Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Action Comics

Curt Swan & George Klein — Feats of Strength

Original Art and The Artists

Action Comics #304, September 1963

If you ever need proof that George Klein was Curt Swan’s best inker on the Superman books, just pull out this page from Action Comics #304. No explanations required—the art does the bragging for you.

From the first panel, Swan gives Superman that clean, honest pose only he could draw, and Klein locks it down with lines that are confident without showing off. Superman looks strong, sure—but also human. That balance? Classic Klein.

Jump to the big panel—Superman wrangling those hilariously oversized javelins—and you see the Swan/Klein team firing on all cylinders. Klein never wrestles for control; he boosts Swan, picking exactly the right details and politely ignoring the ones that don’t matter.

Across the page, the “S” shield is crisp, the cape moves like actual fabric, and the crowd reads clearly without becoming a visual traffic jam. It’s the kind of clean storytelling that looks effortless—until you see someone else try it.

And that bottom tier—Lana’s concern, Superman’s sheepish dignity—Klein hits it perfectly. Just enough warmth to make the moment feel lived-in.

Look, I love Murphy Anderson on Swan. (And pretty much everywhere else.) But the truth is simple:

George Klein doesn’t just ink Swan. He completes him.

I had my eye on this page for a while before I finally pulled the trigger — and I’m certainly glad I did.

Fun Fact: The story itself is a reworking of an earlier Golden Age story, published seven years earlier in Action #220.
It’s Thanksgiving Day tomorrow, which means it’s time for the annual Macy’s NYC parade. I think it’s about time we get a new Superman balloon: From L-R: Superman in the 80s, 60s and 40s.

Arthur Adams — Superman Redux

Original Art and The Artists

Action Comics Annual #1, 1987

Let’s say you have a terrific Superman original art page from the equally terrific Arthur Adams…

And let’s say someone else also thinks it’s a terrific page — and makes you a fair offer for it…

So, you say to yourself: “Well, I’ll sell it, and get another terrific Adams Superman page down the line…”

But somehow, you actually don’t.

And then, one fine day (actually, a rainy one — but I digress), years later, you’re flipping through another collector’s portfolio, and you stumble on… the same page you had owned. 

Offered at a much higher price than you received for it, naturally. Enough time has elapsed.

And you stare at it, and mutter to yourself: “Why did I sell this?”

So… you swallow your pride, and after some minor haggling, you purchase the page.

Congratulations! You’ve just discovered yet another inventive way to shred money — to get right back to where you started.

Sigh.

Great page, though.

Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster — Superman & The Bandit Robots

Original Art and The Artists

Superman Sunday Strip, (Syndicate Proof Sheet), December 15, 1940

Jerry Siegel personal proof of Superman Sunday strip, 12/15/1940 from the collection of Greg Goldstein

Not quite original art, this is a syndicate proof sheet for the Superman Sunday comic strip, from December 15, 1940. The proof sheets are printed on higher quality paper, and the colors are extremely vivid — which you can see even though I photographed this example under glass.

(For an amplification of how this proofing process worked, see the new edition of Jack Kirby’s Sky Masters Sunday strips, which explains the process in some detail.)

I enjoy these early strips — Shuster’s art here often seems more polished than the comic books, where some of the art suffers from inconsistency. That’s of course not shocking: Superman’s explosive —and nearly instantaneous —popularity meant that Shuster, with the help of assistants and other artists, had to keep up with a prodigious amount of publishing.

This proof came from co-creator Jerry Siegel’s personal collection , and I was fortunate enough to snag one with a giant robot. (Plus, it is signed!)

Superman, Lois AND a giant robot. Seems like a hat trick to me.

A tear sheet from the Houston Chronicle features the strip in a classic half page format.
The original classic Superman strips (first reprinted by Kitchen Sink) are available in at least four different book formats; although they are all technically out of print, most are readily (and inexpensively) available from secondary booksellers. Because they are so easy to obtain, when we launched the Superman reprint program at IDW Publishing in 2013, we started with the next group of strips.
Superman fought the “Bandit Robots” a few months later on the cover of Action #36 (great art by Fred Ray.) But… there’s no matching story on the inside!
The Man of Steel fights similar (albeit not quite identical) robots in 1941’s “Superman and the Mechanical Monsters,” the classic episode of the wonderful Fleischer animated series of cartoon shorts.

Eric Powell — Bizarro Alive, Alive

Original Art and The Artists

Action Comics # 855, October 2007

Geoff Johns, Richard Donner and Eric Powell creating a multi-part Bizarro story? 

Sign me up.

Spoiler alert: It’s absolutely terrific — fun and affectionate — start to finish. Powell knocks the art out of the park. Many mainstream superhero readers tracked down Powell’s Goon series after they saw this.

You can bet the farm — Kent’s or otherwise — on that.

One final time — Happy Halloween, 2024!

Screenshot
Silver age comic book readers first encountered Bizarro in Superboy #68, and then another version shortly thereafter in Action #254. But sharp eyed comic strip readers may have caught an even earlier appearance in Supes’ daily newspaper strip. Also above — the house ad in Superboy #67, with the alternative costume logo.

Dick Giordano — Shadows Of Yesterday

Original Art and The Artists

Action Comics #422, March 1973 (Human Target back-up feature)

Here’s a terrific Dick Giordano action page from the origin story of the Human Target, published shortly after the character’s introduction in a back-up feature in Action Comics 50 years ago.

And although uncredited, I’m pretty sure I see some light ghosting from Dick’s pal, Neal Adams, in a few places along the way.

Regardless, it is yet another example of a DC Bronze-age series that remained uncollected for decades. After three (!) TV iterations of the character, you would think our friend Christopher Chance deserved a TPB. But, finally in 2019, the complete early stories appeared in a best of Len Wein collection. (Len wrote all the original stories.)

Welcome to Day Six of the 12 DC Days of DeCember.

In case you were curious about copies printed and copies sold back in the day…
The early Human Target stories are finally assembledin this 2019 collection, although you wouldn’t know from the (great ) Jim Starlin cover.

Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson — Superman In Space

Original Art and The Artists

Action Comics #407, December 1971

I rarely get into bidding wars over a specific piece of art. As a well-know art dealer intones: “There’s always more art.”

This time, though, I got carried away.

Superman in space. Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. Superman in every panel. A title page. An original Superman logo. And my peak era of buying comics from newsstands (late Silver Age, early Bronze age) without the benefit of comics conventions.

That is a lot of checkboxes. So, like I said, I got carried away.

Overpaid — but worth it.

Plus — and I love this — it has a Looney Tunes type joke in the monolugue. He made a wrong left turn a million miles ago? Seriously?

John Byrne — Look up…

Original Art and The Artists

Action #592, September 1987

John Byrne provides a terrific page from about the halfway point in his re-boot run of Superman.

(And no mainstream character was more in need of a reboot in the mid-80s than Superman.)

John of course provided nearly everything here: Story, script, pencils and inks. Keith Williams adds the background inks on buildings and such.

Byrne? Superman in every panel? That’s a keeper.

Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson — The Headless Superhero

Original Art and The Artists

Action Comics #406, November 1971

Our third annual Halloween tribute continues now through October 31. 

Remember that time hat Superman lost his head?

You don’t?

I do, and I was pleased to see this page come up at auction earlier this year.

I was mostly done with the Superman Family by the time this issue appeared in 1971, but occasionally something off the wall (pun NOT intended — this time, anyway) would grab my attention, and this was one of those issues.

It’s rare (although not impossible) to find a title page that has such a literal cover interpretation, and of course the fact that it was drawn by the great Superman art team of Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson is a giant selling point for me.

Also rare: The cover is taken from the back-up story instead of the main feature. Obviously, someone at DC knew how to grab attention — at least mine, anyway.

Fun fact: On both Superman stories in this issue, the “Swanderson” art team gets top billing in the credits. They deserved it, as the art was light years ahead of the story material.)