Sam Glanzman is one of my comic book heroes. I fell under his spell with his work on Charlton's Hercules, Iron Corporal, Tarzan and more in many a Charlton comic. I looked at his Tarzan work here.
He's one of those nose-to-the-grindstone artists who has gotten too little praise in a career which surprisingly stretches all the way back to the halcyon Golden Age.
He's had new work appear as recently as last year and now at long long last his most personal work, the saga of the U.S.S. Stevens which appeared in the back pages of many a DC war comic will be collected and given the prominence its never received. These stories date back to the early 70's when Glanzman took his talents after his tenure at Charlton. With a style that evokes the best of the more famous Joe Kubert, the editor who brought him to DC. In fact Glanzman produced new stories in the series at the request of Kubert for Kubert Presents, the remarkable limited series which came out from DC just about the time that the great artist passed on.
Glanzman worked yeoman-like for years at DC then went over to Marvel at editor Larry Hama's invitation where his very personal saga became two graphic novels A Sailor's Story in 1987 and A Sailor's Story Book Two: Wind, Dreams, and Dragons. Read more about it here.
These latter two epic efforts along with an unpublished short story in the series, have already been collected by Dover Books and are now available. I just got my volume of A Sailor's Story in the mail and it looks beautiful. The earlier U.S.S. Stevens short stories have now themselves been collected, something many of us Glanzman fans never thought possible and will be available from Dover later this summer; I've already pre-ordered my copy. My reading plans for this summer have just changed amigos.
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Huge Sam Glanzman fan here. Really liked his work on Hercules, Iron Corporal and The Haunted Tank (DC). He also inked Tim Truman on a couple of the Jonah Hex mini-series 10 years or so back now…I’m also lucky enough to have a piece of original art from him, as he had posted an ad in Comic Book Artist some years ago – and was doing some commission work for fans. Got to talk to him on the phone too…A great, great man and a stellar artist.
ReplyDeleteHe seems like such a regular guy, no high-falootin' ways at all. The fact that he's still at it after all these years is inspirational. As a guy who is considering retirement, I take heart that many good years remain, Sam Glanzman is the ideal.
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I have both the Sailors Stories and re-read them regularly. He grew on me since his days on Kona.
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