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

Oh. Hey, you're welcome.

Here's another Neal Adams Deadman page, from STRANGE ADVENTURES 209, Adams' 4th issue of the series:





I'd love to have the original art for this one framed and on the wall. Of all Adams' work, his Deadman series is arguably his most creative and innovative, the series where he most experimented with page design. Possibly Adams wanted to make a strong impression with his first regular series, and therefore poured all his energy into it. Or he was living his dream working in comics, as he had wanted to for 10 years despite attempts to discourage him, and having finally broken in, was just having a blast doing comics professionally.

Adams also did some work for CREEPY and EERIE in early/mid 1967, for about a year before he came to DC, and was doing whatever work he could get at DC to break in, such as BOB HOPE, JERRY LEWIS, and war story backups for OUR ARMY AT WAR 182, 183 and 186, paying his dues.

And an Elongated Man backup in DETECTIVE 369, before finally being given STRANGE ADVENTURES 206-216. And then WORLD'S FINEST 175-176, THE SPECTRE 2-5, and BRAVE AND THE BOLD 79-86 as regular series. And at that point, he'd set the world on fire with plenty of acclaim and could do pretty much anything he wanted to, at both DC and Marvel.

Another Rafael Kayanan page, from CONAN THE ADVENTURER 1 that I mentioned above.

Some of the best writing and art on the series since Thomas/Smith's work on "Hawks From the Sea" in CONAN THE BARBARIAN 19 and 20.

Kayanan was perfect to do a sequel with Thomas to "Red Nails" in SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.



Alongside some other images I was going to post was a link of Kayanan's net worth.
https://networthroll.com/blog1/rafael-kayanan-net-worth-2/

At over $122 million, he might be the richest creator to ever come out of comics. Although he does Hollywood movie concept drawings and set designs, and also choreography for martial arts scenes.

Cover for THE ART OF NEAL ADAMS (1975), published by SQ Productions.

A collection of about 32 pages of Neal Adams covers, Continuity ad art, and other assorted pin-ups.

ART OF NEAL ADAMS vol 2 (1977).

This copy is signed, mine isn't.

Interesting to think that, these days, if Adams ever put out covers like that, Warner Bros. and Disney would be sending out immediate cease-and-desist orders.

Yeah, just ask Dave Sim ("Wolveroach") and Alan Moore ("Marvelman" renamed MIRACLEMAN) about Marvel's tendencies in that direction.

Disney sued Marvel in 1980-1981 over Howard the Duck, forcing Marvel to put pants on Howard to separate him from Donald Duck. I doubt it makes the slightest diffence to anyone but Disney.

HOWARD THE DUCK issue 1, from early 1976.

The hottest, hardest to find book in my time collecting up to that point. Impossible to get on the stands. Knowing what I know now, speculators bought them all up so they never made it to the stands, so they could sell them to kids at conventions and by mail order for several times cover price. In the Overstreet price guide, they call this "limited distribution" or "distribution problems", but it was speculators.

I understand there were similar artificial speculator-driven shortages for the early Barry Smith CONAN issues, and for Wrightson SWAMP THING issues, among others. The distribution problems of Smith CONAN was before my time. And for me anyway, I had no trouble getting my SWAMP THING issues when they came out.

The last I recall that happening with was THOR 337, in 1983, the first issue of Simonson's classic run. I actually years later met a guy who admitted to me he went to the distributor for the 7-11 stores in his area, and bought up all the copies, and made a good amount of money on it.
As far as I know, 7-11 stores don't even carry comics anymore.

A comparitive Halloween-festive Carl Barks Donald Duck, for your viewing pleasure.

Ignoring that the mouse looks a bit like Mickey (more like Mighty Mouse IMO), they are opening marketing the book with dozens of trademarked MCU and DC characters on it. I can't imagine either company allowing any of them on the cover these days.

Yeah, not without advance permission, anyway.

The mouse in question on both Adams covers is ATOMIC MOUSE, published by Charleton from 1953-1963.

I didn't know till you mentioned him that Mighty Mouse was a publication of Timely/Marvel beginning in 1946. Although it began as a Terry-Toon animated cartoon character, apparently licensed to many other publishers over the last 7 decades.

In less litiginous times, Disney tolerated them, both the Mighty and Atomic mice, without a problem.

Apparently the new thing this year is carving a realistic face on a pumpkin.
With some delightfully creepy results.

Didn't you get the memo, G-man?
Math is racist!


So Batman in this scenario would take vengeance on the libtards who think math should be removed from schools, for race-based reasons?

Calculus actually does have real world applications, such as determining the volume or surface area of non-symmetric unusual shaped objects, such as swimming pools or machine parts.
Calculus was the hardest class I took while in college, which made me particularly proud of getting an A in Calc I, and a B+ in Calc II (I had an A going into the final exam, and then my score on the final lowered my final grade a bit).

Minus the uncomfortable anal references, that reminds me of a scene from JLA 193, pages 6 and 7:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Justice-League-of-America-1960/Issue-193?id=27621#7

Which I think was a sample of Gerry Conway at his best during his scripting run on JLA. The Perez/Beatty art also doesn't hurt a bit.

A nice Conan pin-up by Mike Nasser, showing side by side the pencil version and final version.

You know it's old, 1980's or earlier, because it's signed "Nasser", not Netzer as he has changed his name to for religious reasons.

Nasser did some nice Green Arrow and Black Canary backup stories in WORLD'S FINEST 244-246:




His rendition of Black Canary in a variety of skimpy outfits was on par with a Victoria's Secret catalog.

A page from Nasser's Green Arrow story in WORLD'S FINEST 245 , that I think of as the "Green Arrow anal rape issue". With the angle of that panel, combined with the expression on Arrow's face being rather... suggestive. (Nasser did a 10-page Green Arrow story, that continued into a Nasser 10-page Black Canary story, the two stories essentially one 20 page continuous story)

Dr. Frederic Wertham would have enjoyed Nasser's run.

A Nasser Batman page from the "Batman Spectacular" issue of DC SPECIAL SERIES 15. It's a Nasser page, but he could have just as easily signed it "Neal Adams".

A striking Nasser cover, the last issue of the series, before the Shazam feature became a backup in WORLD'S FINEST for about 4 years. Nasser only did the cover, with interior art by Newton/Schaffenberger for just this one issue, before continuing a long Newton run as a backup in WORLD's FINEST 253-282.

A Vampirella type character, sporting a bit of nipple.
By Tim Vigil.

Vampirella and friends, by Mark Schultz.

Cover by Wrightson for the 1975 ACBA SKETCHBOOK.

I get a kick out of seeing Wrightson do funny animal characters. There are several Wrightson
Howard the Duck drawings.

While Wrightson is primarily known as a horror/mystery artist, there is a lot of playful humor
in his work, and the funny animals when he's done them work quite well.

Some of the 47 interior pages here:
http://gobacktothepast.com/1975-acba-sketchbook/

I corrected the story credits for issue 35 above.
The Al Weiss/Joe Rubinstein art is in the previous issue 34, and is quite nice, too bad it's only one issue.

SHAZAM 34, Weiss cover and complete story:
https://comiconlinefree.com/shazam-1973/issue-34


Although Newton's run is also nice, very worthy of DC Archives hardcover treatment.
SHAZAM 35:
https://comiconlinefree.com/shazam-1973/issue-35

Wasn’t Nasser an Adams protege?

Yeah, he worked for Continuity Associates for many years, and even had a partial credit in Adams' first issue of MS MYSTIC in 1982. After which Nasser claimed that Adams stole Nasser's idea for MS MYSTIC, and there was a bitter lawsuit that Nasser filed, unsuccessfully.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Netzer




Even artists with as distinctive a style as Rudy Nebres and Nestor Redondo, and needless to say Rich Buckler, ended up being identical clones of Neal Adams after a few years at Continuity.

I actually have thought that's added to Adams' legacy and influence in comics, is that he trained so many artists in the field (through Continuity) as to dominate the field for decades with so many drawing in the Adams style.
Sienkiewicz is another who worked for years with Adams. And even though working in comics since 1978, it wasn't until about 1984 that he broke out of the Adams style and developed a distinctive look. And when he developed a new look, that look is greatly an imitation of artist Barron Storey, who was an instructor of Sienkiewiz's.

I’m pretty sure a great deal of Buckler’s similarity to Adams came from Buckler being a huge Swiper

Well, I read an interview of Buckler where he talked about in the early years (1970-1972) that editors didn't like his work much, and he was kind of a diamond in the rough without a particular style. I'm thinking when he was doing stuff like "The Rose and the Thorn" backups in LOIS LANE, and "Robin" backups in BATMAN. And there wasn't much demand for his work, with editors saying "You need to find your voice."

Then he starts imitating Neal Adams, and all of a sudden there's demand for Buckler's work, and editors are ironically saying, "You've found your voice!"

In the 1973-1976 period, I think Buckler's most interesting and individual work was his "Deathlok" series in ASTONISHING TALES 25-36.
And one final concluding story in MARVEL SPOTLIGHT 33.

Up until about 1975, Buckler wasn't so much of an Adams clone. During his FF stage in around 1974-1976, he began swiping a lot from Kirby. I think that was both out of a wish to maintain continuity with the Kirby and Buscema FF runs that preceded him, and also possibly due to the enormous pressure of getting a monthly book in on time.

From 1975-1982, that's the period where his style got increasingly identical to Adams. And shamelessly so. There are several WORLD'S FINEST issues he did in the 1979-1982 period where entire panels were just blatantly swiped from Adams Batman stories, you could match them up, line for line. His DC covers from 1977-1980 were the next best thing to having Adams do covers for DC again. Which by no coincidence was the period he was doing a lot of work for Continuity.
Sienkiewicz, Buckler, Broderick, Nasser, all of them, the more they worked for Continuity, the more they looked like Adams and ceased to have any individual style.

Buckler and Giffen, though... when it comes to swiping other artists, those two guys are in a class of their own.

Bucker primarily swiped from Kirby at Marvel, Adams at DC.

The swiping got so bad at DC that the reason DC cancelled "Star Hunters" was because Buckler swiped copyrighted space ship designs from a Saturday morning cartoon show.

It's also worth mentioning that he sued The Comics Journal for publishing examples of his outright plagiarism of a Jack Kirby story, and subsequently withdrew his lawsuit after being devastated in the deposition phase. The CJ lawyers started showing up with stacks of his art and the art he plagiarized from, went through it piece by piece, and he caved.

This guy has a pretty compilation of Buckler's Kirby swipes: http://panelocityhomageswipes.blogspot.com/search/label/Rich%20Buckler

That swipe file site is a treasure trove.
I'm surprised it doesn't have a huge section for Giffen.

Some similarities are probably coincidence. But the overwhelming abundance of identical layouts by Buckler to other artists is pretty beyond question swiping on Buckler's part.

I wasn't aware why STAR HUNTERS was cancelled, I thought it just wasn't selling. It wasn't a series I thought was particularly good or imaginative. Even though it had early work by Layton, Buckler, Newton, Hama, with writing by Michelinie.

That's hilarious about Buckler wanting to sue the COMICS JOURNAL. I recall an editorial cartoon in a 1980 COMICS JOURNAL issue, where it shows Neal Adams in the IRS talking to a tax agent, and the agent tells Adams he'd be perfectly within his rights to claim Buckler as a dependent.

In between the swipes, Buckler also did a lot of damn nice stuff.



This page from a Robin backup story in BATMAN 241, May 1972. I think the first page of Buckler's work I saw.

my gut tells me the two left panels on that page are swipes

I was always struck by how Buckler consistently swiped from Kirby and Adams, the two most prominent artists in the field, artists so visible that everyone, both fans and professionals, would see his obvious swiping.

I've often cited Keith Giffen as another major swiper. But at least Giffen swiped mostly from French artist Duillet (whose work mostly appeared in the U.S. in the early issues of HEAVY METAL). And later another European artist Jose Munoz. Although Giffen clearly borrows a lot from Kirby as well.

I always thought of Buckler as the Rob Liefeld of the 1970's.

https://instahaha.com/p/B7yMZrzhHFw.html

https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com...836&oe=5E8ABEC0

A really cool Galactus commission page by someone named Giorgio Comolo.
It reminds me of artist Jose Ladronn from the 1990's/early 2000's.

Another nice page by Comolo, of Lilandra from X-MEN, with a few Kree, Skrulls, and the Imperial Guard tossed in the background.

I might end up buying some of these pages.

As they say in the Spanish-speaking world, uno mas...






Here's a Comolo portfolio, with a dozen superhero paintings done in a variety of fine art styles.
http://www.associazionelanonaarte.it/new/portfolio-giorgio-comolo-fine-art/#close

The Davinchi wolverine sketches, and the Dali Captain America/Red Skull both cracked me up.

Geez, give a thunder god a break!