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Showing posts from August, 2010

The Mysterious Hulk Image

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Ok, all you art spotters and experts out there, here's today's quiz. 1] Where did this art appear? (I already know the answer to that) 2] Who drew it? I know it looks Kirby, but, considering where it comes from, I'm not so sure, so go ahead, all you art experts, throw your opinions to the wind!

Original Art Stories: Don Heck's Avengers

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Don Heck was one of those artists who never really got his proper due in my eyes. I think some of the first Avengers stories I read were drawn by Don Heck, if not inked by him over Jack Kirby pencils and certainly some of my fondest Iron Man stories were drawn by Heck, with Johnny Craig a close second. No disrespect to artists like Gil Kane, Gene Colan or the mighty Kirby, but, in my eyes only, nobody came close to capturing the true essence of ole Shell Head like Heck did. And no wonder, after all Heck did draw the first ever Iron Man story and must have had a hand in the creation of the character. “Stan called me one day and said you're going to be doing a new character called Iron Man. I had no idea what it was, what I was going to do. Kirby had designed a costume and contributed some ideas. Stan and I expanded on those ideas and then Larry Lieber wound up writing the final story. I liked doing that strip, especially the character bits with Tony Stark, Happy Hogan and Pe

Original Art Stories: The Weird Wally Wood

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Hooray for Wally Wood!  How anyone can say that they enjoy comic book art and not appreciate Wally Wood is beyond me.  Seriously.  Wood was one of the finest artists that has ever emerged from the medium, sadly some people look more towards his failings as a person than his qualities as an artist. I've always believed that there's a very fine line between genius and insanity and that when that line becomes blurred what might seem somewhat bizarre to 'normal' people is merely normal to the bizarre.  Wood had his demons that pursued him, right to the end, and, from all accounts, he could be somewhat unstable (to put a nice spin on things) and erratic, but his ability to draw anyone under the table was the gift that he had.  The price he had to pay for that gift was the tragic way that he both lived and died. In his day Wood was as good as anyone out there and, for me anyway, he peaked to a degree with his work for EC.  If I wrack the brain a bit I'd hazard a guess

How To Beat People Up The Dave Gibbons Way

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"We got poor Dave Gibbons to dress up as the host character.  He was really embarrassed, but he did have a fun time doing the photos with the wind machine blowing his cape." -- Kelvin Gosnell Tornado was a short lived English magazine, it lasted a mere 22 issues plus a Summer Special and was published from March to August 1979. However I liked it, a lot.  What I liked about it was the free gifts that came with each issue, and the quirky advice that 'editor', Big E, often handed out.  With the third issue there was a spud gun attached to it - Big E's advice was to avoid shooting people in the face with it and to use it responsibly.  Naturally I did the opposite and took the gun to school where I promptly managed to get a shot off and nearly took an eye out.  Hilarious stuff at the time. I think issue one came with a great three pronged boomerang, and advice from Big E not to throw it at people.  Guess who then started to throw it with such aim that it pa

Original Art Stories: Ross Andru's Amazing Spider-Man #162

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"I inked many of Ross Andru's pages myself, and was impressed by the amount of research he did on the locales he depicted." -- Jim Mooney This one should knock your socks clean off your feet. Amazing Spider-Man #162 , the issue that I'm going to focus on here, is listed over at the Grand Comic Book Database as being credited to Ross Andru, naturally, however instead of the penciler credit that he should have gotten, they've listed him as providing breakdowns and Mike Esposito as being the final penciler.  I have some bad news for them - they're slightly wrong, in fact, more than slightly wrong.  For, you see, as will be shown very shortly, Ross Andru provided full pencils.  Mike inked the issue, and more than likely utilised the services of Dave Hunt to assist him on the backgrounds, as was his wont at the time. How do I know this?  Simple - I have scans of two pages of Ross's pencils from the issue in question. "It’s high time someone mention

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