To paraphrase an old adage, sometimes you get the bird, and sometimes… the bird gets you.
I’ve discussed my pal Wheeler’s terrific cartooning skills previously. For this book (on which I actually have a co-editing credit, because of all my nagging, nudging and general meddling) he let me have first dibs on any piece, and I chose this one.
Every holiday (hell, every day, actually) feels so bizarre this year, but I’m thankful to all of you who take a moment from our apocalypse-in-training to check in on the blog.
Thanks again, and have a good holiday. Be safe out there!
The terrifically talented Zina Saunders — daughter of legendary Mars Attacks painter Norm Saunders — created this card for our 1994 Topps Mars Attacks “sequel” series. So many good cards were created for that set, including many by Zina, that we ran out of room, and this one went unused…
Until 2012, when we acquired the Mars Attacks comic book license at IDW. Legendary comics marketing guru Dirk Wood had this crazy idea: What if we created 55 variant covers, each featuring one of the original 55 cards? Ha-ha. That’s funny.
Then we went ahead and did it.
And we upped the ante: We added an additional variant cover that you could only get if you bought the complete box set of variant covers.
Honestly, I think we all agreed we were nuts — until some good orders came in. Collectors actually wanted all the covers. It was a novel way to have a complete “set” of the original Mars Attacks.
Maybe those are unrelated thoughts. We might still be nuts.
But I’m not voting the Martian ticket, regardless. Not this year, anyway.
Detective Comics # 338 and #356 Mashup Re-imagination, 2010
As noted last year, the late, great Darwyn Cooke produced a number of these reinterpretations and homages of classics during his all too short lifetime.
In this dynamic drawing, Darwyn combined two classic covers into one, taking the iconic “punch scene” from Detective #356 and fitting into the #338 layout. Carmine Infantino (pencils) and Joe Giella (inks) created both of the memorable original covers.
When you dive the detail of the re-imagination, you might notice that the crooks in the right frame now more closely resemble the hoods that populate the Darwyn’s astonishing Parker graphic novel series that we published at IDW. It’s a wonderful touch.
Definition of a comics geek?
When I saw this piece offered for sale, I recognized what Darwyn had done — without it being specifically noted in the item description. Issue #356 was one of the first Batman comics I remembered reading as a kid.
Batman: The Silver Age Newspaper Comics Vol. 3 (1969-1972), November 2016
Pete Poplaski has been called an “artist’s artist” by many creators. His name might not be known as well as other artists, but his talent is unquestionable.
Pete, who broke into comics in the 70s underground community, ultimately became Kitchen Sink Press’ art director, and among many accomplishments helped give some of Robert Crumb’s projects just the right design touch.
Kitchen had the rights to reprint the DC Batman and Superman comic strips in the early 1990s, and Pete created brand new covers that evoked the classic style of those strips.
When we acquired those reprint rights at IDW in 2012, we went back to Pete to see if he would be interested in picking up where he left off, and fortunately he was.
Wayne Boring. Dick Sprang. Al Plastino. Carmine Infantino. You name a classic artist, and Pete can replicate the style.
And perhaps most astonishing of all is this giant wraparound cover for Batman Silver Age Volume 3. Featured on these covers are nearly everyone in the Bat family from that era. Good guys and villains alike. All the type is hand lettered.
And when I say giant, I’m not kidding. When combined, the two pieces are nearly four-feet wide.
I’ve never seen another piece of comic art quite like it.
September 19 is “Batman Day,” so we’re going to ride the Bat-train for a few weeks and post some additional theme-appropriate art. No “Bam or “Pow” included.
Poplaski creates color guides by photocopying the original and, if too big, taping the pages together.
55 years ago, Wallace Wood emphasized the “devil” in Daredevil with a dramatic costume change for the character in issue #7. The series, which had floundered early on, started to gain some traction with Woody’s work just a few issues prior. Issue #7, featuring Daredevil hopelessly outmatched by the Sub-Mariner, is considered a silver-age classic.
Our next three posts celebrate this anniversary with a look at the “modern” man without fear.
I love classic film noir. Dark streets, shady characters, two-faced femme fatales, dimly lit apartments, et al. All great.
At one point, there was not a sign of comic art in my office — just classic noir posters.
So it’s no surprise that that some of my favorite takes on Daredevil are those same noir tropes applied to comics by outstanding storytellers like David Mazzucchelli.
And great pages like this one, featuring Daredevil in every panel, playing the (blind, but super-powered) detective. Mazzucchelli’s use of cinematic camera angles and shadows and light creates a deeply moody page, especially when seen in its original form.
Mazzucchelli keeps nearly all of his original art, and he both penciled and inked this page, so it’s a fantastic rarity as well. Only a handful of Daredevil pages that he is fully responsible for have appeared for sale on the secondary market.
Daredevil #217 features a dramatic cover by the amazing Barry Windsor-Smith.
Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli would collaborate on one of the best loved comic book story arcs of all time: “Born Again.” At IDW, we were fortunate enough to put together an Artist’s Edition of the series with beautiful scans provided from Mazzucchelli himself.
Welcome back to a month long celebration of the “Independents” — Independent creators and projects that continue to impact the comic book medium.
I have some great Sam Kieth anecdotes from projects where we’ve crossed professional paths.
Topps Maxx trading cards. Check.
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs Animated comics adaptions. Check.
Maxx Deluxe collections. Check.
Batman / Maxx. Double check.
Zero Girl? Even though we collected both series at IDW, I have no memory of how this one came to pass. Probably a short phone call between Editor Scott Dunbier and Sam, and that was that.
I do have however, this cool page, the issue’s cover scene, in my collection. Zero Girl is admittedly not one of Sam’s better known efforts, but its surrealism definitely appeals to me, and the art, especially in the first series is classic Kieth.
As for those stories I do have? I’ll have to get back to you.
Sam did three great (and little-seen) covers for the 1994 Topps adaptation of the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs animated series. He sold the original art for them in the last year or two; I guess he forgot he promised one of them to me. Ha!
Nearly 36 years of the epic Usagi Yojimbo this year. That’s 36 years of stellar storytelling — and still going strong. A remarkable achievement.
Samurai “funny animals” as if directed by Akira Kurosawa. Japanese arts, folklore and fantasy. Told in clear, well-crafted, and often philosophical episodes.
Genius. Just genius.
Stan is an accomplished talent in all facets of comic book creation: Writing. Penciling. Inking. Painting.
And did I mention his lettering? In addition to lettering his own series, Stan letters Sergio Aragones’ Groo, and for 25 years, he lettered the Spider-Man Sunday comic strip.
This detailed action cover is from the opening chapter of a cool story arc entitled “Town Call Hell”. When it was ultimately collected into a trade, Stan painted a new version. (See below).
Bringing Stan over to IDW was one of my final accomplishments there. It was also one my happiest.
(IDW’s first collection is up for an Eisner award this year.)
Stan redid his original great cover as yet ANOTHER great cover for the book collection.
Usagi in his first appearance, and then his first ongoing series from Fantagraphics.
Wait… John Byrne is 70 today? How old does that make me? Yikes.
Continuing our celebration of “Independents” month with a bonus entry by Byrne.
John started his Next Men series at Dark Horse in 1991, ultimately stopping in 1994, during an epic industry-wide sales implosion.
In 2010, after some wrangling, John restarted the series at IDW and this beautifully detailed art was used for the announcement at SDCC, along with one of the cover variants.
Happy Birthday, John!
Published cover and original promo for SDCC.
Dark Horse #1 launch issue from 1992 along with Dark Horse Presents #54, featuring the team’s first appearancein 1991.
Byrne in 2017 at NYCC, his first convention appearance in many years.
Welcome to July and a month long celebration of the Independents! — Independent creators whose work has captivated us as much, or even more, than the traditional commercial product typically coming from the large mainstream publishers.
This is a very cinematic Tim Truman page from the very first Grimjack story, a two-part back up that appeared in Starslayer #10 and #11, from First Comics in 1983.
Who (or what) is Grimjack? Created by writer John Ostrander, along with Truman, this very succinct description from the Wiki page sums it up nicely:
“Grimjack is the street name of John Gaunt, a sword-for-hire, ex-paramilitary, war veteran and former child gladiator. He operates from Munden’s Bar in the Pit, a slum area of Cynosure, a pan-dimensional city to which all dimensions connect.”
Swashbuckling SF involving multiple dimensions? Sold.
Grimjack ultimately proved more popular than main feature in Starslayer, and the character was awarded his own ongoing series in 1984, which ran originally ran 81 issues until First’s bankruptcy in 1991.
With the help of former First publisher Mike Gold, we brought Grimjack back for a series of new adventures at IDW Publishing starting in 2008. It is now in development for a film / series at Amazon Prime with the Russo brothers (Avengers: Endgame).
Tim has gone on to a remarkable nearly 40-year career that includes Hawkman, Jonah Hex, Turok, Tarzan, Conan and many others. I had first had the pleasure of working with him and writer Joe Lansdale at Topps in the early 90s on a cool Lone Ranger series that highlighted Tonto more than the masked man himself. And then again 20 years later on another Lansdale series, Hawken.
First Comics itself launched in 1983, and rapidly rose to publishing prominence with other additional quality titles and creators including Frank Brunner, Mike Grell, Jim Starlin and Howard Chaykin, whose American Flagg series is featured in the next post — on Independence Day, of course!
Nearly all writers, amateur or professional, struggle with writers block at some point.
My blog schedule for 2020 is fairly consistent. About 250 -300 words per post, three posts per week. Add in some extra narrative in the captions, and the occasional “bonus” post, and we can generously call it 1000 words per week. 50,000 words per year, give or take.
That’s significantly less than my early newspaper or magazine days, and yet, every once in a while, I stare at the art — and the screen— blankly, trying to get my thoughts together in a semi-coherent fashion.
And then, there’s Walter Gibson, creator of the Shadow. During the height of the character’s popularity in the 30s and 40s, he wrote two novels PER month, each 50-60,000 words. (Using the pen name Maxwell Grant.)
50,000 — 60,000 (or more) words every… two… weeks.
In Gibson’s NY Times obituary, the paper calculated that in some years, his annual output was well over 1.6 million words!
Reading some of these Shadow stories, it’s obvious that although they were genre books, with certain themes and ideas repeated throughout, they were well written, creative and original. Quality novels, twice a month.
How the heck did he pull it off? Astonishing is definitely an understatement.
Turns out he and I were living fairly closely to each other shortly before he passed away in 1985. I wish I knew that (where was the internet when I needed it?), so I could have perhaps expressed my astonished admiration directly. And of course, thank him.
Oh, yes, back to the art: A great commission by the terrific Jordi Bernet. He’s done a bunch of these, so I assume he’s a fan.
I was fortunate enough to meet him — and host him briefly — at the 2011 San Diego Comic–Con. IDW published the first high quality collection of Torpedo stories in English. And although I’m not a huge fan of the stories themselves, I’m a big fan of the art.
That too, is an amazing understatement.
But at least I had an opportunity to tell him that. Even if my Spanish is fairly impotent.
Alex Toth drew the earliest Torpedo stories, but he wasn’t fond of the writing, so he dropped out. His replacement, Jordi Bernet, is a legendary storyteller in his own right.
