NYCC — 2023 Edition (Part 3 Of 4)
New York Comic-Con, October 12-15, 2023
A few of the terrific creators at NYCC.
See you on Tuesday for another great group, and the wrap-up.
NYCC — 2023 Edition (Part 2)
New York Comic-Con, October 12-15, 2023
NYCC — 2023 Edition (Part 1)
October 12-15, 2023
My first trip back since 2019. The Convention expansion has provided (some) breathing room, but it still felt like it took forever to get from point A to point B. Of course, I am four years older…
Norm Breyfogle — Split Personality
The Spectre 23, January 2003
The late Norm Breyfogle spent about a year applying his exceptional talents to the Spectre. Here’s one of the best pages of the run: The Hal Jordan-merged Spectre vanquishes Sinestro, and — I kid you not — basically sends the dark member of the GL Corp to hell. (Well, Sinestro helps choose his own fate. It’s complicated.)
I wish DC had comics like this when I was a kid. (Well, with Jim Aparo’s version of the Spectre, and Neal Adams’ Deadman, maybe they did. Sort of.)
Tom Mandrake — The Spectre’s Eclipse
The Spectre #17, April 1994
Tom Mandrake — criminally underrated as a storyteller — gets to have some fun with the DC occult universe in a page that’s somehow now twenty years old.
The bottom 1/2 splash featuring Etrigan (Demon), Phantom Stranger, Dr, Fate and Zatanna is definitely cool — and looks especially great in the original black and white.
And the long-time villain Eclipso —also apparently an avenging angel, but an evil one — merging with the Spectre to form a super-villainous apparition? Love it.
Neal Adams — Supernatural Talent
The Spectre #5, August 1968
Neal Adams delivers a terrific Spectre action page from his third issue on the series, and the second he wrote, penciled and inked himself. I love the looks of terror and fear on the faces, especially in that last large panel.
(DC jammed quite a few creative changes through those brief 10 issues of the silver age Spectre, so it was apparently a good place to give Neal a shot at writing a “superhero” title.)
Of course, it’s nearly Halloween, so it’s time we take our annual visit with the ghouls, monsters and apparitions of the comic book art pages.
See you back here on Thursday.
Jack Kirby & Gil Kane — Titans, Together
San Diego Comic-Con, July 1993
30 years ago, I had the good sense to snap this fantastic photo of Jack Kirby and Gil Kane at the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con. (Jaunty Jim Salicrup, the Topps Comics EIC, is the happy fella in the middle.)
Fantastic, but, as it turned out, bittersweet: This was the final time these two legends had a chance to greet each other. (Jack passed away the following winter.) I’m not sure they were both scheduled at the Topps booth at the same time, so it may have been a very happy coincidence.
I’ve discussed Topps Comics (and trading cards) numerous times in previous posts — it was a wild ride with many great moments. This was one of my favorites.
And did I say good sense? Hardly. If I did, I would have handed off the disposable camera to someone else and jumped in the photo as well.
Gil Kane — Titanic Team-Up
Marvel Team-Up #14, October 1973
Spider-Man and Sub-Mariner need a few pages of bantering and brawling in this early issue of Marvel Team-Up before they figure out that they left on friendly terms just two years prior. But that’s often the classic (sometimes cliché) formula. Characters meet, fight, and then figure out who the real enemy is and join forces to stop them. (In this case Tiger Shark and — I kid you not — the Aquanoids.)
Gil Kane provides, as always, dynamic and dramatic pencils and composition — although finding regular inkers for him on this series seems challenging. Here the enigmatic Wayne Howard takes a stab at Gil’s unique styling with mixed effects throughout the issue. (Although I like the results on this specific page.)
Great cover too, with inks by Frank Giacoia. (Although the Marvel trade dress is out of control with not much room for the main imagery.)
For more on the first Sub-Mariner / Spider-Man crossover, see this fun article below:
Walter Simonson, Scott Hanna & Brian Bendis — Red Hulk, Frequent Flyer
Avengers #28, September 2012
Ten years ago, I purchased this terrific Avengers double page spread by Walter Simonson and Scott Hanna from Scott’s art representative at New York Comic-Con. Scott was at the convention, but I never managed to track him down. Walter was there, so he signed it before I returned to California, but since it was inks over blue-line printed pencils, it definitely needed Scott’s signature as well.
Problem was, I kept forgetting about it during my convention travels.
Finally, coming out of the pandemic two years ago, I see that Scott will be at Baltimore Comic-Con, so I pack it up, fly back East and… he needs to cancel. That’s not on him — a lot of creators cancelled in 2021, many because Covid had started raging again and travel stunk.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago, he’s an announced guest at BCC, so I bring it again, and voila, I catch up to him. Signature acquired.
And as a bonus, when I remind Walter about the piece, writer Brian Bendis happens to stop by, so I end up with a cool bonus signature as well. (He was genuinely delighted to see the original art — writers often don’t see the originals before they make their way back to the artists and/or disappear into the collectors’ market.)
If you’re counting, that’s 12,500 miles of travel for that piece of art.
I should have signed it up for a frequent flyer account.
Baltimore Comic-Con 2023 — Part 4 Of 4
Baltimore Convention Center, September 8-10, 2023
