Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery
Panels and Pages… Art and Artists… Creators and Conventions… Musings and Memories…
Catwoman #5, March 2012
I love this page: It was probably the hand-drawn “Broooom” that got my attention. But it was the design and composition that kept it.
That said, I would have personally gone with “Vroooom.”
Just sayin…
Batman: The Silver Age Dailies and Sundays, Volume #1, March 2014
As noted a few years back, Pete Poplaski has been called an “artist’s artist” by many creators. His name might not be known as well as other artists, but his talent is unquestionable.
Pete, who broke into comics in the 70s underground community, ultimately became Kitchen Sink Press’ art director, and among many accomplishments helped give some of Robert Crumb’s projects just the right design touch.
Kitchen had the rights to reprint the DC Batman and Superman comic strips in the early 1990s, and Pete created brand new covers that evoked the classic style of those strips.
When we acquired those reprint rights at IDW in 2012, we went back to Pete to see if he would be interested in picking up where he left off, and fortunately he was.
Wayne Boring. Dick Sprang. Al Plastino. You name a classic artist, and Pete can replicate the style.
This, of course, is his amazing cover to Batman Silver Age Vol.1. It not only evokes the classic 60s Carmine Infantino revamp of the Dynamic Duo, but also the opening animation of the classic (beloved, and often hated) 60s Batman TV show. (Which is why these newspaperstrips exist in the first place, but, as always we digress.)
Batman Gotham Adventures #39, August 2001
Here’s a cool “Batman-animated” style page from Tim Levins that captures the fun and the flair of the 90s animated series.
The best art pages have no words — therefore, no word balloons needed. (And therefore, no missing word balloons on original modern art, 98% or more of word balloons are digitally added later.)
I realize its a bit of a cliche — but I always do get a kick out of Batgirl’s signature action move.
And, yes, I likely deserve one myself for employing that pun.
Detective #412, June 1971
“Dandy” Don Heck was a pro at a glamorous situations and glamorous people — including Batgirl and pretty much all the women he tackled, as evidenced in the page above.
Don was best at inking his own pencils, also evidenced above, in this cool action page from Batgirl’s back-up feature in Detective Comics.
Gotham Girls #1, October 2002
Batgirl fighting Catwoman? — seems like a great way to celebrate Halloween (upcoming) and Batman Day (belatedly) within a terrific action page by Jennifer Graves and the equally terrific J.Bone.
And, always a pleasant surprise to have a 21st Century piece of art with the word balloons hand lettered on the page.
Call me “old-school” all you want. It’s a compliment.
Fun fact: It took nearly 20 years for DC to collect this mini-series, and when they did they renamed it “Harley Quinn and the Gotham Girls to capitalize on — you guessed it — Harley Quinn, who is by no means the centerpiece of the original series.
I can hear the Joker’s cackle from here.
Norm Rapmund Recreation of John Byrne Batman, July 2022
How to celebrate the 500th blog post — and a little more than three years of posting?: Here’s a beautiful Norm Rapmund recreation of a John Byrne Batman splash page (from the 1990 Batman 3-D graphic novel) that Norm started well before this blog was even conceived. (Probably 2017 or so.*)
The 500 milestone includes some “reruns” and a few “cheats,” but hey, 500 is still 500. And we have may slipped in frequency for the first time this past month, but there’s still more great art to come.
Stay tuned.
(*A story for another day.)
Batman / Catwoman: Follow The Money #1, January 2011
Batman picking a lock while Catwoman looks on?
Just perfect.
(And with dialog even more so, but I had not read the issue when I acquired the page.)
Such a fun page by my pal Howard. (In a one-shot issue edited by one of oldest friends, Joey Cavalieri. But as always, we digress.)
It is “Batman Day” today — and we’ll pay tribute to that with a few more Bats-related posts through the rest of the month.
Its also our 500th post(!) and there will more to say about that in the next few weeks as well.
Son of Superman (Graphic Novel), January 2000
Here’s a beautiful Superman page by the super-talented J.H. Williams, inked by his long-time collaborator Mick Gray. It’s an “Elseworlds” (imaginary, out of continuity) story when DC still published those.
Original art pages are artifacts of course, and fortunately, and this one relies on traditional inking methods, lettering and sound effects as opposed to digital enhancements to provide the final result.
I love Williams’ note to Gray in the top margin, explaining how he envisions the final look of the page. (It’s interesting that the colorist chose to reduce the dynamic splash effect in the water in the second panel. To each his own, I guess.)
Thaboom indeed!
Superman — Atomic Age Sundays Volume 3, December 2017
As described in a earlier post, Pete provided all the terrific covers for our DC superhero strip reprints for The Library of American Comics.
Pictured is a typical great example where Pete emulates legendary artist Wayne Boring — with some Curt Swan thrown in for good measure.
Oversized — and beautiful.
Fun Facts: (From the marketing copy):
Written by Alvin Schwartz and Bill FInger and Illustrated by Wayne Boring
The Man of Steel stars in thirteen classic adventures as the 1950s “Atomic Age” comes to a close. Some of the stories are original to the newspaper strip, while others were alternate versions of tales that were simultaneously published in the regular comic books. One of the featured adaptations is “Superman Versus the Futuremen,” written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger, which retells Superman’s origin. This concluding volume of Superman’s Atomic Age Sundays reprints all strips July 1, 1956 to October 11, 1959.
Superman #200, October 1967
This art is from Wayne Boring’s final new story for DC comics for more than 20 years.
Boring, one of Superman’s truly legendary artists, was part of a group of creators that asked for pay rate increases, benefits and other employment improvements. So, naturally, DC fired them all.
It’s an oddball imaginary story with the end spoiler right there on the (Curt Swan) cover for kids like me to see. I had only been reading Superman comics for a short while, but I knew his Kryptonian origin by heart from TV and other media. So, I was intrigued by this alternative vision of The Superman legend.
I acquired this page whenI first started collecting art again about 15 years ago, and I haven’t seen one since.
