THE TREMENDOUS ARTWORK OF LEGENDARY DON NEWTON !!!

 Don Newton was a great comic book artist who's most notable works included The Phantom, Detective Comics and New Gods. He was a big fan of Batman, as reflective of his work and an even more of a Captain Marvel fan which he got to work on as well.

Don did a comic book strip in the fanzines called The Savage Earth for about three years. Through this he was able to get onto Charlton Comics and work on The Phantom. My favorite cover was to the last issue of the series.

From there, Don went to work for Marvel working on some of their magazines. His cover for the Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Annual #1 was awesome, a grabber.

DC Special #28 was the first DC comic book Don worked on, featuring Aquaman, inked by legendary Dan Adkins. He co-created Star Hunters while he worked on New Gods. It was after that when he was able to work on Captain Marvel for about five years.

From there, he went on to Batman #305. He and Denny O'Neil co-created Maxie Zeus in Detective Comics #483 and produced a story in Detective Comics #485 killing off Batwoman by the League of Assassins.

Don Newton went back to Marvel Comics and worked on The Avengers in order to draw Captain America.

Don went back to DC Comics and drew Green Lantern and the first appearance of Jason Todd in Batman #357. Infinity Inc #13 turned out to be his last work. It was during this time he suffered a heart attack and was taken from us too soon, at the age of 48. Recently, DC came out with the Trade Paperback edition of Tales of the Batman: Don Newton. It was a pleasure to come across this since I missed the Hardcover edition from 2011.

DonNewton.com features is a great source on the art of Don Newton.

Thank you for your time and be sure to look up this fabulous comic book artist.

 

AWESOME COMIC BOOK ARTIST DAZZLIN' DON HECK !!!

I've long admired Don Heck for all the work he's done on some of my favorite comic books.

He was the artist on The Avengers #27, when I picked it off the rack for the first time. We were in the middle of their battle with Attuma. The cover was dazzling to me, as it should be since it was Don Heck. He said he always loved to pencil and ink his own work.

He designed Iron Man back in the early Tales of Suspense days as well as the artwork for a number of issues.  He's the artist I'll always associate Iron Man with, next to the classic Gene Colan issues.

He also drew my favorite Avengers' Annual Comic, Giant-Sized Avengers #1. It was done in chapter format like a novel for the feature length story. An ensemble of Avengers versus an ensemble of villains.

You always waited for the summer when Marvel Comics came out with their Annuals. Fantastic Four versus Psycho Man, Sgt. Fury going to Vietnam, Spider-Man versus the Human Torch. Then there were the special features and pin-ups.

Those were the days.

Low and behold, then he was there in one of my first Gold Key Comics, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #3, giving it a very dynamic feel. Unfortunately, it was the only issue he worked on. His Admiral Nelson looked great. It was an original story in the flavor of the television series. There were special features in the Gold Key Comics about the show.

Another TV Tie-In was Man From U.N.C.L.E. #1 through #3. He was awesome here as well, the action leaped off the page.

For DC, Don drew Wonder Woman and Steel, the Indestructible Man. He was the artist on Wonder Woman #199 which sported a lovely Jeff Jones cover and feature. Unfortunately, I never saw him do a Wonder Woman cover. Steel was a throwback to Fighting American, only indestructible. It was DC's only WWII superhero, a fun series and pure Don Heck beauty.

Lastly, Don was one of the many artists on the X-Men. I enjoyed the cover for X-Men #39 that he drew. He also did layouts for Werner Roth on #54 & #55 which had early Barry Smith covers and even Barry Smith artwork in #54. X-Men #49 he worked on even had my man Jim Steranko doing the stunning cover.

I hope you have the fond memories I have associated with Don Heck.

Live Large!

JIM STERANKO IS THE MAN !!!

Jim Steranko is my all-time favorite comic book artist.
Why? do you say.

One of his first works in comics was designing characters for Harvey Comics. He designed the character and hand (and first issue cover from what I understand) for one of my favorites when I was growing up, Spyman.

 

He became classic for his work on Nick Fury. Here's one of my favorite covers he did (for Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.)

He also came out with the famous Chandler graphic novel. It was printed in digest form as Fiction Illustrated, produced by Byron Preiss. I've always enjoyed the convenient format of the digest and his is one of my favorites. It was also published, although harder to find, in a larger, familiar graphic novel size. Chandler was the title used on that edition.

I just had to have the print he came out in remembrance of 9/11. It was a stunning Captain America piece available unsigned and signed. I sprung for the signed copy. I was fortunate to see the original painted used for the print. My wife saw it also, and loved it as much as I did.

At that time, I was at the only signing I've been to with Steranko. My wife and I were in line, Paul Gulacy (who I wasn't familiar with this face) was behind the table with Steranko. There was a young man in front of us with nothing in his hands to have signed, which we thought odd. But when he got to the table, he introduced himself to Steranko as Jim Steranko as well. He was his nephew and showed off his driver's license to prove it. It was so cool to see. They had a great moment together.

A few years later, at a Paul Gulacy signing, I was up the the front of the line when I heard him talking about that same story, from his perspective at the other side of the table. Wow, it truly is a small world.

I remember a time when Steranko had to sneak in a piece at the last minute to avoid editing. That was the case for the pop look of his story for Our Love Story #5.

It was an honor to have this book signed by Steranko, since no one had at that point.

Here's a recent photo of both Paul Gulacy (Left) and Jim Steranko (Right) for a Comic Con in Houston, along with historian J. David Spurlock (in the Middle.)

Have a great day and thanks for dropping by!!!

One of The Prisoner Comics That Was Not to Appear !!! Part 3 !!!

The adventure continues.

So without further ado, here the conclusion of the first issue of The Prisoner from Steve Englehart and Gil Kane. Enjoy!!!

 

Before I leave you for the day, here's a nice piece of art of The Prisoner and his KAR120C. I'm a big fan of Mike Grell and hadn't seen his piece before. 

I trust you enjoy it as much as I do.