Superman and Green Lantern

I was thrilled when Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” hit Musicradio 77 WABC in July 1966. “Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got a-nothin’ on me.”

Superman’s main artist at that time was Curt Swan.

Curt Swan pencil drawing inked by George Klein
Superman #188, July 1966

Gil Kane was Green Lantern’s artist.

Gil Kane, pencil and ink
Pinup from Green Lantern #46, July 1966

Curt Swan and Gil Kane were my two favorite DC comic book artists. What I didn’t know was that Curt Swan was a member of the Silvermine Golf Club. Our backyard literally bordered the golf course. My school bus stop in the 7th and 8th grade was in front of the clubhouse. Gil Kane lived along the route of my 2-mile bike ride to a shopping center where I bought most of my comic books.

What if I had known about this when my family was preparing to move to Massachusetts, soon after my 13th birthday? Hoo boy, there would have been trouble!

An Animated Radio Guy

In the Sixties, Filmation was one of the cartoon studios that began competing with Hanna-Barbera for Saturday morning TV network time. Comic book artist Curt Swan is mentioned in this featurette, and I’ll say more about him in my next post.

Filmation later produced a well-regarded Star Trek TV cartoon that featured writing worthy of the original series.

As stated in the featurette, Filmation co-founder Norm Prescott was originally a radio announcer. In the 50’s he had a stint here in Boston on WBZ-AM 1030, as heard in this aircheck.

Somebody who was interested in both radio and cartoons? Sorry, can’t relate. 😉

TV Writing

Monday night’s Better Call Saul was quite a wild ride. Some of the situations and plot devices in the series are a bit contrived, as they were in Breaking Bad, but every character is brought to note-perfect life by the actors. Which was not the case with Breaking Bad. At least it wasn’t for me.

Not Guthrie, Not Joplin

Cartoonist Jimmy Johnson has had some of the same sorts of struggles with his WordPress installation that I did. He’s working on a new and improved Arlo & Janis.com, and for now I have taken the site off my Links section.

Until Jimmy has the site back online, I recommend reading the origin story for his comic strip’s namesake characters. Click the pic to get started on the series.

Oh, Bama!

1966 Star Trek promotional painting by James Bama

A friend of James Bama reports that the great illustrative painter has passed away, the day before his 96th birthday. Often working from photographs, Bama had a more realistic style than his contemporary, Frank Frazetta. He’s best remembered by comic book fans for his dynamic Doc Savage paintings, when the pulp magazine stories were reprinted as paperbacks, beginning in the 60’s.

Doc Savage painting by James Bama