Original Comic Book Art And The Collectors - TwoMorrows

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SPARTA
COVERS
The aspects of comic book art need to be understood in
order to follow the mental perambulations of collectors.
In the collecting of comic art, this declaration reigns
supreme: all pages are not created equal.
The best covers (like this Dan Adkins cover from Will Gabriel’s
collection) are both a summation of the story, and a highlight
of what is to come. As a result a great deal of time and care was
put into their production, from the art directors’ layouts, to the
chosen artists’ designs and finished work. The cover’s purpose
is to arrest the attention of the casual buyer. Books were sold by
their cover, which were the visual equivalent of a carnival barker.
Some artists were predominately cover artists, because
their larger than life styles lent itself to the requirements. One
of the most talented artists to hold down the job of fashioning
covers was Gil Kane. In the ’70s for Marvel, he and then-art
director John Romita produced a staggering number of covers.
Gil Kane was extremely good at this freeze frame pin-up
style of art (as seen in this cover from Bill Woo’s collection). It
made him picture perfect for covers, where his figures loomed
larger than life, often out of proportion with their background,
whatever was needed to excite a passerby to grab the book
off the stands. In comic books the maxim not to judge a book
by its cover was the quote of the naïve.
For many years during the ’70s, Kenneth Landgraf, artist on the
Wolverine Vs. Hercules story in the Hulk Treasury and DC’s Hawkman,
worked with Gil Kane. Landgraf met Kane at the Village
Comic Art Store on McDougal Street in New York. Kane would
come with art every other week, and when he did, Kenneth would
photocopy everything Gil brought in to sell for his own study.
Stories abound about Gil the perfectionist, which Landgraf verified.
“He constantly tried to improve his work. He studied anatomy
books by George Bridgman. He would also sketch with a ball point
GRAILPAGES
CHAPTER 3
COLLECTING BY COVERS, SPLASH PAGES,
PANEL PAGES AND SKETCH PAGES
“Authenticity has always been a huge issue for me in portraying comic art stories…” – Gene Colan
pen on photos that appeared in the Sunday newspaper. He had a
wooden mannequin in the studio. He also drew from a Captain
Action figure.”
Hogarth, Heath and Kubert were the contemporaries Gil
spoke most admiringly of according to Landgraf, as well as Lou
Fine and Reed Crandall. And when it came to his own work, Gil
expressed an appreciation of inkers like Tom Sutton who inked
him on the “Adam Warlock” series that began in Marvel
Daredevil #93 (Nov.
1972), cover, pencils:
Gil Kane, inks: Tom
Palmer.
OPPOSITE: Strange
Tales #164 (Jan.
1968), cover, art: Dan
Adkins.
Characters TM & ©2009
Marvel Characters, Inc.
Book GRAILPAGES: Original Comic Book Art and the Collectors pg. # 53
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