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2010 SKETCHBOOK (60 pages, black/white/tone, print run 100 copies)

Editions

Monday, December 14, 2009

Love at first sight....

When I saw this Warlock cover I thought it was the most beautiful piece of comic book art out there:

Now that I am working on the fanzine I thought that might be fun to play with that composition a bit:

16 comments:

norm said...

Yeah...I had that comic pinned up on a bulletin board by my bed as a kid (along with Green Lantern/Green Arrow 76, Captain Marvel 32, and the DC Special reprint of the first couple issues of the Swamp Thing....the wraparound cover)

Anonymous said...

That issue came out maybe a year before I bought my first comic - at age five! You guys are old.

norm said...

Hey...I may be old...but, I never said I bought it off the stands....

Alex Sheikman said...

I won't deny being old...but I did not buy that issue until 1986-89 :)

Dan said...

I was seven, and I'm pretty sure I did get at least one Starlin issue of Warlock off the stands, though my memory of it is very fuzzy - it was very familiar when I got the special edition reprints in '82. (I also got Captain Marvel #29 - which I vividly remember reading on a train to NYC - and a Starlin issue of Conan off the stands back then - no longer have them, alas).

So, yeah, I guess - old. ;-)

Alex Sheikman said...

Dan,

That Conan issue, that is actually a reprint of a black and white Conan story that was originally printed in Savage Tales #5...I know because that is what I am writing my fanzine article about (the less known 70 black and white Jim Starlin stories: Star*Reach#1, Savage Tales #5, and Hulk Magazine).

Anonymous said...

Although my interest in Starlin pretty much begins and ends with COSMIC ODYSSEY, I think it's the be-all and end-all of mythic superhero epics, at once concise and encompassing, making the others that have come before and after it, such as Secret Wars and Final Crisis, messy and unfulfilling.

And forgive me for forgetting you can buy back issues. It's been a long time since I've done so, but I also had many a back issue hanging on my wall also, once upon a time.

Dan said...

Alex, I assume that Savage Tales was what I had (ie, I didn't know it was reprinted as a regular - presumably color? - comic). All this came back to me a few months back when I bought a trade paperback reprint of Savage Tales that included the Starlin story. When I flipped to the first page of it, I suddenly remembered quite a number of the panels on the following pages. They'd really mesmerized me as a kid. I had the same experience when I picked up the MMW Captain Marvel and got to issue #29.

Leif, I remember liking Cosmic Odyssey - I'll have to re-read, and see how it compares to the other "all-encompassing" Starlin stuff (Infinity [whatever]), most of which didn't really impress me... in most cases I thought the scope was too large, and the art not very captivating. Mignola was great on Cosmic Odyssey, though.

Dan said...

Sorry, it wasn't Savage Tales (that was Kazar, wasn't it?), it was Savage Sword of Conan.

Dan said...

Whoops - I googled up Savage Tales #5, the cover of which looks familar. The B&W reprint I bought recently is in Savage Sword of Conan vol 1, which includes stuff from ST 1-5 and SS 1-10. Does ST#5 happen to include an Adams Conan story featuring a giant slug? I think I remember that from the same train ride in the early 70s. I'm guessing my mother picked up a bunch of comics to buy several hours of my good behavior. ;-)

Dan said...

Never mind, it was Conan #37. I should google before I comment, sorry!

Alex Sheikman said...

Dan

I think every other Conan story featured a giant slug (and I say this in a loving manner), but the only two I know that were drawn by Adams were #37 and #116.

And just for the record, the first Conan comic I bought off the stands was...#120

norm said...

I'm trying to remember the first comic I bought on the stands.
In the early 70's I bought Ritchie Ritch and other Harvey comics first...also a Scrooge McDuck reprint where he goes to Tra La La....then I was given a Magnus Robot Fighter (where he fought a weather rob)but I don't know if that one was new.
Then I bought some treasury sized Captain Marvel (big red cheese) comics.
I bought some DCs and Marvels early on....Fantastic Four 165, Spiderman 150.....and for DC I bought "Prez" and "The Freedom Fighters"....I'm not sure which issues...
I wish I knew the first comic I bought....but I can't really figure it out.

norm said...

There was also the Funky Phantom #7....
Looks like 73 or maybe a little bit earlier is when I started buying comics.
Does anyone else remember their first comic book?

Jack Keefer said...

The first comic that I bought would have been a DC war comic, probably Blitzkrieg #1 with a Kubert cover and Ric Estrada art.

A little later I got into b&w magazines; Planet of the Apes being my absolute favorite.

It wasn't until "Planet" was canceled and I was searching for my next fix that I discovered Jack Kirby and that just blew me away.

Dan said...

No, it was #37 - googling yesterday I found a blogspot blog with tons of old Conan CBR files, and recognized the slug. ;-)

I don't remember my first comic (bought or read), either - my mother used to buy them for me (she taught me to read with Asterix and Tintin books, I think) when I was 4 or 5, I'm not sure when I started buying them on my own. The next town over (Cambridge, MA) is the home of New England's oldest comic shop (The Million Year Picnic, named for the last chapter of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles), which has been around since '72 or so. Doubt I made it over there on my own before '78, though.