Panels and Pages… Art and Artists… Creators and Conventions… Musings and Memories…
Catwoman #5, March 2012
I love this page: It was probably the hand-drawn “Broooom” that got my attention. But it was the design and composition that kept it.
That said, I would have personally gone with “Vroooom.”
Just sayin…
Batman: The Silver Age Dailies and Sundays, Volume #1, March 2014
As noted a few years back, Pete Poplaski has been called an “artist’s artist” by many creators. His name might not be known as well as other artists, but his talent is unquestionable.
Pete, who broke into comics in the 70s underground community, ultimately became Kitchen Sink Press’ art director, and among many accomplishments helped give some of Robert Crumb’s projects just the right design touch.
Kitchen had the rights to reprint the DC Batman and Superman comic strips in the early 1990s, and Pete created brand new covers that evoked the classic style of those strips.
When we acquired those reprint rights at IDW in 2012, we went back to Pete to see if he would be interested in picking up where he left off, and fortunately he was.
Wayne Boring. Dick Sprang. Al Plastino. You name a classic artist, and Pete can replicate the style.
This, of course, is his amazing cover to Batman Silver Age Vol.1. It not only evokes the classic 60s Carmine Infantino revamp of the Dynamic Duo, but also the opening animation of the classic (beloved, and often hated) 60s Batman TV show. (Which is why these newspaperstrips exist in the first place, but, as always we digress.)
Batman Gotham Adventures #39, August 2001
Here’s a cool “Batman-animated” style page from Tim Levins that captures the fun and the flair of the 90s animated series.
The best art pages have no words — therefore, no word balloons needed. (And therefore, no missing word balloons on original modern art, 98% or more of word balloons are digitally added later.)
I realize its a bit of a cliche — but I always do get a kick out of Batgirl’s signature action move.
And, yes, I likely deserve one myself for employing that pun.
Detective #412, June 1971
“Dandy” Don Heck was a pro at a glamorous situations and glamorous people — including Batgirl and pretty much all the women he tackled, as evidenced in the page above.
Don was best at inking his own pencils, also evidenced above, in this cool action page from Batgirl’s back-up feature in Detective Comics.
Gotham Girls #1, October 2002
Batgirl fighting Catwoman? — seems like a great way to celebrate Halloween (upcoming) and Batman Day (belatedly) within a terrific action page by Jennifer Graves and the equally terrific J.Bone.
And, always a pleasant surprise to have a 21st Century piece of art with the word balloons hand lettered on the page.
Call me “old-school” all you want. It’s a compliment.
Fun fact: It took nearly 20 years for DC to collect this mini-series, and when they did they renamed it “Harley Quinn and the Gotham Girls to capitalize on — you guessed it — Harley Quinn, who is by no means the centerpiece of the original series.
I can hear the Joker’s cackle from here.
Norm Rapmund Recreation of John Byrne Batman, July 2022
How to celebrate the 500th blog post — and a little more than three years of posting?: Here’s a beautiful Norm Rapmund recreation of a John Byrne Batman splash page (from the 1990 Batman 3-D graphic novel) that Norm started well before this blog was even conceived. (Probably 2017 or so.*)
The 500 milestone includes some “reruns” and a few “cheats,” but hey, 500 is still 500. And we have may slipped in frequency for the first time this past month, but there’s still more great art to come.
Stay tuned.
(*A story for another day.)
Batman / Catwoman: Follow The Money #1, January 2011
Batman picking a lock while Catwoman looks on?
Just perfect.
(And with dialog even more so, but I had not read the issue when I acquired the page.)
Such a fun page by my pal Howard. (In a one-shot issue edited by one of oldest friends, Joey Cavalieri. But as always, we digress.)
It is “Batman Day” today — and we’ll pay tribute to that with a few more Bats-related posts through the rest of the month.
Its also our 500th post(!) and there will more to say about that in the next few weeks as well.
September 3-4. 2022
It’s been a minute (specifically, three years!)… Glad to be back in Long Beach with friends and fans!
Spider-Man Unlimited #1, May 1993
Carnage organizes a group of like-minded maniacs (Shriek, Carrion, etc.) on a murderous spree in the infamous 1993 crossover event from Marvel. In the intro issue, Ron Lim delivers this terrific splash as Spider-Man tackles Doppelganger, an evil near-mindless version of Webhead created during The Infinity War saga.
The “Comics Code” was completely superfluous by now, if not an outright joke. This storyline, which is the basis for a video game, and influenced the second Venom film, features so much bloodshed and violence its pretty much impossible to keep a bodycount.
The Green Goblin is a pussycat compared to these guys.
Spider-Man Spectacular #1, August, 2014
The only thing that freaks out Aunt May more than the Green Goblin? Spider-Man, of course.
Scott Koblish provides pencils and inks for this story set early in Spidey’s career. In this drama-filled penultimate action page, The Green Goblin’s glider indeed comes back to him — but not in the way he would like.
Meanwhile, a terrified May Parker figures she’s next since she believes Spidey has already murdered her late husband. Ah, irony.
(Based on the notation in the top margin, the story was originally intended for a French Panini magazine, and ended up in an American one-shot instead. It’s later reprinted in a Brazilian Panini mag, but I’m not sure there ever was a French version.)
