Mike Kaluta – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Mike Kaluta — Mr. Orlando’s Neighborhood

October 29, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Secrets of the Sinister House #6, August 1972

Joe Orlando brought his EC Comics horror sensibilities with him when he landed at DC in the late 60s.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

DC became a company where artists and visual storytellers (Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Dick Giordano, et al) started moving into upper management and making editorial decisions.

As Joe told writer Jon Cooke in the very first issue of Comic Book Artist in 1998:

“…Many times we were asked to do impossible things by writer/editors who had no sense of the visual-to do things that wouldn’t work and have to argue our way out of it. We just thought that as artists, we would do a better job working with talent.”

In just a few years, Joe turned around the moribund House of Mystery and the already-cancelled House of Secrets with tales of mystery, suspense and of course, horror. He and his team took advantage of the more-relaxed standards at the Comics Code, sometimes creating even more relaxed standards in the process.

(A few years later, Marvel would follow suit with a glut of horror titles that included vampires, werewolves and zombies. But, as always, we digress.)

And sure enough, Joe’s comics nearly instantly became artistic showcases for veterans like Gil Kane and Orlando’s EC mentor Wally Wood, along with young Turks like Bernie Wrightson, Nestor Redondo, and Mr. Kaluta here.

(Plus great covers often by Neal Adams. Definitely worth 12 or 15 cents.)

By 1972, Joe had built yet another house in the neighbored, and this great Kaluta page featuring both DC horror hosts, Cain and Abel, is the delightful intro to Secrets of Sinister House #6.

Classic.

*An early Joe Orlando EC horror tale, and Joe’s caricature rendered by Marie Severin at the 1953 EC Christmas party.*

Matt Wagner — Pistol Packing

June 11, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Shadow Year One #6, October 2013

Matt Wagner delivers a dynamic two-gun version of The Shadow for his much lauded Shadow origin series in 2015.

The Shadow routinely carried two .45 guns. That said, he wasn’t opposed to a rifle or machine gun, now and then.

Matt wrote this excellent series, and illustrated most of the covers, each one a frame-worthy rendition of the classic pulp character.

When DC brought back The Shadow after a long absence from comics in 1973, Mike Kaluta drew the now genre-defining early issues, and ultimately illustrated a beautiful graphic novel for Marvel years later.

Mike is also a big fan of the double-barreled look as well.

*Color version and the more dramatic black and white version as a variant cover.*

*Who knows what evil…? Mike Kaluta knows.*

*The Shadow is acknowledged as the inspiration for Batman, and when DC acquired the rights to the character in 1973, they “crossed-over” twice.*

Bernie Wrightson — Legend In Progress

October 17, 2019 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Witching Hour #5, November 1969, “The Sole Survivor”

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

It’s difficult to attend Baltimore Comic Con without thinking about Bernie Wrightson, who hailed from here, and made his final convention appearance here six months prior to his death in 2017.

Wrightson’s professional comics career began in DC’s mystery anthology titles just six months before this art was published, 50 years ago this month.

This page, therefore, is very early Wrightson, and although it’s still a few years away from his artistic peak, the talent, and signature detail, is already unmistakably there. His art hooked me early on, and I remain hooked.

Those DC mystery and horror comics, many edited by EC legend Joe Orlando, often showcased star artists like Wrightson, Mike Kaluta, Neal Adams, Gil Kane, and others, including occasionally Orlando himself.

Of course, like other anthology comics, you never knew what the line-up was going to be from title to title, issue to issue. These series were indeed like Forrest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get.

So of course they were always the titles I tried to skim through urgently on the candy store spinner racks, before that crusty proprietor Mr. Wurman would inevitably glance my way and say: “You gonna buy those? This is not a library.”