul Leon hits the concept out of the park successfully homaging Will Eisner’s original brilliant splash pages with innovations of his own.

On this page, the final one of the story, Leon perhaps finds inspiration for the logo from 1946 — from the classic tale, “The Man Who Killed The Spirit” AKA “The Last Trolley.”

Fun fact: This issue — and this entire series — was edited by the ultra-talented Joey Cavalieri, a pal of mine for nearly 50 years. Joey and I first met as kids hunting down comics in the candy stores, newsstands and luncheonettes of the lovely seaside town of Long Beach, New York.

*Variations on a theme: The original 1946 Spirit strip with the blowing letters — and two later (and slightly different) reprint versions.*

Mike Ploog — PS, I Love You

March 10, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Spirit # 31, September 2009

Continuing our celebration of the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with additional creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.

Perhaps the artist with the most specific style similarities to Will Eisner is Mike Ploog, who worked for Eisner briefly in the early 1970s, on Eisner’s PS Magazine for the military. Ploog credits his initial Eisner influence on the 10 years he himself spent in the Marines reading and copying the magazine.

Ironically, as a kid, Ploog was not a comic book fan, so he had no idea who Eisner was, or the history of the Spirit.

But that obviously changed as Ploog discovered Eisner, The Spirit and comics’ lore in general. On this page from 2007, Ploog, aided by inks from vet Dan Green, captures Eisner’s Spirit — and adds his own taste for a horrific milieu.

Ploog spoke with journalist Jon B. Cooke about the early part of his career in an interview for Comic Book Artist #2 in 1998. Read the full interview here.

CBA: How’d you get the call from Will?
Ploog: I was working for Hanna-Barbera, and the guy in the room with me belonged to the National Cartoonist’s Society. He got a flyer Will had put out, looking for an assistant. He looked at it and said, “Ploog, this looks like your stuff.” I looked at it and said, “It is my stuff.” [laughter]. I called Will, and two days later he was in L.A. and interviewed me…the following week I went to work for him.

CBA: When you first burst upon the scene in comic books, you had a style very reminiscent of Will’s work. Did you start developing that style through osmosis, just being around him?
Ploog: It was very difficult for me, because I hadn’t done that much work. I really didn’t know what a “style” meant. When Will saw my work, he said, “This guy can adapt to what I’m doing easily.” Obviously whatever I had, it was adaptable to him. I could emulate Will right down to a pinpoint on an occasion…I’m sure from working with Will, it developed in that direction…

I love Will; he’s a dear, dear old friend. He’s been an enormous influence on my work both in comics and film.

-Mike Ploog, 1998

*Early Ploog Marvel work — he was a breakout star from pretty much the beginning of his comics career, although he ultimately spent more of his professional life working in film.*

*The Ploog art book is a must have for any fan of Mike’s — or simply for those who like great looking art books.*

Will Conrad — Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

March 7, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Spirit Commission, 2003

Continuing our celebration of “Will Eisner Week” and the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with additional creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.

The very talented (and underrated) Brazilian artist Will Conrad is a self-professed Will Eisner nerd. When he heard that Eisner would be attending a Brazilian comic book convention, he labored over this oversized Spirit piece to show Will, who was nothing but flattered and supportive.

Will held on to the piece for many years, but he knew how much I loved it, and after some atypical patience on my part, he ultimately let it go. (Thanks Will!)

“Sometimes Eisner used an empty street as part of the story. When he drew fog, the page was damp.

And the rain, always the rain, dripping off everything including the Spirit logo. He lingered over environments until you could almost smell the cheap hotel rooms, taste the tension, or feel on your flesh the chilly pall of a rain swept street.”

— Jim Steranko, History of The Comics, Volume 2

*Raining on his parade — Eisner’s Spirit page from 1996 and Darwyn Cooke’s cover from 2009.*

The original Spirit series is collected in its entirety in an impressive 26-volume archive series from DC, and select stories in the original large art format (Artist’s Editions) are available in two gorgeous volumes from IDW.

Darwyn Cooke — Captures The Spirit

March 5, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Continuing our celebration of “Will Eisner Week” and the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with other creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.

The late Darwyn Cooke? The closest thing to Will Eisner this modern generation of talent had seen. Visionary storyteller, writer, illustrator, letterer and more. Not only could he do it all, Darwyn could do it well. VERY well.

He was the logical choice for an ongoing series of Spirit stories — the first since Eisner’s run ended in 1952.

DC launched the series with a Batman Sprit crossover, and this terrific splash is the final page of that story. Inked by J. Bone, this issue, and the subsequent ones of the ongoing series are the closet in spirit (ahem) to Eisner’s vision more than 50 years prior.

Darwyn, we miss you.

“I think everybody who is consumed by storytelling within this medium has had some profound schooling from Will…

I can remember it was one of those days when I was thirteen, and I was in a comic store, and there was nothing that I wanted to get. On the wall was a copy of Warren’s Spirit magazine. I think it’s number three, where he is running down the elevated track straight at you, and the train is behind him. It’s just one of the most exciting images I have ever seen…”

-Darwyn Cooke interview From Will Eisner: A Spirited Life by Bob Andelman

Young Darwyn Cooke found a copy of Warren’s Spirit #3 and the world was never the same. Also pictured, his cover for the first issue and collection of DC comics stories.

Will Eisner — Peak Spirit

March 3, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

The Spirt, Register and Tribune Syndicate, September 12, 1948

2020 marks the 80th Anniversary of the Will Eisner’s Spirit, a comic series that ultimately became a game changer in the medium. This week is also celebrated annually as “Will Eisner Week,” dedicated top one of comics’ most influential legacies. So let’s dive in…

This cool page is from “Cache McStash”, and is from Eisner’s peak period on the Spirit. In fact, it is published just one week after his own personal favorite story, “The Story of Gerhard Shnobble,” perhaps the most perfect film noir ever created for the comics.

And don’t let the misleading credits on the otherwise great Grand Comics Database fool you. This story is all Eisner — script, pencils, inks, and letters — as confirmed by Denis Kitchen.

I was fortunate enough to be asked write the intro for the Spirit story “Sound” featured in the hot-off-the-presses Spirit 80th celebration from Clover Press. No spoilers, but, I love the way Eisner integrated sound effects into his storytelling, and, on this page the simple ticking of the clock enhances tension and movement.

Like everything else he did, he found a way to make his two dimensional comics cinematic in scope.

“I grew up on the movies, that’s what I lived with. The movies always influenced me… Doing the Spirit strip was like making movies. It gave me a chance to be an actor, producer, author and cameraman all at once.”

— Will Eisner, quoted in Jim Steranko’s History of The Comics, Volume 2