Library of American Comics – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Russ Manning — Star Wars, Sunday Best

May 1, 2024 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Star Wars Sunday Strip, #39, December 12, 1979

Russ Manning Star Wars Original Comic Strip Art From The Collection of Greg Goldstein

I finally checked off a piece of art from my OA “bucket list” with the acquisition of this terrific Russ Manning Star Wars Sunday strip late last year.

I own some great Star Wars original art, but not much focusing on Leia, so I’m especially pleased I won this strip at auction. Coincidentally, I was the underbidder the previous time it had appeared at auction — second time is the charm, apparently.

When we had the opportunity to collect the complete Star Wars strip collection at IDW Publishing, it was yet another box checked off from the publishing bucket list. Dean Mullaney and the Library of American Comics (LOAC) crew produced (as always) an amazing three-volume set.

Welcome to Star Wars “month.” May the force be with you throughout.

*Did your newspaper make room for the full strip, or the “abridged” version, featuring Sundays without the top tier?*

Pete Poplaski — Atomic Age

July 19, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Superman — Atomic Age Sundays Volume 3, December 2017

As described in a earlier post, Pete provided all the terrific covers for our DC superhero strip reprints for The Library of American Comics.

Pictured is a typical great example where Pete emulates legendary artist Wayne Boring — with some Curt Swan thrown in for good measure.

Oversized — and beautiful.

Fun Facts: (From the marketing copy):

Written by Alvin Schwartz and Bill FInger and Illustrated by Wayne Boring

The Man of Steel stars in thirteen classic adventures as the 1950s “Atomic Age” comes to a close. Some of the stories are original to the newspaper strip, while others were alternate versions of tales that were simultaneously published in the regular comic books. One of the featured adaptations is “Superman Versus the Futuremen,” written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger, which retells Superman’s origin. This concluding volume of Superman’s Atomic Age Sundays reprints all strips July 1, 1956 to October 11, 1959.

*Pete hand colors copies of his original art, and those color guides are then handed off to the digital colorist who completes the work for publication.*

Meanwhile, over in the comics, Superman reminds us to read all his adventures.

Russ Manning — Tarzan, Revisited

January 27, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

“Tarzan In Savage Pellucidar,” Graphic Novel, 1975

This beautiful Russ Manning splash page has never been published in the US, or in English at all, for that matter.

A foreign publisher hired Manning and his team to create a series of graphic albums for the European markets in the mid 70s. Manning, having beautifully illustrated the Tarzan comic strips, as well as some of the Gold Key comics, was a perfect choice.

A few years back, Dark Horse reprinted two of those graphic albums, but I assume sales were not significant to continue. (Unless it simply fell through the cracks. Not a likely scenario, but it does happen occasionally.)

Another original art page from this story appeared in auction last year, and it too is a beauty.

I would really love to see the whole thing. I haven’t been able to find a foreign edition. But I will, eventually. Trust me on this.

*Tarzan in Savage Pellucidar appeared in many languages — except, strangely, in English.*

*From the dept. of nearly naked women and trippy 70s posters: Neal Adams art for Warp precedes Russ Manning’s poster for Tarzan by a few years. Phantasmagorical indeed.*

Dan DeCarlo — Iconic (Part 1)

November 16, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Archie Giant Series #153, Original Pin-up, reworked for cover, June 1968

Archie and his gang fully hit their stride with the baby boom generation, and no one was more responsible for that than cartoonist Dan DeCarlo.

Bob Montana created the original appearance of the gang, and DeCarlo modernized it — and never stopped tweaking the appearance (he had a very keen eye for fashion) and the personalities of the beloved characters for more than forty years.

I loved Montana’s work — I even edited a hardcover collection of Montana strips — but DeCarlo’s clear and expressive art fully imprinted on my young reading eyes in the 60s and 70s.

So… to continue Archie’s 80^thcelebration, we’ll feature just the tip of the iceberg of Dan’s great work this week.

And we will start with a fun anomaly: A gag that was redesigned — and rewritten — before it morphed from a pin-up page to a full cover.

Which one works better? I think I can come up with pros and cons for each, although from a comics code perspective, it’s possible the published cover might be slightly more acceptable than the original. It’s a bit more open to the imagination as to whether Archie is painting Veronica’s shirt — or her actual body.

In the unpublished version, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.

Milton Caniff — Sage For His Age

July 4, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Steve Canyon, Daily Strip, June 6, 1949

How big a deal was it when Milton Caniff left Terry and The Pirates to create Steve Canyon, a new comic strip that he would own exclusively?

It made the cover of Time Magazine.

Time, the most important news magazine in the world in the mid-20th century, also featured Gandhi, Princess Elizabeth, Eva Peron, The Shah of Iran and Jackie Robinson on its covers that year.

One of America’s best-loved comic strip creators had declared his independence.

The big newspaper syndicates would no longer control the rights to Caniff’s cartooning.

In the days when star cartoonists were pretty much rock stars (popular comics helped drive newspaper sales), “The Rembrandt of the Comic Strip” was now fully in charge of his own destiny.

It was indeed a big deal.

To this day, when you want to reprint Steve Canyon, or chose to produce some lovely retro Canyon merch., you make a deal with the Caniff estate directly.

Milt Caniff — one of the medium’s greatest creators — leaves behind a legacy of independence that hundreds, if not thousands, of cartoonists and storytellers embrace on an ongoing (and not at all risk-free) basis.

Happy Independence Day.

From Top left: Cover of Canyon Vol. 2 featuring today’s strip; cover of the Eisner winning Caniff retrospective (both books from The Library of American Comics and IDW Publishing); Caniff in his studio with the model for Canyon’ s initial romantic interest Copper Calhoon; Caniff on the cover of Time Magazine; and a small hand-colored print of Calhoon. Caniff would send these prints to fans who wrote him requesting art or an autograph.

Gil Kane — The Star Wars Effect

June 24, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Star Hawks, Sunday Strip, August 12, 1979

Here is a nice (Sunday) example of Ron Goulart’s and Gil Kane’s Star Hawks, the short-lived SF adventure strip which ran from 1977-1981. (Extra nice in that it includes both the strip header and the color proof.)

“Inspired – as so many things were in the late 70s – by the tremendous success of Star Wars, the newspaper feature syndicate NEA (Newspaper Enterprise Association) got it into their heads that a space opera comic strip that evoked the cosmic high adventure and swashbuckling derring-do of George Lucas’ movie might be a popular addition to the nation’s comics pages.” — Christopher Mills

Perhaps most interesting thing about the strip was the that the initial dailies were double tier as well as the Sunday’s — a risky gambit that allowed Kane to showcase his strengths in storytelling and layout. Unfortunately, newspapers weren’t in love with devoting that much real estate to the quirky SF adventure, and it ultimately dropped to the traditional one-tier.

Goulart ultimately left the strip and Kane enlisted frequent collaborator Archie Goodwin, who wrote the one above. He also left after a few arcs, and Roger Mackenzie wrapped things up.

All of the series is available in a three-volume set from The Library of American Comics and IDW Publishing.

Worth every penny, but of course, I’m biased.

Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips:
Week 1: Superheroes
Week 2: Detectives
Week 3: SF
Week 4: Comic Book Giants

Al McWilliams — Futurist

June 15, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Twin Earths, Daily Strip, April 14, 1958

Al (Alden) McWilliams gives us an uncanny glimpse of a cool flip phone — about 40 years ahead of its time.

(Of course, there’s the terrific use of shadows and light to admire as well. But, as always, we digress.)

Twin Earths was one of the few strip collections that we could never make happen at IDW and The Library of American Comics. (For reasons involving both rights and availability of materials.) It’s too bad, because it was a fun and well-rendered adventure strip — one of the few that dealt with “flying saucers.” Capatilizing on UFOs in the news headlines, it was part of an overall more realistic trend in SF post World War 2.

Also, McWilliams is a terrific artist who never quite achieved the fame of some of his contemporaries — seemingly never quite being in the right place at the right time.

Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips:
Week 1: Superheroes
Week 2: Detectives
Week 3: SF
Week 4: Comic Book Giants

Sporadic reprints of Twin Earths have appeared from time to time, but as of now (2021) the full run has yet to be collected.

Al Williamson — Flight To Glory

June 12, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Secret Agent Corrigan (X-9), Daily Strip, October 17, 1969

As noted in a previous post, the amazing Al Williamson spent 13 years illustrating Secret Agent Corrigan as a daily strip. (With writing by Archie Goodwin — also great.)

Here’s a nice example from the earlier period of Al’s strips with a gorgeous final panel.

(Of course as I also previously noted, Williamson could have illustrated a guide to Windows XP, and I would have devoured it anyway.)

Al’s Corrigan strips are relative bargains in the original art market today: Nice examples can often be found in the $400-$500 range.

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 (LOAC), and one of my favorite projects at IDW Publishing.

Yes, that makes me biased. So?

Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips:
Week 1: Superheroes
Week 2: Detectives
Week 3: SF
Week 4: Masters Of The Form

Secret Agent Corrigan (X-9) has an outstanding pedigree: Created in 1934 by Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond for King Features, he was quickly featured in two movie serials. (1937 and 1945, pictured here.)

Chester Gould — The Trusty Detective

June 10, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Dick Tracy, Sunday Strip, March 12, 1961

One panel. That’s all it took to get my attention on this page.

Which one? Trust me, it’s not a quiz: It’s panel three, featuring the CLASSIC Dick Tracy profile by creator Chester Gould

And, as a bonus, our trusty detective is holding a gun.

Of course, it’s an overall great Sunday page with nice action to complement all that detecting. But that specific panel is iconic to a strip and creator that were inexorably tied together for nearly 50 years.

*IDW Publishing and The Library of American Comics collected the entire Gould Tracy run — 29 volumes in all.*

*The New York News water no time promoting the return of Dick Tracy — and the rest of the comics — after a devastating NYC newspaper strike in 1962/1963.*

Wayne Boring — Superman Powers Up

June 3, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Superman Daily Strip, September 29, 1965

Classic Superman artist Wayne Boring provides us with an excellent and rare daily strip at the end of Superman’s 27-year newspaper run.

The excellence is obvious; Superman uses three different super powers in each of the three panels.

Rare because, well, pretty much the same reason: Many, many strips from this period only feature Clark, Lois or other characters in “civilian” garb, with soap opera style plots and stories. In other words, there are many strips where Superman is nowhere to be found.

In fact, in the 80s, Boring would often Remarque those “plain” originals with a Superman figure to make them more desirable in the collectors market.

But of course, no need to add an “extra” Superman here. He’s doing just fine in this good-looking example.

We managed to collect most of the Superman strips at IDW and LOAC, but couldn’t find any collectors with complete runs from the earliest silver age period. (Late 50s.) That era of strips includes the introduction of a Brainiac prototype (“Romado”) drawn by the great Curt Swan.