RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Don Newton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Newton

I've recently been getting into Newton's runs in DETECTIVE and BATMAN. Many already in my collection, and more that I recently purchased.

I also enjoyed his Shazam run in WORLD'S FINEST 253-281.

He died when he was 49, just a few months short of his 50th birthday, which is approximately the age I am now!

Also interesting is how he'd wanted to work for Marvel for 15 years, and then was disgusted with them when he finally worked for them, and after worked almost exclusively for DC.

A clean art style, detailed and clean linestyle, quite nice with the right inker. The only inker I didn't like on him is Alcala.

A comtemporary of Aparo, Rogers, Buckler and early Golden at DC, with some similarities to these artists of the late 1970's and early 1980's. Part of an era at DC , particularly on the Batman titles. He immediately followed Rogers, beginning with DETECTIVE 480, and had a run from 1979 to late 1984 on the character.

I never cared for his Batman, but to this day he's still my favorite Capt Marvel artist.

I always thought he had more in common with Swan and Lopez than the Bat artists you mentioned.

I think Newton's Batman suffered from the editorial/writer decision to bring back Robin and the Batmobile, and other more campy characters like Batgirl and the Penguin, and others of the more silly and campy villains, that brought Batman away from the more mature and atmospheric creature-of-the-night of the Robbins/O'Neil/Adams/Novick/Giordano era (circa 1970-1975).

Since former writers who previously wrote great Batman stories in the early 70's era, such as O'Neil and Wein, were still writing the Batman titles that were suddenly less sophisticated, I suspect it was an editorial decision by Schwartz or Jenette Kahn or both, to tell stories that were a bit more childish and closer to the Batman cartoons and TV series, teaming up Batman with familiar supporting costumed characters and less of a lone crimefighter.

Some of the art by Newton in this period I thought was very nice (two I recently re-read were DETECTIVE 496 and 503, and even the colors were exceptional and moody, with very clean art by Newton. But others I'd agree with you were more along the lines of Garcia-Lopez, yes. Swan I don't really see.
Largely because the stories Newton illustrated (mostly by Moench and Conway) went from borderline camp to more sophisticated O'Neil/Adams type stories, Newton's work while clean and consistent is often diminished by the content of the stories he illustrated.

And hell, Englehart/Rogers is a tough act to follow!
All told, I initially didn't like Newton's Batman work, and it's an acquired taste for me.

I'm with you on the Shazam work in WORLD'S FINEST. Newton's work here had the perfect balance between detailed art that portrayed a degree of modern "realism", and still retained a degree of cartoonishness and whimsey of C.C. Beck who preceded Newton's work on the series.

Newton's NEW GODS work was, I think, awful. He was completely wrong for that series. As was Conway who scripted those issues.

It was fun to see Newton's work on TIME WARP 1-5, where he did 7 to 10 pages per issue in that anthology on a variety of S-F stories. As well as other anthology and mystery stories for DC.

No, i liked the writing on several of the stories Newton drew including Haven. It wasn't the writing I objected to. I just didn't care for the way he himself drew Batman.

My reference to Swan was because I see both of them as having a very down-to-earth almost naturalistic style, especially as compared to people like Rogers and Golden who were more abstract. Even Adams and Aparo who drew realistically had more of an inclination toward the abstract, with interesting panel layouts and angles and the other highly stylized aspects of Batman like the flowing capes.

I wish DC would do a collection of his Shazam stories from Worlds Finest. He reminded me of Dick Dillon on JLA.

Lothar is always reminded of Dick

You're right. His work was a little like Dillon's now that you mention it.

An anthology, even a b&w Showcase book of his Shazam would be great.

By my count, there were 27 WORLD'S FINEST Shazam issues by Newton, preceded by one issue of SHAZAM (issue 35). With about 7 to 12 pages per issue in most, so that would comfortably fill a 270 to 300-page archive hardcover.

I'd much prefer that to a low-budget less nicely formatted SHOWCASE-type collection.

I would prefer color. It seems like the B&W showcases & essentials I get end up sitting taking up space. Can't see DC going with an archive but maybe a tpb?

An nice splash page by Newton.



I have all the WORLD'S FINEST backups by Newton, but I don't recall this particular page.

That was during the storyline involving the Confederation of Hell, if I recall correctly. They didn't make much use of the Confederation outside of that one storyline.

It wasn't from WF. It was from the last regular issue of Shazam before the book was cancelled and the strip moved to WF.

I was going to look it up later, but thanks for saving me the trouble, G-man.

From the code of the image, it's SHAZAM 35, page 11.

I recently ran across a Don Newton website that goes in detail into the various phases of Newton's career.


I particularly found this section on his Marvel work interesting:
http://www.donnewton.com/marvel.asp

Newton is one of many comics artists I've read about who had a bad experience working for Marvel (three others I can think of offhand are Berni Wrightson, Craig Russell and Kelley Jones).
And found a greater professionalism and appreciation for their work at DC.

Especially ironic is that Newton always wanted to work for Marvel and wasn't particularly interested in working for DC. And got burned twice working for Marvel.
Be careful what you wish for...

One of my favorite Newton covers.

A playful and intelligent commentary on Shazam's transition from the Golden/Silver Age to a modern look, on Newton's watch as penciller.

Courtesy of this post (with a nice checklist of all Newton's Shazam stories)...
http://marvelmasterworksfansite.yuku.com/topic/16629#.Us2cHb0o5dg
another gorgeous page from SHAZAM 35...

Really hope they reprint Newton's Shazam run. Two issues of the regular title and than his run in World's Finest would make a good trade. There was even a serialized story in the Adventure digests that would be nice to see in a larger format.

His New God's stuff really impressed me too.