CE -- A lifetime of collecting comic related material :: My Origin Story Illustrated

My Lists of Comics Bought at First San Diego Comic Book Convention, Aug 1970, on U.S. Grant Hotel Stationary

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Artwork Details

Title:	My Lists of Comics Bought at First San Diego Comic Book Convention, Aug 1970, on U.S. Grant Hotel Stationary
Artist:	None Specified
Media Type:	Pencil
Art Type:	Other
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	260
Likes on CAF:	3 4
Comments:	1
Added to Site:	6/3/2021
Comic Art Archive:

Description

Not only did I buy my first piece of comic book art at the first San Diego Comic Book Convention, Iit was there that I was first unable to buy a comic book original due to having insufficient funds. During a small auction of comic related material brought to the convention by a D.C. representative, the first splash page of the Lois Lane Insect Queen story by Schaffenberger was offered, with a starting bid of $100. By that point of the convention, I didn't have enough to place a bid, and the page went unsold.

I suspect that I am going to regret what follows, but I'm going to write it anyway. After all we all have opinions, and these are some of mine, in my own narrative about my development as a comic art collector.

I feel that comic books and comic art have a unique position in the areas of literature and art. Insofar as comic book art is concerned, I firmly believe that D.C. most perfectly satisfied the essential characteristics of the genre. I never read comics as examples of anything other than pure fantasy staring heroes with square jaws, over-developed bodies, tights, and (usually) capes. I didn't want stories involving super-heroes in the real world [which didn't actually have any super-heroes], and I didn't care a whit about the problems of fictional characters. I could not have cared less about fictional war stories, western tales, stories of creatures crawling out of swamps or other monsters which were better seen on movie screens. Stan Lee's dialogues may have been clever and appealing to adolescent minds, but I usually found the plots of Marvel comics to be rather boring, with the exceptions of a few narratives, e.g. Silver Surfer and Galactus story lines, the Inhumans stories, the issues of Thor with Him (who ultimately evolved into the Warlock stories and all of those involving Thanos, and some Captain America narratives, in particular those about the Sleepers and the Cosmic Cube. I generally liked Fantastic Four stories, especially that told in FF Annual No. 6, involving Annihilus and the birth of Franklin Richards. But I can still remember with fondness most of the first run in Adventure Comics of the Legion of Super-Heroes, a large number of Superman, Jimmy Olson, and Lois Lane stories from the 60s, all the Justice League/Justice Society cross-overs, most of the stories of Silver Age versions of Golden Age characters, etc, etc. D.C. stories were just more fun, were more purely fantasies, and weren't left hanging to be continued a month later.

All in all, D.C. covers were better composed and drawn, were more colorful, and had far less word balloon and unnecessary verbiage than Marvel covers. And D.C. artists were better at drawing in the classic comic book style which I greatly prefer. I consider the very best D.C. artists to be Murphy Anderson inked by Anderson and Curt Swan inked by George Klein. These were followed by Gil Kane inked by Anderson, Infantino/Anderson, Curt Schaffenberger, John Forte, and George Papp. I consider the best Marvel artists to be Jack Kirby inked by Sinnot and Jim Steranko (great compositions but figures with weak volumes at times), who do not always equal the top two D.C. artists/teams. I rank the Buscemas, John Romita, and Marie Severn as next best, who again, as a group, are not up to the second tier D.C. artists. Romita can be a bit repetitive and lacks the elegance seen in the work of the best D.C. artists. Both Wally Wood, who worked for both companies, and Bill Everett for Marvel were great, neither did much work during the 60s.

At the bottom are Mike Sekowsky for D.C. and Don Heck for Marvel. But Sekowsky could be made to look good by Anderson's inks, while Don Heck couldn't look good with even the best Marvel inkers. Don Heck's work used to be almost unsaleable and only the desire of dealers to come up with more examples of Marvel art to sale with a hot market has led to the now commonly seen claims that Don Heck wasn't so bad (or laughably, that he was actually good) with rationalizations that he was at least an early Marvel artist -- such claims don't make bad art look good.

Most troubling is Neal Adams, who I blame for undermining the classic comic book style, and Joe Kubert, whose work is generally too loose for my tastes. Adam's art was too wild and his refusal to select a final line that could be cleanly inked always left me unimpressed. Vince Colletta, as an inker, was able to make even Jack Kirby look bad, due to his indistinct, feathery inking.

Bottom line, Marvel had some good artists, but they were not as good as those working for D.C., and, more often than not, D.C. art was cleaner, was better composed, and showed better draftsmanship throughout the 1960s. From the 1970s onward, with some notable exceptions, the level of the art of both companies went downhill -- this is especially true with the covers of Marvel's reprint and team-up titles, which were almost always thoroughly mediocre.

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	C E
Joined:	April 2006
Last Login:	August 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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Mark Levy
Member Since 2004

Posted on 6/5/2021

Sub-Mariner 34, nice Everett pickup!

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