Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Jack Davis — Rarity

Original Art and The Artists

Rawhide Kid #35, August 1963

Jack Davis and Stan Lee only worked together a handful of times. Jack drew six Rawhide Kid stories at the dawn of the “Marvel Age,” after Jack Kirby became too busy designing and developing Marvel’s earliest superheroes.

Davis’ cartoony style is unmistakable, and definitely a departure from the typical Marvel western art line-up that included Kirby, Dick Ayers and Larry Lieber, among others.

These Davis Western stories are some of the final color comic book stories to he ever drew. Shortly after their publication, Davis returned to Mad Magazine and became a Mad mainstay for more than 20 years.

And of course, we can’t forget the Time Magazine covers. The TV Guide covers. The film posters. The advertising work. Trading cards for Topps. Etc.

Just a few things to occupy the drawing board of one of America’s most talented and recognizable commercial illustrators.

Too bad Stan couldn’t persuade Davis for a bit more work. I’m not sure how it would have worked out on the traditional superhero stories * but a few short pieces for Not Brand Echh would have been right on the nose.

(*Well, actually I’m certain it would have been jarring to see Jack on “straight” superhero stories…)

Doug Wildey — Reverence

Original Art and The Artists

Wyatt Earp #28, April 1960

Here’s a dramatic title page by the legendary Doug Wildey from 1960.

My reaction to the page, however, pales in comparison to the one from the story’s co-creator, Stan Lee.

Back in about 2010, we visited Stan in his Beverly Hills office to get some signature plates signed for the first John Romita Spider-Man Artists Edition. Stan’s “people” were kind enough to let us bring some personal items to get signed as well, so I brought a few pages of original art with me. 

Stan, who was telling stories and singing while he was signing (Yes, singing, not a typo for signing. Story for another day.) stopped dead in his tracks when he saw this page of art. 

He stared at it quietly for a few moments — given the speedy pace of our morning, it seemed like an eternity — and you could see pleasant memories wash over his face. And then the big Stan Lee smile:

“Doug Wildey. Wow. He was great. So terrific. I loved his stuff. I wish we had a chance to do more together.” 

He handed the page back to me, still beaming, still examining it up and down as he slowly passed it back.  I had seen Stan sign thousands of items; many of them with fond remembrances, but nothing quite like this.

A great page, certainly. But perhaps an even greater memorable moment — for the two of us.

Stan in the Timely / Atlas / Marvel offices in 1954, just a few years prior to the publication of the Earp story.

Alex Toth — Out West

Original Art and The Artists

All American Western # 121, August 1951

Living in the West, this is probably the time of the year that reminds me most of… living in the West.

Warm, sunny afternoons, dry cold nights, cool mornings; just the way I pictured the climate watching dozens, if not hundreds of western films as a kid back in the cozy confines of the New York City metro area.

Ironically, I never read many western comics as a kid. (I guess I had my fill on TV.) So I never caught up to the classic western comic art until much later on.

Some of that great art that included Johnny Thunder by Alex Toth. Toth, an Eastern transplant himself, had a visual storytelling style perfect for those 50s Thunder stories. 

But then again, Toth’s amazing talent was perfect for just about any genre: Romance, horror, SF, war, and the all-too rare superhero story.

I had only read a handful of Johnny Thunder stories when this original was offered for sale, but coincidentally enough, it was from a terrific story I had in fact remembered. It appears in the DC’s collection of greatest comic book stories of the 1950s 

Can’t argue with the editorial choice one bit. 

This classic Johnny Thunder story appeared 30 years later in DC”s collection of greatest comic stories from the 50s, with some revised coloring throughout.

    Jack Kirby — Hello and Goodbye, Rinse, Repeat

    Original Art and The Artists

    DC Graphic Novel #4 – The Hunger Dogs, June 1985

    Jack Kirby’s tenure at DC was ultimately a mixed bag — for both Jack and DC. 

    The Fourth World saga was one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted in comics at that time; yet, the books were cancelled well before they had a chance to fully realize Jack’s vision.

    And yet…  there was something about those characters and premises that continued to resonate.

    Jack’s Post DC career included a three-year return at Marvel (Think Eternals, et al), his own creator-owned comics (Captain Victory, Silver Star) and a home at animation house DePatie-Freleng studios and then later Ruby-Spears.

    And then, another opportunity arose at DC to finish his New Gods saga. DC would reprint the original series in “deluxe” format and give Jack a chance to end the saga with new material.

    But, unfortunately Jack wanted to end the saga in a way that would kill off the main characters, and by then DC had grown accustomed to having them in the line-up. 

    So, Jack was again denied the chance again to finish it in his vision. And somehow the end of the saga morphed into a standalone graphic novel, Hunger Dogs, which also didn’t bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion.

    And the graphic novel itself was a mess on the production end. Pages intended for the standard comic books were reworked for the graphic novel using photocopies, corrections, new “border” art and a host of other techniques to turn standard size pages into graphic novel pages.

    Fortunately, Jack did create brand new large art pages for the GN, and they are pretty terrific in terms of page layout and composition, as evidenced here.  They are his final work for either of the “big two” publishers.

    As for the New Gods? They lived on, and more importantly, Darkseid arguably became the most important villain in the DCU. Jack shared in some of that commercial success, and his family continues to share in that success today.

    A fitting ending after all.

    Jack Kirby — Goodnight, Santa Claus

    Original Art and The Artists

    Best of DC #22, March 1982; originally Sandman #7, February 1976 and Kamandi #61, November 1978 (Both unpublished)

    Here is some big goofy fun from Jack Kirby (inks by Mike Royer) with a story involving the Sandman and… Santa Claus. (You can’t make this up.)

    Even goofier than the actual narrative itself, however, is the fact this story fell victim to cancelation, not once, but twice, before finally seeing print nearly six years after it was completed.

    Kirby’s Sandman series was cancelled after issue #6, although this story for issue #7 had already been completed. It sat in inventory for two years, until it was slotted to appear as a back-up in Kamandi #61, and then that comic, along with dozens of others fell victim to the “DC Implosion” and was cancelled as well.

    It finally saw print in Best of DC #22, a digest-sized publication, that hit the stands shortly before Christmas 1981.

    Which means… It did not actually appear in traditional color comic book format until DC collected it in 2011 in the Jack Kirby Omnibus — 35 years later!

    Jack Kirby — The Future Is Now

    Original Art and The Artists

    Omac #3, January 1975

    “Technology is fire in the hands of children, and (Jack) Kirby easily foresaw what the world would look like with wealth, corporations, and technology operating simply for human profit and power, without accountability to any Rule of Law.” — Rob Walton, Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide.

    Jack Kirby brought his fertile imagination (back) to DC fifty years ago, and the results, while not always commercially successful, were typically fascinating.

    OMAC was one of my personal favorites. It felt vastly different than anything else Jack had done, with one wild futuristic technology idea after another thrown into the mix. (And of course, many of these technologies have come to fruition in the subsequent 50 years. But, as always, we digress.) Ultimately Jack never had chance to fully develop many of these ideas, as he jumped ship and returned to Marvel after just eight issues.

    This great “chapter splash” checks off many Kirby flourishes. (Many of Jack’s books had multiple chapters, meaning more great splash pages in each issue.)

    Why is this page great?

    It features the title character, a personal rocket ship, and the Kirby cosmos — in all its glory! (Earth’s atmosphere never looked this trippy.)

    It features the title character’s name prominently in a flashy hand-lettered headline.

    And, of course, it has great Kirby Crackle.

    We celebrate the King’s reign at DC all this week. Stay tuned.

    Wallace Wood — The Truth Is Out There

    Original Art and The Artists

    Weird Science Fantasy #26, December 1954

    I love stories about UFO sightings. As a kid, that was a (small) section of the library I often haunted.

    I don’t believe that aliens are touring our planet, but I’d love to find out I’m mistaken. The problem, of course, is that the science, as we understand it today, makes it pretty unlikely. (A fun book on the subject, The Physics of Star Trek, dives into the detail.)

    I like UFO stories so much that this was one of the first actual EC back issues I ever forked over my hard-earned allowance for back in the early 70s. 

    I don’t own that issue anymore, I sold it when Russ Cochran’s reprints started covering the EC bases.

    But I own this great “one-pager” of Wood original art — something I could never have conceived of as a kid.

    And who knows? Maybe one day, extraterrestrials actually will land on the White House South Lawn and tell us: “Einstein, nice man, he just had one part of the formula incorrect.”

    Happy 50th EC Comics!

    Wallace Wood — EC’s Finest Warms Up

    Original Art and The Artists

    Weird Science #8, July 1951

    Earlier in the year, we celebrated EC Comics “New Trend” 50th anniversary with some great original art examples from the legendary Jack Davis. Today — and Saturday — we will celebrate once again, this time with the astonishing Wallace Wood.

    Woody hadn’t quite hit his artistic prime yet when he drew this Weird Science tale, “The Probers.” But he was perhaps at his most prolific, pencilling and inking up to three pages a day(!) for EC and other publishers of the day.

    That sheer volume would decrease as Woody’s detail became more and more intricate, and the finishes more and more polished. In a very short time, Wood’s peers would pretty much always refer to him as best in class.

    Some of Woody’s great SF art (Non EC) can be found in his 50s comic book stories, as well as his illustrations for Galaxy magazine.

    Zina Saunders — Vote!

    Original Art and The Artists

    Mars Attacks #1 Cover Variant, 2012

    Vote indeed! (Just not for this guy.)

    The terrifically talented Zina Saunders — daughter of legendary Mars Attacks painter Norm Saunders — created this card for our 1994 Topps Mars Attacks “sequel” series. So many good cards were created for that set, including many by Zina, that we ran out of room, and this one went unused…

    Until 2012, when we acquired the Mars Attacks comic book license at IDW. Legendary comics marketing guru Dirk Wood had this crazy idea: What if we created 55 variant covers, each featuring one of the original 55 cards? Ha-ha. That’s funny.

    Then we went ahead and did it.

    And we upped the ante: We added an additional variant cover that you could only get if you bought the complete box set of variant covers.

    Honestly, I think we all agreed we were nuts  — until some good orders came in. Collectors actually wanted all the covers. It was a novel way to have a complete “set” of the original Mars Attacks.

    Maybe those are unrelated thoughts. We might still be nuts.

    But I’m not voting the Martian ticket, regardless. Not this year, anyway.

    Steve Ditko — Happiness Or Madness?

    Original Art and The Artists

    Tales of Suspense #41, May 1963

    Happy Birthday to the great Steve Ditko, who would have turned 93 today.

    Ditko drew — and possibly wrote (Stan Lee on credits, but that sometimes is overstated) — this neat little science fiction back-up story in the third issue of Iron Man.

    These SF and horror stories would soon become rarities as publisher Martin Goodman and Editor Lee replaced them with a new line-up of superheroes, including a certain web-crawler that would bring Ditko more notoriety than anything else he would create.

    The Amazing Spiderman #1 had just hit the newsstands. The rest as they say…

    Marvel did a nice job reprinting all of Stan Lee’s and Steve Ditko’s horror and SF stories in this two-volume series.