Jack Kirby takes over one issue for John Buscema, and he immediately has Silver Surfer fighting a giant dog.
Timeless Marvel Universe maelstroms that.
From: Essential Silver Surfer, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials) (v. 1)
By: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Category: comics
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Overrated or underrated – independently published black and white comics?
UNDERRATED.
From: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Color Classics: Micro Series – Leonardo
By: Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird
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Two horizontal panels, two vertical panels. In case you’re keeping track.
Long before Disney owned Marvel Comics and Star Wars, Marvel Comics Group held the publishing rights to Star Wars comics.
Then shit got weird – for Han Solo in particular.
In this expanded universe Han meets a space rabbit named Jaxxon, wields a light sabre, teams up with a man dressed up in a Chewbacca Halloween costume, and rescues a bald librarian Jedi wannabe named Don-Wan from an intergalactic dinosaur.
Like we said. Shit got weird.
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Plan B
It’s wild.
Savage Dragon was an idea from Erik Larsen’s youth that grew with him into adulthood.
Larsen’s Dragon cracked apart the general superhero story in two ways. (I’m sure there’s more than 2, but for now…)
Savage Dragon is a police officer. The typical super hero trope is a masked gymnast turned vigilante.
Chicago is Dragon’s home. Chicago isn’t as hipster cool as say, Des Moines, Iowa. But it also isn’t New York City, Metropolis, Gotham, Queens or any other NY alias that every other superhero pays crazy rent to live in.
From: This Savage World (Savage Dragon, Vol. 15)
By Eric Larsen
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Dream state
The late Joe Kubert was one of the finest comic book artists of his generation. He was also an underrated paleo-artist.
TOR – A Prehistoric Odyssey unleashes Joe’s paleo-chops. The panels are filled to the brim with not only Dinosaurs, but Sabre-tooth tigers, giant squids, prehistoric alligators, and yeti as well.
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Collabo
There’s plenty of how-to guides for making comics out there. Still, I can’t think of one as comprehensive as Scott McCloud‘s Making Comics.
Though first published in 2006, Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels holds up. Even chapter 7, The Comics Professional, still shares sage advice to aspiring comic writers and artists alike.
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It’s been 6 years since Boxers and Saints was released, but it’s still an underrated set of graphic novels. Gene Luen Yang created an ambitious work, writing and drawing two separate graphic novels that tells both the Conservative Chinese and Christian/foreigner sides of the Boxer Rebellion.
Boxers and Saints acts as an excellent entry point for a time in history mostly unknown to non-Chinese Americans. Instead of picking up a doorstop tome on Chinese history, Gene Luen Yang shares the horrors and sadness of a story in a memorable form, leaving a kernel of curiosity for readers to explore further.
I’m only forty pages in and Gene Luen Yang isn’t bullshitting around. This is a brutal tale, and one that deserves more attention.
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The discipline is to wake up in the morning, not turn on the machines you know just um… make some coffee and sit down and just draw whatever comes to your mind
Paul Pope from: The Criterion Channel Studio Visits: Comic Artists on LONE WOLF AND CUB -
This Criterion Channel Studio Visits episode details the extensive influence Lone Wolf and Cub has had on comic creators.
Paul Pope shares how Lone Wolf and Cub brought the manga tradition of emphasizing character development over traditional three act plots.
Larry Hama explains how the fight scenes are depicted differently from their American counterparts. Lone Wolf and Cub uses cause and effect. A swing of the sword from character could be parried or missed by character B. This sequence would be reflected in the following panel.
Ronald Wimberly describes how mark making can communicate as its own language.
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Jeff Lemire doesn’t draw comic panels, he paints them.
This page is so true.
The smells, sights, and sounds of of being a hockey player, or basketball player, or footballer, or whichever sport you played, call out to you all your life.
From: The Collected Essex County
Artist: Jeff Lemire
Floodlights and Goalposts 