Posts

Showing posts from February, 2011

Coming Attraction

Image
 Coming in March, this might be one of the most exciting things I've presented in quite a long while.  What exactly is it?  Well, you see if you can guess... Yes, indeed he is coming...and you'll be blown away when you see what he's bringing with him.  Watch this space from the 1st of March, 2011...

R.I.P: Joanne Siegel

Image
The last living link to the creation of Superman, Joanne Siegel, has passed away at the age of 93. Joanne was not only the second wife of Superman co-creator and writer Jerry Siegel, but she was also the inspiration, and model, for the original Lois Lane, as conceptualised by artist Joe Shuster. Throughout the latter parts of the 20th century, others claimed that they were the model, but Jerry always maintained it was Joanne, and only Joanne, who inspired Joe. Joanne met both Jerry and Joe in the mid 1930s, when Cleveland was still in a depression. She had placed an ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which is still being published, offering to model for a modest fee. Joe made contact, Joanne modelled and Joe sketched. When the time came for a supporting cast in Superman, Joe went back to his sketch books and found Joanne, thus was born Lois Lane. Joanne kept in touch with Jerry and Joe, and when Jerry’s first marriage ended he and Joanne wed, in 1948, over a decade since they’d f

Michael Netzer wants to Save The Comics!

Image
Michael Netzer , as is his way, has again stirred up a massive hornets nest with this recent petition and FTC complaint against Marvel and DC and I can’t say that I don’t agree with it all, in fact, I do agree. I’ve even signed the petition. As I don’t work for either company, nor am I likely to, I have absolutely nothing to lose, unlike some, so I can understand the lack of big names on the petition as a whole – it’d be paramount to political suicide to sign such a document in this day and age as freedoms aren’t what they used to be. Gone is the era when a person could critic the way a comic book company was working - witness the Jack Kirby art petition. And therein lies the truth to what Michael is saying, times have changed and, sadly, not for the better. Back in the mid 1980s when the Kirby petition circulated there were a lot of options for comic book artists, writers, editors and the like. Alongside Marvel and DC were other, smaller, companies, such as Pacific, Innovation

Original Art Stories: Sal Velluto & Bob Almond's Thirst

Image
Normally I'd rather drink paint than to write about First Salvo, but one thing they did do, before they decided to flee owing some serious cash to people, was to get some bloody good artists working on stories, both published and unpublished.  Norm Breyfogle was the main artist for them, but they did hire others.  On the strength of my own recommendation they commissioned Alan Weiss to pencil his own cover and to ink one of Breyfogles.  Norm then inked the Weiss cover, with great results.  I'm lucky enough to own them both, along with another unique cover - Trevor Von Eeden, also inked by Breyfogle, a cover that they never paid Trevor for, by the way. Another set of artists they hired, much to my delight, was none other than Sal Velluto and Bob Almond .  Both artists established their rep as one of the premier artistic teams of all time, in my own opinion, with their stellar work on Marvel's Black Panther.  Bob might not fully agree with me there, but history will bear m

Previous Posts!

Show more