Dick Ayers was born on this date in 1924. Ayers is likely most famous as an artist at Marvel and many companies before that during the Golden Age of Comics. He was the mainstay artist on Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos.
Soon enough he had his own title, and after the debut issue featuring this cover by Ayers, the great Frank Frazetta stepped in to do the cover art for several issues. See this for more on that.
After Frazetta departed though, Ayers was back on the task beginning with the sixth issue.
After the demise of the character and the title and the company, the Ghost Rider waited many more years before riding again. He did with a somewhat different origin and back story for Marvel. Dick Ayers had been a stalwart for the company for many moons, as an inker and penciller. He assumed the art again on his signature character and the title lasted another seven installments.
Marvel revived the name a few years later, but without the western setting and brand new talent. Ayers wasn't connected to the adventures of Johnny Blaze. This new Ghost Rider proved so durable that when the original (sort of) western version (both vintage and modern) was revived his name was changed to "Night Rider" and later to "Phantom Rider".
I've frankly lost track of what they call him now, if he even still exists in some form. AC Comics still reprint his original adventures from time to time, but he's called "Haunted Horseman" when he appears over there.
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Rip, I left a comment on the Iron Man post but it seems to have gone astray.
ReplyDeleteIt's a mystery. I checked my e-mail caches and didn't find it anywhere. Can you resend it?
DeleteIt seems like some things just get lost in the ether. My comment simply mentioned that George Tuska had drawn Marvel's adaptation of the original Planet Of The Apes movie. He also drew Marvel's version of The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad.
ReplyDeleteTuska was a reliable hand, and they used his talent on some of their most curious projects.
DeleteI enjoyed Marvel's GHOST RIDER quite a bit in the late sixties and didn't know about the ME original for many years. I did a mini-review on the story whose cover appears above. showing the Ghost Rider struggling with the Frankenstein Monster. I thought it was a shame that the writer didn't simply revive the real Monster (yeah, I spoiled the "Big Surprise") rather than using the usual Gothic masquerade schtick. I'm fairly sure I was at the 1998 Comic-Con where Vin Sullivan was a guest, but I didn't take any notes of what he might've said on panels. Six months later he passed from cancer. I did exchange a few words with his son, but unfortunately didn't garner any good insider stories. I heard that Sullivan might have protested Marvel's co-opting of the Ghost Rider and that Marvel might have dropped the series despite decent sales, but if the ME trademark had lapsed, I don't know that Sullivan had a legal leg to stand on. I more or less followed how Marvel writers twisted and turned things to follow up on a story where Carter Slade died and he was succeeded first by a "Bad Phantom Rider" of his own time, and a "Good Phantom Rider" of the 2oth century-- but for all those convolutions, I don't think anyone's done very much with the revised GR.
ReplyDeleteLike you I only learned of the true original Ghost Rider many years after thanks to adapted reprints from Bill Black. I think his outfit changed the name to "Haunted Horseman".
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