Category: Comic Books

The Devil’s Details

It’s been 60 years — sixty! — since I hooked onto my first favorite Marvel Comics character, Daredevil, in issue #19. I continue to shake my head in amazement at the mass popularity of what, once I got into my teen years, other boys made fun of me for liking. Today’s Daredevil is an undeniably grittier version than the one I first enjoyed.

A few months after Daredevil #19, this one-shot comic book was published, reprinting Daredevil #1. Ostensibly, the book was to promote the upcoming Marvel Super-Heroes syndicated cartoon series but, curiously, Daredevil wasn’t one of the cartoons.

I read this favorite comic book many times over. Other times I just studied the drawings. The one disappointment was the poor reproduction quality of Bill Everett’s art.

Everett drew the issue while working full-time at Eaton Paper Company in Pittsfield, MA. He missed more than one deadline getting this job done. Some of the inking in the later pages of the story was reportedly completed by Steve Ditko.

It’s obvious in Marvel Super-Heroes #1, that a lot was lost in the photostats. Here are eight examples of the finely detailed original art for Daredevil #1.

After the Daredevil debacle concluded in late 1963, Everett continued working at Eaton but in 1965, the house of cards collapsed again. “He was fired from Eaton,” says [Everett’s daughter] Wendy. “He was such an acute alcoholic at this point, and had such difficulty with authority figures, that he couldn’t hold a job.”*
— ‘Fire & Water: Bill Everett and the Birth of Marvel Comics’, by Blake Bell, Fantagraphics, 2010

Everett joined AA, got sober, and was welcomed back to Marvel. He ended his career producing a wonderful series of Sub-Mariner comics, before dying from heart disease at age 55. While working on this post, I’ve been looking at both the book cited above and this new volume of Everett’s work from his Fifties peak.

* Wally Wood developed similar trouble with alcohol and authority figures.

Panel Discussion

This stat of an un-inked comic book panel is from a 5-page Inhumans backup story, in a 1967 issue of Thor that I remember very well.

Note Jack Kirby’s description for Stan Lee to expand upon when writing the dialogue

It’s an example of why I consider Jack Kirby to be the all-time greatest comic book artist. Original art dimensions would soon downsize to 10″x15″, but this panel was drawn 12″ wide, giving Kirby extra space to convey a sense of depth and solidity in the objects and surfaces.

Joe Sinnott applied his impeccably clean and precise inking to the story. Unfortunately, the coloring is much too bright and flat in this clipping from a digital comic.

‘The Reason Why!’ Thor #147, page 3, panel 3

SuperSonic

Bryan Cranston, Jane Fonda, Joaquin Phoenix and more than 1,000 other Hollywood professionals released an open letter Monday vehemently opposing Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/media/hollywood-letter-paramount-warner-bros-merger-rcna331499

There’s already a connection between Paramount and Warners, in the form of these plushies I spotted at CVS.

Supermen Old and New

An interesting pair of clues on today’s J! First, about an old time radio serial …

… then about a very up-to-date streaming TV series.

As Ken said, tomorrow The Boys returns on Amazon Prime. Today, there is a new episode of Daredevil: Born Again on Disney. Thursday, The Pitt team of superheroes will work their everyday miracles on HBO Max.