Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Greg Goldstein

Gil Kane — The Star Wars Effect

Original Art and The Artists

Star Hawks, Sunday Strip, August 12, 1979

Here is a nice (Sunday) example of Ron Goulart’s and Gil Kane’s Star Hawks, the short-lived SF adventure strip which ran from 1977-1981. (Extra nice in that it includes both the strip header and the color proof.)

“Inspired – as so many things were in the late 70s – by the tremendous success of Star Wars, the newspaper feature syndicate NEA (Newspaper Enterprise Association) got it into their heads that a space opera comic strip that evoked the cosmic high adventure and swashbuckling derring-do of George Lucas’ movie might be a popular addition to the nation’s comics pages.” — Christopher Mills

Perhaps most interesting thing about the strip was the that the initial dailies were double tier as well as the Sunday’s — a risky gambit that allowed Kane to showcase his strengths in storytelling and layout. Unfortunately, newspapers weren’t in love with devoting that much real estate to the quirky SF adventure, and it ultimately dropped to the traditional one-tier.

Goulart ultimately left the strip and Kane enlisted frequent collaborator Archie Goodwin, who wrote the one above. He also left after a few arcs, and Roger Mackenzie wrapped things up.

All of the series is available in a three-volume set from The Library of American Comics and IDW Publishing.

Worth every penny, but of course, I’m biased.

Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips:
Week 1: Superheroes
Week 2: Detectives
Week 3: SF
Week 4: Comic Book Giants

Al McWilliams — Futurist

Original Art and The Artists

Twin Earths, Daily Strip, April 14, 1958

Al (Alden) McWilliams gives us an uncanny glimpse of a cool flip phone — about 40 years ahead of its time.

(Of course, there’s the terrific use of shadows and light to admire as well. But, as always, we digress.)

Twin Earths was one of the few strip collections that we could never make happen at IDW and The Library of American Comics. (For reasons involving both rights and availability of materials.) It’s too bad, because it was a fun and well-rendered adventure strip — one of the few that dealt with “flying saucers.” Capatilizing on UFOs in the news headlines, it was part of an overall more realistic trend in SF post World War 2.

Also, McWilliams is a terrific artist who never quite achieved the fame of some of his contemporaries — seemingly never quite being in the right place at the right time.

Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips:
Week 1: Superheroes
Week 2: Detectives
Week 3: SF
Week 4: Comic Book Giants

Sporadic reprints of Twin Earths have appeared from time to time, but as of now (2021) the full run has yet to be collected.

Al Williamson — Flight To Glory

Original Art and The Artists

Secret Agent Corrigan (X-9), Daily Strip, October 17, 1969

As noted in a previous post, the amazing Al Williamson spent 13 years illustrating Secret Agent Corrigan as a daily strip. (With writing by Archie Goodwin — also great.) 

Here’s a nice example from the earlier period of Al’s strips with a gorgeous final panel. 

(Of course as I also previously noted, Williamson could have illustrated a guide to Windows XP, and I would have devoured it anyway.)

Al’s Corrigan strips are relative bargains in the original art market today: Nice examples can often be found in the $400-$500 range.

The complete five-volume collection of Williamson’s Corrigan (Also referred to as X-9) is one of my favorite series form the Library of American of Comics (LOAC), and one of my favorite projects at IDW Publishing. 

Yes, that makes me biased. So?

Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips:
Week 1: Superheroes
Week 2: Detectives
Week 3: SF
Week 4: Masters Of The Form

Secret Agent Corrigan (X-9) has an outstanding pedigree: Created in 1934 by Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond for King Features, he was quickly featured in two movie serials. (1937 and 1945, pictured here.)

Alex Raymond — Watching The Detectives

Original Art and The Artists

Daily Strip, December 11, 1950

Every so often, I have this daydream, that I will sell most, if not all, of my art and use the proceeds to buy just one piece: An Alex Raymond Flash Gordon Sunday.

First time I ever saw that art as a kid, I recognized that I was looking at something extraordinary.

Nearly 50 years later, I still feel that way.

In the meantime, I have this great Raymond Rip Kirby to enjoy. Frankly, they are all pretty great, but this one especially spoke to me because of the terrific use of light and shadows. (And smaller word balloons than typical means more art to enjoy.)

Publishing the complete Raymond Rip Kirby — and Flash Gordon, with the Raymond Jungle Jim toppers — at IDW was a joy. An absolute joy.

And I’m still thinking about saving my pennies…

Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips:
Week 1: Superheroes
Week 2: Detectives
Week 3: SF
Week 4: Masters Of The Form

Fun fact: This is Volume 2 of the complete Alex Raymond Rip Kirby, despite the fact that the years contained within are misidentified here.

Wayne Boring — Superman Powers Up

Original Art and The Artists

Superman Daily Strip, September 29, 1965

Classic Superman artist Wayne Boring provides us with an excellent and rare daily strip at the end of Superman’s 27-year newspaper run.

The excellence is obvious; Superman uses three different super powers in each of the three panels. 

Rare because, well, pretty much the same reason: Many, many strips from this period only feature Clark, Lois or other characters in “civilian” garb, with soap opera style plots and stories. In other words, there are many strips where Superman is nowhere to be found.

In fact, in the 80s, Boring would often Remarque those “plain” originals with a Superman figure to make them more desirable in the collectors market.

But of course, no need to add an “extra” Superman here. He’s doing just fine in this good-looking example.

We managed to collect most of the Superman strips at IDW and LOAC, but couldn’t find any collectors with complete runs from the earliest silver age period. (Late 50s.) That era of strips includes the introduction of a Brainiac prototype (“Romado”) drawn by the great Curt Swan.

Back in the Golden Age, Newspapers ruled New York, and Superman ruled the Sunday comics section (16 color pages!)of the New York Daily Mirror. A Golden Age, indeed.
A classic example of a Wayne Boring Superman Remarque, drawn right over the panels.

Al Plastino — Batman’s Watery Doom!

Original Art and The Artists

Batman Daily Strip — July 8, 1969

Bat sheets. Bat soap. Bat pajamas. Bat-a-rangs…

As nearly any pop culture fan knows, (especially — ahem — older ones like myself) the hugely successful camp 1966 Batman TV show launched a plethora of bat merchandise.

So it’s no surprise that DC launched a revival of the Batman comic strip, which had a successful, but brief run in the Golden Age.

The daily strips initially mimicked the campiness of the TV show, but ultimately moved closer to more traditional DC superhero stories, as did the comics after the show was cancelled in early 1968.

Al Plastino handled the art chores for many of the strips, following Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Giella.

The strip managed to soldier on until early 1973. Finally managing to collect all of them — the dailies and Sundays — into a three-volume LOAC series was an archival highlight of mine at IDW. 

(It only took five years or so to convince DC to let us do it. Perseverance won the day.)

The original art for the third and final volume of the Silver Age Batman strip books is featured here.

David Messina — Godzilla’s Kingdoms

Original Art and The Artists

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #9, November 2011

My pal David Messina delivers a terrific cover for one of IDW’s many Godzilla comic series from a few years back. I love the composition and scale here.

Godzilla returns (again) this coming week with the much-hyped Godzilla vs. Kong. In theaters or on HBO Max, as they say.

Godzilla has made a few returns to comics as well. Originally a somewhat goofy series at Marvel during the 70s, Dark Horse picked up the rights to the Big G in the 90s. Ultimately, we published quite a few issues at IDW, and the “modern” film version from Legendary has made it into their own sporadic comics line from time to time.

Meanwhile none of the pre-IDW series are available to purchase as collections (print or digital) because of… well, Toho. I tried to make progress there many times. Many, many times.

Trust me on this.

Pete Poplaski — Superman’s Golden Age

Original Art and The Artists

Superman Retro Advertising Tin Sign, 1994

Nostalgic collectible tin advertising signs became all the rage in the 1990s.

At first, “reprints” of authentic signs started popping up at flea markets and street fairs. Many were classic brands and logos, some long defunct.

Shortly thereafter, inventive entrepreneurs created new signs designed to emulate the retro look and feel of the classics. You can still find many of these at shops and vendors that specialize in nostalgic candy, soda, etc.

Kitchen Sink, publisher at the time of the Superman and Batman newspaper strip reprint collections, issued two very cool Superman “advertising” tins designed and illustrated by the amazing Pete Poplaski. (This one is marked #3, but I’ve only seen two, so I’m assuming at least one design was tabled.)

As with nearly all of Pete’s illustrations, everything you see, including the lettering, is fully hand drawn. (The line detail on the buildings alone is astonishing.)

And no one captures classic comic art styles like Pete. (Well, maybe the equally amazing Paul Mavrides, but that’s a tale for another day.)

As mentioned previously, when we picked the DC strip reprint rights at IDW in 2013, Pete was our first choice to create all the cover material. 

And, as always, he knocked it out of the park.

Celebrating the 80th anniversary of the original Superman cartoons, created by the incredible Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures.
Paul Mavrides, Pete’s only real “competition” in recreating other artist styles, illustrated the Comic Book Confidential film poster art back in 1988, mimicking the art style of each individual artist. (Paul and the original art provide a funny intro to the film itself.)

Darwyn Cooke — Martinis And Bullets

Original Art and The Artists

The Seventh, Short Story, Parker Martini Edition, 2013

Here’s the best page from The Seventh, an Eisner-winning short story adapted from Richard Stark’s (Donald Westlake) Parker novel of the same name.

Adapted, designed, illustrated, lettered, and hand-colored by the late, great, Darwyn Cooke.

Most of the original art pages from Darwyn’s Parker graphic novels feature two smaller pages on a standard-size board. This one is a full-size page on board (aprox.11X17). It was created as a special bonus for the “Martini Edition,” the beautiful oversized collection of The Hunter and The Outfit, edited by the terrifically talented Scott Dunbier.

The second Martini Edition, collecting The Score and Slayground finally debuts later in 2021. And its bonus material will include a new story by Ed Brubraker and Sean Phillips (Criminal, et al).

I can’t wait. Bam!

The Seventh debuted in The Martini Edition, and can also be found as a bonus story in Slayground, hardcover or softcover.

Eduardo Risso — The Man I Love

Original Art and The Artists

Spirit #6, November 2010

Continuing our celebration of “Will Eisner Week,” with other creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character, The Spirit.

Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso follow-up their astonishing 100 Bullets Vertigo series with a fun short story featuring the Spirit.

Not all creators understand Eisner’s subtle and delicate balance between noir and (often dark) humor, but despite the strictly hard-boiled nature of 100 Bullets, the team captures Eisner’s spirit nicely.

(I know, we use that pun a lot. It will probably show up next year, too.)

Fun fact: Back in 2002 and 2003, I engineered the deal between DC Comics and Acclaim Entertainment leading to the development of a 100 Bullets video game. Acclaim was in financial trouble when the contract was signed, so unsurprisingly, the game never made into final production. (Acclaim ended up declaring bankruptcy and folding in 2004.)

It’s too bad — the development team was passionate and fully engaged on the project. Some early footage can be found on-line here.