GI Combat Issue #253 Pg 13

Having a GI Combat page by Sam Glanzman was on a short list for my collection due to a couple of unique factors.

I never read GI Combat even though I acquired a GI Combat #1 during my comic book collecting days. A CGC low grade copy of course. Having always liked war titles I picked up the GI Combat #1 when it came up for auction. At the time I probably wasn't even aware of the importance of Joe Kubert having later been on the title, let alone Sam Glanzman as well. I just happened to love war title covers when collecting comics and thought a GI Combat #1 seemed to be a cool purchase. In fact, I had never opened a GI Combat issue until having purchased this piece of original comic art and wanting to know more about the issue. I have a soft spot for war title comics and happened to bridge this love into my comic art collecting goals. P.S. I loved the story, and it made me reminisce of the days my dad and I used to watch older WW2 movies together. War titles such as Battle of the Buldge, The Big Red One, Kelleys Hero's, The Dirty Dozen, The Gun's of Navarone, The Longest Day, etc... or war tv series such as Hogan's Heros, Mash, Mchales Navy, or Black Sheep Squadron.

However, a love a war titles wasn't the only driving force that led me to pick this piece up. Early in my comic art collecting days, I fell down the rabbit hole of research when I picked up my first Amazing High Adventure page by Stephen Bissette. I picked the piece up due to having learned about Stephen Bissette's career. I learned that he had lost the comics code due to having flies over zombies during the Swamp Thing series. Additionally, I learned that he loved drawing dinosaurs. When I happened to find a page by him with flies over dinosaurs, I was absolutely excited about the page. One of my favorite issues in all of comics is ASM 96 as it, in a roundabout way, was a catalyst for me even getting into comics. A story for another day... As I am sure I will never be able to afford a page from ASM 96, I figured the next best thing would be something related to the loss of a comics code. This is a stretch for sure, but for me seeing the flies on that piece of comic art, it made feel like I somehow made a connection to one of my biggest grails in comics. When I made the purchase of the piece, I didn't notice that it was being sold with a few other pieces of collectible importance. My piece of OA stated to Sam- Stephen Bissette. I later noticed that the other pieces, one of which I was unable to acquire included an inscription to Sam Glanzman and was probably sold with the other pieces to the dealer as a collection. They were dated the same and all said to Sam other than a portfolio cover that was inscribed by Stephen Bissette to Sam Glanzman with a fun little anecdote about gaining inspiration from Sam Glanzman’s dinosaur stories. Something Rick Hoberg and I later had a discussion about where he taught me that Sam Glanzman was the artist for Kona: Monarch of Monster Isle. Did I mention that this became quite the rabbit hole for me? Lol. I was able to pick up a second piece of OA from that collection of Amazing High Adventure pages, which you can also find in my gallery was signed by Rich Veitch and Stephen Bissette to Sam. Although I have only briefly learned about a segment of Sam Glanzman's storied career, this giant maze of research seemed to bring me closer to him as an artist.

I later had the chance to talk to Steven Bissette and asked him if he remembered giving OA to Sam Glanzman. He mentioned that he couldn't remember, but when I sent him my research about the collection, he mentioned. "Good eye. Good catch." It also sounded like he had received at one point a gift of a war title from Sam Glanzman and said that the Amazing High Adventure pages were possibly given as a gift in return, but that it had happened so long ago that he couldn't recall.

Fast forward a year or two from the purchase of the Amazing High Adventure pages, Jeff Wedding happened to be around at the Las Vegas comic con when I was talking to Rick Hoberg about Sam Glanzman's career. As previously mentioned, this is where I learned about Kona: Monarch of Monster Isle.

At the January 2025 OAX Jeff happened to have purchased a few pages from this series but only wanted to hold on to a single page. He happened to know I had a connection to Sam Glanzman's war titles, and thus we were able to come to a deal with a few pages.

This title is a post D-Day, Haunted Tank story, where the group decided to go against orders to fulfil the wish of a fallen comrade and take his body to Notre Dame in Paris.