Category: Comic Books

For Christmas, my best buddy Dennis Rogers gave me a very nifty book. Well, nifty for an old comic book fanboy such as myself. It’s Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe, by Roy Thomas. Roy was Stan’s right-hand man at Marvel, starting in the mid-60’s.

The book is a history of Marvel Comics, mostly from the 60’s, with short audio commentaries by Stan. This simple sort of multimedia could be done easily on the Internet, but it’s nice to have it in book form. And this way Stan and Roy can make some money, right? The audio player works well, and unlike similar players in the past, this one takes standard AAA batteries.

The first Marvel super hero I followed was Daredevil. I’ve recorded Stan’s commentary about the creation of the character and put it on the player below. My son Eric and I really enjoy having this book. Thanks, Denro!

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/FEB07/StanLee.mp3]

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/FEB07/jackkirby.flv 400 300]

Producer/writer Mark Evanier has announced the release of his upcoming book Kirby: King of Comics, a biography of comic book artist Jack Kirby. Jack created or co-created the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Captain America, and many other characters. The book should be out before the end of the year.

More good news is that Evanier will once again be writing, producing and voice directing a series of Garfield the Cat cartoons. And he’s losing lots of weight, thanks to successful gastric bypass surgery. The video above about Jack Kirby shows Evanier before the surgery. With so much going on in his life, Mark had a lot to lose by not losing!

I’ve previously highlighted the Spider-Man reprint comics that are found in certain Sunday newspapers. They disappeared from my paper for a few weeks, but they’ve been back for the past four weeks.

Almost all of the art in these stories, now over 40 years old, was done by Steve Ditko. I don’t know about you, but I consider these figure drawings to be compelling and unique. Superb representations of the human form in space and motion, accentuated and made abstract by the best super-hero costume ever designed.

I continue to appreciate the previously-mentioned reprints of classic Spider-Man comic books that are found in some Sunday papers. I hope that Smart Source will continue to distribute them.

Above are a couple of panels I scanned from this week’s installment. They’re good, but far from the best, examples of artist Steve Ditko’s uniquely compelling approach to drawing the human figure in motion.

It’s the crossover story YOU, the fan, demanded! Or maybe not. It’s Marvel Comics meets the CBS soap opera The Guiding Light!

A tip of the Spidey mask to Dennis F. Rogers for tipping me off to this monumental — or perhaps just mental — publishing/broadcasting event!

Last week I highlighted an article from The New York Times about a unique double-museum exhibit on cartooning and comics in New York and New Jersey.  And now Newsweek has an article about the same exhibit.  It mentions the now-defunct Museum of Cartoon Art in Port Chester, NY.  I visited the museum in September, 1978 for Marvel Comics Day.  Veteran pros John Romita, Marie Severin and John Buscema were very nice to meet.  Younger professionals, who were nevetheless older than myself, were not so nice.