MediaScene covers by Berni Wrightson and Barry Smith

When Jim Steranko’s magazine ComixC morphed into MediaScene, it was a meaty newspaper sized publication.  It was so big, in the early days, that it came in two sections.  The second section often had a cover illustration in black and white.  Berni Wrightson provided this illustration brewing up a scary concoction for a 1975 issue.  This image has been used many times, once as the cover to a Wrightson art book, and another time as the cover to Pacific Comics Master of the Macabre.

Barry Smith was also the maser of fine detail pen and ink illustrations during this period.  This one was also produced as a print for Smith’s Gorblimey Press.  At one point in my life I wanted to be an artist.  I couldn’t imagine how many hours it must have taken Smith to draw each little leaf and detail.  Staggering!  Nuff Said.

Shootout in the Old West with the Rawhide Kid, courtesy of Gil Kane

I just saw a scan for this cover to Rawhide Kid #140, circa 1977, a really great Western style shootout with the Kid scrambling for cover at the corner store.  Great design and execution on this cover by Kane!  Wish he drew the interior story, but alas, it was a reprint.

Jeremy over at ComicArtFans owns the original art to this page.  Stunning in black and white, what a lucky geek!

Take a look at a few other Kane western covers: Duck! Gil Kane's Cover for Kid Colt 200! as well as Marvels of Gil Kane: Mighty Marvel Western covers.  Nuff Said!

The Spirit by Brian Bolland

The Spirit is one of my favorite characters and I love seeing different artists do their take on the character.  A while back, I showed a cool Neal Adams illustration, but here is another one by Brian Bolland that captures the essence of Eisner.  Denny Colt is captured, bound, but he isn’t treated too badly by his femme fatale captor, P’Gell.

I saved this scan back in 2002, when it first appeared as the cover to Kitchen Sink’s Will Eisner Spirit, The New Adventures #3.  This series allowed other creators to write/draw the Spirit, including Alan Moore, who did a wonderful story in both the first and third issues.  Nuff Said!

Classic X-Men Gallery by Bruce Timm

I just can’t get into too many modern X-Men comics nowadays—maybe the last arc I really got into was Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s run on Astonishing X-Men.  But I can always get into the original classic X-team, and these pin-ups by Bruce Timm, showing the mutants in their original blue and yellow uniforms, just brings back all the Lee/Kirby magic.

Cyclops later graduated into his own costume—a minor variation on the first, that removed the yellow harness.  I always liked Cyclops in the early years, he was an underdog struggling to become a leader.  On paper, Warren Worthington III was probably better qualified.  When Wolverine called Cyke a dick in the first X-Men movie I laughed and felt like a traitor to my boyhood hero!

Marvel Girl was the sweetheart of the team in the 1960s, waiting to see if Scott Summers would be bold enough to confess his feelings.  Never thought much of her until Claremont took over.  The original X-Men uniform looks pretty nice in retrospect.  Speaking of the first X-Men movie, I never bought Famke Janssen as Jean Grey at all.

Timm also did this take on Jean Grey’s malevolent persona, Dark Phoenix.  

Even though he didn’t come on the team until Giant-Size X-Men #1, no X-Men gallery would be complete without Wolverine!  I wish I could have found some Timm pieces featuring Beast, Angel, and Iceman on their own, but alas, I came up short.  Nuff Said.

Crystal by Bruce Timm, with a Kirby pin-up

A few characters by Timm always seem spot-on.  Or maybe all the women he draws are just spot-on?  In any case, he really nails the character of Crystal in these two pin-ups.  The above has Crystal standing in Attilan, the home of the Inhumans.  The costume has these real subtle elements, like the belt buckle around her (tiny) waist, the flared gloves and boots. 

I always like Crystal from the first 140 issues of the Fantastic Four.  She was Johnny Storm’s first love, and the one that hurt him the most when that slime ball Quicksilver stole her away.  She had various guest appearances over the years, was an Avenger for a brief period of time.  Lately she was married to Ronan the Accuser of all people.

Jack Kirby designed Crystal’s look and costume, of course, but where did this costume actually appear in the FF?  I searched quickly through a few comics and could only come up with this pin-up from Fantastic Four Annual #5 in 1967.  In other FF appearances, I found Crystal wearing a variety of outfits, and when she replaced Sue briefly in the latter stage of Kirby’s run, Crystal put on the traditional blue FF outfit.  At any rate, it is a great costume.  I imagine Kirby created this in less than an hour and did it all based on imagination and instinct.  Nuff Said!

New Black Canary pin-ups by Bruce Timm and some fashion commentary

Here are a couple Black Canary pin-ups by Bruce Timm that I recently discovered.  These may not be new to you, but they are to me!  Another guy named Tim had a lot of comments on Canary’s classic outfit:  With fishnets, the wider the weave, broader the weave, the more vulgar the look is going to be. Any guesses* as to who that other Tim was?

Timm very much is into a style that screams Femme Fatale and Black Canary fits that type of character very well in these pin-ups.  She resembles Veronica Lake, the movie star from the 1940s.  Of course, Veronica didn’t run around in tights and lingerie fighting crime.  But she could have been an inspiration for Canary’s creators—clearly she had an impact on Timm and Darwin Cooke.

*Tim Gunn from Bravo TV’s Project Runway.  He critiqued Black Canary’s outfit in the first episode of Crazy Sexy Geeks.  Timm called Canary “a tramp” and made the acute observation that fishnets send “a very powerful sexual message”.  I think we geeks already knew that, right?  Nuff Said!

Big Barda by Bruce Timm and Jack Kirby, designer of swimwear!

Big Barda is a secret little favorite among comics geeks who hardly gets any attention.  She appeared in Mister Miracle but has made very few guest appearances over the years.  I always like to see artists that get a kick out of drawing Barda for fans.  Bruce Timm obviously digs Barda, especially in this outfit.

Barda strikes another pose.  I started wondering about this battle bikini.  Did Kirby really invent it?  I recalled that he did and all the elements on that outfit seemed to be designed by the King.

The answer is YES!  Big Barda’s first appearance was in Mister Miracle #4, 1971.  In that issue, Barda first appears in her full-on battle armor, with the blue chain mail.  At the end of the story, when Barda is at home with Scott and Oberon, she slips into this bikini—a little something comfortable.  Oberon, who didn’t like Barda up until this point, even exclaims: Whoever made that Gal wear a uniform should be horsewhipped! 

Kirby knew he had designed a great character at this point.  The splash page of Mister Miracle #5 from 1971 featured Barda doing Yoga in her swimwear, to the delight of Scott Free’s neighbors.

I cannot imagine being a super-villain and facing down Big Barda or Wonder Woman!  I do find it incredibly strange that this character has remained hidden in DC Comics for all these years.  Nuff Said.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Bruce Timm

I used to have a bunch of Bruce Timm pics on the old Photon Torpedoes blog.  When I migrated over here to Blogger, I lost them…but starting today I will get them back!  Here is Timm’s rendition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Buffy seems like a natural character for Timm to draw, as he is very good at portraying action-oriented women.

Buffy in animated action versus a vampire.  Timm doesn’t skirt the issue that Buffy is a lot smaller than her opponents, yet she kicks ass every time.

Great team-ups that will only happen in fan-fiction: Buffy and Vampirella!  Timm drew this piece back in 2001 and it has become a fan favorite, given the amount of times it comes up in Google searches.  Nuff Said!

Tarzan by Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane

I’ve been reading comics for a long time and my knowledge of the mainstream is pretty deep.  Yet every once in a while I stumble upon something old that is new.  A perfect example is this, Tarzan Sunday newspaper strips by Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane—I had no idea that they ever worked on this character!  The strip above, from July 1979, kicked off a storyline titled The Runaway, about a spoiled brat who gets lost in the jungle.  It’s up to Tarzan to save his butt and teach him a few valuable lessons about life.



The strips all have storylines that played out over a few months of Sundays.  The other storyline I read, titled Zugor the Ape, features Tarzan in New York City.  I was blown away by the craftsmanship of these strips.  The stories by Goodwin are well paced and suited for an all ages audience.  The artwork by Gil Kane plays to his strengths, giving him a chance to draw plenty of action from interesting perspectives.  Take a look at the bridge sequence here, very smart use of angle shots in small panels.  Click on the link below for more Tarzan strips.  Nuff Said!

Link: Gil Kane Unchained page on Facebook

Horns by Joe Hill

Joe Hill knows how to start a novel off with a bang.  Horns captured me from page one when the main character, Iggy Perrish, wakes up with a hangover and discovers that he has devil horns growing out of his head.  Don't all hangovers seem like a Satanic nightmare?  For Iggy it's not a dream and even worse, his horns compel the people he meets to make confessions of their darkest secrets.  Ig can't get help for his condition--the horns render everyone a slave to their dark thoughts and people forget about him after he leaves.  As the story progresses, Ig discovers even more Satanic connections to his current condition. 

The mystery surrounding Ig's horns isn't the main thing.  The meat of this story are the characters and the relationships of the four friends who ground this tale in reality.  I usually hate long flashbacks, but in the case of Horns, they were very well done.  We learn about Ig's high school days, his brother Terry (who grows up to be a famous TV talk show host), his best friend Lee Tourneau and his girlfriend since high school, Merrin Williams.  The romance between Ig and Merrin is pretty sweet, but in the present day, we learn that Merrin has been murdered, and everyone thinks that Ig is the prime suspect.   Thanks to some of Ig's new abilities, we see the events surrounding Merrin's death from different perspectives, until we learn the real truth. 

If you've followed my blog Giant Size Marvel, you will know that I loved characters such as Ghost Rider, anti-heroes imbued with a touch of dark power.  Ig becomes somewhat like that as the novel progresses, very much the dark hero, opposing one of the most vile and disgusting characters I've ever read.   A very satisfying, one that I can highly recommend because I was so involved with the characters.  Nuff Said!

Link: Horns: A Novel

Link: Horns CD: A Novel

George Perez: Teen Titans Poster, Amazing Heroes, Newsletter covers

There have been many great Teen Titans illustrations by George Perez, but not all of them appeared on the monthly comic.  For the second issue of Amazing Heroes in 1981, Perez provided this cover featuring the Titans.  This was published somewhere around issues #9-12 of the New Teen Titans.  The new characters (Cyborg, Raven, Starfire) take the foreground while the original team members discuss things in the background.  Talking about the time Starfire walked around Central Park without her shirt on?

Note the headline on the upper right: New Comics Company Signs Kirby, Grell!  That would be the announcement of Pacific Comics, which published Captain Victory, Starslayer, the Rocketeer, and many more great series.

A few years later, Perez contributed another Titans cover for the 50th issue of Amazing Heroes.  This issue would have been published around the time that The Judas Contract arc was wrapping up, with Jericho being featured front and center. 

The other interesting thing here is that George’s style has matured in his work on Teen Titans.  His character faces are more detailed and expressive than in his early work.  His storytelling grew as well in the interior pages of the Titans.

Of course, if you were a real Titans fanatic like me, you owned this poster that DC Comics made in the early 1980s.  I had it on the wall of my room, to the bewilderment of my parents, who probably would have rather seen the Farah Fawcett poster instead.  But you can see here all the bits of Titan mythology from the first 35 issues or so: Trigon, Brother Blood, Deathstroke, Blackfire, the alien races that would form the backdrop of the Omega Men, and Terra, sitting on top of Titans Tower.

I threw away this poster in a fit of poster cleanup (along with the Legion poster by Keith Giffen, the Revenge of the Sith poster, etc).  Sigh.  Does anyone still have it intact after all these years?

If you were a Titans fan during this era, you were probably enamored with Koriand'r, the bronzed babe known as Starfire, who learned English in her first appearance by kissing Dick Grayson.  From that moment they were fated to fall in love, which lasted for many years in the Titans series.  Of course, it didn’t last, and in the current era of DC Comics, this relationship is all but forgotten.  But for true Titans fans this romance lingers, as you can see from this cover to the George Perez newsletter in 2001. 

Wow, in looking back over these covers, I get all misty eyed over the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans.  Geoff Johns and Mike McKone came close to this magic in their relaunch, but no one has yet surpassed the New Teen Titans saga from the 1980s.  Nuff Said!

Brian Bolland Wonder Woman cover from Amazing Heroes 197

Following up yesterday’s Flash covers by Bolland with this classic portrait of Wonder Woman, which was originally featured on Amazing Heroes #197 from 1991. 



I was thinking of Wonder Woman because of Rich Johnston’s story on Bleeding Cool about David Kelley’s pilot script for the TV pilot.  This show will either by an Ally Beal sized hit or a great disaster, we will have to see.  Any TV show would have to change Wonder Woman’s story somewhat—the comic series itself has never been consistent in giving her a private life and supporting cast of characters.  The biggest thing I find troubling in Kelley’s script is this bullet point from Johnston’s article:

Long ago, government man Steve Trevor crashed onto Wonder Woman’s island and brought her back to New York, but now they’ve split up. She still loves him, though, and it’s obvious that their relationship is going to be a focus.

Very troubling.  Wonder Woman should be about independence and self-reliance, not pining away after Steve Trevor, who hasn’t been featured at all in the comics for over a decade.  Nuff Said!