Category: Art

Paul Gulacy Week: Day 2

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PAUL GULACY WEEK: DAY TWO and we have Paul’s frontpiece to issue 10 of Marvel’s Vampire Tales magazine cover dated April 1975.  Paul provided the pencils and Duffy Vohland the inks for their rendition of Morbius. 

Tomorrow I’ll share a scan of a pencil sketch of Morbius and a victim that was the first Paul Gulacy sketch that I ever owned.  In fact, if I dig deep enough into the vault, I should be able to find the inked version that John Beatty did for stationary that I used when I regularly bought and sold original art back in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Dick Giordano’s Demo Man 3

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Dick Giordano is a legend. During his fifty plus years in the biz he’s done everything from ink all the greats (including himself) to serve as Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics, to co-founding his own comic company. Mr. Giordano also has a great sense of humor.

I recently had the good fortune to pick up six model sheet headsketches of Sly that Mr. Giodano did before starting work on DC Comics adaptation of “Demolition Man.” That’s the third posted above.

All Time 10 Best Marvel Panels

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Recently, in honor of Marvel Comics 70th birthday, CBR.com had a poll opened to their readers to come up with the Top 70 Most Iconic Marvel Panels Off All Time.  I decided to play along, and just using the choices from the survey came up with my Top Ten List.

10.  A Steranko panel from his classic Captain America run which ended way, way too soon.

09.  Thanos turns to stone as the Avengers and everyone else look on.

08.  Gwen was dead, Spidey was ticked and we were shocked!  Of course that was back in the days when characters stayed dead and comics weren’t rebooted every couple of years.

07.  Daredevil was back.  Miller was writing him and David Mazzuchelli was pencilling.  It was good to be buying Daredevil again.

06.  The end of the Warlock series.  Perhaps Starlin’s greatest work.  Ah, seeing Pip, Warlock and Gamora brings back some great memories.

05.  Daredevil — from my favorite run on the book.  Frank Miller and Klaus Janson.  It didn’t get any better than them when they were hitting stride.

04.  Another classic Steranko image from his run on Cap!

03.  Who didn’t fall for Mary Jane when she told Peter [Spider-Man] Parker: “Face it, Tiger… You just hit the jackpot!”  Of course I was about 7 years old at the time.

02.  Another classic panel from Miller and Janson’s run on Daredevil.

01.  A classic panel from Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin’s run on The X-Men.  It’s a great shot of Wolverine sneaking in through the sewers to save the day.  Fans [me included] couldn’t wait for Wolverine to be showcased solo.  Of course this was in the days before Wolverine had his own book, his own movie series and was known throughout the world.  Back then he was just the runt who tried to hold in a rage that sometimes got away from him.  Of course he was still the best at what he did… and what he did wasn’t pretty.  LOL.

Al Hirschfeld’s “The Honeymooners”

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While digging through the ZONE vault yesterday I came across a folder containing clippings of Al Hirschfeld art. Hopefully, you’re familiar with Mr. Hirschfeld’s genius. [If not, click here, and then come back after you’ve looked around. We’ll meet back here in, oh, say about 2 hours — you’re going to want to spend some time enjoying Mr. Hirschfeld’s talent.]

Al Hirschfeld was born in 1903. By the time he was 17, he was the art director at Selznick Pictures. In 1924 he moved to Paris to “lead the Bohemian life.”  In 1943, he married Dolly Haas, a famous European actress and together they produced a daughter, Nina.  After her birth Mr. Hirschfeld would hide Nina’s name in his drawings and a number by his signature indicated how many were hidden.  Mr. Hirschfeld passed away in 2003 just a few months shy of his 100th birthday.

That’s Mr. Hirschfeld’s take on Jackie Gleason and cast of the tv classic “The Honeymooners.”  You can see much more of Al Hirschfeld’s art here.

More Neal Adams Conan

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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.

Neal Adams Conan

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I hope everyone is enjoying their Labor Day holiday. Although for most, it’s been a 3 day weekend, I worked Saturday after a long work week and today my mind has been on all that is quickly approaching deadline in the next couple of weeks. The good news is I love what I do and the folks I work with are great.  But enough about work.

Today’s post is a classic Neal Adams Conan piece from the 70’s. Back in the day, Neal was THE MAN. His work on Batman, Green Lantern / Green Arrow, The Avengers… let’s face it, ANY thing   Neal Adams touched was gold.  It was our loss when he left comics for advertising work.  At least we can still go back and check out some of the great work he did back in the day.   Which sounds like the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

Mike Torrance’s “Nighthawks”

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Mike Torrance is an artist who does it all — he pencils, inks and colors. Mike has been running a regular contest at Retro Cowboy Productions and his Deviant Art site. Each week he posts a subject and the first one to make request which fits the theme is the winner! I was one of two lucky winners for “Detective Week.”

Mike is available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable. Check him out.

John Beatty Live!

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Did you happen to catch John Beatty drawing live on UStream?   John asked me to “co-host” and we had a fun time “talking” with fans who happened to drop by.

John and I plan to do this again and maybe even work out a regular schedule.  Of course we’ll post information before the broadcasts on our sites.  Hope you can join us.  Check out John’s Youtube page for all his videos!

Day 7: Mike Zeck Week at the ZONE

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It’s DAY 7 of MIKE ZECK WEEK at the ZONE and we’re going out with a bang. First up we have the photo above of my good buddies, Jim Ivey and Mike Zeck. My brother, John Beatty, forwarded it to me to share with fans. Beatty took it on a visit to Jim Ivey’s Cartoon Museum back around 1992 or 1993!

Before we go to our final art for MIKE ZECK WEEK at the ZONE, I thought it would be fun to check out a self portrait that Mike drew nearly 35 years ago, along with a more recent photo of the man. [By the way, Mike is wearing his “Damned” shirt — from the excellent crime graphic novel written by Steven Grant and drawn by, you guessed it, Mr. Zeck, his own bad self].

Okay, for the last piece of Zeck art, I wanted something dramatic. I was tempted to go with a piece from Damned… or Captain America… or Master of Kung Fu… or his Spider-Man / Kraven graphic novel… or his work at DC on Batman… or Secret Wars… okay, I never really considered Secret Wars because I decided that the final page of the Punisher in the Return to Big Nothing graphic novel would provide a fitting end to Mike Zeck Week at the Zone.

Hope you think so too.

Mike Zeck Week: Day 6

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Day Six of Mike Zeck Week and we have some really early, really rare Mike Zeck art.  I’ve posted an ad that appeared in RBCC 132 [December 1976] offering five pages of Mike’s art that originally appeared in RBCC 117.  The five pages consisted of the first [and what turned out to be the last] installment of an adaptation that Mike was drawing of a science fiction story called “Subjectivity.”  Unfortunately for fans of the strip, Mike began getting regular work from Charlton Comics and had to bow out of the project.  [As a side note, Kerry Gammill redrew the five pages and finished the story which ran in RBCC 124 – 127.]    The ad offered the five pages at $50 for the set. 

Tomorrow is MIKE ZECK WEEK: DAY Seven and I hope to end the week with a bang.

Mike Zeck Week: Day 5

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Day Five of Mike Zeck Week and we get a splash that Mike did to accompany an article about Adam Strange that appeared in RBCC 132 [December 1976].  I’m not an Adam Strange fan, but I like what Mike did with the character. 

Tomorrow is MIKE ZECK WEEK: DAY SIX. Even I’m not sure exactly what we’ll see, but I can promise it’ll be something from Mike.  [It is his week after all.]