I did not discover Michael Golden's art until late, but once I did my collector instinct kicked in and I started tracking down everything he ever did. This was all before internet, so my search involved reading through the comics price guide (he already had an entry for himself), talking to the comic shop owners, going through the credits of all the back issues...
So back in the day I found some early Golden work that he did for DC: a couple of issues of "House of Mystery", "Batman Family" issues (wonderful 20-24 page Batman stories inked by Joseph Rubenstein and Craig Russell), a story in "Ghosts", a couple of "Batman" issues (one inked by Golden himself), his issues of Mister Miracle (inked by Russ Heath!), and his 2 issue "Detective Comics" story featuring Man-Bat and Demon . The issues were in terrible shape, so I ripped out his pages and saved them in a binder. I still have that binder and look through it once in a while. Simply gorgeous work.
Last week I stumbled on a "new" Golden story: House of Secrets #151 (1978). It's a 6 page story (title page plus 5 pages of panel to panel work) and it is amazing to see how well developed Golden's style already was...within his first few jobs! He is like Athena, who has sprung from Zeus' head already mature upon her birth!
The title page:
This is the scan of the original black/white line art from that title page that I found on line:
6 comments:
Thankfully your "collector instinct", like mine, leans toward collecting the work of artists rather than characters.
Although I did go through a brief Wolverine buying obsession in my teens that introduced me to Dave Sim's CEREBUS by way of a Wolveroach cover!
I discovered Michael Golden by tracking down the main influence of Arthur Adams, my favorite comic artist of that time.
Unlike you, I've pared down my collection to the best of the best of the artists who's work I admire.
For Golden that would be MARVEL FANFARE #47, GI JOE YEARBOOK #2, the collected first six issues of THE NAM, and most recently BIRDS OF PRAY #66.
Oh yeah, and the MODERN MASTERS volume devoted to him, which reprints enough of his cover work to suit me just fine.
I would like to add to your list of Golden favorites: Micronauts #1, Avenger Annual #10, Marvel Fanfare 1 & 2, Spartan mini series from Image, and some of his early Batman stories.
I found an interesting blog called "Diversions of a Groovy Kind" (actually Dan sent me a link when we were talking about Chaykin's work...thanks Dan) and there is a lot of cool stuff on it including some of the early Batman stories that I mentioned. Here is the link to one of the stories:
http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2009/11/mining-for-golden-monstrosity-chase.html
I was going to mention that Avengers annual too.
And Doctor Strange 55
Oh...and thanks, Alex...for the French hardcover of the Golden Dr. Strange book.
It's one of my favorites.
Oh yeah...my first time in Paris...I bought that from a book seller on the bank of Seine...I think it was raining and I ran to the hotel with a bunch of books under my coat :)
I've got one Golden comic I really like a lot, an old issue of Star Wars that seems to have been at least partially inspired by Fernandez's Zora and the Hibernauts.
Following artists is the way to go. The only characters I (regretfully - I can't seem to help it) semi-follow are some of Starlin's. And 80% of the treatments just annoy or disappoint me.
And yeah, I have way too many comic sites in my RSS reader...
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