Where the Time Goes...

The time goes down a manhole and into the swamp.

It collects into the form of a thing that used to be a man.

It is now just a Man-Thing full of empty thoughts and merely hints of memories.

This Man-Thing wanders the Earth without direction or purpose, alone.

(Silly isn't it?)

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 29

(Dracula gets inked)

Compared to the bombastic pencils and mind-blowing anatomy of Jack Kirby and the structured layouts and weirdo designs of Steve Ditko, Gene Colan always seemed to take the bronze medal in the Marvel Bullpen in the Mid-‘60s.  But think about that for a minute... the guy was the third banana in a club that features not only the greatest comics artist of all time, but one of the other top artists to ever draw a tights wearing true-believer!

Gene had chops and could drive an inker mad with all of the shades he could lay down with those pencils.  His work wasn’t perfect for the super-hero, but the fluidity of his panel layout and the sense of movement he gave his figures gave his work both a sense of action and flow that worked quite well.

Gene’s real talent was in drama and lighting.  Not even King Kirby could use shadows to such effect.  Gene would add mood to scenes that would suffer without it under the pencil of another artist.  Emotive faces filled his panels and played on his stage like great Shakespearean actors.

All of this he put to perfect use when he took on TOMB OF DRACULA, a book he had to lobby heavily to Stan Lee to get.  Stan had tapped Bill Everett for the book after having told Gene he could do it and Gene quickly whipped up a sample page to convince Stan to choose differently.

Gene based his Dracula not on Bela Lugosi, nor Christopher Lee, but Jack Palance, who had never played the role (but soon would, a year after TOD started publication)!  One look at the sample and Stan gave Colan the book--did his Dracula mesmerize the Editor into doing Gene’s bidding?

Certainly it did.

Soon the shadows and mist crept in, the atmosphere of suspense and horror, the thrill of drama and fear lurked in every corner...soon,

Count Dracula stalked the night!

And it wasn’t long before a young writer would join this veteran artist on the series--Marv Wolfman won the job after a few different writers either passed on the job or were kicked off of it.  In his intent to write the series, Wolfman went back and reread the original novel by Stoker and that is the sole influence on his version of the character.  He had never seen a vampire or Dracula film and wasn’t a fan of them.

It’s a good thing for comics and horror in particular that Wolfman took the work of Stoker to heart and wrote the book with that in mind.  The series went on to be the longest-running comic book with the villain as the title character.  Seventy issues plus the odd special and what-not--unheard of in it’s time and impossible in the current comic market.

But then, that's Dracula for you... he'll grab ya!

Sources (besides my own opinion and experience reading these fine comics) cited:

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/columns/676/the-burning-cross-tomb-of-dracula/ 

http://talkingcomicbooks.com/2012/11/marvels-tomb-of-dracula-and-the-artistry-of-marv-wolfman-gene-colan/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tomb_of_Dracula

http://www.panelology.info/TombOfDracula.html

http://www.panelology.info/IntoTheTombOfDracula.html

TONGUE IN CHEEK & STIFF UPPER LIP

Batroc the Leaper gets paid--fun to draw and, I'd wager, even more fun to write.

Judge Dredd comes in at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to characters--deadly earnest and without even an iota of a sense of humor.

SHELLHEAD versus HORN-HEAD

So, a few blogs back I mentioned that my next post would be all about the finale of Outcast Studios' Battle Royale which would pit Daredevil against Iron Man for all the marbles.

And I didn't really follow up as planned... for which, I apologize.  In truth, by the time I made it back here to blog about my new art, I'd forgotten that I hadn't told the final tale of the exhausting matter.  It took a lot out of me and taught me a good deal about my pros and cons as an artist and competitor.  All good things.

But it was exhausting.

So here was my final piece in the competition against my very worthy opponent ThirdRailDesigns:

(Click to view in Kirby-vision)

Note how I did my damnedest to give DD a fair shake in this battle by bringing out the old gold armor of Tony Stark's early days of crime-fighting.
And that's the setting I chose, some dark side-street in Hell's Kitchen.
Home field advantage for horn head!

It didn't work, though and the competition walked away with the belt and trophy (we get both in the Outcast Tourneys).

Anyway, here are some of the endless sketches and character layouts I worked on in my quest for the final piece above... some turned out nicely, some... very meh.
As always, click on it and it will grow, just like a Chia-Pet:

 

 

 

 

And there you have it--just a sample of the many ways I tried to work out my final piece and I still don't think I took enough time to adjust it correctly... or maybe I over-corrected.  Hard to say in these things.

Next time on 'THE GOODS':

I hope to come back and post more very shortly... on to other things...

SPIDEY, GANDALF, CLAYFACE, KRAMPUS, TOO!

This weeks collections of drawings and sketches of which there are four...

click on any of these and view super-sized...

(Clayface of Batman: The Animated Series)

(The Christmas Krampus--he who handles the naughty children, quite severely I'm told.)

(Gandalf the Grey unleashes one of his "fireworks".)

(That thar Spider-fella swinging around town!)

MONSTER-MONTH: COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 15)

(Click to Frankensize)

“I am HIM… not born of man and woman!  I was created to be invincible!

And those who made me… made me well!”

--Adam Strange/HIM  from THOR #166

(Click to Frankensize)

Tonight we look to the wonderful world of funnybooks for a peek at a different kind of Frankenstein Monster.  This one created by evil scientists for an evil purpose.  This one who destroys his creators and seeks a companion because he is alone in the universe.

I’m speaking of HIM, a creation of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, a character for whom it feels a larger purpose was intended.  After all, it is rare that a character appears in one massive story arc in the world’s greatest comic magazine and soon is the feature of the mighty THOR shortly thereafter.  Who knows what larger story might have unfolded at the hands of his creators...

(Click to Frankensize)

The being who later became known as Adam Warlock was the creation of four geneticists who called themselves the Enclave.  “HIM” as Adam Warlock was known then, was the prototype for a perfect human life form grown from artificial genetic material, which the Enclave intended to mass produce to form an invincible army to conquer the world.

(Click to Frankensize)

These scientists miscalculated the strength of HIM, and after leaving his womblike cocoon, their prototype destroyed the Enclave and their island base which was known as the Beehive.  He then harnessed his cosmic power and left earth to find his own destiny in space.

(Click to Frankensize)

There you have it, a FRANKENSTEIN tale told in just a few issues of the FANTASTIC FOUR #66 and 67.  Overreaching scientists have their own creation turn against them, thus the morality play is played.  But waitaminute, where’s the part where this creation seeks out a mate to fulfill his life?  Ah, that’s where Stan and Jack bring back HIM again, this time in the pages of THOR #165-166!

A Watcher, having accidentally caused HIM to spin another protective cocoon, decides to return him to his point of origin so as to have interfered with his life as much as leaving him floating out in space would.  The cocoon eventually opened as Thor, Sif and Balder were investingating the disturbing power being unleashed.

(Click to Frankensize)

Seeing Sif and feeling a deep well of loneliness, HIM seized her as his mate and quickly whipped up a portal to another world.  Now this caused Thor to completely lose his mind and be overtaken by “The Warrior Madness”.  The god rages for five pages straight before deciding to simply follow them by creating his own portal with Mjolnir.

(Click to Frankensize)

Once they reach HIM and Sif, she tries to comfort Thor by explaining that he has no sense of things, that he is naive.  Thor will have none of it and prepares to throw down on the cosmic creation like a mad god will tend to do when his woman has been taken (Liam Neeson ain’t alone in metting out that kind of pain.).

(Click to Frankensize)

The fickle finger of fate, or, more precisely, Haag interferes by literally reaching through a portal to try and kidnap Balder as a favor for her queen, Karnilla.  Thor, as enraged as possible; because what the heck is it, grab a god week in the Marvel Universe, fights off Haag’s attack and saves Balder.  Then does he turn back to HIM and Sif only to find empty space as the golden godling has fled again, with his girlfriend.

(Click to REVENGE!)

So, Thor, in full immortal meltdown, teleports again to where they have travelled.   And thus the beatdown begins.  He rages and rages and hammers HIM so much that he eventually spins another cocoon and flees into the vastness of space.  Thor, now at the end of his berzerker rage calms down enough to relax.

(Click to Frankensize)

So, this is really where the story of Kirby and Lee’s HIM ends as it is much later before his story is picked up again and it is under the direction of another writer, another editor, another artist and the character, by this point has taken on another name:

Adam Warlock.  

And Roy Thomas and Gil Kane eventually ran with the story of Christ as a super hero… a different kind of story than the one as it began here.  Though, who knows--it seems as though Kirby imbued HIM with many of the qualities he put into the Silver Surfer.  The Surfer being a character Kirby had wanted to continue to develop, but couldn’t.  So, mayhap, he created HIM for this very purpose.

It was shortly after this that Kirby quit with the major character creations for Marvel--the Doctor Frankenstein who had served the House of Ideas so well for so long was off to work his strange magics and sciences creating life for a different company.

And other, new gods and monsters were born there.

Vas?