RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Prometheus and Grimm's Misfit Island of Comic Images

I was looking through an issue of PLOP a few days ago, and one of the stories was credited to Coram Nobis.


I looked on Wikipedia and was surprised to see it was Batman writer David Reed, who we talked about earlier in the topic. Another for the pseudonym list.

"Coram Nobis" = David V. Reed

This last one, "They Crawl By Night" from JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS 15, Feb 1953.
Story by FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON author Daniel Keyes.
Art by Basil Wolverton.

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN COMICS !


Man, the meaning of these panels sure has changed since the pre-Code/Silver Age when they were first published. Only the Murphy Anderson SUPERMAN one is obviously edited.

From THOR 341, by Simonson, a Marvel/DC crossover of sorts.

Sourced from this page:

https://www.grunge.com/83007/bizarre-easter-eggs-comics/

By artist Yuki Saeki, from this site:
http://sequentialartgallery.com/yuki-saeki-golgotha-and-other-works-a-comics-art-exhibition/

Jim Fitzpatrick, the cover to BOOK OF CONQUESTS, essentially a portfolio of his work in book form published in 1978 by Dragon's Dream (later Paper Tiger).
A second book, THE SILVER ARM, was released in 1981. Both were released in portfolio form, where I first encountered Fitzpatrick's work, courtesy of Bud Plant, at the time of its release.

The images and text are inspired by Irish/Celtic legends.

Work on a par with that of Barry Windsor-Smith's in the same period.

Just a few samples.

A pretty cool Joe Jusko cave-man version of Superman.
Too odd not to share.

This Jusko WARLORD OF MARS 5 cover is also really nice, a great design that captures the reader's excitement of becoming immersed in Edgar Rice Burroughs' JOHN CARTER OF MARS. With a tip of the hat to Norman Rockwell and his SATURDAY EVENING POST covers.




Not sure if this was ever an actual cover, or if it was just created as a tribute to pulp-era covers.


_____________________

It turns out to be one of several actual alternate covers for the WARLORD OF MARS series from Dynamite (2010), issue 5-A.

The Buscema/Jusko cover to HULK magazine 26, without captions.

One of my favorite Jusko pieces. When I spoke to Jusko at a signing, he seems almost apologetic about his early covers and stories from 1979-1982, but they are among my favorites of his work.

HULK magazine 12 cover, Dec 1978.
An early Jusko cover.



And what the heck...



...here's the printed version of Jusko's HULK 26 cover, April 1981.


It's actually John Buscema pencils, painted by Jusko.
The pencil-stage version is the inside back cover of issue 25, promoting the next issue.

A page from "Because It's There", a 7-page story in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 5, April 1981.

One of two interior stories Jusko did for EPIC. To my knowledge, the only actual stories Jusko did, beyond covers.

The pencil version of the above HULK 26 cover.

A Buscema poster, that exhibits the quintessential 1970's Marvel style.
This was the poster art for the 1975 Marvel Comics Convention.

I both love and hate John Buscema for his Marvel work. On the one side, he's a suberb draftsman in the classic Hal Foster style. I love his work on CONAN, SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, TARZAN and similar adventure work.

On the other side, he's the epitome of the 1970's marvel "House look", to some extent a Kirby imitator who took over SILVER SURFER, THOR, FF and just about every other major character for Marvel at one time.
Likewise Rich Buckler, Sal Buscema, to some degree George Perez, Ross Andru, Gene Colan, John Romita Sr., Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer, Larry Lieber, Mike Esposito, and (of course!) Vince Colletta. These guys were the core of the "House look" after Kirby left, and at least when Kirby was doing it, it was not a cheap imitation of someone else's work.
I especially hated the melodramatic facial expressions of the House look, a hideous mask of overplayed melodrama that looked virtually identical no matter which of these artists drew it. For example, the Dracula face at the center of this poster. Many of these guys are very talented, but conforming to the House look diminished all of their individual work.

For all his talent, at some point John Buscema just began hacking it out. And I think there was intermittently both hackery and inspired work, at times coming out simultaneously. I hated his 1980's run on AVENGERS inked by Tom Palmer. And that was a very long run (roughly 250-300) and Palmer (unfortunately) inked another 100 issues beyond that. What a drop in quality from the 70 issues or so by Englehart, Shooter, Michelinie, Perez and Byrne, from about 141-220.

But Buscema did fantastic work on Conan, particularly SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. Especially with inks by guys like Alcala, Dezuniga and Nebres. But I also love when Buscema does both pencils and inks, particularly on Conan.

Cover for THE ART OF JOHN BUSCEMA (1978), published by S Q Productions, with a lengthy Buscema interview and art.

The wrapaaround cover was also available as a poster.

"What lies beneath" by fantasy artist Julie Dillon

I love the way the upper part is so conventional looking, like millions of other bland paintings of a ship on the water. And the worst nightmare you could imagine of what lies below. A striking image, all the more so for the contrast.

Another Frazetta John Carter of Mars book illustration.

When Frazetta draws women, he's always bringin' the sexy!

A John Carter book illustration.

Frazetta in the EC era was a starving freelance artist in the comics field. It wasn't until the early/mid 1960's when Frazetta became a cover artist for the Warren magazines, and began doing paperback covers and interior illustrations for Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard books that Frazetta really became Frazetta, and the most acclaimed fantasy artist in the field.

To me, Frazetta will always be the guy who did Molly Hatchet album covers.

Somehow, while at least one of the album covers he did was a recycled book cover, it was one I hadn't seen previously. And one day I looked at it and thought "Oh wow, that's a Frazetta cover!"




Another that snuck by me was the cover for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell album, that I only later realized is by Richard Corben, released Oct 1977.



The second was by Wrightson.

Wrightson's cover, on the second Meat Loaf album, released September 1981.

A wraparound cover from the Feb 1981 issue of HEAVY METAL, by artist Jim Burns.

Also from HEAVY METAL, a double-page spread by Phllipe Druillet. From serialized work in HEAVY METAL.
One of my luckiest finds in the late 1970's were two Dragon's Dream trade paperbacks of collected Druillet work, LOAN SLOAN / DILIRIUS and YRAEGEL URM.

You can see similarities (or swipes) in Giffen's 1982-1984 work in LEGION, and the "Dr. Fate" backups in FLASH 306-313.

A Rafael Kayanan convention sketch of Salome. It looks to me more like Byrne than Kayanan, but nice.

I like Kayanan best for his work on SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, a sequel to Thomas/Smith's "Red Nails" in SSOC 211-213, 215, 217 (1993-1994), the CONAN THE ADVENTURER series(1994-1995), and in SSOC's successor CONAN THE SAVAGE 7 (Feb 1996).

Kayanan also had long runs in the early/mid 1980's on FIRESTORM issues 20-44 (1984-1986).
And four adaptations (16 issues total) of Michael Moorcock's HAWKMOON (1986-1988).


And CAPTAIN ATOM 29-40, 42-44, 47-48 and 50 (1989-1991).

A more representative sample of Kayanan's style, on the first 2 issues of CONAN THE ADVENTURER. These first two issues were exceptional, after that I think the series declined over its 14 issues.
Kayanan did art on 1-5 and 9-14 (covers only on 6-8).

A pretty cool sculpture, done from the art of Overton Loyd, a guy who mostly does funk music album covers. But also did a really nice set of illustrations for a story in The Illustrated Harlan Ellison.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/At1xIIBCIAApy2V.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/AyIjd5CCAAAW7cZ.jpg

http://www.spankystokes.com/2012/05/u1-toy-arts-x-crewest-bill-luminutty.html

https://www.vinylpulse.com/2009/11/dcon-09-overton-loyd----bill-luminutty-vinyl.html

https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/ima....jpg?1509502912



Another by the same artist.

Apparently at least partly parodying sports announcer Howard Cosell. It kind of reminds me of a comic called FISH POLICE that was published in the late 1980's.


As you can see at the link, Overton Loyd also does animation for music videos, stage designs and costumes, and also toured with George Clinton.

More Frazetta goodness:



This one his beautiful cover for Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, the first of Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series by Burroughs, and his first published book. This is for a 1970 new hardcover edition.
And I think one of Frazetta's most heroic and elegant pieces. Love that groovy 1970's title lettering! Frazetta became famous doing the book covers for new paperback and hardcover editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard books, starting in the early/mid 1960's and on through the 1970's when I discovered them. He also did many covers throughout the same period for CREEPY and EERIE. Virtually all of which were released as posters as well for many years, up into at least the 1980's.

I read an interview of Frazetta, and was surprised, up until he began doing those book covers he was making very little money, and suddenly went from earning virtually nothing (the reason he left doing comics) to lucking into book covers where he very suddenly was making enormous money. By the mid 1970's he was being touted as the most famous and successful fantasy artist.

"The Sea Witch" by Frazetta, also a Warren magazine cover for EERIE 7, released later as a poster.

One of the earliest comic art posters I got in 1978 at age 15, that I found wall-worthy at the time for many years. I regret that I have about 200 posters, about a quarter framed and on the walls, the rest stored flat in boxes, that I pull out every few years. Would that I had the space to give them all the wall display they deserve.

Some good girl art by Frank Cho for your viewing pleasure. Liberty Meadows. (Channeling Marilyn Monroe.)

Frank Cho PRINCESS OF MARS image

This one also stood out for me.
Gee I just can't figure out why!