SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

If you were among the millions throwing elbows and shoving shoulders over retail bargains before daybreak… well, you have my pity, if not my empathy.

Here at SSTOL, we decline to engage in such frivolity. Instead, we’re celebrating Black Friday with a look at one of our favorite heroes, the Black Panther.

When it comes to superdoers of the masculine order, T’Challa, King of Wakanda, ranks right up there with Spider-Man at the top of my list. I’ve been a Panther fanatic ever since he began showing up in The Avengers in 1968. (T’Challa made a few appearances in Fantastic Four and Captain America before that, but I first recall seeing him on the cover of Avengers #52.)

After several years as an Avenger, the Panther came into his own as a headliner in Marvel’s Jungle Action title in the early 1970s. It was in Jungle Action that he began to develop his own rogues’ gallery, and where his backstory was fleshed out by writer Don McGregor. Later in the decade, T’Challa’s cocreator, legendary artist Jack Kirby, reunited with the character for a brief run in his own Black Panther title.

In my opinion, the pinnacle of Panther arrived with the series written by Christopher Priest and illustrated for much of its lifespan by the team of penciler Sal Velluto and inker Bob Almond. This Black Panther book, which ran for five years beginning in 1998, finally brought T’Challa to his rightful place as a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe.

More recently (2005-2008), writer Reginald Hudlin helmed a Black Panther revival that had as its high point the marriage of T’Challa to Ororo Munroe, better known as Storm of the X-Men. I never entirely warmed to Hudlin’s interpretation of the character — frankly, I found Hudlin’s Panther annoyingly shallow — but I appreciated his enthusiasm.

Marvel is still publishing a Black Panther comic, but T’Challa is no longer the main character, so it’s hard for me to care. If I had my druthers, I’d ditch the new version and bring back Priest, Sal, and Bob to continue the Panther’s adventures. But then, it’s not as though Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada gives a rat’s patoot about what I think. (Or what anyone else thinks, so far as I can tell.)

You can view my entire gallery of Black Panther artworks here. The Bob McLeod pinup shown at the top of this post rates a special place in my collection as the very first piece of comic art I ever commissioned. Whatever else my art hobby has evolved into, it all started with this one drawing by the great McLeod.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

We’re getting one of our first real storms of the season here in northern California today. How apropos, then, that for this Comic Art Friday post, we look at a drawing featuring one of my favorite superheroines — the weather-manipulating mutant known as Storm.

This pencil sketch by artist Craig Hamilton was drawn as a preliminary study for a commissioned work. The finished art hangs in the gallery of collector Ted Lanting, a Storm fanatic like myself. You can follow the link to see how the piece turned out.

Craig Hamilton is one of those artists whose work doesn’t show up in comics as often as fans might wish. When he does find the time to take on a comics project, though, Hamilton always makes an impact. He’s probably best known for a memorable Aquaman miniseries he illustrated for DC in 1986. Since then, he’s made sporadic appearances in second-tier DC titles, including The Spectre and Starman, and in Vertigo’s stylish fantasy series Fables.

You can experience the broad range of Hamilton’s art by visiting his Comic Art Fans gallery. There’s also an excellent interview with Craig, mostly focused on the Aquaman mini he illustrated, online at The Aquaman Shrine.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

What do you know, Pogo — Friday the 13th actually came on a Friday this month.

I’m not superstitious myself, but for the benefit of our triskaidekaphobian readers, we’d better dose up with a little luck.

Lady Luck, that is.

The lovely Lady Luck, drawn here by Michael Dooney of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame, was created by Will Eisner in 1940. For six years, she appeared in a weekly companion feature along Eisner’s better-known hero, The Spirit, in a popular Sunday newspaper supplement. Her stories were reprinted in comic books — most notably Smash Comics and its follow-up title, Lady Luck Comics — until the early 1950s.

Although several artists — including Chuck Mazoujian, Nick Cardy, and Eisner himself — illustrated Lady Luck’s early adventures, she is indelibly associated with cartoonist Klaus Nordling, who both drew and wrote the character’s stories for most of her career. Nordling, who was born in Finland but spent most of his life in the United States, drew with a light, whimsical touch that perfectly suited the glamorous Lady Luck. Although Nordling worked on other comic features (including The Spirit) throughout the 1940s as a member of the Eisner-Iger Studio, today he is remembered primarily for his years with Lady Luck.

As sort of a distaff version of The Spirit, Lady Luck had no superhuman abilities. Like many crimefighters before and after her, she simply parlayed a unique visual signature and a catchy nickname into a career busting bad guys. I suppose you’d need a little luck to survive that action.

Lucky for us, Lady Luck also makes an appearance in my Common Elements gallery. Here, she teams up with another chapeau-wearing heroine, the magical Zatanna, in a dazzling creation by artist Anthony Carpenter.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday. Hope it’s a lucky one!