Fantastic Artwork!

Joe Staton
Marcus Boas
The issue featuring the Marcus Boas cover was my first issue of the Fantastic magazine which at the time along with Amazing Science Fiction was being edited by Ted White. Joe Staton, an artist I recognized from Charlton was doing a lot of spot illustrations for both magazines and he did that one cover.

Dan Adkins
Mike Kaluta
Jeff Jones
Early issues of Fantastic featured artwork by lots of names known to comics fans such as Jeff Jones, Dan Adkins and Mike Kaluta.

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Kelly's Heroes!

People of the Black Circle
The Hour of the Dragon
Red Nails
Lost Valley of Iskander
Black Canaan
Marchers of Valhalla
Skull Face
Son of the White Wolf
Sword of Shahrazar
For a moment in the late 70's Ken Kelly captured the field of fantasy cover illustration with his covers to a large number of Robert E. Howard's vintage heroes. His Conan covers for the Berkley editions remain some of my favorites images of the brawny barbarian. I have both the paperback and hardback versions of these, and they were the one source for raw REH until the relatively recent Ballantine editions.

Here is the art with the logos intact.










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Copperhead Kid!

When I caught a glimpse of this Norwegian comic book cover, I knew immediately it was a Jack Kirby drawing, and more specifically a Kirby drawing of Marvel's Kid Colt.


The original is found on an early issue of Gunsmoke Western and it was featured here at this very blog a very late last year.

Those are some rather large changes to make to an already successful image. They not only re-designed him (like the cuffs) but they made him a redhead. I do have to confess that the Copperhead Kid is a reasonably dynamic looking chap though.

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King Of Rocks!

Anything goes when you're a king. That must be the case to explain this trio of pages by Jack "King" Kirby and "Joltin'" Joe Sinnott from issue two of the Fantagraphics comic Anything Goes. What a long way to go for a rather miserable pun. I like puns, but sheesh!


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Doomsday Plus One!

Another "doomsday" has come and gone. And in this "doomsday-plus-one" time, let's take a closer look at the vintage Charlton sci-fi series by the late great Joe Gill and the then raw talent John Byrne. Doomsday +1 was a gem, latching onto all manner of science fiction tropes in a mad dash to get exciting stories to the newsstand. This is a series desperately in need of a trade collection.

The series ran six issues with an unpublished seventh installment finding print eventually in two issues of The Charlton Bullseye. Charlton reprinted the run for the final six issues of the run, giving some of them new covers cobbled from the interior artwork. Later Fantagraphics reprinted all of the stories under the title "Doomsday Squad". See this link for more on that.

Here are those covers for the Charlton Comics run. Check out the links for the stories themselves and scroll down for some surprises.

The original run from 1975 to 1976.


Here's a link to the complete story "The Live Again".


Here's a link to the complete story "A Faceless Foe".


Here's a link to the complete story "The Peace Keepers".


See below for the complete story "Hidden Empire".


Here's a link to the complete story "Rule of Fear".


Here's a link to the complete story "All the Beautiful People".


Here's a link to "Timeslip", the final Doomsday +1 story from Charlton Bullseye #4 & #5. For some reason the last page is not shown. Here it is.


And now the reprints from 1978 to 1979.







And here's a jewel, the complete story for Doomsday +1 #4 in its original art form.























Here are some original pages from other stories.




And we close with some original art from the covers.





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