Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Mike Royer

Jack Kirby & Mike Royer — 30 Years Ago, Today

Original Art and The Artists

Production Art, Satan’s Six #1, April 1993

30 years ago? How is this even possible?

Jack Kirby’s Satan’s Six was developed as part on an unrealized “Kirby Line” of comics in 1978, shortly after Jack’s final tenure at Marvel had ended.

Jack drew a cover and eight story pages, plus a character concept and design page. Mike Royer was hired to ink some of those pages as samples, but when the concept for a “Kirby Line” dissipated, the pages sat in a drawer unused for nearly 15 years.

Enter my old home, Topps Comics, the fledging publishing line from the trading card and confectionary giant. Topps signed a deal with Jack in 1992 to produce comic books based on new, and (primarily) previously unused concepts. It was essentially a second chance for a “Kirby Line.” With the King in declining health, however, others would have to create content around Jack’s ideas.

A few years ago, some Kirby production art re-surfaced, complete with the original “Marvel style” trade dress on the cover and Royer’s original inks.

What became of Satan’s Six? Tony Isabella’s stories based on Jack’s high concept of a lovable group of misfits too mischievous for Heaven, but not evil enough for Hell seemed wackily appropriate enough, but the art definitely was a challenge from issue one. 

Especially issue one. 

Kirby’s eight original pages are scattered throughout the full story with the rest of the art from John Cleary, making for a dizzying juxtaposition of styles.

And Cleary’s “contemporary” (1993) art here, and through the remaining three issues, was simply not enticing enough to sustain interest.  The book was cancelled with issue #4. You can read a complete illustrated overview of the series here.

Satan’s Six has yet to return to comics. They remain in… Limbo.

But still…Happy 30th anniversary to the “Kirbyverse!”

Steve Rude — Love Letter To The King

Original Art and The Artists

Mister Miracle Special #1, April 1987

We continue to celebrate Jack Kirby’s legacy at DC Comics with a special two-week look at Jack’s characters and concepts as envisioned by other creators. 2021 is the Fiftieth anniversary of the Fourth World storyline. *

Jack Kirby super-fan Steve Rude pens this artistic love letter to Kirby’s Fourth World, in this one-shot from 1987. Along for the tribute are Jack’s best-known collaborators at DC, writer Mark Evanier and inker Mike Royer.

On this inventive and powerful splash page — the best in the issue — Rude cleverly uses a “trapped” Miracle as the backdrop for other Fourth World characters including The Forever People, Lightray of the New Gods, and Big Barda.

Rude and Evanier would reunite again for another Kirby tribute years later with a 1999 Jimmy Olsen story in Legends of the DC Universe # 14. (Inked this time by Bill Reinhold.)

*Purists will note that some of the characters and titles actually made it onto newsstands before the close of 1970, but the fully integrated series (Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle) — doesn’t fully materialize until the following year.

Steve Rude — American Idol

Original Art and The Artists

Captain America: What Price Glory #4, May 2003

Concluding our tribute to Captain America’s 80th anniversary.

Ah Las Vegas.

The only place where you are likely to find a giant statue of Captain America, yes? But even Las Vegas wouldn’t have accepted a giant statue of the Red Skull — swastikas and all. (Imagine a giant Patton statue facing off against a giant Rommel sculpture. It does not compute. ) It’s a rare slip in an otherwise fun Cap mini-series penned by Bruce Jones with beautiful visual storytelling by Steve Rude and Mike Royer.

And the good news is that the Skull statue that gets blown to smithereens on this great splash page, anyway.

Happy 80th Mr. Rogers!

In addition to the obvious Jack Kirby references throughout, Rude manages to work in a Steranko homage on the opening page of the issue. Meanwhile JG Jones delivers a surprisingly boring and stiff painting of Cap on the cover, which, to make matters worse, looks like it belongs to a completely different series altogether.

Jack Kirby — Goodnight, Santa Claus

Original Art and The Artists

Best of DC #22, March 1982; originally Sandman #7, February 1976 and Kamandi #61, November 1978 (Both unpublished)

Here is some big goofy fun from Jack Kirby (inks by Mike Royer) with a story involving the Sandman and… Santa Claus. (You can’t make this up.)

Even goofier than the actual narrative itself, however, is the fact this story fell victim to cancelation, not once, but twice, before finally seeing print nearly six years after it was completed.

Kirby’s Sandman series was cancelled after issue #6, although this story for issue #7 had already been completed. It sat in inventory for two years, until it was slotted to appear as a back-up in Kamandi #61, and then that comic, along with dozens of others fell victim to the “DC Implosion” and was cancelled as well.

It finally saw print in Best of DC #22, a digest-sized publication, that hit the stands shortly before Christmas 1981.

Which means… It did not actually appear in traditional color comic book format until DC collected it in 2011 in the Jack Kirby Omnibus — 35 years later!

Jack Kirby — The Future Is Now

Original Art and The Artists

Omac #3, January 1975

“Technology is fire in the hands of children, and (Jack) Kirby easily foresaw what the world would look like with wealth, corporations, and technology operating simply for human profit and power, without accountability to any Rule of Law.” — Rob Walton, Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide.

Jack Kirby brought his fertile imagination (back) to DC fifty years ago, and the results, while not always commercially successful, were typically fascinating.

OMAC was one of my personal favorites. It felt vastly different than anything else Jack had done, with one wild futuristic technology idea after another thrown into the mix. (And of course, many of these technologies have come to fruition in the subsequent 50 years. But, as always, we digress.) Ultimately Jack never had chance to fully develop many of these ideas, as he jumped ship and returned to Marvel after just eight issues.

This great “chapter splash” checks off many Kirby flourishes. (Many of Jack’s books had multiple chapters, meaning more great splash pages in each issue.)

Why is this page great?

It features the title character, a personal rocket ship, and the Kirby cosmos — in all its glory! (Earth’s atmosphere never looked this trippy.)

It features the title character’s name prominently in a flashy hand-lettered headline.

And, of course, it has great Kirby Crackle.

We celebrate the King’s reign at DC all this week. Stay tuned.

Al Williamson — Jedi At The Drawing Board

Original Art and The Artists

Return of the Jedi, #2, October 1983

Lush brushwork. Clear storytelling. Impeccable detail. Accurate anatomy and likenesses.  Al Williamson’s page from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi adaption speaks volumes about realizing potential in adapting other mediums to comics.

George Lucas had the power to choose the artist to draw the Marvel Empire Strikes Back adaption and he had the good sense to choose Al Williamson.

Al’s gorgeous art on classic EC science Fiction stories as well as Flash Gordon had clearly made an impression.

Fortunately for us, Williamson agreed to also illustrate the Star Wars newspaper strip (after Russ Manning’s untimely passing), and he ultimately came back for Return of the Jedi adaption as well.

On all three projects — plus a handful of stories in the regular comics — Al delivered. It’s some of his finest work.

Williamson kept much of his Star Wars related art, and his estate now owns it.  Nearly all the originals that have come on the market are those once owned by his assistants or inkers.

This great page from ROTJ has a more interesting provenance. Superstar inker Mike Royer received it from Al (see inscription) shortly after publication. It remained in his collection for many years.

So it’s not only a great piece of original art, it has a great story behind it as well.

And it’s a cornerstone of my collection.

The complete adaptation was printed all at once in a Marvel special magazine — it appeared in Direct Market stores a few weeks prior to the film’s release. Imagine if that happened in 2019.
Covers for the magazine and the comics by Bill Sienkiewicz.

Jack Kirby — The Devil You Say

Original Art and The Artists

Satan’s Six #1, Original Cover Production Art, Kirby File Copy, 1978 / 1993

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

Here’s an oddity about an odd Jack Kirby comic featuring a bunch of oddballs.

Kirby’s Satan’s Six was developed as part on an unrealized “Kirby Line” of comics in 1978, shortly after Jack’s final tenure at Marvel had ended.

Jack drew a cover and eight story pages, plus a character concept and design page. Mike Royer was hired to ink some of those pages as samples, but when the concept for a “Kirby Line” dissipated, the pages sat in a drawer unused for nearly 15 years.

Enter Topps Comics, the fledging publishing line from the trading card and confectionary giant. Topps signed a deal with Jack in 1992 to produce comic books based on new, and (primarily) previously unused concepts. It was essentially a second chance for a “Kirby Line.” With the King in declining health, however, others would have to create content around Jack’s ideas.

Topps editor Jim Salicrup called his old friend Todd McFarlane and asked Todd if he would like to have a chance to work on a Kirby project. I’m pretty sure Todd said yes before Jim finished the question. 

Of course, Todd was busy with his own series, a small Image title called Spawn, so Todd could only commit to inking a cover. And the only Jack-penciled cover was issue #1, previously inked by Royer, but on photocopies or overlays. So Todd re-inked the cover. You can read Todd’s own recollection about that here.

And now, this production art has re-surfaced, complete with the original “Marvel style” trade dress, and Royer’s original inks, just in time for Halloween. 

What became of Satan’s Six? Tony Isabella’s stories based on Jack’s high concept of a lovable group of misfits too mischievous for Heaven but not evil enough for Hell seemed wackily appropriate enough, but the art definitely was a challenge from issue one. 

Especially issue one. 

Kirby’s eight original pages are scattered throughout the full story with the rest of the art from John Cleary, making for a dizzying juxtaposition of styles.

And Cleary’s “contemporary” (1993) art here, and through the remaining three issues, was simply not enticing enough to sustain interest.  The book was cancelled with issue #4. You can read a complete illustrated overview of the series here.

Satan’s Six has yet to return to comics. They remain in… Limbo.