Silver Surfer Saturday: Five Illustrations that Soar by Kirby, Buscema, Byrne, Jusko, and Davis

Over the years I've posted over 25 Silver Surfer illustrations...here are five of my all time favorites.

Jack Kirby, the co-creator of Norrin Radd, of course is the grand master of drawing this character.  While I love a lot of the Fantastic Four covers, this illustration, inked by Al Gordon, knocked me out when I saw it on Al's Flickr page.

John Buscema drew the Surfer in a more sleek, stylized way...in truth, I saw Buscema's version first and regarded it as the model.  It took me quite a while to appreciate Kirby's approach.  But my all time favorite Buscema drawing is this cover to Silver Surfer #3, where he fought Thor on the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard.

John Byrne only drew the Silver Surfer a few times, most notably in this 1982 Silver Surfer one-shot special.  I thought this was a great story, wrapping up several years of continuity, and it was the first time that Byrne had worked with inker Tom Palmer.  The cover is magnificient--the Surfer longingly gazes at the cosmos in the way that Jeff Spicoli looks at the waves in Malibu.

Hulk On A Rampage For Hero Initiative

Then lucky bastiches who attended Wizard World Chicago in 2008 were able to view these Hulk covers, donated by a Who's Who of modern comic art masters, for the Hero Initiative.  Comic Book Resources has a full image gallery, but I've plucked a few of my favorites.

Alan Davis: I love that glare in the Hulk's eyes.  I think my favorite Hulk artists find the character in his facial expressions.  Davis, Dale Keown, Gary Frank, are all superb in this respect.

Jimmy Cheung: This is a fantastic piece with gray tones.  Who are the two people on the left?  The woman must be Betty, is that guy supposed to be Rick Jones?

Terry Dodson: If you're a red blooded male, you're not looking at the Hulk.  A lot of the Hulk covers feature the She-Hulk.  I am reminded of the Hulk 2000 annual by Paul Jenkins where the Hulk tried to clobber She-Hulk into being his girlfriend.  Now that makes me wonder where those Hulk kids came from in Wolverine #66...

Steve Dillion: The most surprising artist to draw the Hulk, but one of the most effective!  He really captures the madness in the Hulk's face in this half-shot.

In addition to the Hulk covers, there was a special Hulk wine bottle with sketches and autographs that will be raffled off.  Nuff said.

Alan Davis Women of Marvel Cover

A couple of months ago, Marvel published a special Women of Marvel magazine with over 100 pages of content devoted to super-heroines.  There were two Alan Davis covers, which are joined here (thanks to the scanner who gave this to me).



This cover has the classic Marvel gals, who I can all name, but one!  Let's go, from left to right:

1. Golden Age Black Widow
2. Miss America
3. Scarlet Witch
4. Ms. Marvel
5. Invisible Woman
6. Medusa
7. Phoenix
8. Black Cat
9. Mary Jane Watson
10. Gwen Stacy
11. Storm (in her 80s punk biker chick mohawk outfit, yowza!)
12. Black Widow
13. Spider-Woman
14. Wasp
15. Elektra
16. She-Hulk

Now in the very center you have:
17. Kitty Pryde
18. Who the heck is the girl next to Kitty? With the giant mouse hat and holding a phone?  Please leave a comment if you know.

It constantly blows my mind that Spider-Woman is now a major character.  There are two characters that I wish had been featured here: Clea and Valkyrie. 

I've been on an Alan Davis kick lately--I think this man's never lost his magic touch.  I've recently revisited JLA: The Nail, Fantastic Four: The End, and the first issue of Avengers Finale.  Nuff Said!

Update: Comments from my old MT blog...

5 Comments

By Bully on July 15, 2010 8:30 AM

#18 is Molly Hayes, aka Princess Powerful of Runaways.

By Zebtron A. Rama on July 15, 2010 10:05 AM

That wee gal is Molly from "the Runaways." The title was canceled last year but if you get the chance I highly recommend reading the trades. Very good stuff.

By Richard Guion on July 15, 2010 10:48 AM

Thanks to everyone who identified Molly! I read the entire run by Brian K Vaughan and it was indeed an excellent series. Since the Runaways haven't been around, I completely forgot about Molly.

By Dphunkt001 on July 20, 2010 12:23 PM

i was gonna say Molly too, without actually knowing her name was Molly..lulz. almost seems outta place among all the well established, or long running characters. what shes wearing doesnt even identify her well (except that its childish/cute). what tipped me off so easily, was her feature on the X-Mens Heroic Age one-shot cover. she had similar headwear there too.

By phoenix_force_98 on January 2, 2011 6:32 AM

I think it might be illyana rasputan ( hope i spelled it right) she was Magik is i remeber

Strange Saturday: Alan Davis and the Master of the Mystic Arts

Once upon a time in 2006, Stan Lee met Doctor Strange, and Alan Davis was there to capture it in his artwork.  His stunning splash page is shown above.  I know I keep saying this when I display a page of artwork I really like--but this is so good it could work as a poster!

Here's the image as it was displayed in the actual comic with full color.  No offense to the colorists, but I really think this looks better in the original black and white.  Nuff said!

What Does Alan Davis Have To Do With The Fall of the Hulks?

What is Alan Davis' relationship to the upcoming Fall of the Hulks mini-event from Marvel?  Nothing direct, unless you count this item.

By now you've probably seen this promotional image by Ed McGuinness, showing all the various Hulks (I like to think of them as The Hulk Family) scattered about a barren landscape, utterly devastated by some unknown conflict.

McGuinness was paying a tribute 1988 poster by Alan Davis, which advertised "The Fall of the Mutants",  This event ran during the summer through X-Men, X-Factor, and New Mutants.  If you compare the two, you'll see a lot of similarities between the positioning of the foreground characters. 

Update:  I just found original black and white version of this drawing...

Nuff said!

Silver Surfer Sunday: Alan Davis

Here's a great black and white version of a pin-up that Alan Davis drew of Norrin Radd:

As Elton John once said, it's lonely out in space.  Nuff said.