SUNDAY FUNNIES WITH KERRY CALLEN!
By KERRY CALLEN
Here’s a recent commission. Sorta.
I was part of a Kickstarter comic that launched the end of last year. As part of the rewards, I offered a few sketches to be drawn inside the book. One of the requests was for Doc Savage, who I had never drawn. I did the sketch and have since mailed off the book to its owner. BUT, since I enjoyed it, I wondered how a color piece would look. I only had a bad photo of the sketch, so I digitally re-inked and colored it. (All by hand. No AI. I hate I have to say that.)
Here’s the photo of the book sketch:
The Kickstarter book is called Orphan Works, edited by Bill Anderson. There’s a lot of great talent who supplied stories they had started, but for whatever reason, never saw it printed. Until now!
It’s a fun book. Contributors will no doubt have a few copies at conventions this year.
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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.
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MORE
— CAPTAIN AMERICAT: You Have to Love Felines Who Fight Fascists. Click here.
— What’s Up With My Copy of THE AVENGERS #155?! Click here.
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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 Spit.
October 18, 2026
Read the novels. Shirt is hardly ever ripped.
October 18, 2026
The very issue of Street & Smith it was ripped. And torn again by issue #5. I think it’s a recognizable rendering.
October 18, 2026
The very “first”….
October 19, 2026
Can you find a citation in the books that describe his shirts as ripped? Not the covers.
October 25, 2026
I put my response outside of this thread. I feared WordPress would squeeze to unreadable size.
October 20, 2026
@Kerry –
Thanks so much for the great sketch in my copy of “Orphan Works!” I am really digging the color version, too.
Best,
October 25, 2026
@Llyod – “ Can you find a citation in the books that describe his shirts as ripped?”
I’m all about citing sources, so I’m with you there. And you raise an interesting question, even if indirectly: How different was the prose from the cover art used to sell the issue? There could be some interesting examples here if we can research enough of them. (Rules, you know.)
The issue for me is that I’m not a huge Doc Savage fan. I own only a sampling of the original stories, and an even smaller number of those are digital copies that I can scan.
Still, I was able to find a digital copy of the first story, The Man of Bronze. It does describe scenes in which Doc’s clothing gets torn or damaged. No, it doesn’t say, “His white shirt, sleeves rolled past the elbows, becomes torn.” But that’s only one story out of the 181 published during the magazine’s original 16-year run. My point is that not every visual detail has to be spelled out in the prose. A good writer guides the reader while leaving room for the imagination.
That said, I found a source that lends support to both your argument and mine. In Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines, Ron Goulart discusses how the original covers were produced. He notes that Walter Baumhofer, the artist behind the early Doc Savage covers, had not read the novels and generally worked from short synopses supplied by the art editors. Goulart doesn’t mention whether the writers contributed any of those details.
Here’s the citation:
Goulart, Ron. Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1972, 78.
I’d love to dig deeper. I’d probably start by reviewing material from TwoMorrows Publishing. They may have already covered this, or at least have some useful background.