Perhaps best known for his work on Micronauts and The Nam, Michael Golden is simply put, a superstar artist.
And perhaps some of his most fascinating art, and possibly least known by anyone other than hardcore Golden fans, are his covers (and portfolios) for Topps’ Jurassic Park series.
Beautifully detailed, wonderful compositions, these covers transcended the JP sequels and side stories that we published at Topps. They are simply stunning. While some are better than others, there’s not a bad one in the bunch.
Michael did 18 different covers, and added two new ones to two separate portfolios. Interestingly, until I looked it up, I didn’t realize that Image actually published the portfolios, which are long out of print and challenging to find on the secondary market place.
(I have no memory of how we were able to swing that with Universal, but I’m glad we did.)
This beautiful piece? Dinosaurs. Gorillas. Mad scientists. It’s like some crazy Republic movie serial. Only with a better budget.
In honor of Jurassic World: Dominion opening this Friday, we’re featuring a “Summer Rerelease” special this week of three of our best earlier Jurassic Park posts.
Gil Kane and George Perez teamed up on artistic chores for the original Topps Jurassic Park film adaption. (With writing by Walter Simonson). It was a unique pairing suggested by Topps EIC Jim Salicrup, and for the most part, worked very well. All four issues came out on the predetermined schedule, not an easy feat, especially in those days with newsstand distribution considerations. But the schedule was… tight. (OK, harrowing.)
I was delighted to pick up the original art for Gil’s and George’s variant cover for issue #4 a few years ago at auction.
The scene is from the climax of the film where our young heroes are menaced in the commissary kitchen by the crafty velociraptors. It’s a cool composition that captures the terror of the moment.
Here’s the rub — Is that a chubby raptor missing a neck? Or a deformed T-Rex? I mean, what kind of dino did Gil actually draw?
You can’t tell from the scan, but there’s an art patch on the dino’s face. Clearly some of it absolutely, positively needed to be altered to be approved overnight. But someone in Universal’s licensing department must have ultimately taken pity on our harrowing schedule, and us, because the final version is definitely not on model.
Since this is technically not the “main” cover, which is by Dave Cockrum, maybe they gave us a pass. (I don’t remember who did the art patch — George, our production department, or, for that matter, Gil.)
Ah, Gil. We sent him lots of photo reference. I can’t recall if we sent this exact scene specifically, but regardless, he had reference. Like I said, lots of it.
Only problem is, as I found out later on, Gil didn’t have much use for reference.
It doesn’t matter. He was one of the best. I consider myself fortunate to know him professionally, albeit briefly. Stories about him were legendary by the time I met him in 1993.
And, I got at least one “Greg, my boy…” out of him, so I could cross that off the list. Whew.
Dave Cockrum’s cover features raptors that are more on model, while Gil’s raptor might need some Ultra Slimfast.Raptors are lean, mean, fighting machines as seen in reference stills from the film.
Empire Strikes Back Conceptual Art, Large format Giclee, 2006 (Original Painting, 1978)
I wish this were an actual Empire Strikes Back original from legendary conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie. That would be… just lovely.
But I’m not complaining. Just observing.
It’s actually an oversized canvas Giclee, limited to an edition of just 5 copies, published by Acme Archives about 15 years ago. Scanned from the original in highest resolution, the quality of the reproduction is superb.
Ralph McQuarrie. Star Wars.
Not much more to add here.
(Well, except that a smaller-sized version is still available from Acme here. They deserve a free plug, don’t you think?)
A long time ago, in continuity far, far away, Chewbacca apparently does not make it to the conclusion of the Star Wars Saga.
And the classic team of Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway beautifully illustrate this mournful moment in a rare departure from their more common DC team-ups.
I realize we can be broken records about this, but the coloring obviously doesn’t do the art true justice. It might look good on a computer screen, but as for the final printed version… not so much.
This was a DF exclusive to this Dark Horse comic published in 2000.
Of course any storyline that Chewbacca died flies out the window with all the other post Return of The Jedi continuity, once Disney purchases Lucasfilm and declares all the previous “cannon,” non-canonical.
Which is good for Chewie, of course, but not necessarily the rest of the Star Wars Saga.
(As a side note, Marvel has indeed done some terrific comics since reacquiring the license. But tossing out 30 years of stories, in comics and novels, some of them quite excellent… well… I have no words.)
Many great variant covers exist for this Star Wars C-3PO one-shot, including this beautifully detailed version by Reilly Brown. But one of my other favorites — and, unfortunately, I don’t have a scan — never made it to print.
The cover came from the imagination of my pal Mike McKone. Marvel commissioned it as an exclusive variant, paid Mike for it, had it approved by Lucasfilm and then… in the ongoing game of musical chairs cover variants (at all the publishers), it became the odd man out.
Mike and I both tried tracking a published version down for years, as Marvel told him it actually was published, but ultimately that turned out to be an inadvertent red (golden?) herring.
If he still has it when I see him again, I will photograph it and add it to the blog later. It’s fun, and I would own it if it had actually been published.
Here’s an absolutely iconic scene from the original Star Wars film. (“New Hope.”) Darth Vader faces his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, on the Death Star. As any Star Wars fan knows, things don’t go well for old Ben.
Or do they?
It depends on a certain point of view, I suppose.
If you scan the word balloons, you’ll see that there’s a slight twist to this Dark Horse storyline, although I’m not going to be the one to spoil it for you.
Paul Gulacy and P. Craig Russell provide creative storytelling (I love the top sequence) and excellent draftsmanship (of course) for the 1997 Dark Horse Series, Crimson Empire.
This is one of my favorite pages in the first issue, with Darth Vader landing and bowing before his master, The Emperor.
Here’s a stunning Jim Balkie page from the Dark Horse mini-series, Star Wars: Empire’s End, a fitting sequel to the acclaimed Dark Empire saga.
Both stories feature the writing of the talented Tom Veitch, although Cam Kennedy illustrated the Dark Empire series.
Each page — by either artist — is fully painted, and most of the originals I’ve seen, including this one, are terrific.
Nice Star Wars iconography on this page too, featuring Han and Leia, a great action shot of the Millennium Falcon, and of course the Emperor frying one of his officers who displeased him.
How did the Empire ever get anyone to sign up for the officer’s school?
Fun fact: The Emperor “lives” in this 90s saga because of — you guessed it — clones. If this storyline didn’t influence at least some of The Rise of Skywalker, well, we can chalk up to: “Great minds think alike.”
Once again, Leia takes control in this terrific page from the art team of Ryan Kelly and Dan Parsons.
The Princess grabs a ship and heads off on her own in this final classic saga series from Dark Horse (written by Brian Wood) before the rights reverted back to Marvel.
Even If Lucas retconned his own work in the making of the original Trilogy, and decided that Leia was Luke’s sister after the fact, she’s the baddest ass of the bunch. She’s not to be taken for granted or trifled with, even if she doesn’t have “Force Powers.”
But I will say this: Her resistance to Vader’s torture droid on the Death Star makes more sense if she does.
Back here next week with more Star Wars.
Fun (or not-so fun) fact: We never actually see Leia pilot a ship in the classic trilogy, and we never see her Mom Padme fly on her own in the prequels either. But I guess Princesses typically have drivers?
Marvel rebrands the original Dark Horse comics with its own trade dress for print and digital collections.
Here’s a classic era Star Wars page featuring pencils from Carmine Infantino with inks from Gene Day.
It’s from a Star Wars story written by fan-favorite Chris Claremont, which ended up without a logical place in the timeline, as Marvel couldn’t fully predict when Lucasfilm would permit story insight and scheduling approval related to events of Empire Strikes Back.
Infantino drew many of the Star wars stories that appeared in between New Hope and ESB, and many after as well, but this odd continuity duck” didn’t make into the U.S. comics.
Instead, it ends up in Marvels Star Wars Weekly, a combination of “new” and reprint material.
The weekly format featured shorter stories, more serialized, making them even closer in spirit to Lucas’ favorite SF, the classic Flash Gordon serials. Perfect for titles like “Molten Doom!” and “Buried Alive!”
And, except for a slot in an oddball licensed Marvel book collection, the story remained un-reprinted for more than 30 years, until Dark Horse included it in one of its Omnibus collections. (And now, it’s been reprinted twice by Marvel, so it’s a bit easier to find.)
