Category: Comics

It wasn’t a question of “If” but “When”. As you can see from the sketch posted above… the time begins now. Yep, it’s John Beatty Week at the ZONE and this is Day One.

As most ZONErs know, John and I have been friends since Junior High.  And while it’s rare that two kids meet up and stay best friends for as many years as we have, it’s even rarer for a junior high student to know what he wants to do when he grows up, never waiver in his dream and to actually accomplish it.  For as long as I’ve known him, John has wanted to be a cartoonist… to make his living as an artist.  And he’s done it.

This week we’re going to look at some of John’s art from 1978 – the early 80’s.  Today we start off with a quickie sketch of Wolverine that John did while hanging out at my house before a penny-ante poker game.  We’d probably spent the afternoon playing tennis.  Yeah, I know hard to believe, but we used to play for hours… and even longer at the poker table.  Ah, those were the days.  

Tomorrow we have John’s inks on a popular fanzine artist of the day… who also went went on to be a professional artist.

Paul Gulacy Week: Day 7 and we conclude with a sweet Paul Gulacy pencilled and inked Doc Savage piece that appeared as the centerspread of a fanzine from the late 70’s.  In the version above, we’ve covered up the woman since she’s drawn without clothes and we sometimes get younger viewers to the ZONE. 

It’s hard to believe that the week is over and we didn’t post even a single Master of Kung Fu piece.

John Beatty created a piece for the Marla/Bea Benefit Comic Book Art Auction and inked it live on UStream this morning.  I sat in as co-host and we had a fun time.  You can find all of John’s Videos here!

Paul Gulacy Week: Day 6. Today we have a Paul Gulacy pencilled and inked [and autographed] cover to the Ohio Con ’75 program book.  I always thought that this was a bold design for a cover.  I picked this up at Jim Ivey’s Cartoon Museum approximately 32 years ago.

Tomorrow we have a Paul Gulacy pencilled and inked Doc Savage centerspread coming our way.

PAUL GULACY WEEK: DAY 5 and we have the promised Paul Gulacy pencilled and inked cover to CPL 12.  Now, before all you pureists out there start complaining about censorship, let me remind you that folks of all ages swing by the ZONE. Yes, it’s true that we cover zombies, and “R” rated movies and the like, but as we all know, a bare breast can really upset the apple cart.

The cover was done for CPL which stands for Contemporary Pictorial Literature was a fanzine published in the 70’s.  Bob Layton who went on to fame as a professional comic book artist, writer and publisher was the Editor-in-Chief.  You can read more here.

PAUL GULACY WEEK: DAY 4 and we have a sweet pencil illustration that Paul did for the cover of the NAPCON ’75 program book.  The convention and program booklet were put together by a group called the CPL Gang. The chairman was Robert Layton and Roger Stern was on staff.  Both of these guys went on to become extremely popular comic book professionals.  Guests for the 1975 con included: Nick Cuti, Howard Chaykin, Dave Cockrum, Walter Simonson, Mike Vosburg, Don Pendleton, Mike Uslan “and whoever else shows up”.  Due to personal problems Don Newton, Paul Gulacy, Val Mayerik and Rex the Wonder Panda were not able to attend. ; )

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at a cover that Paul did [pencils and inks] for the CPL Gang’s fanzine, titled appropriately enough, CPL.  Heck, I’ll even tell you what CPL stands for… that is, if you join me here tomorrow for PAUL GULACY WEEK: DAY 5.

It’s no secret that I’m a Paul Gulacy fan. I was checking out Paul’s site and discovered that he recently did illustrations for a new Master of Kung Fu series.  You can check out a larger version of the illo above and more at Paul’s site.

Today’s post is also the perfect lead-in to Paul Gulacy Week at the ZONE. Come back tomorrow and we’ll begin with a look at Paul’s early work.

Yesterday’s post about the All Time Top Marvel Comic Panels reminded me of one of my favorites.  It was a panel from Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy’s run on Master of Kung Fu.  I loved that panel and  page from the moment I saw it.  And a few years later even came to own it. 

What happended after that is pretty cool.

After posting the Neal Adams Conan piece yesterday, I decided to dig around in the ZONE vault and I came across this cool Neal Adams Conan sketch that was used as the cover for Grymaklin #2. Like yesterday’s piece, this was also done in the late 70’s.

Stuff like this makes me nostalgic.  Of course that’s never been hard to do.