tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post3236988625176478967..comments2023-11-05T01:52:21.835-08:00Comments on Comic Book Attic: Artful Alienation at 1950s Atlas: Bill Everett’s Forgotten GemsFunnybook Attichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16945602110000563133noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-71618375931485410432016-02-18T19:33:07.854-08:002016-02-18T19:33:07.854-08:00You guys fascinate me in that you truly analyze wh...You guys fascinate me in that you truly analyze whats going on. I enjoy the discussion. Keep it coming.Mike0831https://www.blogger.com/profile/01847560601851178303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-53097282386008633002013-08-20T03:01:14.863-07:002013-08-20T03:01:14.863-07:00Hiya Mike.
Utterly FANTASTIC site...gotta come bac...Hiya Mike.<br />Utterly FANTASTIC site...gotta come back to it later today...sure thing!!<br />Mike: l have a drawing l done in pencil and ink of a Make-Believe 1950's Atlas Horror Comic SPLASH page.l have a feeling that you might like to see it...are you on FB~? if so let me know send me a Buddy request or l could send you one..so's l can get it to you.<br />Bestest to you Mike. Paul.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09790995792830111913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-22742691005610336232013-01-31T19:25:27.575-08:002013-01-31T19:25:27.575-08:00Lovely article with even lovelier art! (I found th...Lovely article with even lovelier art! (I found this thanks to one of Blake Bell's Twitter posts.)<br /><br />Absolutely agree about Everett's abilities and under-appreciated greatness. I am fortunate enough to have owned a VENUS comic (before I had to sell it, unfortunately) and just drooled over the gorgeous art. I think Bill's best stuff was from that era, better than his mid-60s work on the Hulk and other superheroes. He was best with more aesthenic body types, and especially women.<br /><br />Two very minor corrections if I may:<br />1) There's a wee typo in the 2nd paragraph under "Cartoonist's Calamity": He was clearly inspired by its *admixture...* <br /><br />2) Regarding the borders on "The Totem"--I don't think they're freehand. They look to me like brilliant brush-ruling. This is done by leaning a ruler or other straightedge on its side at an angle, placing the ferrule of the brush against it and dragging it along to create the line (usually while twirling to maintain a point--in some ways tougher than freehanding). <br /><br />What it looks like Everett did was expertly vary the pressure while creating the line, giving it a wonderful thick-and-thin look that mimics the waves of water. Trust me, as someone who's been inking off and on for a few decades, it ain't easy, and another testament to Bill's skill--and creativity. Who else, especially back then, would take the time and effort for such a subtle bit of artistry? Not many!<br /><br />Love that story, btw. I hope to find a good reprint of it. I do enjoy the Atlas and other reprints and Marvel Essentials. While I understand the need and desire for complete artist monographs, the economic truth is the audience for title/character completists far outweighs those for individual artists. (I know Greg Theakston has been trying to reprint every Kirby story in chronological order and hasn't been profiting much if at all, despite the legions of Kirby fans.) But I really, REALLY love the actual-size reprints from IDW in its Artists Editions. Damn expensive, but worth it if you can afford it. Would love one for Everett!<br /><br />Thanks again,<br />Mike PascaleMike Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18266931967861188301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-43555509992369435582011-06-26T23:10:45.991-07:002011-06-26T23:10:45.991-07:00The theme of a horror artist or writer overcome by...The theme of a horror artist or writer overcome by his own creation occurs in a famous Hank Chapman story (drawn by Wayne Boring) as well. Later, Stan Lee told the story that Chapman stopped writing horror stories because they gave him bad dreams. This could have been Lee remembering the Boring story and interpreting it as something that really happened, but it could also have a germ of truth. This idea could have been around when Everett did his Venus sory shortly after.Ger Apeldoornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03633862833036214748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-18272759303246733832011-05-03T15:52:28.461-07:002011-05-03T15:52:28.461-07:00Paul wrote:
"Thank you all for your great co...Paul wrote:<br /><br />"Thank you all for your great comments. Doc V., it was your great article on Bill Everett's romance comics that inspired us to write the post above, exploring Everett's theme of alienation."<br /><br />Thanks Paul and I just updated my blog with another Everett piece. This time, ATLAS romance stories. <br /><br />http://timely-atlas-comics.blogspot.com/Doc V.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06815470072568462626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-60706119854699911552011-04-20T08:30:59.281-07:002011-04-20T08:30:59.281-07:00Marvel has made a couple of recent movers towards ...Marvel has made a couple of recent movers towards allowing outside publishers to package books Marvel apparently thinks won't appeal to the fans buying the "Masterworks" books. <br />As mentioned above an Everett Atlas horror collection, and a series of books from IDW which will present high quality reproductions of original art. <br />I don't see where Marvel has anything to lose by allowing this. If a publisher were to approach them with the idea of licensing a collection of Matt Fox stories, Marvel could allow that without any risk, and retain future rights in the event the book did well enough that Marvel decided they ought to explore similar collections.mr edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14502298398657797233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-62088639703572964122011-04-19T20:52:09.431-07:002011-04-19T20:52:09.431-07:00Fanta has indeed put out some great archival works...Fanta has indeed put out some great archival works. The two you mentioned are great, and that Atlas horror collection sounds very appealing. <br /><br />I've never read any of the Marvel Visionaries, actually, except that piss-poor reproduction of Steranko's work. That might have included all his work, which doesn't really amount to much, page count-wise. <br /><br />Anyways, yeah, those collections never appealed to me as a fan of the creators or even as a Marvel fan. Too scattershot, not really comprehensive in the slightest. I was just pointing them out as the closest thing to creator-specific collections that Marvel has really done. It would be nice to see them make a creator-focused omnibus, instead of run-specific. I would take one of those unwieldy 800-page monsters if it collected all of, in this case, Everett's work. They did an omnibus of Golden Age Marvel (Mystery) Comics, but the poor reproduction quality in the Golden Age Masterworks series has me wary.<br /><br />But talking about Marvel like that seems to be futile. I'll just quietly look forward to Amazing Mysteries, the Everett Archive I mentioned above. Here's hoping we see a second volume as well.touchofkielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14078284663295982812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-15994355933456741812011-04-19T12:51:51.437-07:002011-04-19T12:51:51.437-07:00Paul Tumey here.
Thank you all for your great co...Paul Tumey here. <br /><br />Thank you all for your great comments. Doc V., it was your great article on Bill Everett's romance comics that inspired us to write the post above, exploring Everett's theme of alienation. Forgive us for not including a link to your blog. I've corrected that oversight, and have put in a link to the article at the end of our post. Hopefully, it will direct a few new readers to what is, I think, one of the best blog postings on old comic book stories that I have seen.<br /><br />I wrote the sentence at the end of our article about there needing to some good-quality, annotated Bill Everett collections. Even though I wrote that, I'm sure my Comic Book Attic partner, Frank Young wholeheartedly agrees with that statement.<br /><br />I was very specific in that sentence because I am familiar with the "Marvel Visionaries" series.To put it mildly, that series sucks.<br /><br />First, the stories are printing on coated, glossy paper stock. This makes the art look terrible and the stories are hard to read. Second, as Mr. Ed notes above, the selection was very scattered and showed no informed discernment. Lastly, there were no notes. Any archival collection that aims to rescue forgotten artistic work from a long-ago era needs to have some informed notes and writing to help put the work in context and to support a full understanding and appreciation of it. <br /><br />To my mind, the books created by Greg Sadowski for Fantagraphics, especially "Supermen!" and "Four Color Fear" are model examples of how to do this right. I understand Sadowski is working on a volume of Atlas horror comics to be published by Fantagraphics that will no doubt include some fine examples of Bill Everett's work. I'm greatly looking forward to this book. I can only hope publishers pick up on this approach and discover that the failure of the creator-themed collections was not due to the concept, but rather the inept execution of it to date. <br /><br />Thanks again, everyone! ~Paul TumeyFunnybook Attichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16945602110000563133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-726192351645144172011-04-18T20:18:45.945-07:002011-04-18T20:18:45.945-07:00Perhaps the "problem" with the Marvel Vi...Perhaps the "problem" with the Marvel Visionaries" books was they used a scatter-shot approach?<br />In other words a scant collection of (common)random stories spanning a rather long period of time. <br />Fans do like an archived approach (I think). Fantagraphics, DC, and other publishers have success with making the cartoonist "The Star."mr edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14502298398657797233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-90553993237202892812011-04-18T20:11:21.190-07:002011-04-18T20:11:21.190-07:00I'm a big Everett fan, so this was a nice litt...I'm a big Everett fan, so this was a nice little article (saw it on today's TCJ blog). I recommend Blake Bell's biography/retrospective, and it should also be noted that Fantagraphics is doing an archival project of Everett's works. I'm not sure of the details, such as what exactly will be reprinted (I'm assuming it's non-Marvel), but I do know that the first volume will be out later this year, and it looks to be similar to their Steve Ditko archives. Bell also did a similar biography of Steve Ditko, so it's a nice little series, so to speak. <br /><br />I mean, it's pretty pointless to complain about Marvel's output these days - that kinda goes without saying. But it especially annoys/frustrates me that Everett's creation Namor is so underutilized. <br /><br />And Mr. Ed: agreed, Marvel Masterworks aren't really that great, as far as their reprint philosophy goes. I understand that a huge company with a huge backlog wants to get everything out there - it's good stuff for the Marvel fans, I think. But for fans of more specific creators and whatnot, it pales in comparison to all the other archival editions out there. A while back Marvel was publishing big hardcovers, called Marvel Visionaries, but now they seem to be focused on specific runs. I wish we could see a collection of Everett's work, not to mention a proper edition of Steranko's work. No such luck right now.<br /><br />Anyways, I enjoyed your post.touchofkielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14078284663295982812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-34031020132303887242011-04-18T17:32:58.431-07:002011-04-18T17:32:58.431-07:00Funnybook Attic wrote:
"There exist literall...Funnybook Attic wrote:<br /><br />"There exist literally dozens of such stories in Everett’s little-explored 1950’s comic book work."<br /><br />This is true. My next blog post (almost done) will present a complete look at "all" of Everett's Atlas romance stories. A previous post (the current one) covered the Timely romance tales and I think I made a decent case showing some of them were penciled by other artists.<br /><br />About the comment on Marvel's reprinting complete titles rather than artist volumes, I think the reason is that they tried something like that about 5 or so years ago in the "Marvel Visionaries" series, putting out volumes of the "best of" type on Jack Kirby (2 volumes), Steve Ditko, John Buscema and John Romita. I believe the series was stopped while a Gene Colan volume was in production because the sales were very poor. So the idea of artist volumes are not favorable any longer. I would love to help them put together some Timely/Atlas artist volumes if they were interested.Doc V.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06815470072568462626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-83021163717520250662011-04-18T09:40:15.473-07:002011-04-18T09:40:15.473-07:00One thing this post brings to mind is the truly aw...One thing this post brings to mind is the truly awful way Marvel presents reprints from it's archive today. <br />While I would love a have collections by Matt Fox, Everett, and Krigstein, Marvel continues to issue collections oriented towards complete reprints of individual titles, rather than collecting the work of individual artists. This makes their collections very much the same as the original comic books, a small percentage of interesting material buried in a heap.mr edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14502298398657797233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-62699846197027996062011-04-17T22:10:12.684-07:002011-04-17T22:10:12.684-07:00When the subject of Everett comes-up, I always thi...When the subject of Everett comes-up, I always think back to the sadness that I felt, and then again feel, at the announcement of his death. He had come back to us, and then he was just gone for good.<br /><br />I have to applaud anyone who'd acknowledge that some of Stan Lee's stories were “dirt-dumb”.<br /><br />The return of the, uhm, especially fictitious hero to the ink-well is of course in imitation of something that used to routinely happen in Fleischer cartoons.Daniel [oeconomist.com]https://www.blogger.com/profile/06763094285750736837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-1444327020806669332011-04-17T20:42:11.266-07:002011-04-17T20:42:11.266-07:00One good way to compare the two is Burgos at this ...One good way to compare the two is Burgos at this time used all that "hay". Maneely was cleaner with an almost wood-cut etching technique. There are signed Maneely covers with the "scratch" effect and this is due to Burgos going over them as a cover editor of sorts. It completely destroys the Maneely. One good example of this is SPELLBOUND #24. The cover is signed by Maneely yet completely re-finished by Carl Burgos. I have a scan of the original cover by Maneely "before" Burgos touched it. It appeared on a Mexican Atlas reprint!Doc V.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06815470072568462626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-82142427414257878642011-04-17T12:24:56.577-07:002011-04-17T12:24:56.577-07:00Thanks for the art ID, Doc. Stan Lee was so fond o...Thanks for the art ID, Doc. Stan Lee was so fond of that Maneely "scratch" style that it's hard to tell the genuine article apart from simulations!Funnybook Attichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16945602110000563133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2928533391830370422.post-77166029692327829312011-04-16T17:01:10.697-07:002011-04-16T17:01:10.697-07:00Great post, Guys. Let me make one correction. The ...Great post, Guys. Let me make one correction. The MARVEL TALES #140 cover artist was not Joe Maneely. That "scratchy" style depicted was Carl Burgos!<br /><br />Doc V.Doc V.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06815470072568462626noreply@blogger.com