Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
It’s no secret that back in the day Paul Gulacy was my favorite artist. Although Paul is best known for his work on the classic Master of Kung Fu series, it’s not the only thing of note that he did. I thought today it would be cool to look at my second favorite, non-MOKF cover that Paul did. It’s for Rawhide Kid #147 which came out in September of 1978. Hope ya dig it.
Perhaps tomorrow we’ll check out my favorite non-MOKF cover by Paul. What do you think? Good idea?
This was too cool not to post here as well as at the StalloneZone.
Sly has been following some of the discussions on the message boards and wanted to set the record straight:
Dear Craig,
For the doubters and the haters, a picture is worth a thousand words. You
walk the walk, you pay a price. But, as bad as it was at least we have it on
film.Keep punchin’
Sly
P.S. To the haters, I don’t need to invent pain, there’s enough of it out
there to go around.P.S.S. The reason I was never seen in a neck brace is because I stayed home
for three weeks to heal.P.S.S.S. Van Damme may mean a great deal to some of you, but what he’s
putting forth is not truthful.
So there you have it, SZoners. Don’t waste your time arguing with the doubters and the haters. – Craig
This week we have Jeremy Treece’s take on Sly as “Machine Gun” Joe from “Death Race 2000”. This sketchcard was gifted to me by a StalloneZone fan [LittleJohn312] and arrived in my mail unannounced. I really like what Jeremy did and hope to get more work from him in the future. You can also see more of his art here.
Thanks to LittleJohn312 and Jeremy for a great surprise!
CBR.com recently posted the cover above and took a look at a new series from Image by Jonathon Ross [writer] and Tommy Lee Edwards [artist]. It’s called “Turf” and is set in New York in 1929. “Turf” features a war between gangsters, vampires and aliens. Yep, gangsters, vampires and aliens. I was pretty much sold when I learned Tommy Lee Edwards was doing the art, but with that crazy mix of characters, I’m in.
I was really disappointed when NBC cancelled “SouthLAnd”. I felt the show was engaging and showed promise of getting even better. Then TNT picked it up. I planned to do a post about the move and new episodes, but saw that Bill Crider had perfectly summarized the situation at his blog.
This Paul Gulacy drawing of Shang-Chi originally appeared [at least I believe it did] in an issue of The Comic Buyers Guide. It ran as a small spot illo or perhaps as a part of an original art ad probably in the early 80’s. My guess is between 1980 and 1983. Despite all the things I don’t know about the piece, the one thing I am sure of, is that I like it. I hope that you do too!
If you’re a fan of horror comics, especially the old Warren Comics that featured Uncle Creepy, you owe it to yourself to check out this cool 2 minute 35 second video. It might even inspire you to search out some of the old comics or to check out what Dark Horse is doing with the character these days.
Thanks to Harry @ AICN for the link.
The more I see about Mel Gibson and “Edge of Darkness”, the more I like it. If you’d like to see a version of the poster above that’s big enough to push you over the edge, then check out this one over at IMPAwards.com.
Yesterday I mentioned the classic Doug Moench/Paul Gulacy run on Master of Kung Fu and I promised to post a classic Gulacy cover from the series. Although every cover that Paul did was worthy, this is perhaps my favorite. My guess is it’s one of yours too.
Otis Frampton loves sharing his talents with his fans. Every Sunday [okay, ALMOST, every Sunday], Otis has a live UStream broadcast that he calls the 7×7 Sunday. Lucky fans can get a headsketch of ANY character drawn live by Otis on a 7X7 inch bristol board for 7 bucks postage paid. It’s the best deal going.
I’ve been lucky enough to get four pieces from Otis and the Cosmo Carboni from “Paradise Alley” shown above is one of them. I’ll be showing the rest in the coming weeks. In the mean time, check out Otis’ Gallery. Most likely, after seeing more of his work, I’ll be competing against you in Otis’ next 7×7 Sunday.
Today we have Mike Zeck’s cover to Master of Kung Fu #86 from March 1980.
Although Master of Kung Fu might sound like a silly title, it was actually a fairly serious series about the son of Fu Manchu [Shang-Chi] who teams with a group of British agents a la James Bond. The series ran from 1974 to 1983. Although several writers and artists worked on the series over the years, the writer most associated with the title is Doug Moench and artists Paul Gulacy and Mike Zeck.
Moench & Gulacy began their run in issue #22 and despite an occasional fill-in continued on the series through issue #51. Although other artists worked on the series, [and Mike even did a few issues] it was with issue #64 that Mike became the regular artist on Master of Kung Fu. The team of Moench and Zeck stayed with the series until Mike left after completing issue #101.
But back to the cover at hand… I like the intensity of this cover and Mike really caught the look of Shang-Chi. He doesn’t have a generic super-hero face [or even a generic Asian super-hero face].
We’ll be back tomorrow with a classic Paul Gulacy Master of Kung Fu cover.
If you’re a fan of “The Wizard of OZ” [and if you’re not, how can that be?], then you’ll probably find this short animation of “How the Wizard of OZ Should Have Ended” amusing. I know I did.
Thanks to Miss Cellania for the original link.
Here’s the April 1977, Mike Zeck cover to RBCC [Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector] #135 that I promised to post. As you probably know Mike was a regular contributor to RBCC back in the day. Although I’ve never read any Blue Beetle comics, I always liked this piece by Mike. Hope that you do too. And since we’re on a Mike Zeck kick, we’ll keep it going tomorrow with a classic Zeck cover from Master of Kung Fu!
Since many of the folks that drop by here are fans of zombie movies, I thought that they [and hopefully you are part of “they”] would get a kick out of this short humorous take on two guys hoping to survive a zombie outbreak. Without further adieu I give you Sketch of the Dead.
Happy New Year, ZONErs!
I thought we’d jump into the new year by taking a trip back to April 1977 to see a Mike Zeck spot illustration that appeared in RBCC [Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector] #135. Mike was a regular contributor to RBCC back in the day. In fact, Mike drew the cover for the very same issue. If you come back tomorrow you’ll see it here!
