Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Marvel Monsters

Jack Kirby — The Marvel Age Of Monsters

Original Art and The Artists

“Sserpo,” Amazing Adventures #6, November 1961

Jack Kirby would have turned 109 this month, which seems like the perfect excuse to celebrate one of his wonderfully ridiculous pre-Marvel monsters.

Meet Sserpo: a big, dumb creature with an even dumber spelling, brought to you by Kirby and Stan Lee in the first week of August 1961.

And what a great Kirby page this is.

Scientists shouting. Jets firing uselessly. Sserpo stomping across Canada. And then that enormous final panel, with Kirby pushing the monster so far into the foreground that he practically takes over the page.

Big, bold, absurd—and completely irresistible.

But Sserpo is more than just another giant monster.

Because one week later, Stan and Jack would unleash another one. Only this time, they brought along the Fantastic Four to fight him.

And just like that, everything changed.

One week separated the fading days of Marvel’s monster era from the beginning of the Marvel Universe—and, ultimately, the rebirth of an entire industry.

Of course, no one knew it at the time.

Not Stan. Not Jack. And certainly not the thousands of readers who had been happily gobbling up these stories for the previous four years.

To them, Sserpo was just another monster at the newsstand.

A week later, it was a whole new ballgame.

Sserpo seems to have changed his look from Part One to Part Two.
If you want to see evrything Marvel produced in August 1961, grab a copy of this omnibus. Its a snapshot of the comic book world just priorate the “Marvel Age of Comics. ” That appears to be SSerpo in the top left.

Gene Colan & Tom Palmer — Shadows and Light

Original Art and The Artists

Tomb of Dracula #54, March 1976

Continuing a two-week series celebrating Halloween with the best in monsters, mystery and mayhem.

The monsters returned to Marvel in 1972. 

But this time, the giant behemoths were mostly relegated to reprint titles. Thanks to a loosening of guidelines by the dreaded Comics Code Authority, new comics featured creatures of the night like werewolves, zombies and of course, vampires.

Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula, written by Marv Wolfman (you can’t make that up) and drawn exquisitely by Gene Colan for 70 issues, is a masterpiece of that era. And, it’s not only a legendary horror series, but also one of the great comic book runs, period.

Colan, the “painter with a pencil, “ made his bones at Marvel on classic superheroes like Iron Man, Captain America, and most notably Daredevil. When Marvel expanded into the horror genre, though, no artist could have been more suited to bring life to the undead Dracula. 

The stylist who had mastered the art of shadows and light, was now illustrating the character who hid in those very same shadows.

This moody and dynamic action page is typical of the series. Tom Palmer, who inked all but a handful of early issues, is one of the few who could ink Colan without diminishing — or (ahem) burying altogether — Gene’s pencils.

Colan’s unique style can be polarizing. His fans (and I obviously count myself among them) can be passionate to a fault about Gene’s inventive and atmospheric storytelling. Gene’s singular artistic approach made no attempt to mimic the styles of Marvel’s other star artists, and that represented a challenge to some readers, especially on superhero stories.

But to us, it didn’t detract, or distract, from what Kirby, Romita and Buscema brought to the party. Hell, they were the party. Stan Lee understood from the beginning that Gene’s art would stand on its own. And we appreciated that.

It’s like being an obsessive devotee of art impressionism, and also an enthusiast of Picasso’s cubism. It’s not a contradiction to enjoy both — is it?

Eric Powell — Monster Mash

Original Art and The Artists

Marvel Monsters: Where Monsters Dwell #1, December, 2005

Continuing a two-week series celebrating Halloween with the best in monsters, mystery and mayhem.

Marvel Comics has only recently fully embraced its monstrous heritage; giant creature stories that dominated its publishing line just prior to the “Marvel Age of Comics.” 

When it came to oversized behemoths (home grown or alien) terrorizing Earth’s inhabitants, no one could hold a candle to these giant-size oddballs from 1959 -1963. 

And I do mean odd: Oog, Orrgo, Ulvar, Rombu, Rorrg, Goom —and his offspring Googam (I kid you not) — are only a few of the dozens of beasts, lizards, robots, and aliens that walked the earth. (And of course, our pal Groot from Guardians Galaxy was originally a planet-wrecking alien conqueror way back in 1960.)

Obviously inspired by the pop culture of the day (Godzilla, et al) Stan Lee, along with co- creators Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers Larry Lieber and others, took a monster-sized football and ran with it. 

Eric Powell created all four covers for this series of modern one-shots in 2005, plus he provided interior art for the Devil Dinosaur issue. I’ve shared my thoughts about Eric previously. The creator of the Goon is a terrific talent, and his art style blends reverence and satire perfectly on these covers.

The Where Monsters Dwell issue specifically features three main characters: Bombu, Monstrollo and Manoo. The covers of their original appearances, along with Eric’s three other covers, are shown below.