Black Condor #12 pg. 1

Welcome back to Shemp's Gallery. It's Birthday month here at the Gallery. I will try to celebrate a new artist every week whose birthday is in October.

Happy Birthday to Rags Morales! Born October 21 1966. Rags Morales first published work was in the issues of the Forgotten Realms comic book. Then in 1992 Morales co-created and pencilled a revised Black Condor series for DC comics.

I really liked this series. My comic shop used to poke fun at me because I was pretty much the only person buying the title at the time in their shop. LOL I pretty much picked up anything DC was putting at the time. I didn't care I saw the cover to #1 and I was hooked. Love that cover. Rags Morales was new to the scene and I enjoyed his art. The series only lasted 12 issues and when it ended I felt robbed. I wanted more. Never happened, he appeared in Justice League for a bit but that was about it.

Rags went on to fame and fortune doing Hawkman and Identity Crises and the New 52 Superman. I had always wanted the cover to Black Condor #1, but I've never seen it for sale or any other Black Condor art for that matter. Fellow CAFer Greg McKee has a nice collection of Black Condor art, pages and covers, and I've always been envious. For a title that didn't sell well and I'm sure has very few fans, I have never seen a single page for sale anywhere.

Finally in 2020, a fellow on eBay was putting up early Rags art for sale. It included unpublished and published pieces including Black Condor art. Jackpot! I bought this title splash and a cover. After years of wanting Black Condor art, I was super excited to finally get some.



"Wings Over Gotham" by artist Rags Morales and Richard Space.