PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite Stories Illustrated by DAN SPIEGLE
A BIRTHDAY SALUTE: The respected artist was born 104 years ago, on Dec. 10, 1920…
A SUNDAY FUNNIES WITH KERRY CALLEN (early) birthday salute to STEVE DITKO… By KERRY CALLEN Tomorrow, November 2, is Steve Ditko’s birthday — he was born 99 years ago, in 1927. Not only did he create the distinctive look for the Amazing Spider-Man, but his eclectic art style provided visuals never seen before in comics. I’m a HUGE Ditko fan, so… My column this week features a guest artist, Bruce McCorkindale! Bruce is a master at drawing cover recreations. Sometimes his commissions are to create classic covers as is, and other times it’s to create covers that never were. Some of my very favorites are his “imaginary” covers featuring Spider-Man combined with some of the creatures Ditko created for Marvel’s Silver Age monster comics — as if Amazing Fantasy kept going after Spidey’s debut in 1962’s Issue #15. I love them! Since this particular series was inked on Bristol board, using only black ink, I asked Bruce if he would be OK with me digitally coloring some of these excellent recreations. Happily, he was good with it! Here are the four I’ve colored: Here’s Bruce’s original art, complete with references noted: For more, or to request a cover commission, Bruce’s work can be found on all the various social media sites. — Want more SUNDAY FUNNIES WITH KERRY CALLEN? Come back next week! Want a commission? Send an email to KerryCallenArt@gmail.com. You can also find other work at linktr.ee/kerrycallen. — MORE — THE JOKER’s Latest Dastardly McPlot! Click here. — What Does DOC SAVAGE Think About…? Click here. — KERRY CALLEN spent much of his career as an artist and art director, developing product for Hallmark, but has also dabbled in comics for many years. As a freelancer, he creates work for a range of needs, spanning from Mad Magazine to children illustrations. He has two graphic novels available on Amazon worldwide, Halo and Sprocket: The Definitive Collection, as well as Dirtnap: Mystic...
A Halloween edition of Fred Van Lente’s COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH! By FRED VAN LENTE When I was a kid in New Jersey in the late 1970s, I wore out my library card checking out the “Monster Press” books from Crestwood House, with their B-movie poster title fonts and pumpkin-orange spines. I honestly can’t say which I discovered first, the classic Universal and Hammer monster movies aired on Channel 11 WPIX’s Chiller Theater or the kid-friendly synopses of those movies in this slim book series, illustrated with chilling black and white stills and mostly written by Ian Thorne, a male pseudonym for scribe Julian May. The back cover of every book had King Kong throwing up his mighty paws below the list of spine-tingling titles: Godzilla! Mad Scientists! The Blob! Dracula! And my favorite: The Wolf Man. Sure, that image on the Crestwood cover is actually from 1935’s The Werewolf of London, but the book cemented my love for the tale of doomed lycanthropic failson Larry Talbot, indelibly portrayed by Babe Ruth-lookalike Lon Chaney, Jr. I bring up the Monster Press line of children’s books only to underscore the pure idiocy of the original 1954 Comics Code, which specifically prohibited “scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism.” Granted, this ban was instituted primarily to run Tales From the Crypt publisher William M. Gaines out of business, as the industry blamed him for inflaming public ire during his disastrous Senate testimony. But it had the actual effect of pointlessly kicking most movie monsters off the comics stands for the next 17 years under the dubious goal of protecting kids’ psyches. Finally, in 1971, the Comics Code was revised, and saner heads prevailed: “Vampires, ghouls and werewolves shall be permitted to be used when handled in the classic tradition such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high calibre literary works written by Edgar Allen Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle and other respected authors whose works are read in schools around the world,” sniffed the high-minded scolds in the Comics Magazine Association of America. That crack in the crypt door was enough for kids’ favorite monsters to come rushing back onto the comics racks, and Marvel led the way with their own Wolf Man, Werewolf by Night, and the public-domain Tomb of Dracula. In...
A BIRTHDAY SALUTE: The respected artist was born 104 years ago, on Dec. 10, 1920…
