TOP 13 LISTS | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Apr19

PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite Mainstream Ads by Comic Book Artists

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Apr 19, 2024

PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite Mainstream Ads by Comic Book Artists

Gil Kane for Buitoni? Neal Adams for the Air Force? Gene Colan for the telephone company? Dig these and more… — UPDATED 4/19/24: Diggin’ in the vault time — when we go deep into the recesses of the shadowy subterranean 13th Dimension headquarters for great columns that deserve another look. Just for kicks! This one first ran in April 2021. Right on! — Dan — Hey, folks! The celebrated Mr. K’s new book is now available at Amazon — Son of the Unpublished Comic Book Scripts of Paul Kupperberg, collecting scripts for Green Lantern, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Elongated Man and more. Click here to order; it’s $16. Or you can get a signed and personalized copy directly from Paul via PayPal.Me/PaulKupperberg for $19 US or $30 Canadian. Groovy. — Dan — By PAUL KUPPERBERG It’s well known that comic book artists have long lent their talents to the advertising trade; in the 1940s, Captain Marvel artist C.C. Beck created the Captain Marvelish clone, Captain Tootise to sell Tootise Rolls and Tootsie Pops in comic books and in the 1960s, Golden Age Green Lantern co-creator Martin Nodell famously (post-comic book career) co-created an even more recognizable and tastier pop culture figure, Poppin’ Fresh, aka the Pillsbury Doughboy. (Tee-hee!) The source for many of the early comic-book style ads was the advertising agency Johnstone & Cushing under the supervision of art director (and often copywriter) Al Stenzel. Bob LeRose, who would later become one of DC Comics’ top colorists and head of cover production, began his career as a production artist at J&C, which I wrote about in a 1978 DC Profile of Bob: “After finishing school (…) Bob landed a position as Assistant Production Manager at Johnstone & Cushing, an advertising agency specializing in comic ads. Bob’s immediate superior at the agency was Al Stenzel, the man in charge of producing ads in the form of comics… (with such) legendary comics folk as Lou Fine, Leonard Starr, and Creig Flessel. “It was in 1960 that Al Stenzel left Johnstone & Cushing to set up his own studio, taking Bob along as his right-hand man. Working alongside the man he calls ‘the Toscanini of comics’ taught Bob virtually everything he knows about the production and business of comics. The following year, Stenzel’s studio began producing the comics section for Boys’...

Apr16

PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite WORLD OF KRYPTON Miniseries Moments — RANKED

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Apr 16, 2024

PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite WORLD OF KRYPTON Miniseries Moments — RANKED

The celebrated Mr. K tells tales of Superman’s homeworld — and how comics’ first miniseries came to be… — UPDATED 4/16/24: World of Krypton — comics’ first miniseries — debuted 45 years ago this month, on April 12, 1979! Perfect time to “reprint” this December 2021 piece by our pal Paul Kupperberg, who wrote the three-parter. Dig it. — Dan — DC this week began publishing a new World of Krypton miniseries and it also happens to the anniversary of 1978’s Superman: The Movie. That coincidence led columnist Paul Kupperberg to look back at the original World of Krypton miniseries — which was comics’ first such event. Dig it. — By PAUL KUPPERBERG I don’t remember when I first learned the name of the planet from which Superman “came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men,” but in the years that followed I would become quite well versed in the history of the doomed planet and the parents he left behind. For a brief time, I was sort of the world’s official biographer. The oft-told story: Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie made its US premiere 43 years ago this week (italics mine, because it’s impossible to believe it’s been 43 years since I breathlessly watched the Man of Steel flash across the big screen on opening day Dec. 15, 1978, in Chicago’s Esquire Theater. The film made its national premiere Dec. 10 in Washington). It was the first serious, big budget attempt at making a comic-book superhero film, and it was a rousing success. DC Comics was naturally anxious for its comics and licensing programs to cash in on that success, but there was a hitch. Mario Puzo, bestselling author of The Godfather, had written the first and, as it turned out, unusable draft of the screenplay, causing the producers to turn to others (Robert Benton and David and Leslie Newman) to come up with a workable script. I’m just a simple country comic-book writer so I don’t know from Hollywood contracts and WGA rules, but the upshot of that was Mario suing the producers over credit and probably money. Which rendered comic book and prose adaptations of any of the screenplays out of bounds until the legal dispute was settled. (Dan adds: Puzo is also believed to have had an onerous clause in...

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