The image of the published version really highlights how effective this choice was. Pure artistic illustration of being surrounded by immature younglings.

"Dat's dah fact, Jack!" 

- Bill Murray, as John Winger ("Stripes," 1981)

Thanks. Fred "makes it so!" 

There are about 85 copies of each of issues 1 and 2 still available at powerpulpcomics.com (I think issue 1 has been reprinted).

The books are a fun read. 

Note that the cover text was added after the fact. "Face to Waist with Elrod" and it was not part of the original art.

Thanks... my collection of these pages is in the rarified subset of "fancy framed and on the wall." Back before the Flood, Jim W had sold a bunch before I had a chance to even start getting them from him, and even at $250/page, I was going into hock and using time payments to get what I did. Ahhh, if we could turn back time... 

thanks... hard to pick ONE example and not post 10 :) :) :)

You're right. It's cinematic. 

Thanks. I am still seeing more as I've revisited it since posting. 

Snikt!

hahaha ... 

exactly! I see something new every time I look at it (in fact, the CAF thumbnail shows up a few things you don't see in detail, like that circle traced out through the line of the mask

On behalf of Charles and his talent: thanks!

It really deserves to be done as a multi-block color woodblock print. And I don't want some laser-cut, 3D printed blocks, either!

His graphical instincts are so good.

That was was direction to him. I want that cover punch from CA #1 done as though Cap meant it. I got one more scene coming... another obvious Golden Age pairing that many people have tried AND showed that it is actually hard to pull off. 

I obviously think he's got that special something. I'd love to see someone give him a big battle superhero story to do. A remix of the Avengers/Defenders War from the early 1970s would get my vote. I have not asked for it yet, but I'd love to see him do Dormammu. 

That is such a great idea to look at. I inverted it and posted it as an additional image.

Indeed! We need that follow-up to the end of the "Hard Knocks" story, where the two stop fighting and sit down to talk about working on a book deal together... and start arguing about percentages. Get them in court with Jen Walters representing the Hulk and Matt Murdock representing the Thing, debating IP licensing rights. There's a funny story in there somewhere. 

thanks, Justin!

I quite agree. :)

thanks, Malcolm, as always

Thanks for the note. Should I mention that this was an overlooked page at Jim Warden's site, proabably ca. 2002, that I paid $200 for. Hmmm... probably not. 

I keep thinking it would have been intriguing if the MCU version of The Thing had used this first panel as its model sheet. In all of the early Lee/Kirby books, Ben was someone who scared people when they saw him, and he stayed covered up in public for a reason. This more light-hearted, primary colors version of the team looks fun (and pleeease be good), but a more grim Grimm might have been an interesting contrast. I always respected Chadwick's choice to never get Concrete too comfortable in his skin.

This page is composed so well. In lesser hands you might get the top and bottom panels only, but the complementary POVs are so enhanced by the  in betweens. 

Thanks. High praise from you, kiddo! :)

There was something so inspired about the way he depicted these two characters. Roughhouse tumble. 

Having the characters in the picture frames breaking the wall is just a frosting of deliciousness to his pieces.

love those clean lines and the style

Haha. 

So, it turns out the name "Brian" did not appear in the US until the 1910-20s, probably thanks to immigrants from Ireland and England (where it was a popular name, generally ranking in the top 4). It was in the top 10 in the US during the 1970s (ca, 10K people a year per million), but has dropped off considerably (to ca. 350/million in 2020). The "y" variant is older in the US, probably because it was also a surname. A spot of Bryans show up in the 1880s, drops off, and picks up in the 1980s are Brian declines, reaching a max of about 2200/million. In 2020, it's a "i" versus "y" toss-up, as both now have the same frequency. One great thing about being an "i" though, when your name is misspelled and/or mispronounced, it's because the "a" and the "i" have been inverted. Not so bad. 

Hi Peter - No clue at all. That's how it was when I bought it (a long, long time ago, off eBay, if you can believe that - it was the Wild West back then). The measurement markings are showing, so it sure looks like it was deliberate. I always assumed this was matted and framed at some point, and this was done to accommodate a fancy mat cut. 

I sure agree. There is no way anyone was appreciating this work when it was printed with watery ink on newsprint, either. In my CAF collection of pages (in the Among Us Mortals gallery) I always include 2-3 close-ups to check out.

His pages are filled with a ton of "of their time" observations, too. Very 1950s.

Ha. I just noticed my error. It's BTOOOM!

The solid sense of story-telling clarity never fails.

The solid sense of story-telling clarity never fails.

For sure. I was 11 in 1968 and had been reading Marvel comics for about 3 years. Everything was an event.

And credit where credit is due: despite the drama, Ben was dubious that a car crash could ever take out Johnny (sometimes I go super-nova) Storm. The off-beat plot stands up when you recall that Byrne was serving up some commentary about Neal Adams's support for a 19th C hypothesis that the planet Earth was expanding in volume, and the named antagonist in the story (Alden Maas) is an anagram of Neal Adams.

Thanks. Easy to agree :) "Name 5 memorable scenes from the entire run of Cerebus, and you are going to get BOOM on many lists."

Old school kind of style and attention to actual composition. There is no confusion in how to read this!

Haha. Exactly right. 

He's so extremely good at that! And you can tell he's got the knack hard-wired - look how he captures that feeling again when he made the small, on-the-fly remarque drawing for the dedication. Old school magic.

That's absolutely right. When you look at the style sheet from "only" 20 issues earlier, the evolution in style AND skill is huge (see Additional Images). I always thought that these "Mind Game" cover expressions were the first time Sim ever got to pure, top-flight, Disney-Mickey-type animation, ca. Fantasia era. 

he's sooo good at capturing the spirit of the originals - and this Torch is a masterpiece

yep

yep

the action is palpable and captures the spirit of the original - and every tribute to the original design for telling a complete story

I so totally agree! The overall sense of actual space is better than a lot of modern comics (even though when you scrutinize the details of the windows/frames and Ben's placement relative to them, it ends up as contradictory as a visual illusion - and perhaps that is a point: you can only take in the entire scene as a gestalt). 

Kasra! Or the Dean of Modok, if you prefer! Thanks. I was blown away by what Abbey turned in on this - her absolute first time at anything this complex, and at the same time, assembled from my stuff not hers. Your comment is apt (although she did put a musca depicta in the other one). On the other hand, a "legacy painting" commissioned by someone turning 60 might be as momento mori as you get. That truly awesome OAX Modok piece of yours has strong overtones of the work that Max Grundy does.

Thanks, Rob. Haha. The description with detail about the objects in both of the paintings is too long for the CAF space. 

If you are curious, check them out here -

https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/bcoppola/category/musings/

It's been raising the great question for some: what would I put in MY paintings?

You think seeing that kind of stuff is a rush? Back in the day (way, way back in the pre-internet days), a lovely and kind person named Mark Cohen (strip/MAD writer by night and real estate agent by day) was a trusted friend of a few key strip artists (starting with Sparky Schulz, because they both lived in Santa Rosa) and he ended up getting the idea to rep a few hundred strip artists who wanted nothing to do with the bother of selling/dealing with the public, esp. when it was the long and bothersome US mail and sending checks and so on. I got to know Mark and visited his office a few times ... leafing through PILES of Peanuts strips and Nemo pages, Golden Age stuff, that was lying about. I got some things... but the refrain is well known: "If I had had more money...". He did take me to meet Schulz once at the Snoopy ice rink, where I was treated to lunch and proceeded to make garbled fanboy conversation, asking every fracking question he must have answered a thousand times or more.