adorshki
Reverential Member
Great thread guys! And cool guitar D30Man! Combining two important forces in my life (leisure life, anyway) -- comics (when I was young) and guitars (for the last 8 years or so). DD was my favorite super hero. In my book Gene Colan was the definitive DD artist. My best friend preferred Spidey. We'd argue all the time who was cooler. My favorite Spidey artist was Gil Kane. I developed an appreciation for him at DC doing the Atom and Green Lantern.
Yes Kane was a great, he was another one of those "acquired tastes" for me, like Ditko.
His first work at Marvel was actually in late '66-'67, a run of Hulk in Tales to Astonish, leading up to the very first appearance of the Abomination:
For some reason when Colan came to Marvel he used the name Adam Austin to pencil the Submariner's return with his own strip in Astonish:
As was so common at the time, Kirby did the cover even though others did the interior art:
There was a difference between buying the new releases and collecting back issues.
With the back issues, one usually knew who the artist was going to be and was only occasionally surprised.
But with new releases there was always the sense of anticipation.
Comics were everywhere in the '60's.
They were a fact of life like cheap toys and all to often just tossed after a few reads.
Every grocery store, drug store, and the new breed of "convenience stores" had a comic rack.
I got to know when to expect the new deliveries every week, and the managers got to know me and let me open up the just-delivered bundles and I'd select the best printed samples before they hit the rack and got all dog-eared.
Imagine the thrill of seeing your favorite characters get their own full-length book when they expanded the "dual headliner" titles in '68:
Or this rare one-shot while continuity place holder while Hulk and Captain America got launched a month before Subby and Iron Man:
(Colan inked by Everett)
Or seeing a brand new artist show up out of nowhere:
The first time I saw that cover I thought it was Kirby, but the interior art was the same and the credits said "Barry Smith".
Who went on to really develop a personalized style and shepherded the introduction of another legendary Marvel series:
By the same token it was when the bad surprises started outweighing the good ones that I finally decided to stop buying in late '70.
At the same time I'd also had the insight that I was great "copier" but that original graphic ideas didn't come to me unbidden like music ideas did.
So I decided I should concentrate on the medium where the ideas came most readily, even though the work of developing a skill set was a lot harder.
But I never renounced my love for the comic art form.