Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery
Panels and Pages… Art and Artists… Creators and Conventions… Musings and Memories…
October 28-30, 2022
Big thanks and congrats to all the folks who made this past weekend’s Baltimore Comic Con just as perfect an event could be.
It’s easily one of my favorite conventions — an absolute delight to attend. I exhausted myself catching up with old friends and colleagues, making some new acquaintance, and trying (ultimately not quite succeeding) to see all the great comics-related material in the room.
I miss all of you already.
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.
September 3-4. 2022
It’s been a minute (specifically, three years!)… Glad to be back in Long Beach with friends and fans!
James Bond 007: Serpent’s Tooth #2, August 1992
Until the last few years, James Bond’s appearances in comic books are rare. Added all together prior to 2016, they most definitely would not fill an omnibus.
Rights issues are always tricky with this franchise; although Eon Productions —and its merchandising arm, Danjaq — manages film rights, the literary property itself remains controlled by the Ian Fleming Estate.
Which explains why this run at Dark Horse features a James Bond who doesn’t in fact look like any other Bond we’ve seen previously. In fact, here he looks a little bit like — Paul Gulacy.
Regardless, It’s great Gulacy page from a good-looking miniseries; even if this specific example looks like it would be more at home in an Indiana Jones comic book.
American Flagg #7, April 1983
New art, along with a repost of last year’s Flagg blog:
Remember what is was like to first watch Sopranos or The Wire or some of other great early HBO-produced television shows? You knew it was TV, of course but it was so different… so much better than typical commercial fare, it made you think about what the medium could actually be.
For many fans — myself included — Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg (especially the first dozen issues or so) had a similar impact on comic books in 1983. Part SF, part satire, all adult, Flagg’s dystopia was like nothing else in contemporaneous comic book publishing.
Its inventive storytelling was groundbreaking, an oft-overused word that most definitely applies here. Need validation? Read those first twelve Flagg issues, and then read The Dark Knight Returns, by Howard’s studiomate Frank Miller, which appeared a few years later.
I’ll wait.
Or, just trust me on this.
Flagg came from nascent publisher First, and its editorial plan pursued mature, original comics from talented creators. And Flagg was one of the best of them.
It was obvious that Howard put his heart — and more — into the series.
In fact, I think there are only two reasons why Flagg isn’t frequently discussed in the same breath as other innovative titles like DKR or Watchmen.
First, it’s because of First.
Independent comic book publishers almost entirely relied on the direct market. Their reach wasn’t anywhere near as wide the mass market, and even with some newsstand distribution, a top independent comic book would never have the reach of a poor-selling superhero title from Marvel or DC, let alone a smash hit.
In other words, no chance you were going to score an American Flagg Slurpee at 7-Eleven.
The second reason is more frustrating.
Remarkably, all 50 original issues of Flagg have NEVER been collected. The early issues appear in and out of print from time to time, but it’s a pity that you can’t get the complete series in digital or print, on demand, as they say.
And that’s a conversation I’ve had with Howard many times. Many, many times.
Trust me on that, too.
Shattuck #26, 1972
Happy (almost) Independence Day! Welcome to our second annual month-long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium. This is our third (and final installment) in a week-long series focused on Wallace Wood.
Shattuck is the rarest, the oddest, and the shortest-lived of the Wood Studio strip ventures.
Many collectors had never seen any until Fanatagraphics issued a complete collection a few years ago.
From Frank Plowright on The Slings and Arrows:
“Shattuck is more a collector’s curiosity than a bona fide graphic novel, pulling together the episodes of a short lived Western newspaper strip produced in 1972 for the Overseas Weekly. Wood’s studio had the contract to produce the strip, and as with others for the same market, one of the artists recalled the brief as being to get the women’s clothes off as rapidly as possible. It can’t be said that Wood underestimated his audience…
“Many hands worked on the project… Wood himself might be involved in any episode plotting, laying out, adding inks or correcting, while his chief studio assistant Nicola Cuti also produced plots and layouts using a swipe file. Most of the actual illustration was the first published work of Howard Chaykin, then Dave Cockrum, both usually inked by Jack Abel. Both Wood and Abel have utterly distinctive inking styles, so there’s no difficulty in recognizing which worked on which strip.
This particular example appears to be mostly Cockrum, possibly with some Abel inks and definitely some Wood fixes in places. It’s “Where’s Woody” instead of “Where’s Waldo” — you have to look carefully to find it.
Sgt. Rock Special #2, December 1994
DC salutes the 50th anniversary Battle of the Bulge (the final major German offensive of WW II; spoiler alert —they lost) with this clever 1994 one-shot of short stories.
Howard Chaykin is firing on all cylinders in comics during this period and this story, written by Chuck Dixon, features top-notch draftsmanship and storytelling. Much of the actual Battle of the Bulge is indeed fought in snowy, cold weather, and Chaykin’s use of whiteout over ink is extremely effective, and especially clear in the original art.
It’s extremely cinematic — exactly the way any comic book story about The Battle of the Bulge should be. Or, actually, any World War II story.
Or any war tale, for that matter.
I don’t own many complete stories, but very happy to have acquired the story from Howard himself. For a change, I was in the right place at the right time.
“Howard Chaykin — The Angel.” This kind of headline practically writes itself.
American Flagg #17, February 1985
Happy Independence Day! Welcome back to a month long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
Remember what is was like to first watch Sopranos or The Wire or some of other great early HBO-produced television shows? You knew it was TV, of course but it was so different… so much better than typical commercial fare, it made you think about what the medium could actually be.
For many fans — myself included — Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg (especially the first dozen issues or so) had a similar impact on comic books in 1983. Part SF, part satire, all adult, Flagg’s dystopia was like nothing else in contemporaneous comic book publishing.
Its inventive storytelling was groundbreaking, an oft-overused word that most definitely applies here. Need validation? Read those first twelve Flagg issues, and then read The Dark Knight Returns, by Howard’s studiomate Frank Miller, which appeared a few years later.
I’ll wait.
Or, just trust me on this.
Flagg came from nascent publisher First, and its editorial plan pursued mature, original comics from talented creators. And Flagg was one of the best of them.
It was obvious that Howard put his heart — and more — into the series.
In fact, I think there are only two reasons why Flagg isn’t frequently discussed in the same breath as other innovative titles like DKR or Watchmen.
First, it’s because of First.
Independent comic book publishers almost entirely relied on the direct market. Their reach wasn’t anywhere near as wide the mass market, and even with some newsstand distribution, a top independent comic book would never have the reach of a poor-selling superhero title from Marvel or DC, let alone a smash hit.
In other words, no chance you were going to score an American Flagg Slurpee at 7-Eleven.
The second reason is more frustrating.
Remarkably, all 50 original issues of Flagg have NEVER been collected. The early issues appear in and out of print from time to time, but it’s a pity that you can’t get the complete series in digital or print, on demand, as they say.
And that’s a conversation I’ve had with Howard many times. Many, many times.
Trust me on that, too.
Shadow, Midnight in Moscow #4, September 2014
Continuing our ongoing series celebrating multiple anniversaries for the classic pulp character, The Shadow.
Howard Chaykin will tell you — often, and with emphasis — that he is not a guy rooted in the classic pulps.
That said, there is something consistently special about his artistic interpretation of the Shadow.
Maybe it’s his actual distance from the character that makes it so terrific. It’s strictly a professional relationship, without fannish admiration.
Whatever the reason, Howard’s Shadow always looks like the character should look like in my mind’s eye.
On this bold and striking cover, the buildings and effects were added digitally of course, and atypically, I’m thrilled they were. I love the character composed powerfully on his own in the original art.
As noted, striking and bold. Lots of black ink and just enough lighting. Guns out, cape flowing.
Just as it should be.
The Shadow (Blood and Judgement) #4, August 1986
Comic book pundits in 1986 decided the Shadow mini-series by Howard Chaykin was “controversial.”
Translation: Some fans liked it, some didn’t.
The late Harlan Ellison famously hated it. And Harlan was not famous for being gentle about his opinions. So there’s that. (Comic book journalists, critics, fans and trolls didn’t need the Internet in those days. They had fanzines. But I digress.)
Setting the series in the contemporary era seems to be a primary trigger for fans of the classic pulp character. Fans, who, it should be noted, mostly had abandoned their commercial interest in the character long ago.
A decade earlier, a series by Denny O’Neil and initially drawn Mike Kaluta, brilliantly faithful to The Shadow’s pulp origins and era, didn’t last past 12 issues.
So DC and Chaykin took a different approach with this series. And Chaykin’s world of The Shadow was definitely more “adult” (grittier, sexier, etc.) than earlier versions. Sign of the times, and Chaykin’s mature approach to comic book content specifically. (Chaykin’s Blackhawk and Black Kiss would follow shortly.)
For what it is worth, I gave it a shot, and liked it. The storytelling and art were — not surprisingly — top shelf. Did I care that the character was set in modern times?
I didn’t lose much sleep over it.
Controversial was an overly word then, and virtually worthless now. Dictionary definition is “giving rise or likely to give rise to public disagreement.”
So art is pretty much always “controversial.” Read some contemporaneous reviews of Citizen Kane or Star Wars. I’ll wait.
In 2020, of course, everything is controversial. I never thought I’d see the day when established facts were “controversial.”
Public disagreement indeed.
Sigh.
