IDW Publishing – Page 7 – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Al Williamson — This Date in History

August 29, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan Volume 5, 2013

Truly one of the most talented comic artists ever, the late Al Williamson spent 13 years illustrating Secret Agent Corrigan as a daily strip. (With writing by the late, also great, Archie Goodwin.) Here from 1977, is the 8/29 strip, with Corrigan dealing with one of those startling revelations that happened… well… quite regularly back in the day.

It matters not. Archie was a terrific writer of course, but Al Williamson could have illustrated a guide to Windows XP, and I would have devoured it anyway.

I miss Al’s work. I also miss newspaper adventure strips, but that’s a lament for another day.

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, and one of my favorite projects at IDW Publishing. Yes, that makes me biased. So?

Walter Simonson — Cover Me

August 25, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Walter Simonson’s The Mighty Thor: Artist’s Edition HC, Original Art Cover

Editor/Original Art expert Scott Dunbier brought his Artist’s Edition idea to IDW Publishing, and the rest as they say, is history. In 2011, Walter Simonson’s groundbreaking Thor run became the very first of the many Marvel Artist’s Editions in this extraordinary series. (And the second IDW Artist’s Edition overall, following Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer the year prior.)

Scott also had the wild idea to do actual original art covers of these original art reprint books on a super-limited basis, and Walter went along with it. These are not “sketch” covers, but rather very nicely detailed individual pencil and ink full-figure drawings of Thor done on blank cover variants. Walter only did about 10 of these — 15 at the most.

The only drawback — I can’t think of any way to frame it. (It’s also the heaviest piece of original art I own. Artist’s Editions are not light, but that is definitely the textbook definition of a first world problem…)