SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

Time to unwrap the third of our seven Comic Art Year-End special editions, taking a fond glance back at the finest commissioned artworks to enter my collection in 2009.

So far, we’ve checked out four of the best new pieces in my Common Elements theme gallery. Today, we’ll see a couple of superstar turns in my other primary theme, Bombshells! This year, the Bombshells! series expanded by six, all of which are spectacular. I could have chosen any two to single out, and not have gotten the selection wrong. But I forced myself to choose just two.

Favorite Bombshells! Commission (Pencil Division):
“Victorious!”
Pencils by Steve Mannion

In my never-humble opinion, Steve Mannion (creator of The Bomb and Fearless Dawn) is one of the great unsung talents in comics. His charming, timeless style deserves a far wider audience than it presently enjoys. His pinup of Golden Age heroine Miss Victory gives testimony to Steve’s unique ability to meld beauty and whimsy.

Favorite Bombshells! Commission (Ink Division):
“Patriot Games”
Pencils and inks by Greg LaRocque

This stunning Bombshell! impressed me so much that it’s been hanging in a place of prominence on my office wall since the day it arrived in the mail. It perfectly expresses a key reason why I enjoy the Bombshells! theme — resurrecting long-forgotten characters from the classic period of comics (in this case, Pat Patriot, one of the earliest red-white-and-blue heroines of the World War II era) for a modern viewership.

Okay, okay, I know I said I’d pick two. However…

Michael Dooney, one of my all-time favorite “good girl” artists, took two shots at the Bombshells! concept in 2009. I simply can’t conclude this retrospective without showcasing at least one of Mike’s two gorgeous drawings. Unfortunately, I love them both equally. So, I flipped a coin, and here’s your winner.

Favorite Bombshells! Commission (Dooney Division):
“Valhalla or Bust!”
Pencils by Michael Dooney

Airboy’s sometime-nemesis, sometime-comrade Valkyrie meets the power, the passion, the excellence that is Dooney. Giving the former Axis spy the Spear of Destiny — you recall, I’m sure, the Third Reich’s fascination with supernatural artifacts — was a classic Dooney touch.

In tomorrow’s installment, we’ll look at this year’s outstanding commissions featuring two of my favorite characters.

And that’s your third chapter of Comic Art Year-End, 2009.

Day Two of our grand tour through the Best of Comic Art Fridays, 2009 Edition, completes our look at this year’s most noteworthy additions to my Common Elements commission theme.

Favorite Common Elements Commission, Coed Division:
“I Hear Red Thunder”
Pencils by Lan Medina

Making his second entry into the Common Elements gallery, Fables artist Lan Medina rocks this action-packed scene pitting the Justice League’s Red Arrow and barbarian warrior Red Sonja against an array of unseen adversaries.

Favorite Common Elements Commission, Special Achievement Award:
“Catfight of the Bands”
Pencils and inks by Gene Gonzales

Gene Gonzales summons up all kinds of awesome with his lively depiction of Josie and the Pussycats swapping musical talents with another terrific trio, consisting of Catwoman and both the Golden Age and present-day Black Cat.

Tomorrow, pinup mania reigns as we salute the best from my second commission theme, Bombshells!

And that’s your second chapter of Comic Art Year-End, 2009.

By tradition here at SSTOL, we spend our last Friday or two every year looking back fondly at the best comic art commissions to enter my collection during the previous 12 months. Since, due to extenuating circumstances (in case you’re out of the loop, my wife has been hospitalized since December 9 — needless to say, I’ve had other priorities), we’re down to our final Comic Art Friday, I’ve decided to switch things up a bit.

We’re going to take the entire last week of the year to celebrate our Best of Comic Art Fridays. Each day between now and New Year’s Eve, we’ll display two artworks that added new dimensions of quality to Uncle Swan’s gallery in 2009.

So let’s get after it.

My primary theme collection, Common Elements, expanded by 14 pieces this year. (Technically, it’s 15 pieces, as I recently received a scan of a new Common Elements creation by former Valiant Comics stalwart Mike Leeke. Due to the lateness of the hour, we’ll count that one as the first pickup of the Teens Decade.)

Favorite Common Elements Commission, Heroes Division:
“We Stand On Guard For Thee”
Pencils by Dave Ross

Canadian artist Dave Ross flies his Maple Leaf banner high with this striking page starring two of the Great White North’s best-loved crimebusters, Wolverine and Captain Canuck.

Favorite Common Elements Commission, Heroines Division:
“Garden of Unearthly Delights”
Pencils and inks by Tony DeZuniga

An artist’s artist if ever there was one, Tony DeZuniga entrances the senses with the floral-themed duo of Poison Ivy and the Black Orchid — the latter of whom Tony co-created.

Tomorrow, we’ll check out two more examples of Common Elements spectacle. Be here then, won’t you?

And that’s your first chapter of Comic Art Year-End, 2009.

Today, Comic Art Friday extends a Happy Birthday shout-out to one of our favorite comic artists, the tremendously talented Geof Isherwood.

Geof is what I like to call a triple-dipper in the comics field — an artist who’s equally well-known (and equally adept) as a penciler and as an inker, and who’s also a writer.

His artistic credits include penciling stints on such series as Power Man and Iron Fist, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Dazzler, Thor, Web of Spider-Man, Swords of the Swashbucklers, myriad Conan titles, and the two series with which Geof is most closely associated — Marvel’s Doctor Strange and DC’s Suicide Squad.

As an inker, Geof has embellished the pencils of such artists as Wayne Vansant (The ‘Nam), Val Semeiks (Conan the Barbarian), Marc Silvestri (Conan the King), and Luke McDonnell (Suicide Squad).

Titles Geof has written include Marvel’s Doctor Strange and Justice, and his own creation, Lincoln-16.

Geof’s art possesses a strikingly cinematic quality, which makes sense if you know that in addition to his work in comics, Geof is highly sought after as a storyboard artist for motion pictures. He’s helped frame the vision of such renowned directors as Darren Aronofsky, Richard Donner, Renny Harlin, Chazz Palminteri, and Bryan Singer.

When I began collecting comic art, Geof’s drawings were among the first I acquired. His commissions enliven several of my theme galleries, especially Common Elements, for which he has created four pieces to date.

I love Geof’s work for his meticulous detail, his expressive characters, and his boundless sense of life and presence that infuses everything he draws or inks.

Recently, Geof branched out into the field of online comics. His exquisitely illustrated fantasy series, Lani the Leopard Queen, can be viewed at the Zuda Comics site.

Geof’s beloved wife and collaborator, Sonja Skarstedt, passed away earlier this year after a battle with cancer. I can’t help but believe that Sonja’s muse lives on, in each line and brush stroke of her husband’s art.

Happy birthday, Geof. Thank you for sharing all of your wonderful spirit — and your amazing art — with me.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

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!

A while back, someone asked me how my comic art collection has evolved over the years. More than anything else, it’s a matter of focus. Today, I rarely buy a drawing that I didn’t commission personally from the artist, either for one of my two unique themes (Common Elements and Bombshells!) or for one of my dedicated character galleries.

When I first started collecting, I tended to glom onto any existing piece that I saw and liked, and could afford. My portfolios are littered with relics of those freewheeling days.

Like this one.

This is the only artwork in my collection where I can’t even identify the subject.

Dan Adkins, a Silver Age veteran best known as an inker, drew this stylish pinup of a girl with a gun. I’ve no idea who the anonymous female is, or even whether Adkins intended for her to be some recognizable character. (I’ve seen a couple of similar Adkins images on the Internet, and I suspect that this was simply a pinup theme that he explored for a time.)

Something must have struck me about the piece that compelled me to buy it, but I don’t recall what it might have been.

It’s a nice drawing, though.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.