Thursday, March 10, 2011

Jim Steranko

The Misc Marvel Covers
1968 ~ 1974

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22 comments:

Joe Jusko said...

GREAT STUFF! Steranko's covers were a breath of fresh air back then! The Daredevil cover is Colan (and Giacoia, I believe).

4:15 AM
Mr. Door Tree said...

Joe,

To my eye, and everything I've ever seen documented about this cover art, Gene Colan pencilled this and Steranko inked it!

5:35 AM
Joe Jusko said...

REALLY??? I never even heard that! Something new every day! lol Thanks! I'll ask Jim when I see him.

5:38 AM
Mr. Door Tree said...

Joe,

Please ask...if it isn't Steranko inks on this cover then Heritage is mis-representing and the GCD is wrong...I've found inacuricies with both of these sources but it's a start...but, just look at that cover...it sure looks like Steranko inks to me...it sure ain't Giacoia! The Daredevil figure looks to be a past-up...seeing the original art to those Marvel covers now...what a mess!

6:26 AM
Joe Jusko said...

It's a sin how they chopped them up! It was all about production back then as the art had no discernible value. I have to admit, though that many ogf the corrections wrre dead on correct. Stan had a good eye for what worked on a cover.

6:30 AM
ASDF said...

I'd generally agree, Joe, though I wince at all the Romita or Marie Severin heads topping Kirby bodies (and in the Hulk cover here, over a Steranko body.

2:54 PM
Paul Chadwick said...

Joe, I generally agree re Stan's cover judgment.

But it's a shame so many quick Romita or Severin heads jarringly topped Kirby (or in the case of the Hulk here) Steranko bodies.

2:59 PM
Joe Jusko said...

Paul, i definitely agree. I spoke to JR once about that and he hated doing those paste overs. It was his job as AD though so he did what was asked. He told the same story at his retirement dinner. He's such a humble guy and a real gentleman.

6:48 PM
Keefer said...

The Daredevil cover is interesting. Back in the day I thought the inks looked like George Klein or maybe Dan Adkins.

9:57 PM
Joe Jusko said...

Klein was a guess of mine, too. Or even Shores. I really need to call Jim. I'll find out this weekend. :-)

11:55 PM
Mr. Door Tree said...

The original art to the Daredevil #44 cover sold at Heritage in 2005 for $18,400 and on the art it is noted Colan/Steranko...it can still be viewed in the Heritage archives...but the final word of course would be from Steranko himself!

1:26 AM
Colette said...

That Hulk Special cover has been one of my favorite Hulk illustrations since I first bought that comic, and I never realized that Marie Severin did his head! I've seen some other things like a Romita Tarzan face over Buscema's original, or over Kirby's Spider-man, (right?) which always looked a little funny to me, though I put it down to Stan wanting a "house" look to the characters. Well, another great post, Mr. Doortree!(For some reason, I'm on my wife's account or something, but I've posted before as "Gombuk", so it's me, not Colette!)
Clayton

4:14 AM
The Astral Gypsy said...

I understood that George Klein inked this Gene Colan cover.

12:41 PM
James said...

I did ask Jim about the Daredevil cover and he did ink it.

12:42 PM
Mr. Door Tree said...

James,

Many thanks for getting that verification from Steranko! I was 99% sure....who else inks like that...I was surprised that some of you questioned it!

5:34 PM
Joe Jusko said...

I stand corrected. :-)

As for questioning it, though, I can't think of anything else Jim ever inked.

6:36 PM
meamwayne said...

Out of curiousity I went on the GCD to see if there were any other examples of Steranko inking another penciller (besides Kirby on Nick Fury just before he took over). They supplied the weirdly specific info that he did page 12 panel 5 of Daredevil 42 by Colan (it’shows a car outdoors with background figures walking toward it). The rest of the book is inked by Dan Adkins and it came out a month before Nick Fury 3 by Steranko and Adkins. He probably did it just for fun while stopping by to drop off some pages.
You gave us almost all of the Steranko covers, but you left out Fantastic Four 130-132.

10:28 PM
Mr. Door Tree said...

meamwayne,

I completely forgot the FF covers...I added them on at the top...two of them are inked by Joe Sinnott and the other by Frank Giacoia!

2:09 AM
Tony Robertson said...

The way Marvel printed Fantastic Four 132 was a travesty. Years later Steranko printed the original pencils. It can be found here:
http:/thedrawingsofsteranko.com/Fantastic_Four_132_Steranko_original.jpg

1:42 PM
Tony Robertson said...

http:/thedrawingsofsteranko.com/Fantastic_Four_132_Steranko_original.jpg

FF 132: This is what it should have looked like.

1:45 PM
Joe Jusko said...

Here's the unretouched HULK cover
http://tinyurl.com/6zcf6pq

6:39 PM
Kip W said...

One of these covers brings back a memory. A friend of mine who absolutely worshipped Steranko had somehow gotten his phone number, and invited me to listen in on the extension as he talked to his idol. I obediently stayed mum through the conversation. This was at the time that Steranko was doing covers only for Marvel, and he told my friend that the cover for SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL had a "brand-new special effect" on it.

When the book came out, we pored over that cover eagerly, and neither of us could tell what the effect was supposed to be. Was it the vine that came out of the picture space into the logo? Nah, couldn't be! We were (and still are, so far as I know) mystified. Maybe my friend asked him about it later and didn't think to tell me!

Of course, there's always the possibility that whatever it was got changed by the powers that be. Too bad, if so.

1:26 AM

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