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![Bob Forgione TALES TO ASTONISH #26 (Dec/61) p.1 [splash], Comic Art](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_2017/subcat_3260/TTA26.jpg?class=sitethumb)
I just happened to read Tales to Astonish #26, saw this exact story, and said "Who the hell is Bob Forgione, and why haven't I noticed him before?!" A google search lead me here. This is a great splash page! I assumed 'Bob Forgione' was a pseudonym for somebody prominent, but I guess he's just another of those talented comics artists who are now mostly forgotten. I'll have to do a little more research about his work, because I really like the art is this story.
Beautiful page. I wonder if part of the reason for a more spare approach to the art was because BWS was thinking more about the coloring right from the start. I notice the very detailed coloring instructions in his handwriting at the bottom of the page.
Great Conan drawing. It's interesting that BWS drew Conon with a much more muscular body then usual. Was he trying his version of the John Buscema 'bodybuilder' Conan?
What stunning pages! I imagine they look fantastic in person. And the bonus of having that last panel inked by BWS -- sublime!
An ideal stand-along page: it captures the character, the series, and is absolutely compelling to look at even if you have no idea who Hellboy is.
Oh lord, such a beautiful piece, and to have it stolen. I feel for you. This one will be hard for the thief to unload.
Congrats! I look forward to seeing which one you picked up.
Thanks! Your comment inspired me to check the relative page counts. I count 320 Ditko-drawn Dr. Strange pages, with less than 300 both penciled and inked by Steve. In contrast, my estimate is that there are over 800 Ditko Spider-Man pages, plus covers. So, yeah, much more rare. Plus I think it's fair to say that he was really innovating on Dr. Strange (as he was on Spider-Man, of course).
This is incredible. You can tell the quality of the piece by the quality of the above comments -- nothing to add from me except some additional admiration.
Yes, the final piece is lovely but doesn't do much for me.
When I was a child we lived in Izmir, Turky for a few years and my parents bought several camel saddles and some hammered Turkish pieces, one of which looks remarkably like that pitcher on that mantle in the painting. My mother and my aunt looked a lot like the two women pictured, and the colors are dead on for the period. When I first saw this piece I had a sense of deja vu!
I've been eyeing this page on Felix's site for over a year -- great pick up! I love X-Statix, and I love Paul's take. This is such a dynamic, quirky, beautiful page. I'm kicking myself a little as I write this, but congratuations (and if you ever get bored with it . . .).
"Can't get enough that sugar crisp, sugar crisp, sugar crisp..."
I can't help singing jingle that every time I see one of these images. It's so iconic from my childhood that I just looked up the voice actor - Gerry Matthews, doing a credible Dean Martin/Bing Crosby. Sugar Bear might be the coolest cartoon character ever --so cool the FTC had to ban him!
It's always a good day when you discover fantastic art by an artist you're unfamiliar with. I love everything about this strip.
Stunning and historic. Lou Fine's work is so clean and deft and free of gimmics that he could have been teleported into the 1980s or the present day and he'd immediately be recognized as one of the very best in the business. Bravo.
Thanks, Ruben. Yes, it's very large and looks awesome in person.
Russ Cochran was right - this cover is as good as it gets.
As highly regarded as Kurtzman's Two-Fisted Tales work is, it's still underrated. This is an incredible cover.
Oksner's work always makes me smile. This is lovely.
Beauty! The Batman Black and White books generated a lot of great art.
That is so fantastic, maybe the best piece of art I've seen that came from the free sketch period (and I got some wonderful sketch cards, so that's high praise).
Yes, Nyberg was awesome. I think he probably inked more Nexus pages than anyone. Not to take anything away from him, but I think Steve's pencils are so tight that he makes a good inker's job pretty easy. Plus I'm pretty sure Steve almost always went over every page before publication and fixed anything in the inking that bothered him.
Somewhere I have Les Dorsheid's color guide to this page. It's an acetate print of the page, painted on the back cel-animation style, and looks fantastic. I bought it decades ago because I was desperate to get some of Steve's Nexus art and had been mostly unsuccessful at that point. I particularly liked this page for the second tier of panels, which are beautifully drawn and show great storytelling, and also the powerful and emotional final tier.
Wonderful pickup! I never got the print, but I know part of The Devil's Lake was featured on the cover of 'The Studio' and was featured in full in the book 'Masters of Comic Book Art' that I bought around 1979 or 1980. I spent a lot of time staring at this arresting image. It's great to see this more raw and direct preliminary version.
I agree with you, this is one of the very best Conan stories (also one of the best short stories), and this page is fantastic. Barry isn't quite in full form yet, but his artwork is already well developed here. It's amazing to realize that he started in the industry at age 19 and he was 21 when he did this. What a talent.
Not much I can add to the other excellent comments, except to say I love this!
I agree with Marcus about the page design, it's excellent, with the two dark even heads on the left, the two Horatio heads in the noose, slightly lower on the right, and the hallucinatory storytelling images in teh middle. Organic, interesting, and totally clear. And Horatio's smile and quip at the end is perfect!
Totally agree, the comic book adaptation was much better, which just highlights that in some ways comic books are better storytelling vehicles than movies, at least for some stories and characters. And Kaluta was born to do the Shadow!
This is great! I wonder if it was influenced by the photobooth strips, the way they're claustrophobically framed and their head positions and expressions change from frame to frame. The spotting of blacks and the expressiveness of the faces really makes this pop. I even like that there are no word ballons. It's like watching a couple in an intense conversation but they're just out of earshot. Superb!
E.C. comics. Two Fisted Tales. Kurtzman writing. Wood pencilling and inking at his peak. It gets no better than this.
I really liked Mazzucchelli's work on Daredevil. This awesome piece (that fifth panel!) really shows off some Barry Windsor-Smith influence, I think, especially the second tier. I also seems to have some strong Gene Colan influence in panels 2 and 7 (actually the whole top and bottom tiers). That's three of my favorite artists, on one of my favorite books, with two of my favorite characters. This page is a grand slam!
I love Adam's version and I LOVE Alison's color additions. I'm guessing you have the print, too. They deserve to be framed side by side.
I love this! It has some of the vibe of the Paul Pope Electric Ant 3 cover I picked up last year. They both share a similar page design and a Philip K. Dick connection. Paul is so good with science fiction. Well, he's just so good, period.
I had to give this a like because, hey, what's not to like! That expression on her face! She knows she's being a tease, and daring you to break eye contact and look down into that happy valley.
I love Nir's sense of humor and the way he weaves different ideas, themes, and references into his work. They're eye-catchingly beautiful, but they reward some contemplation and study. And you got a bonus color piece - how amazing is that!
Fantastic! Retro Hulk battles Retro Superman, and it just works.
Totally agree with you - I also love X-Statix and Allred! During the period X-Statix was going strong it was about the only comic I regularly bought. And this is a fantastic cover, congrats.
This is wonderful, and please do scan the back when you can. This is basically the same technique that was used in animation production for decades, before the industry moved to digital ink and paint: the animation drawing would be xeroxed with a machine that printed the drawing onto an acetate cel, then cel painters would paint the back of the cels, kind of like doing a coloring book, though the xerographic lines are on the front side so they can't be covered up by paint.
I've painted a few cels, and there are a couple of tricks. One, you have to do the dark colors first. If you start with light colors, and then get some darker paint on top of the lighter paint, it will change the tone of the light paint when photographed/scanned. The reverse is fine. Of course you have to let each color dry before moving on.
Second, you don't really 'paint' as in using brush strokes - you use a brush to 'puddle' the cel vinyl paint onto the area to be covered, then push the paint around so there's a nice, thick layer that looks smooth and even from the front.
One thing that stands out to me about this beautiful cover is the effective use of a frame within a frame. Thor is dramatically framed within the 'arms' of the storm, which draws your eye right too him. After registering Thor you pull back a bit to take in the storm creature, and only then pull back to the outer frame and start noticing all the great touches (like the rainbow). Congrats on this gem.
The way this is colored is surprisingly effective. It's almost impressionistic - look really closely, and you see all the marks and strokes, but pull back a bit and it just sings.
Terrific piece! Great layout, poses, and execution, as one would expect from Rude on Space Ghost.
This is one of the best pages from the book! Steve and Jaynelle recently had it (accidently) posted as for sale on Steve's website, and I liked it so much I tried to buy it! Jaynelle had lost track of some of the pages that had been sold, so I end up picking up a couple of different (and also excellent) pages. You have a great collection!
Thanks for the great comment. Yeah, the old Black WIdow costume was both a product of the sexism of earlier times (the goofy demi-cape, the cateye glasses-mask) and a rip-off of the Black Canary. John Romita did a great job redesigning the costume (and how I wish I had a page from later in this issue!).
