Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Terry Austin

Carmine Infantino — New Hope

Original Art and The Artists

Star Wars #11, May 1978

It took me a minute to get used to Carmine Infantino making the jump from DC Comics to Marvel Comics. He was such a DC institution.

And honestly, he wouldn’t have been my first choice for Star Wars—especially coming right on the heels of those first ten issues by Howard Chaykin. I probably would’ve gone with someone a little hipper, a little edgier.

But… I came around.

There’s something about Infantino’s take on Star Wars that just works for me. The quirks, the slightly offbeat energy… it all starts to click once you settle into it. Even the occasionally odd likenesses* became part of the charm. I figured if they were good enough for Lucasfilm, they were good enough for me.

This page is from his very first Star Wars issue (Terry Austin on inks), and about a year ago I somehow found myself in a bidding war over it. No grand strategy—just pure emotion, adrenaline, and collector impulse.

Still… it’s a very cool page, and I’m glad I ended up with it.

*That said… Chewbacca looks absolutely ridiculous here. I mean, come on, this wasn’t issue #1. Had Carmine even seen the film? Or at least flipped through a magazine?

And based on the published colors, Janice Cohen—normally terrific—may have needed a screening or two herself.

Yikes.

Screenshot

Rich Burchett — Mechanical Monsters

Original Art and The Artists

Superman Adventures #1, November 1996

The Fleischer Studio Superman Cartoons — the very first time Superman appeared on the big screen — continue to be regarded as animation legends.

Watching them today, 80 years later, they appear more astonishing than ever. This is especially true when you realize how much the studio was able to accomplish with the technology of the day.

The best known — and perhaps highest regarded — of these 8 original Fleischer shorts is the second one, “The Mechanical Monsters.”

Superman vs. an army of robots?

What’s not to love?

So it’s only fitting that the first issue of Superman Adventures, adapting the contemporary (1996) animated series, features Superman battling… an army of robots.

Writer Paul Dini and artists Rich Burchett and Terry Austin provide us with an action-packed “all ages” adventure, which includes Superman fighting a fairly powerful Superman robot.

Superman vs. Superman?

What’s not to love?

Side note: Superman The Animated Series, coming in the shadow of the phenomenal Batman animated series, doesn’t get enough love. My daughter and I watched them all. It’s a terrific version of Superman. Trust us on this.

Superman Adventures #1 pays homage to the classic 1941 cartoon “The mechanical monsters.”

Tom Grummett / Sean Chen — He’s Dead, Jim

Original Art and The Artists

X-Men Forever #10, December 2009

As noted earlier, John Byrne had returned to X-Men with X-Men: The Hidden Years.

His original collaborator, writer Chris Claremont, returned much later on in 2010 via a more direct route, in X-Men Forever.

Basically picking up after he left off in 1991 — and then immediately diverging — Claremont quickly killed Wolverine and had the remaining X-Men team deal with the ramifications of his death.

Tom Grummett’s character-packed cover deals with the team laying their fallen comrade to rest. Grummett was the many artists on the Forever series, which also included X-men mainstay Paul Smith on this issue, and others.

It’s an interseting choice — and a good one, commercially — to leave Wolverine’s uniform on top of the coffin. Contextually, of course, it makes little sense.

Sean Chen’s variant cover takes a look at an imaginary one moment later — when “zombie” Wolverine breaks out of his coffin(In uniform). This event is not in the series. Wolverine in fact stays dead. This image seems a tribute to the popular (and multiple) Marvel Zombies series.

It’s a clever set-up, and one of the few times a main cover and a variant are done in this manner. Kudos to editor Mark Paniccia — or whoever came up with the imaginative idea.