IDW Publishing – Page 4 – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Al Plastino — Batman’s Watery Doom!

June 1, 2021 Greg Goldstein 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.*

Geof Darrow — Godzilla Forever

March 27, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Godzilla (and Shaolin Cowboy) Commission, 2015

Geoff Darrow imagines the crossover (via commission) that you will never see anywhere else. Darrow’s own Shaolin Cowboy attacking Godzilla.

Geof’s intensely detailed line art is perfect to capture all the scales, fins and bumps on Godzilla’s figure.

Perfect.

And as mentioned previously, he is also one of the nicest and most entertaining creators you will ever meet.

*Crossovers you are unlikely to see again include Godzilla vs. The Avengers and Godzilla vs… Charles Barkley?!*

This student film made us laugh at festivals and midnight features every single time.

David Messina — Godzilla’s Kingdoms

March 23, 2021 Greg Goldstein 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

March 18, 2021 Greg Goldstein 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

March 13, 2021 Greg Goldstein 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.*

Darwyn Cooke — Pulp Friction

March 4, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Rocketeer Spirit #1 and #2, (Cover Preliminary Art) July/August 2013

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

As noted last year, the late Darwyn Cooke was likely the closest modern creator to fully realize Will Eisner’s legacy. Darwyn was an astonishing storyteller, designer illustrator, letterer and more. (Among dozens of awards and nominations, he also received an Emmy nomination for his work on the 2008 animated film Justice League: New Frontier.)

DC launched its ongoing Cooke Spirit series with a Batman / Sprit crossover, and this Spirit / Rocketeer crossover (covers only) brings some closure to that brief run.

The covers are designed to form one single unit, and a limited variant wraparound cover might exist, although I can’t find it in my collection — or on-line. ( I can’t recall if we ended up printing it or not.)

As for these prelims? They are oversize on real art board… and they are spectacular.

“I can remember it was one of those days when I was thirteen, and I was in a comic store, and there was nothing that I wanted to get. On the wall was a copy of Warren’s Spirit magazine. I think it’s number three, where he is running down the elevated track straight at you, and the train is behind him. It’s just one of the most exciting images I have ever seen…”

-Darwyn Cooke interview From Will Eisner: A Spirited Life by Bob Andelman

Bob Montana — Just Joking

February 13, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Archie’s Joke Book #2, January 1954

Although the newspaper strip kept Archie co-creator Bob Montana busy, he did manage to continue to find time to provide comic book pages as well, setting (and ultimately evolving) the house style for the Archie family.

Archie’s Joke Book used a similar formula to the newspaper strips: Short gags, either a half page or full page in length, possibly even recycling or amplifying some of the same gags from those strips.

IDW collected one small volume of these “jokes” from that era to minimal success. The format didn’t appeal to collectors, and the joke themselves in all fairness, don’t appeal all that much to a contemporary audience.

Bob Montana — Instructional

February 12, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Sunday June 13, 1954

Archie, as noted in the previous blog, rapidly achieved success. Within a few years after the character’s introduction, the Archie family added a hit newspaper strip to the successful comics line. Bob Montana, Archie’s co-creator, worked on the strip for nearly 30 years until his untimely passing in 1975.

IDW and the Library of American Comics intended to publish a complete sequential series of these strips, but ran into a problem: Finding the actual strips themselves. Archie had no strip archive, and collectors, who had kept clipped strips from the era, concentrated primarily on adventure series and mostly ignored Archie.

Fortunately, we managed one book each of dailies and Sundays from the period, and even a cursory glance reveals Montana’s cleverness in cartooning.

*Early solicitations for the Montana dailies book included this preliminary cover, but imprint Editor Dean Mullaney ultimately went in a different direction for publication.*

Andrew Pepoy — Happy Birthday, Archie

February 9, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Archie Americana Volume 1: Best of the 1940s HC, 2011

Archie Andrews, (along with many of the rest of his timeless Riverdale gang), celebrates his 80th anniversary this year.

Starting as a back-up feature in MLJ’s Pep Comics #22 (cover date December 1941), Archie and his pals gradually took over the whole comic, and eventually, in 1946, the entire company.

Archie’s creation is generally credited to MLJ founder John Goldwater, and cartoonist Bob Montana. Montana apparently based many of the characters on friends and neighbors from his high school days in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

IDW Publishing and Dark Horse both relentlessly chased Archie Comics for archival reprint rights — an area the company itself was slow to develop, and in 2009, Archie ultimately split those reprint rights between the two publishers.

AT IDW, we published hardcover “Best of” collections, based on both era and artist. We also added the Archie strips to our Library of American Comics imprint headed by Dean Mullaney. (More on that later.)

Andrew Pepoy drew era-specific covers for all four Archie’s Americana volumes. This cover from the first volume — Best of the 40s — is a faithful and clever re-working of Montana’s cover for Archie’s Pals and Gals #3. Ironically, Montana’s original is from the 50s (1954), but I don’t think anyone complained.

More Archie coming up in the next few posts as we celebrate his very youthful 80th.

*All four volumes in the IDW “Archie’s Americana” series feature era-specific covers by the talented Andrew Pepoy.*

*Starting as a back-up feature in MLJ’s Pep Comics #22 , Archie and his pals gradually took over the covers, the comic, and in 1946, the entire company.*

Paul Gulacy — Toys For The Holidays (Part 3)

December 31, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

GI Joe Special Missions #4, June 2013

When I was a kid, G.I. Joe never looked like this.

Of course, there’s an easy explanation for that. I grew up with the original Joe’s somewhat vanilla representations of America’s fighting forces. I loved them, as did most of my friends, but character development was not in the 60s line-up.

Characters like “bad girl” Baroness here were the result of Hasbro’s re-introduction and revamp of the brand in 1982. Marvel Comics was essentially paid to create colorful heroes and even more colorful bad guys. And they delivered, mainly with the creativity and guidance of writer Larry Hama.

The rest, as they say (Ok, I say it a lot) is history.

IDW became publisher of record shortly after I cane on board in 2008, and has had some terrific success with various iterations during the last dozen years.

This Special Missions series is a fine example, with script by Chuck Dixon and terrific visual storytelling by fan favorite Paul Gulacy.

I acquired a few pages from this series, including this dynamic splash, but another one of these pages comes with a unusual annecdote, which I will share down the road. (I’d bet you can’t wait, but I’d lose.)

And so, 2020 finally comes to an end. Whew. Here’s looking forward to a much better 2021. We will be back on Thursday, January 7, with a special year-opening series on… well… that will be telling. See you soon, and thanks again for visiting.