Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Joe Kubert — Tarzan, Unvarnished

Original Art and The Artists

Tarzan #234, January 1975

2022 is the 110th anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ jungle icon, Tarzan.

This year has at least two-other important Tarzan-related anniversaries:

The first is 1932, the release year of the first Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan feature film. Tarzan existed on screen prior to the Weissmuller film, of course, but his 12 features likely did more to enshrine the character in the popular imagination than any other media representation.

The second is 1972, the year DC took over the comic book license from Gold Key and re-established Tarzan as a savage lord of the Jungle. Joe Kubert’s comic art work on the character was the first that took the sheen of the character and returned him to his literary roots.

Long before “reboot” became part of the pop culture vocabulary, Kubert’s Tarzan was a stunning new look for comic book readers.

DC, as part its licensing deal, had to provide all the original art to the Burroughs estate. It’s still there in the archives, in excellent condition, and we used it to create three beautiful Artist’s Editions volume at IDW.

Ultimately, thought, this means that Kubert Tarzan pages are among the rarest of the last 50 years. With the exception of a handful, none of them have ever been offered on the open market.

Joe originally gifted this splash, part of a DPS, to a friend. 

I happened to see it the day it the day it came up for sale, and despite a lofty price, I acquired it then and there. 

I knew I wouldn’t likely see another one.

Typically, Kubert’s full double-page spreads from this period could be broken up without ruining the art.
Three different Tarzan anniversaries in 2022: DC’s Tarzan celebrates its 50th, Weissmuller’s film series celebrates its 90th, and the character himself celebrates his 110th.
The final issue of Gold Key’s Tarzan series is almost as far from Kubert’s interpretation as The Batman 1966 TV series is from Christopher Nolan’s. Coincidentally, that issue also featured an adaptation of “Tarzan and the lion man.”

Eric Powell — I’d Like To Meet His Tailor

Original Art and The Artists

Secret Wars Too, #1, January 2016

Eric Powell brings his offbeat sensibility to the good doctor in this two-page gag story featured in a Secret Wars parody comic.

I acquired this page directly from Eric at SDCC a few years back, and apparently the other page had just sold to another lucky purchaser.

Missed it by that much.

(Full two-pager presented below.)

The TPB cover by our pal Jim Mahfood is much more interesting than the comic book cover, which is a gag without much art.
Doctor Doom has a terrific legacy in the pantheons of Marvel humor. Stan and Jack did a hilarious send-up of the FF-Doom-Silver Surfer multi-parter in the very first issue of Not Brand Echh in 1967. (The amazing published splash page here is from the actual story of course, not the parody.)

Leo Manco — Plenty Of Time To Die

Original Art and The Artists

Doom: The Emperor Returns, #2, February 2002

Doctor Doom’s greatest fantasy? Murdering Reed Richards, of course. 

And if you have your own planet, you too can make your dreams come true.

Leo Manco nicely illustrates Doom choking Reed on this page from the Emperor Doom mini-series. 

Reminds me of a film moment of a certain costumed villain that looks an awful lot like Doctor Doom. Art imitates art, imitates art, ad infinitum, apparently.

Manco, an Argentinian artist, is terrific, and I wish we’d see more of his work in the comic book space.

The similarities between Darth Vader and Doctor Doom always choke me up. (Ouch.) Per our last post, Lucas owes some public tribute to Jack Kirby as far as we are concerned.

Ron Lim — Army Of Doom

Original Art and The Artists

Fantastic Five #3, October 2007

Doctor Doom — Marvel’s first iconic super villain of the Silver Age* — celebrates his 60th anniversary this year.

And I have a question.

How are the MCU pros going to create a new on-screen look for the character that is true to form, but doesn’t look goofy as hell?  These folks are the best in the business, but that’s a hell of challenge. Lesser talents have failed, not once, not even twice, but three times.**

They could go all black (always a safe choice) and make the costume more technological and futuristic, but… I believe George Lucas already beat them to the punch by about 45 years.***

The comic book Doom costume is one of those that almost makes sense in 2D, but three-dimensional? Oof. 

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the results, maybe even later this year, if we’re lucky.

And, as always, we digress.

Here, the versatile Ron Lim creates a dramatic splash page with the most Doctor Doom you will ever see in once place. You see, the good doctor has this cool hobby of building robots in his spare time. 

Lots of them, apparently.

Fun fact footnotes:

Ok, Sub-Mariner beat Doom by  a full issue — or more than 20 years, depending on how you count Silver Age vs. Golden Age — but I can’t fully embrace him as a villain. (This despite the fact that Doom and Sub-Mariner later appeared together in a comic book called Super-Villain Team-Up.)

** Two contemporary  big budget film  releases, plus the officially unreleased Roger Corman version. I probably shouldn’t count that, but I do. Sue me.

*** Lucas has yet  to acknowledge that Darth Vader is essentially a mash-up of two Jack Kirby comic book creations, Doctor Doom and Darkseid. C’mon George, fess up.

Clayton Henry’s cover to the Fantastic Five is an homage (swipe?) of Kirby’s FF Annual #2
Doctor Doom’s first appearance features a ridiculous bird for good measure.

Antonio Prohias — A MAD Look at Spies

Original Art and The Artists

Mad # 170, October 1974

One punch line panel of the iconic Spy vs. Spy gag strip often sported more violence than an entire episode of Looney Tunes. (That’s saying something.)

And we loved it.

Prohias, a Cuban refugee, was a genius.  He didn’t speak very much English. And he didn’t have to. Humor is a universal language. 

And me personally? I love wordless gags.  After all, cartooning is a visual medium.

Spy vs. Spy made its debut in a classic issue of Mad — the infamous election flip cover. Newsstand proprietors could face out whoever actually won the election. (Spoiler alert: It was JFK.) Also above are the first three Spy gags, all appearing in the same issue.
I was fortunate to visit Mad’s offices in 1976 and received the classic Cheap, Crummy Souvenir. More importantly, I met many of the “Usual Gang of Idiots” including the fearless leader himself, Bill Gaines.

Mort Drucker — A MAD Look at Movies

Original Art and The Artists

Mad #154, October 1972

I heard the best story recently:

When artists Mort Drucker and Angelo Torres were creating those amazing Mad movie parodies (especially the earlier ones) they often had trouble acquiring official photo references. The solution? Torres would sneak a camera into the movie theater and quietly snap some photos for himself or Drucker.

In other words, the Mad artists were the original film pirates.

You have no idea how much I love that.

This classic Drucker page from a parody of the film “The Hot Rock” comes with a personal anecdote as well:

I discovered my pal Stuart Ng had three original pages from this story for sale about six or seven years ago. I didn’t want all three, I only wanted one (they’re huge — about 18×24), but even if I did, we couldn’t agree on price. (Hot Rock is one of my favorite films, and it’s one of Stuart’s also, and besides, it’s not like Drucker pages are lying around.)

So of course, every so often, I would revisit the pages, and of course, following the rest of the original art market, the price would increase and I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger.

(Insert emoji of me slapping myself here.)

Finally… A few months ago, we had a meeting of the minds. He sold me one, and he knows it’s going into a good home. I paid more than I wanted to, he sold it for less than he wanted to, and that seemed like the making of a decent compromise.

And I think he still has the remaining two available, in case other Hot Rock fans see this post. Tell him Greg sent you.

Although somewhat forgotten today, The Hot Rock is a classic caper film, written by the legendary screenwriter William Goldman and based on the first book in the “Dortmunder” series by (the also legendary) Donald Westlake. Filmed on location in New York, including some neighborhoods I was personally familiar with, I’ve loved it since it was released 50 years ago.
The first(?) of endless Abbey Road swipes and homages is featured in Hot Rock promo art. I love that George Segal copied George Harrison’s outfit entirely, right down to the footwear. I will bet that somewhere in that photographer’s archive is an even more exact mirror of the Abbey Road cover.

Al Jaffe — A MAD Look At Gags

Original Art and The Artists

Mad #141, March 1971

Ah, more memories of a misspent youth.

Once upon a time, Mad Magazine was a users manual for anti-establishment thinking among the baby boomer generation. Think of it as an introductory guide to counter culture.

And my personal sweet spot for devouring each issue (around 1970-1976) coincides with its biggest circulation success — reaching sales of more than 2million copies per issue, and rivaling TV Guide and Reader’s Digest as an American magazine powerhouse. 

In other words, a lot of kids got the joke. 

The art styles of its stars — Mort Drucker, Sergio Aragones, Jack Davis, Dave Berg, et al — were instantly recognizable.

Including, of course, the legendary Al Jaffee.  In an incredible 50-year span (1964-2013), only one issue of Mad doesn’t feature a gag from him. He actually holds the Guinness World Record as the comic artist with the longest career. Jaffe “retired” from cartooning just shy of turning 100-years old.

When the original art for this page appeared for sale a few years ago, I remembered the gag vividly. I can’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, but a 50-year old cartoon from Mad? 

No problem.

Happy 70thanniversary, Mad. 

Mad celebrates its 70th birthday this year, launching as a comic book in 1952, and changing formats to a magazine a few years later. The rest, as they say, is history...

The Art Of Freakonomics

Original Art and The Artists

Podcasts #484, #485, #486, December, 2021

Freakonomics is one of my favorite podcast series. It’s devoted to, as they say, the hidden side of economics.

Last month, the show featured a three-part series discussing the commercial aspects of the art market. Specifically, the show’s journalists examine the fine art market, but there are many, many similarities to any aspect of art collecting, including comic art. Someof the topics — such as purchasing at auctions vs. dealers vs. directly from the artist — will ring familiar to anyone who owns more than one or two pieces of original art.

Admittedly, this could have been a two-parter (they spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the fine art career of Alice Neel and the increase in value of her works in recent years), but as always, the pod episodes are interesting and valuable.

If you buy art, or have ever considered it, it’s definitely a worthwhile listen.

See you back here next Tuesday, January 11 with the start of our salute to the 70th anniversary of Mad.

Art Adams — A Classic, Revisited

Original Art and The Artists

Avengers # 24.Now, February 2014, Variant Cover

Art Adams pays homage to Neal Adams with this terrific Avengers variant cover from 2014.

Neal’s original Avengers (#92) cover is from 1971, and remains one of my personal favorites. In addition to loving the dramatic art and striking colors, I have a fond memory of guessing the cover’s story gimmick before I actually read the comic.

(Spoiler alert: Thor, Cap and Iron Man are actually skrulls, which we don’t find out until the next issue. Another spoiler: Writer Roy Thomas shortcuts some of the backstory of how that came to pass — blink and you might miss it. Before it’s all over though, the Avengers will find themselves in the middle of the Kree-Skrull war. But, as always, we digress.)

Art’s modern version swaps out X-Men for Avengers, and seamlessly adds additional characters as well.

2021-2022 is the 50th Anniversary of the Kree–Skrull war, so… Happy Anniversary, and Happy New Year!

Sal Buscema — Hulk (& John Byrne) On The Run

Original Art and The Artists

Incredible Hulk Annual #14, December 1985

This Hulk story — from Incredible Hulk Annual #14 — is a direct outcome of one of the oddest creative moments in Marvel Comics history. 

Why so odd? The creative teams on Alpha Flight and The Incredible Hulk did a complete switch with each other. And naturally, they did a crossover to bring readers up to speed. Also, the Secret Wars sequel is involved.

But as always, we digress.

John Byrne, who had been on Alpha Flight, commenced his (ultimately brief) run with issue #314 and this annual, simultaneously. (Bill Mantlo and Mike Mignola went over to Alpha Flight.) And, as prolific as John is, even he can’t produce that many pages at once, so he enlisted art support from Sal Buscema, who penciled and inked the full double issue.

Sal Buscema on the Hulk? Always great.

Sal Buscema on everything else? Always great, too.

After a crossover — and a Secret Wars tie-in — creative teams on The Incredible Hulk and Alpha Flight fully flip-flopped, a first in comics history.