Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Jack Kirby & Mike Royer — 30 Years Ago, Today

Original Art and The Artists

Production Art, Satan’s Six #1, April 1993

30 years ago? How is this even possible?

Jack Kirby’s Satan’s Six was developed as part on an unrealized “Kirby Line” of comics in 1978, shortly after Jack’s final tenure at Marvel had ended.

Jack drew a cover and eight story pages, plus a character concept and design page. Mike Royer was hired to ink some of those pages as samples, but when the concept for a “Kirby Line” dissipated, the pages sat in a drawer unused for nearly 15 years.

Enter my old home, Topps Comics, the fledging publishing line from the trading card and confectionary giant. Topps signed a deal with Jack in 1992 to produce comic books based on new, and (primarily) previously unused concepts. It was essentially a second chance for a “Kirby Line.” With the King in declining health, however, others would have to create content around Jack’s ideas.

A few years ago, some Kirby production art re-surfaced, complete with the original “Marvel style” trade dress on the cover and Royer’s original inks.

What became of Satan’s Six? Tony Isabella’s stories based on Jack’s high concept of a lovable group of misfits too mischievous for Heaven, but not evil enough for Hell seemed wackily appropriate enough, but the art definitely was a challenge from issue one. 

Especially issue one. 

Kirby’s eight original pages are scattered throughout the full story with the rest of the art from John Cleary, making for a dizzying juxtaposition of styles.

And Cleary’s “contemporary” (1993) art here, and through the remaining three issues, was simply not enticing enough to sustain interest.  The book was cancelled with issue #4. You can read a complete illustrated overview of the series here.

Satan’s Six has yet to return to comics. They remain in… Limbo.

But still…Happy 30th anniversary to the “Kirbyverse!”

John Buscema — Ka-Zar, Man-Thing, Oh My!

Original Art and The Artists

Astonishing Tales #12, June 1972

Man-Thing (Seriously, what kind of drugs to you take to come up with a name like that?) makes his first color comic book appearance in this terrific Ka-Zar story illustrated primarily by John Buscema. 

Part of the story was slated to appear in the B&W Savage Tales #2 which did not see the light of day, so it was cleverly re-worked here. Because of the re-mixing, credits on this issue read like an all-star line-up, and include Buscema, Neal Adams, John Romita and Dan Adkins.

Writer Roy Thomas somehow made sense of it all, creating the framing story around Len Wein’s original tale.

Bonus: Man -Thing’s first overall appearance in Savage Tales #1 includes this glorious splash (below) by Gray Morrow.

Sean Chen — Savage Team-Up

Original Art and The Artists

Red Sonja Conan #1, July 2015

Red Sonja and Conan together again, as they say, on this great cover by my pal, the very talented Sean Chen.

That’s it. That’s the post.

Red Sonja made her first appearance in Conan #23, and appeared on the cover one month later in issue #24. Both issues feature glorious art by the legendary Barry Windsor Smith.

Aaron Lopresti — Lost Beauty

Original Art and The Artists

Unused Cover, Sword of Red Sonja: Doom of the Gods #1, October 2007

In an age of variant covers, exclusive covers, incentive covers, et al, sometimes a cover simply gets lost in shuffle.

It happens. (Take it from a former publisher. It definitely happens.)

Case in point: This stunning Red Sonja cover art was scheduled for Sword of Red Sonja: Doom of the Gods #1, got shuffled around and by the time the mini-series was complete, had not been published. I’m sure it didn’t help that another artist turned in a similar composition for a later issue.

I had a chance to catch up with Aaron last month and he thinks it may have appeared in a later trade collection or elsewhere at some point, but he couldn’t swear to it. And neither one of us could find it.

So, unpublished until we hear further. (Bonus points for the Marvel cover paper — all covers look better on that board, even if they weren’t actually produced by Marvel.)

All four published Lopresti covers from the original mini-series.

Frank Thorne — Angels From Hell!

Original Art and The Artists

Red Sonja #10, July 1978

Frank Thorne on Red Sonja? Sign me up. 

It took me a while to acquire a piece of art from his run on the famed female barbarian, but I ended up with a cool one.

To this day, the wildest convention events I have ever personally witnessed were the live performances featuring Red Sonja (Wendy Pini, Linda Behrle, and others) and Frank Thorne playing a wizard: “Sonja and the Wizard.”

They called themselves the “The Hyborian Players.”

It was indeed the 70s. Trippy, dude. Trippy.

Famed talk show host Mike Douglas with Phil Seuling, Wendy Pini as Red Sonja and actor Jamie Farr, July 1977

Reed Crandall — Debt Of Honor

Original Art and The Artists

Valor #3, August 1955

Reed Crandall pencils and inks a terrific page from a Crusades story about honor and betrayal. It appears in one of EC’s final comic books before the company completely exited the 10-cent color periodical business.

The Comics Code may have taken some of the teeth out of the storytelling of EC’s New Direction titles, 

But the art? 

The art remained just… great.

Gil Kane — Bloody Vengeance

Original Art and The Artists

Ring of the Nibelung #2, (The Valkyrie), February 1990

Gil Kane tackles Richard Wagner’s The Ring of The Nibelung opera series (adapted here by Roy Thomas) with dramatic results.

It’s a prestige format series, so Gil employs a large art format, and, unlike the majority of his DC work from this period, it’s primarily pen and ink, as opposed to marker. Therefore, the pages — pretty much all terrific — are collectible and displayable without worrying about the art fading to nothingness.

(Ask anyone — myself included — who has owned a page from either Sword of the Atom mini-series and they can explain further.)

What would Gil himself say about this dynamic page? I’m not exactly sure, but it would begin this way:

“Greg, my boy…”

Mike Machlan — Avengers #2, Redux

Original Art and The Artists

Marvel Fanfare #41, December 1988

Mike Machlan adds his own flavor to the classic match-up of The Avengers vs. the Space Phantom (Avengers #2) in this published pin-up from Marvel fanfare #41. Mike did a few of these classic interpretations as a portfolio in this issue, each with a different inker. (John Beatty provides finishes here.)

I’ve always enjoyed Machlan’s art. I understand that health reasons cut his career short, which, goes without saying, is a terrible shame.

Separately, I’ve gone on record saying that the first four issues of the Avengers are the craziest (in a positive way) and most colorful start to any series in the Silver Age — if not ever:

Issue #1 —The Avengers (Ant-man, Wasp, Thor Iron Man, Hulk) form to fight Loki, and despite Hulk’s reticence they agree to become a team. Wasp provides the name “Avengers.”

Issue #2 — Ant-Man is now Giant-Man, and this time the Space Phantom (instead of Loki) manipulates the Hulk (and the rest of the group) — and after a big fight, ol’ greenskin gets angry and runs-off.

Issue #3 – The remaining Avengers chase after the Hulk and run into the Namor the Sub-Mariner along the way. Iron Man wears new armor, everyone gets into a big fight, and the Hulk runs off. Again. Namor escapes to the sea. Cameos by Spider-man, The X-Men and The Fantastic Four.

Issue #4 — Namor, now really, really angry, starts hurling some icebergs around, and it turns out Captain America is frozen in one of them, although Subby swims off before he can discover that. The Avengers revive Cap (good thing they have a submarine), and after they tussle, and he comprehends he’s been in suspended animation for 20 years, he joins them.

Whew.

John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson— Heroes Return!

Original Art and The Artists

Thor #1, July 1998

It’s the Avengers vs. the Destroyer in this great action page from the first issue of the underrated reboot of the Thor mythos. Dan Jurgens wrote the series and John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson provided the visual storytelling for the launch.

Cool bonus feature: Both artists signed the page the year the issue was published.

Marvel definitely floundered after the Image exodus in 1991, but by the late 90s stated putting the comic book pieces back together as evidenced here and in the launch of the Marvel Knights imprint, produced by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti. The Ultimate universe came along a few years later, and the rest, as they say is history.