Enrique Alcatena – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tim Truman — A World Of Hawks

February 7, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Hawkworld #1, August 1989

What happens when you reboot a reboot? What happens when you change some continuity, but not all of it? What happens later when you er… change your mind?

What happens is you get DC superhero continuity for the last 35 years or so, post “Crisis on Infinite Earths.”

This is not a knock, per se, just an observation. Along with these many changes have been some great series and story arcs. Just enjoy the ride while it lasts, because a new one is probably around the corner.

Hawkworld is an early “prestige” re-do of the post-crisis Hawk backstory, nicely told by Tim Truman. It led to an ongoing series, and then later on… more retconning.

I like this page because it uses the art “camera” to heighten drama and increase tension, as opposed to more traditional character action. Coincidentally, I also own a Mark Bagley page that’s similarly cinematic in approach to similar subject matter. (I don’t think it’s an homage or swipe, just a classic case of great minds thinking alike — 25 years apart.)

Batman Day Original Art Gallery

September 19, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Today is officially “Batman Day”, so here is a gallery of all the Batman images published prior to this year’s celebration. Click on any name to see larger images and the original post.

Enrique Alcatena — Haunting Homage

November 3, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Batman of Arkham #1 (Elseworlds one-shot), June, 2000

When you think of homages — or outright swipes — to classic comic book covers, a few classic and obvious issues come to mind:

Action #1
Fantastic Four #1
X-men #141

But there’s an issue slightly less obvious that may be the record holder with the most homages, especially with the same character:

Detective #31 (1939) by Bob Kane is just the third Batman cover ever, and a great one. It inspired Neal Adams to create his own version about thirty years later, and at that point, the floodgates opened. See below for as near a complete gallery as I could assemble. (Some are looser than others, but they all aim to capture the spirit of original cover.)

Meanwhile, on this gorgeous original cover by Alcatena (why isn’t he doing more comic book work?!) third time was a charm for me. I was under-bidder when it came up at auction. Shortly thereafter, when a major art dealer had it for sale, I missed it, and it sold again.

But that owner only had the cover a short while before he sold (or traded) it back to the same dealer, and this time I quickly managed to stake my claim on this beautifully detailed cover.