Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Halloween

Neal Adams — Supernatural Talent

Original Art and The Artists

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.

Jennifer Graves & J. Bone — Bats And Cats

Original Art and The Artists

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.

Ashley Wood — Bone Mechanix

Original Art and The Artists

Ghost Rider #20, December 1995

Our third annual Halloween tribute continues now through October 31. 

Ash Wood has accomplished much in his career, but I still miss his trippy interior comic art. As clearly exemplified here.

And Ghost Rider 2099? That was the easily the trippiest of the 2099 Universe, spearheaded by my long-time pal Joey Cavalieri.

Most of the 2099 material has yet to be collected, but given the passionate enthusiasm in 90s comic art material of late, it won’t surprise me if an omnibus or two is coming our way shortly.

(I’d buy the Ghost Rider material just to revisit the art — even if I’m still not entirely sure I could explain the narrative clearly.)

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.)

Gabriel Hardman — Terror In The Public Domain

Original Art and The Artists

Project Superpowers: Blackcross #6, November 2015

Our third annual Halloween tribute continues now through October 31. 

Gabe Hardman creates an image of The Black Terror, that’s… well… pretty terrifying.

Launched in the Golden Age, the character has since fallen into the public domain, and has appeared in numerous titles and incarnations. This most recent version of The Terror spins out from the Project Superpowers project, the clever Alex Ross-driven series from Dynamic Forces that combines a number of PD characters into one universe.

As noted multiple times previously, I find Hardman’s work among the best in modern comics art.

I just wish for more of it.

The Black Terror’s launch and subsequent iterations from Alex Ross and Alan Moore / Chris Sprouse.

Alan Davis — Death Becomes Him

Original Art and The Artists

Thanos: The Infinity Conflict, November 2018

We begin our third annual Halloween celebration with a terrific Alan Davis splash of Thanos becoming Death in The Infinity Conflict graphic novel.

Like all recent Davis and Farmer pages, it’s a combination of blue-line printing and pencil by Davis, and finishes by Farmer. And, also like all pages by that terrific art team, it looks great.

Happy Halloween — foe the next few weeks. See you on Thursday.