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Another piece of contemporary comic-book cover-art; this one by Jon Bogdanove for Knight Terrors: Superman, Issue # 2 (variant cover B). 

Bogdanove (best known for co-creating the title title, Superman: The Man of Steel) has created a stunning piece of art with a powerful image artfully achieved through its depiction of energy, movement and the simultaneously in-focus above-and-below water perspective. The outstretched grasping hand breaking the surface is, for me, an exciting and intensely dramatic gesture –– and, incidentally, very scary for a thalassophobe....... 

Er... WHAT?

Oh, just go and look it up!

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It's been quite a while since I posted any comic cover-art, so here's a stunning new piece by Eisner Award-winner Christian Ward featuring Batman suspended upside down in a monstrous green tentacled grip against a lurid blood-red sky.

This dramatic creation is destined for the cover of Batman: City of Madness #2, to be published this December. 

 

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Living, as a child, in Chislehurst – a then-still-rural corner of Kent – I never saw copies of Tales from the Crypt and even if I had, being a kid with a highly overactive imagination, I would likely have steered clear of the Crypt-Keeper, his chums and their grim tales. Not only that, but I very much doubt if I woud have succeeded in smuggling them past my mother's eagle eye! 

 

Anyway, when I finally discovered Tales from the Crypt I embraced them for their ripe blending of the comic and the grotesque. Every issue featured cover art – sometimes lurid, often grisly, always striking – by among the best-of-the-best comic-book artists of their day. 

 

This copy (Vol. 1 # 46, February 1955) is from the pen of the legend that was Jack Davis (1924-2016) celebrated for his prolific output for Mad and other off-the-wall comics such as Cracked, Humbug and Help! as well as memorable film posters for films including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Viva Max! and Kelly’s Heroes.  

 

I think this particular issue of Tales from the Crypt serves as an exemplar of great comic book art: grabbing the eyeballs and sensationally begging anyone passing a news-stand to stop and buy!

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For the seventh and final issue of Marc Silvestri's Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo, comic-book artist 'Jock' (Mark Simpson) has created this variant cover (only 500 copies printed worldwide) that I really like for its sheer audacity in framing the Clown Prince of Crime's manic tombstone toothy grin within a bloody image based on the the Dark Knight's iconic silhouette.

Currently available at Forbidden Planet and other good comic vendors. 

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This art of the comic-book blog celebrates a comic book title that dominated the 'funnies' section of America's newsstands of the 1940s and '50s: Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.

This example, Vol.4 No.9 (published 79 years ago, this month in June 1944!) showcases the work of comic-strip legend Walt Kelly (1913-1973), who would eventually move on from the Mouse Factory to create his own superb and long-running cartoon character, Pogo Possum, who – along with his engaging companions – resides in the Okefenokee Swamp that straddles the Georgia-Florida state-line.

A typical cover of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories featured Mickey Mouse & the Gang, although pretty quickly they were taken over by the Duck and his three troublesome nephews - Huey, Dewey and Louie – invariably giving grief to 'Unca' Donald'.

Here, however, Kelly shows Donald making music with two of Snow White's Seven Dwarfs, Dopey and Happy – the latter playing a double-bass with a Donald-shaped headstock that seems to have a beady eye on his doppelganger!

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To mark the beginning of Pride Month, I've chosen Travis Moore & Tamara Bonvillain's variant cover art for Superman: Son of Kal-El Issue #5 (released 9 November 2021) showing Jon Kent (son of Clark Kent, aka Superman, and Lois Lane and currently known as “the Superman of Earth,”) dramatically flying in for a passionate embrace. 

The source of Jon's attraction is a journalist: yes, like father, like son ––– except that, in Jon's case, the journo in question – social activist Jay Nakamura – is male! 

Although Jon Kent, formally presumed to be heterosexual, was not the first comic-book hero to reveal an LGBTQ+ alignment, it caused a minor sensation in the comic world – unsurprising, perhaps, since 'Superman' suddenly identifying as 'bi' was a radical departure from comic historicity. Certainly, I couldn't help pondering how I, as a closeted 10-year-old comic-reading lad, would have reacted in making such a discovery! 

The series – all too short-lived – was written by Tom Taylor and illustrated by John Timms who was responsible for the art on the pages shown below, augmented by the work of colorist, Hi-Fi, and letterer, David Sharpe.

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Here's a comic-book cover by one of the legendary practitioners of the art and a personal art-hero: Will Eisner, creator of the rugged mask-gloves-and-fedora-wearing vigilante THE SPIRIT, and whose later pioneering work, A Contract with God is widely credited for having popularised the graphic novel.

 

This cover for THE SPIRIT from August 1974 (#3 of 16 issues from Warren Publishing that reprinted Eisner's Spirit stories from the 1940s with new original cover art) typifies the hero's character: clothes shredded from some previous deed of daring-do (but mask, hat and gloves still in place) thundering the sleepers of an elevated railroad seemingly only feet in front of an on-coming train!

 

Eisner's radical style included using dramatic cinematic angles reminiscent of the makers of the film noir movies so popular with 'forties movie-goers.

 

Some of Eisner's most memorable work was that produced for the 'flash pages' to his stories for their appearance in newspapers. These fiendishly inventive art-pieces were designed to grab the reader's attention, set-up the story and convey a mood – invariably gritty and broodingly noir – and always embodying the title 'THE SPIRIT often in an artfully whimsical way. Here a few brilliant examples...

I especially like this page that features a physical comic page...

In the 1980s I had a fascinating correspondence with Will Eisner when I and a producer colleague were attempting to sell a television documentary to the BBC about the artist's career which would have been presented in a filmed recreation of the comic-book format including frames, captions and speech bubbles! Sadly, as you will not be surprised to learn, the BBC short-sightedly didn't share our enthusiasm!

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Today's comic cover art is both brand new and over 40 years old! Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian is back with "a new tale of bravery and heroism" (and, I guess, "barbarism"!). The new comic debuts this July and the cover for Conan the Barbarian, Issue #1 (although it is sans title) reprises the glorious – and rightly – celebrated poster art for the 1982 film of the same name created by one of the all-time great veteran movie-poster artists, Renato Casaro, still working, aged 87.

Casaro's art needs no sales-pitch; as for the comic-book series, here's the Official Blurb: "Years after the battle of Venarium, a weary Conan returns to his homeland to seek rest and solitude. However, a mysterious scout rides in to warn the Cimmerians of an imminent threat on the march from the Pictish wilderness. Will Conan and his new ally be able to hold off this new horde of invaders?" 

Who knows? I doubt he'll be able to hold off the horde of comic-collectors eager to own this homage to the film that made an international star of a body-builder named Arnold Schwarzenegger!

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Today's cover-art is from Volume One, Number 1 of Fantastic magazine (Summer 1952). The spectacular, outrageously startling front cover is the work of Barry Phillips and L. R. Summers and is suffused with a wondrous eye-catching luridness.

The pages within contained stories by Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov (neither requiring introduction here) alongside other writers including Walter M. Miller, Jr., later author of A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) and – as is boldly announced on the cover – 'A Classic Novel by Raymond Chandler'. This novel was the previously serialised Professor Bingo's Snuff and is accompanied by illustrations from cover co-artist, L. R. Summers.

The back cover features (courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art) 'Danger on the Stairs', a decidedly disturbing image by the French surrealist painter Pierre Roy (1880–1950) about whom, I think, I may shortly be blogging further...

 

Fantastic, Volume One, Number 1. 

Contents: Walter M. Miller, Jr., ('Six And Ten Are Johnny'); Sam Martinez ('For Heaven's Sake'); Paul W. Fairman ('Someday They'll Give Us Guns'); H. B. Hickey ('Full Circle'); Louise Lee Outlaw ('The Runaway'); Kris Neville ('The Opal Necklace'); Ray Bradbury ('The Smile'); H. L. Gold ('And Three To Get Ready'); Isaac Asimov ('What If') and Raymond Chandler's Professor Bingo's Snuff, illustrated by L. R. Summers and introduced with the following announcement: 

We don't need to tell you who Raymond Chandler is, or what he has written. The man who, back in the Thirties, almost single-handedly lifted detective fiction out of the post-Van Dine doldrums, has a secure and lofty place in American literature. More than anyone he brought the hard boiled 'private eyes' story to popularity – and kept it there despite the swarm of imitators who have done their worst to wreck the genre. To our knowledge, Professor Bingo's Snuff is Mr. Chandler's second – and longest – fantasy. It will not at all surprise you that his talent brings added luster to the field.

The story had been earlier published as a three-installments serialisation in Park East, June-July 1951, and in: Go, June-July 1951. 

The story's protagonist, Joe Pettigrew, grows tired of his wife Gladys cheating on him with their lodger Porter Green. With the help of some magical snuff which he buys from Professor Bingo he becomes invisible. Next Pettigrew creates the perfect 'locked-room murder'. However, the police have serious doubts and in the end shoot Pettigrew when he tries to escape.