Two Hulk variant covers by Dale Keown: Red and Green

Dale Keown, the artist who did a fantastic Hulk run with Peter David, has drawn 2 Hulk variant covers recently, featuring both the classic Hulk and Red Hulk!

Hulk #24 is the last issue of the Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness run.  Keown's cover has the Red Hulk standing victoriously over the rubble of his last fight with Bruce Banner.

Who knew when this Hulk title launched in 2008 that the star of the book wasn't going to be Bruce Banner?  I assumed when the story wrapped up in #24 that Banner would return as the title star.  Nope, it's the Red Hulk from here on out.

It is good to see Keown cover old greenskin on Incredible Hulk #611, which be the new home for Bruce Banner and family.  This is the stronger cover of the two--and much more frightening.  Nuff Said!

Link: Incredible Hulk Visionaries - Peter David & Dale Keown, Vol. 5

Link: Incredible Hulk Visionaries - Peter David & Dale Keown, Vol. 6

Monster Monday: Vampire Tales, Morbius, Satana are back in print

At the comic shop the other day, I noticed the digest sized reprint of Vampire Tales - Volume 1.  This reprint contains the first 3 issues of the Marvel magazine, in glorious black and white, the way it was originally published.  It features stories by Steve Gerber, Pablo Marcos, Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Gerry Conway, John Romita (Sr) and Esteban Moroto!

The star of Vampire Tales was Morbius, the Living Vampire, but he didn't make on the cover of the magazine until issue #3.  This cover painting was credited to Luis Dominguez, but it also has touches of Romita, especially on the girl's face.  I suspect that Romita did a cover rough and gave it to the painter.

I loved Morbius and these stories in Vampire Tales were far more graphic than his Spider-Man appearances.  Don McGregor portrayed Morbius like a heroin addict, trying to refrain from drinking blood, then going crazy when he can't control the urge.  McGregor set up an arc of stories involving the Demon Fire cult, and the first two were drawn by Rich Buckler.  This is the splash page of the story in issue #3 and you can see Buckler's knack for innovative panel layout once again.

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Besides Morbius, you get the first two Satana stories in this volume.  The very first story was a teaser by Conway and Romita, only 4 pages long, but just perfect in execution.  Romita's design for Satana's costume is wonderful.  In the third issue it was Esteban Moroto who drew Satana.  A wonderful artist, 180 degrees different than any Marvel artist, but the first thing he did was ditch Romita's costume!  And it has been used rarely since. But the costume was resurrected a few years ago, in the Alex Ross/John Romita poster titled Mighty Marvel Heroes and Villains.

If you're a retro dude like me, or if you appreciate classic monsters with a bit of cheese, I think you'll like this reprint volume.  Nuff Said!

Link: Vampire Tales - Volume 1 on Amazon

Silver Surfer Sunday: Jack Kirby Fantastic Four #72, Where Soars the Silver Surfer!

Yesterday was Jack Kirby's birthday, which we celebrated here and on Giant-Size Geek.  I've still got a Kirby hangover, but luckily, this is not the kind of hangover that hurts.  There is a Silver Surfer cover by Kirby which is my favorite cover of all time featuring Norrin Radd: Fantastic Four #72 from 1967.

I think it's the greatest pose for the Surfer, gliding along the spaceways and blasting out bolts of cosmic energy.  The Fantastic Four aren't around to distract the viewer, even though it's their name on the masthead!  The Kirby Krackle cosmos in the background is just nifty and the red color just makes the Silver Surfer pop out in the foreground.  The Watcher is there in the background, so you just know that the Surfer is doing something vitally important for the universe.

This cover should have been a poster.  Asgard Press, are you listening?  :-)

The mind-blowing images of the Surfer didn't stop with just the cover--oh no, this interior pages had plenty of them.  Including this aerial view of the Silver Surfer flying above New York City.  It's a dynamic introduction to the Surfer's role in this story.  Notice how Kirby put a lake in the middle of the background, to allow the Surfer's body to be less obscured.

Philippe Queveau owns the original art to this piece.  I really like to Marvel (sorry for the pun) at the details of the cityscape below.  George Perez must have gotten inspired to do detailed backgrounds by pages like this one.  Joe Sinnott was the perfect inker for Kirby and this book, magic that was captured in the 1960s, never to be reproduced again.  Nuff Said!

Link: Fantastic Four Omnibus Volume 2 HC (reprints FF #31-60 in a giant-sized hardcover)

Link:  Philippe Queveau gallery at ComicArtFans.

Marvel Milestone: Jack Kirby's Birthday, August 28th

Today is Jack Kirby's birthday.  Even though he's not around, I still like to celebrate with a big old stogie and some Kirby comics.  Well, maybe not a real cigar, but here is one classic Marvel image you will like.

This is one of the Marvelmania posters that Jack Kirby did in the late 60s, featuring Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-Man, Doctor Doom and Silver Surfer.  The Jack Kirby Collector Magazine #47 had this on the cover, which is where the scan came from.

Here is the original un-colored drawing, from Tod Seisser's gallery at ComicArtFans.

For another tribute to the King, check my Amazing Heroes 100 article on Giant-Size Geek that features a few cartoons from Kevin O'Neill, William Messner-Loebs, and Scott Shaw.  Nuff Said!

Link: Tod Seisser's Gallery at ComicArtFans.

Link: TwoMorrows Publishing.

Thor Thursday: Jack Kirby Marvelmania

Here's a classic Jack Kirby poster from the 1960s for the fan club Marvelmania.




Nuff Said!

Link: The Mighty Thor - Volume 1 Omnibus by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Jack Kirby
Link: Thor Omnibus by J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel
Link: Tod Seisser's Gallery at ComicArtFans.

Thing Tuesday: Steve Rude, Benjamin J Grimm and Suzy Storm

This week's Thing comes a real Dude, Steve Rude!



The Thing is his ever-lovin' self, with a nice editorial comment added, to boot!  Check out Steve's website where he does all kinds of cool commissions like this one.  Nuff Said!

Link:  Steve Rude's Gallery at ComicArtFans.
Link:  Steve Rude Original Art.

Ghost Rider on a Monster Monday: Ultimate GR, Leinil Yu, and Ghost Rider 2 movie news

Mark Millar once remarked that he has several notebooks with all kinds of ideas for Marvel characters.  His new Ultimates mini-series has been giving him the opportunity to showcase a lot of revised heroes and villains. 

Ghost Rider appeared in Ultimate Comics Avengers, Vol. 2: Crime and Punishment.  His first appearance was in this glorious double page spread.  His Ultimate origin still remains tied to Satan, and this supernatural creature is more than a match for the Ultimate Avengers.

M. Schulman is the lucky fellow who owns the pencils to this page by Leinil Yu.  I was surprised to see that Leinil pencils the image on paper, not that I object, I just assumed all young artists drew on the computer.

Millar's take on Ghost Rider is a nice tweak, giving Johnny Blaze a new motivation to keep riding on his hellcycle.  This series also featured the Punisher, who joins the Ultimate Avengers--against his will--to hunt down the Ghost Rider.  The only problem is that he approves of the villains that Ghost Rider is killing.

One piece of Ghost Rider movie news came last week:  Ghost Rider 2 will go into production very soon in Romania.  It will be shot in 3D, of course, because you demanded to see a flaming skull as close as possible.  Don't look too closely at the Penance Stare in this film. 

According to this Nicholas Cage quote on Comic Book Movie News (who got it from MTV):

"This story picks up eight years after the first film. You don't have to have seen the first film. It doesn't contradict anything that happened in the first film, but we're pretending that our audience hasn't seen the first film. It's as if you took that same character where things ended in the first film and then picked it up eight years later - he's just in a much darker, existential place."

One stroke against this film right on the starting gate is that Cage is back as Johnny Blaze.  Who wants to see a middle aged man as Ghost Rider?  Johnny Blaze should be no more than 30 years old.  Eva Mendes won't return as Roxanne Simpson, saving me from another frontal lobotomy.  The directors are Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who produced an entertaining movie in Crank, but fell apart in other works.   

I really don't demand too much from this type of movie.  The first Ghost Rider film I can still watch, if I fast forward right to the scenes where the flesh burns off Cage's face.  The scene at the end with the cowboy version of Ghost Rider, played by Sam Elliott, riding on a flaming horse was really cool.  Nuff Said!

Link: Schulman's Gallery on ComicArtFans.

Link: Ultimate Comics Avengers, Vol. 2: Crime and Punishment

Live Blogging Frank Miller's The Spirit on DVD

Strange Saturday: Paul Smith and Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange hasn't been lucky in terms of sales, but when it comes to artistic talent, he magically attracts the best: Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Barry Smith, Frank Brunner, Michael Golden, etc.  In the 1980s, after he had set the comics world on fire with the X-Men, Paul Smith drew a handful of issues starring the mystic master.

Doctor Strange #56 was Paul Smith's second issue.  The cover really stands out in my memory, because it's beautiful, elegant, and efficiently designed.  The "shot" is taken from an angle below so that you can see the stars and planets in the background.  Doc doesn't need to fight anyone, to sling any spells or fight Dormammu to be cool.  He's just ultra-cool enough with his look, costume, Eye of Agamotto, etc.  The cover was drawn in 1982.

Tom Horvitz has the original cover over on ComicArtFans.  Would love to have a good scan of the original.

Here is the original splash page to that issue, inked by Terry Austin, who had worked on the series since Marshall Rogers took over a couple of years before.  Austin was the perfect inker for Smith.

This 1980s period was a particularly good one for Doctor Strange--I heard Brian Bendis talking about the Smith run on Word Balloon a while ago.  Check out Essential Doctor Strange Volume 4 TPB (v. 4), which contains the above issue, as well as the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers storyline where Clea ultimately breaks Doc's heart.  It also includes the Michael Golden story in issue #55 that inspired many artists to work on Doctor Strange.  Nuff Said!

Avengers: Alex Ross Assemble Print for Comic-Con 2010

Alex Ross painted version of the Avengers, in a print titled Assemble that was published for Comic-Con 2010 at Marvel Art Works.

Ross has an uncanny knack for cherry picking my favorite eras of the Marvel Universe for his paintings.  This team, from left to right, has the key players from the Roy Thomas years:  Black Panther, Hawkeye, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Vision, with Giant-Man's visor looming in the background.  Nuff Said!

Link:  COMIC-CON 2010: First look at 'Avengers Assemble' painting by Alex Ross

Link:  First Look At Alex Ross' Assemble Print Featuring Marvel's Avengers

Giant-Sized Thor Thursday: Olivier Coipel's Gatefold Variant Wall Poster

You've probably seen these mega giant-sized wall posters that Marvel Comics has been producing over the past couple of years.  Olivier Coipel's Thor poster was one of these grand behemoths, a 10 foot long panorama of all things Asgardian. 

The poster originally appeared on the covers to the Tales of Asgard mini-series from 2009.  Here is the finished cover to Tales of Asgard #1, with inks by Mark Morales.  Note that this is classic Thor, in his old Jack Kirby designed costume.

Here are Coipel's original pencils to the cover.  I am amazed at the detail and the shading,  You can see Coipel even drew Thor's kneecaps, even though he knew they would be obscured by the boot cuffs after the inking.

tales of asgard 1 cover by *MarkMorales on deviantART

Mark Morales provided the finished inked version on his deviantART site.  Please click on it to see a larger version.  Morales has lots of great artwork and commissions on deviantART to look at.

Marvel took all the 6 covers for Tales of Asgard and joined them together as a gatefold variant for Thor #604.  Here's the first half of this cover, the left side.  Balder the Brave is leaping out toward the viewer, and Loki plots his twisted schemes over on the far left.

The second half of the Thor #604 variant features the Warriors Three, Hela, Odin, and Sif.  If I had to nitpick, and this would be a small nit, I would have put Sif in an action pose.  And I would have made the Enchantress a bit more glamorous, but it's tough to fit all these characters in even this much space.

Isn't Hela one of the most badass characters that Kirby ever designed?  The costume and headress are something else.  One day we'll have a Hela retrospective.

Finally, here is the full variant cover to Thor #604, feel free to click on it and get the full sized version from my Flickr site.  Nuff Said!

Link: Thor Omnibus by J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel

Link: The Mighty Thor - Volume 1 Omnibus by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Jack Kirby

Link: Mark Morales on deviantART.

Classic Marvel: Stunning Posters by Adams, Golden, Finch, and Ross

Here are five posters featuring the Marvel Universe's greatest characters that no true believer can deny are superb!  Four of them I have featured previously, but the first one I believe is new to my site...



Arthur Adams produced the "Marvel Heroes and Villains" lithograph for Dynamic Forces.  We could easily peg these versions of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, and their various villains in the mid 1960s era.  You've got Daredevil standing next to Black Widow, that edges you in the 1970 territory.  :-)



Golden drew this poster of the Marvel Universe in the 1970s.  It actually may have come out around 1980 or so--Moon Knight is featured, and he wasn't popular until the late 70s with his series starting in 1980.  But it's very 70s in spirit, with the All-New X-Men, Storm's classic costume, the Avengers (just love the Vision sinking into the ground), Black Bolt, Hulk, Doc Strange, Silver Surfer, and the Watcher on the left.  There's a few Marvel Monsters with Ghost Rider and Man-Thing.  Heck, even Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, and Captain Universe are in there.



Golden also drew this print that was featured in a 1980s Marvel Calendar.  You can immediately see the difference in this post-Secret Wars era, with Spidey's black costume, Beta Ray Bill, Grey Hulk Joe Fixit, New Mutants, Archangel, and Iron Man's armor that he donned in IM #200.  Note also the prominence of Daredevil and Elektra due to Frank Miller's work on the series.  The Punisher, another top seller, is also in the background.  Beyond the characters, the awesome sauce is the setting--the heroes in front of the Pan-Am building and crawling around the statue in front.



Alex Ross produced this cover for the Marvel Comics Encyclopedia.



This widescreen poster by David Finch, collecting all of his covers from X-Men Legacy, will be arriving in comic stores this June.  Didn't read the series, but this image is stunning.  Classic X-Men and New X-Men as bookends, with Sentinels, Hellfire Club, and Magneto sandwiched in-between.  Nuff Said!

Thing Tuesdays: Fantastic Four 112 Thing vs Hulk Cover and Cool Commissions

For those of us that loved watch the Thing fight the Hulk, Fantastic Four 112 from 1971, titled "Battle of the Behemoths" was a doozy.  After a quick search on ComicArtFans, I see that my love for this particular issue is shared among many geeks.

The original cover to Fantastic Four #112 by John Buscema was simple and effective, showing the two Marvel monsters about to trade blows.  It looks to me like this cover was both pencilled and inked by Buscema, or at least, it was not inked by Sinnott.  Marvel Wikia also states this as well.

Michael Finn is a great Marvel fan with gallery on ComicArtFans (see links to all sources at the bottom), with tons of commissions.  Michael has a series of them titled "One Minute Later" where he gets an artist to interpret what happened one minute after the original cover.  In this one, Mike McKone gave his vision and the cover is numbered 112.5.  One of the things you can see here about modern Marvel vs classic Marvel: the Hulk is always drawn much bigger than Ben Grimm in the present day, whereas in the past the Hulk was almost the same size as the Thing.

Buscema re-created this cover several times for collectors.  The version above was commissioned by Bill Thomson and it's very faithful to the original.  One thing I have always wondered about these cover re-creations: how do the artists reproduce the title logos and Marvel sidebar?

Gary Sella also commissioned Buscema for this cover, but with a twist: adding Mr. Fantastic into the middle of the fight!

Ending this with a giant-sized piece of art, here is a look at the original art to the splash page of Fantastic Four #112.  I am especially enthralled with the creator credits on the lower right, framed by bullets exploding into the tree the Thing is holding up.  Nuff Said!

Link:  Gary Sella's Gallery on ComicArtFans

Link:  Michael Finn's Gallery on ComicArtFans

Link:  Bill Thomson's Gallery on ComicArtFans

Monster Mondays: Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 Cover and the Missing Howard the Duck

It's hard to believe now, but there was an issue of Giant-Size Man-Thing that was highly valued in the back issue market.  Issue #4, which featured the very first solo Howard the Duck story by Steve Gerber and Frank Brunner!

Hardcore Marvel fans will clearly remember the printed cover, where Manny is holding the hand of a fearful fool--burning at his touch.  The circle to the lower left contained the cover blurb to let his know that Howard was finally in this issue!  His appearance had been delayed from Giant-Size Man-Thing #3.  But did you know that there was originally something else in this cover circle?

Mike Blanchard (see below for the link to his gallery) owns the original art to the Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 cover.  In the circle, Brunner had drawn a headshot of Howard the Duck!  Apparently the editor thought this wasn't effective enough and had it replaced with the blurbs.  It's kind of a nutty decision.  I would just have put a blurb underneath Howard's head announcing his premiere.

Also interesting: the instructions to give the color to Frank Brunner or Glynis, which was the colorist Glynis Wein.

Paul Stephenson commissioned Brunner to recreate this famous cover.  In this commission, the circle appears with the cover blurb.  Nuff Said!

Link:  Mike Blanchard Gallery on ComicArtFans

Link:  Paul Stephenson Gallery on ComicArtFans

Marvel Milestone: Happy Birthday, Paul Gulacy!

One of the greatest artists that became famous in the Marvelous 1970s has a birthday today: Paul Gulacy!

To celebrate, here’s one of my favorite covers from Master of Kung Fu.  True believers everywhere might want to listen to the Word Balloon podcast interview that John Siuntres did with Gulacy in 2006.

Silver Surfer Saturday: John Buscema Self-Portrait

Around 1970, John Buscema did a self-portrait with himself among various Marvel Heroes.



Here's part of that poster with Buscema smoking in peace where the Silver Surfer be-devils him with cosmic rays.  Although I would be more worried about Mephisto rising up out of the smoke.



I found the pencil rough that John Buscema produced, showing a much larger piece.  It has Conan, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, etc.

Anyone know where I can get a scan of the full finished poster?  Nuff Said!

Update: Comments from my old MT blog...

1 Comments

By Klaus Nordby on August 14, 2010 6:33 PM

Hah, as soon as I saw your Twitter heading, I saw that Buscema-SS drawing in my head -- so I'm not quite senile yet! It's super, of course. But the big surprise was seeing that pencil sketch for a design with heaps of heroes -- too bad that was never completed. I own all of 18 (?) the original SS issues: classic, slick stuff, many very nicely inked by his bro Sal, right, but Sinnott also inked some? (I don't have access to them right now, can't check.)

PS: I still hate your CAPTCHA crap and I still miss you on Facebook!