Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: World's Finest

Frank Miller & Lynn Varley — Family Feud

Original Art and The Artists

Batman: The Dark Knight #3, August 1986

Continuing our 70th celebration of Superman and Batman (Robin, too) teaming up for the first time.

Today’s original art oddity: 

Two original pages exist for every page of Frank Miller, Klaus Jansen’s and Lynn Varley’s The Dark Knight Returns.

First of course, are the traditional pen and ink black and white line art pages. Gorgeous, of course.

Next up, are Lynn Varley’s stunning hand-painted color pages. For emphasis: These are NOT color proofs. DC shot acetates of every line art page, and Lynn hand painted each one. (And, the color palate of DKR is of course critical to the storytelling.)

And his stunner is one of those pages. One of only a handful that features Superman, Batman and Robin all on the same page.

Anyone want to sell me the original Miller line work to go with it? I can start working on my line of credit with the bank today.

George Tuska — Lost Team-Up

Original Art and The Artists

World’s Finest, “Inventory” Story, 1984

Continuing our 70th celebration of Superman and Batman (Robin, too) teaming up for the first time.

I can’t quite put my finger on it… But I always appreciated George Tuska’s art s at DC more than I did at Marvel.

I think it’s because — in my mind’s eye at least— George’s art seemed much more suited to the Bronze Age DC house style.

Or it could just be my imagination.

Here we have a “inventory” story intended for World’s Finest that appears to have never seen the light of day. Dynamic action featuring both Superman and Batman. What more could you possibly ask for? 

Except possibly the published page to go with it.

I never understood DC’s policy regarding inventory and cancelled stories. Once they’re fully inked, and in many cases lettered, it’s really difficult to lose money coloring it and publishing it. The prior sunk cost is already sunk.

Except… as my friends in finance would happily point out, the investment in the story and artwork counts as an asset. If you never actually put it out, you never have to write the whole thing off.

Tricky, very tricky. 

I’ve owned pages from quite a few DC cancelled stories. There’s an omnibus in there somewhere. Assuming  (big assumption) all the scans and files have survived myriad changes in management over the years, and a few physical moves as well.

Pete Poplaski — World’s Finest

Original Art and The Artists

Promotional Illustration, Kitchen Sink Press, 1990

Continuing our 70thcelebration of Superman and Batman (Robin, too) teaming up for the first time.

Pete Poplaski’s 1990 promo art of the Dynamic Duo and the Man of Steel makes me happy. 

It appears informally modeled after World’s Finest Comics #2, the issue that changed titles from the original World’s Best Comics. (Which, as noted previously, was the successor to World’s Fair Comics. No worries, there’s never a quiz on this material, especially since I’d probably be the first one to mess it up.)

Of course, as we’ve posted previously, all of Pete’s gorgeous retro work makes me happy.

Remnants of a different era, indeed.

Poplaski’s great covers for the original DC strip reprints from Kitchen Sink
Superman and Batman finally get together in 1952… and Lois runs off with Robin. Thats wrong, for a lot of reasons.

John Byrne — World’s Fair(est)

Original Art and The Artists

Superman & Batman: Generations #1, January 1999

It happened at the World’s Fair.

Sort of.

Superman and Batman — along with Robin — first appeared together on the cover of the 2nd annual issue of World’s Fair Comics in 1940, issued to commemorate the 39/40 World Fair in New York City.

Shortly thereafter, that comic morphed into the ongoing World’s Finest Comic, and Superman and Batman appeared together on the covers all time.

But inside? Separate stories featuring DC’s most popular characters.

It wasn’t until 12 years later (1952) that The Caped Crusader and The Man of Steel actually met in one story. (More on that in our next post on Thursday.)

Meanwhile…

John Byrne creates an adventure that involves the aforementioned World’s Fair in his clever Generations series from 1999. 

This is my favorite page from the series. It features all three heroes, plus Lois Lane, and sure enough, in that top inset panel, Lex Luthor as well.

Has there ever been another page this iconic in nature? All five characters in one small panel. And a gigantic splash of the four main ones. I missed acquiring this page once previously,  but fortunately, I didn’t make the same mistake the second time around, albeit with a bit more pain in the wallet.

Worth it.