First up, Hulk art by Michael Golden, from the month of March, in Marvel's 20th Anniversary Calendar, 1981. From my perspective, Golden brought a whole new feel to comics. It was a "cartoony realism", which would influenced a slew of artists to come.
Next is Dave Cockrum art from three Marvel Novels. This was 1979, so on the cover to the anthology book, Hulk, TV star, is seen in the foreground, while a fairly new character, Wolverine, is stuck in the background. It would have been different today. As a kid, I was always fascinated to see painted superhero art. There was very little of it.
Lastly is art by John Byrne, from December, in The Amazing Spider-Man Calendar, 1978 . It's sometimes interesting to see what characters were popular during any given year. And look how clever Mr. Byrne was by grouping the old/new X-Men with Cyclops in the bottom right corner.
If I wasn't sleepy, I'd try to do a witty wrap up.
4 comments:
I'm not sleepy, so I'll make a few comments:
I love Golden's work. I was a big fan of Marvel's "The Micronauts," comic, which I think is the best comic about toys, period. I also remember loving every story or pinup he did in Marvel Fanfare, which I thought was cool because every page was printed on cover stock.
I remain a big fan of painted superhero art, which explains why I love Alex Ross so much. But did you read any of those novels? Were they any good?
And I remember that Spider-Man calendar art. I also dug the X-Corner and the fact that Byrne worked Howard the Duck in there. You gotta love Omega, Shang-Chi, Valkyrie and Deathlok in there. And Lockjaw is bigger than Cap? Really?
I read most of the books when I first bought them, many years ago. I remember enjoying the slightly different feel that all prose gave the characters.
When I posted these on ebay, I included a random excerpt from the X-Men story--
"Wolverine grinned and adjusted the Stetson he always wore when out of uniform. This wasn't really his kind of place, but it was a change, a change from the Danger Room, from Xavier always snooping with his mental powers, from the garden-party atmosphere of the rest of Salem Center. He sauntered up to the bar, took an empty stool next to two encouragingly pretty girls, lit up a cigarette, and ordered a beer, While he was waiting, he shifted around a little to get a better look at the girls and to try to join their conversation."
Good?
I feel ya on the painted comics art. It's weird to me now that almost all of Marvel's covers are "painted" these days, because it used to be such a rare and wonderful thing to see your favorite superheroes "come to life" through a painted image.
Of course, we won't even get into how boring those lovingly rendered painted covers of today are.
Thanks for sharing the finds!
I love that Doc Savage was put in there (probably on the basis of his Marvel Team-up appearance with Spidey). And nice Cockrum Hulk/X-men cover.
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