The Thin Man!

The Thin Man was the title of a Dashiell Hammett novel, and later the inspiration for a series of movies starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Astra. It also served as the nominal inspiration for a one-shot superhero from Timely Comics.


The Thin Man debuted in Mystic Comics #4.


He never appears again during the Golden Age, but was revived by Roy Thomas to become part of the Liberty Legion in the Bronze Age. Since that limited bundle of appearances, he's shown up in the modern Marvel continuity as something of a super-spy working with the V Battalion and a modern version of The Invaders.

But here is that single Golden Age appearance. It's an elegant story with lovely artwork by creator Klaus Nordling.









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Friends Of Old Gerber!

Above is the envelope featuring the great artwork of Jack Kirby and Alfredo Alcala. This holds some dandy artwork. Here's a description from the website The Gerber Curse:

"In 1982, Dave and Deni Sim published a portfolio called "F.O.O.G.", which stood for "Friends Of Old Gerber," to help raise funds for Gerber's legal battle. The project, which was initiated without Gerber's knowledge (he says he hadn't even met Dave and Deni Sim), featured 10 black and white plates (11" x 14") by Bernie Wrightson, Mike Kaluta, Charles Vess, Wendi Pini, Jeff Jones, Barry Smith, Marshall Rogers, Frank Thorne, Gene Colan, and Dave Sim, which came in a Duke "Destroyer" Duck envelope illustrated by Kirby and Alcala."

Here's a link to the website where you can read a great deal more about Gerber's career and his lawsuit against Marvel for the rights on Howard the Duck.

Below are some scans of that artwork. I am lucky to have one of these portfolios. It's a real bit of comics history. Note that the scans are pretty much as is, and do not expand much when you click on them. Sorry about that.


Dave Sim

Barry Windsor-Smith

Mike Kaluta

Gene Colan

Berni Wrightson

Marshall Rogers

Jeff Jones

Wendy Pini

Charles Vess

Frank Thorne
Hubba hubba!

Here's the cover of Destroyer Duck #1, the comic that paid for the lawsuit in some measure.


Here's a link to a Destroyer Duck cover gallery.

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Snakes On A Comic!

I simply cannot imagine what news story suggested this tiny gallery of comic book covers.

Oh wait, it was this one.

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Get A Grip!

Here's a slew of covers with big folks holding onto little ones. It seems again to be a popular theme on comic book covers. It's very dramatic!





















And here's a special one added by request.


Beauty!

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Rocketeer Adventures!

Here's the Dave Stevens cover for the Russ Heath adaptation of The Rocketeer movie.

And here are two sketches by Stevens planning the cover.



The new series of Rocketeer stories actually has caught my interest. The talent is pretty dang good especially Mike Kaluta who worked on the original stuff, and the covers by Alex Ross so far are outstanding.



Here's an article with more on the upcoming IDW Rocketeer limited series.


And here's a link to the latest issue of Back Issue which features a Dave Stevens interview.

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