Oh Danny Boy down in Australia has a great article up about the story behind the Superman/Spider-Man team up from the 1970's. With interviews via phone and email with Neal Adams, Mike Esposito, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman and Terry Austin, he seems to have teased out all the behind the scenes stuff. Its been gone over once before in Comic Book Artist, I believe, but a nice condensation of the making of the book.
What is interesting to me is how amazed he is about the idea that diverse hands (Adams redrawing Andru's Superman figures for instance) seem to have touched the pages. I doubt that there is a professional out there that would be surprised by the "collaborative" process why which a book like this is made. There are a ton of books that have been made by "Diverse Hands" or "Crusty Bunkers" that would turn up all sorts of interesting names in a panel by panel breakdown.
I personally love the story of the tier in Master of Kung Fu #39 that was inked by Steranko on a book that Dan Adkins get the published credit on. Adkins had received the pencils and but had just started the job when Steranko was visiting. Jim, apparently loved the tier with some asian gangsters gambling and grabbed a brush and started inking it. Given Paul Gulacy's style, it was a perfect fit.
How about The Claws of the Cat #4, with Alan Weiss and Jim Starlin each drawing different characters throughout the entire book (Alan The Cat and Jim the Man-Bull)? That was one weird book. I never figured out the credits until Alan told me the story years later.
Got a favorite Jam story? There are a million of them. Lets not even bring up Secret Wars. Really.
4 comments:
Well, not that it's a Jam story, but to me it's a little mystery...
Got a Dr. Strange Essentials a year or two ago, and towards the end of it Roy's writing credit disappears in favour of somebody I've never heard of (and sadly whose name I can't recall, but it sounds like it could be a pseudonym for sure), and suddenly the writing becomes, like, every bad thing about the Roy Thomas style, with none of the good included as ballast. Verging on incomprehensible. And I've been wondering since I saw it: was it Roy, only on very heavy doses of cough syrup? Or could it possibly really have been somebody new, that they tried out for a while but who didn't make it? Because I could see that as a fannish copy of Roy's writing.
My favourite - Ghost Rider #35. Credits read: Jim Starlin (story & art) and Steve Leialoha & Friends (finished art). From the opening first few pages - inked by Leialoha and Mike Netzer - the issue is an artistic feast for the eyes.
I'd love to know who inked what.
Great blog BTW - you worked with some giants indeed.
Oh, if you liked the idea of a Kiss comic, keep reading - I'm going to be writing a piece on the first Kiss comic...hopefully it'll come out fine.
I do remember talking to alan about that story. It sat in inventory for a while and alan and mike netzer and the guys had to beg jim to finish it. jim was apparently just so bored that he didn't want to finish drawing it.
i'll have to look it over some other time (I'm not sure that I still have a copy actually). The second half of the issue is more of Jim's breakdowns and the other guys getting to add a little more on the finishing side.
I do remember thinking that the page with the ghost rider telling death to back off and brandishing his hellfire was way more Leialoha!
I spoke to Netzer about it once. he told me that he was passing through, popped into see Leialoha, grabbed a couple of pages to ink and then went on his merry way.
I'm dead sure that pages 2 & 3 are Netzer.
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