Location: Pin-ups, Commissions, Card Art, Cover Recreations, Model Sheets, Animation Drawings and Prelims.
Artist:
Ken Landgraf
(All)
241 Views - 16 Comments - 6 Likes
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The three BP panels are great, and I love that Doom closeup.
"Stop laughing! It's a tunic!!" - Dr. Victor von Doom
Doesn't seem to matter what I do
I'll draw out Doctor Doom
No one knows the art I tried, oh-oh, I
Color gleaming in Landgraf obtained
Story is insane
Oh your wife, seems so polite
Buy and keep the art tonight
'Cause I'm just Ken, House of Ideas I'd be a ten
Is it my destiny to live and find a job with old fragile Stan Lee?
I'm just Ken
Where I see job, John sees the end
What will it take senior to see the man behind the Cap and hire me?
Cool! I met Ken in 1979 when he had self published his own comic Rock Comics and actually got two sketches from him. I guess they would be the first sketches I ever bought.
It's definitely a very fun piece of vintage Bronze Age Marvel history. Fyi, Landgraf is probably most well known for having illustrated the Wolverine vs Hercules story in a late 70's Marvel Treasury Edition, inked by George Pérez!
Cool
really cool piece!!! and nice bit of Marvel Comics history
I owned this piece a few years back. I was told by Ken that Armando Gil and Dave Simons assisted on the piece. The colors are Dr. (Doc) Martin inks. Lots of cool Marvel characters here.
I am guessing you probably would have mentioned it, but did he happen to know what it might have been done for? As I stated I am always happy to find the origin of a piece.
Hey Ian. Ken, Armando and Dave worked in studio together. The piece is like a try out page, to work on Marvel characters, hone skills for assignments. The page was not used in published work. But I probably grabbed this one for the same reasons you did. Nice color work on basically the Avengers and Doom. I'm glad you love it. I gave it up in a trade but always liked it.
I totally appreciate all your help. I think I understand now where my confusion stems from. This is probably my second time coming across try-out pages for my collection and since I have never worked in the comic industry and have not seen that term in the CAF glossary, confused it for a portfolio page. Even more so after originally thinking it was all done by Ken. I think I need to update my How to Train You Dragon pages by Timothy Green II now.
However, I am hoping you are aware of a few more things regarding try-out pages. How do try out pages usually work? Does a group of artists that like working together submit try-out pages to the art director as a group frequently like this fully completed? In my limited time collecting this is the first I have seen a page like this. Or was it more frequently done by say a penciller, inker, colorist seperately and the art director puts a team together? Is this something that might have come together after the team was conditionally put together and the director wanted to see what a finished product looked like? Lastly, were you ever aware of a title where the three of them worked together in the 70's?
That's no squirrel, that's a Panther! Great looking piece and a cool piece of history!
Ian, try out pages are pages done by artists as samples of their work in order to show publishers, in hopes of getting hired to do professional work. Typically, try-out samples should be and ARE submitted only with a single part of the process showing. In other words, someone wanting to break in as a penciller submits a few pages of panel to panel storytelling in pencil form only. Someone hoping to break in as an inker would submit a scan or copy of someone else's pencils, along with their own inks to show the editors how they handled the pencils. Someone trying to break in as a colorist these days, would simply show editors scans of colored pages on their phones, iPads or sent by email. But back in the 1970's, without the benefit of computers, wannabe artists had no way of knowing what the exact "rules" for submitting samples were. So they would sometimes pencil, ink and color on the same page, as was the case here. They should NOT have done that, but they simply didn't know any better back in the mid-70's. It is very unlikely that the 3 artists Michael mentions ever worked together on the same professional assignment.
I was happy to get a hold of Ken Landgraf this week and now have a little more information about it. Quoted from Ken: "I ran a studio that dave and armando worked in . Marvel was starting to do full color magazines at the time I think one was the Hulk so I did the sample to see if we could get color work I penciled most jobs and the two of them would ink the work . I got pencil work later and Dave and Armando got inking jobs." I messaged him a copy of The Hulk Magazine #10 (1978) and he said that was the one and that it just came out, so he then created this sample piece looking for work. I love that this was created during a shift in magazine publishing. A little more historical knowing the back story. Figured I would share.
Geez, can't one guy relaxing in his Iron Man armor and reading the paper and another guy gazing contemplatively out the window get any peace and quiet on a nice Sunday afternoon? Ken Landgraf jammed a lot of action, characters, poses and even a great close-up into this beautifully painted page. I would think it would get the attention of the Marvel Bullpen powers-that-be back in the day. Fantastic add!
Love the piece and love the story! Can't beat BP and Doom, and in color?! Throw Cap in and you got a top to bottom beaut. Congrats!
