Comic fans usually revere writers and artists and inkers (despite Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy).  The most overlooked creators are often the letterers, especially the ones from the golden/silver/bronze ages.  My favorite letterer whose style I could easily identify as a kid was Artie Simek.

Letters were painstakingly hand-drawn in those days.  I am sure if you asked a non-fan, they thought a machine put the letters in the comics.  Artie Simek spent his entire professional life perfecting this craft at Marvel and DC Comics.

Artie Simek became exclusive to Marvel during their 1960s rebirth.  Many of the early Fantastic Four comics were lettered by Artie.  Why do I like his lettering style so much?  Number one, the letters are big, clear, and extremely easy to read.  There’s a style to his letters that gets specially accented in the captions and credits.  I love the way he drew those bold characters.

On this Defenders splash page, you can see that Artie designed Giant-Sized logos for the title of the story, slanted against the tornado.  There’s a TS Eliot quote that Steve Englehart threw in there, giving Artie an opportunity to do some fancy calligraphy.

Nutty little details, like the “Y” peeking out of the top rim of the panel, just tickle me.  Simek probably lettered all of Marvel’s major titles during the 1960s and 1970s: Fantastic Four, Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, I also liked Sam Rosen, John Costanza, Tom Orzechowski, Gaspar Saladino and Todd Klein.

I always looked forward to seeing the name “Artie Simek” in the credits.  Giving letterers a credit was unheard of before Stan Lee started doing it in Marvel Comics.  Way to go Stan—and way to go, Artie!  Nuff Said!

Link:  Artie Simek Wikipedia page.

As a big fan of the Marvel Monsters, I couldn't wait to see them meet each other.  In particular, I wanted Morbius to meet Werewolf By Night.

Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #3, published in 1975, featured this titanic event.  Would you believe this Gil Kane cover was the single best thing about this comic?  The interior artwork by Virgil Redondo is so horrible, I can't even bear to crop any scans and show you here.  It's like the artwork for a drab 1950s romance comic (not a Johnny Romita romance book--that would be cool) that some idiot thought was appropriate for a horror story.

Of all the Giant-Size books, the Werewolf drew the short end of the stick on artists.  What a shame--especially after being drawn by Ploog, Kane, and Sutton in the regular monthly series.  Nuff said.

Every once in a while, I wake up in the morning and a classic comic book pops in my head.  Most often on Saturdays, it’s a Doctor Strange story.  Today my mind travelled back to 1972, Marvel Premiere #3: Barry Smith and Stan Lee on the good Doctor Strange.

As you can tell by the terrific splash page, Smith plotted the full story with Stan providing the words and captions.  What we like to call Marvel Style!  Except I always think that classic Marvel style was when Stan at least gave a page of notes or at least a conversation with the artist.  You have to admire how well it worked at the time.  It was only possible due to the fact that Kirby, Romita, Buscema, Colan, Smith, etc., were all great storytellers.  I can’t possibly imagine any of Marvel’s current creators working this way.

Barry Smith knocked himself out on the artwork for this story.  Look at this panel where Doc is walking through the streets of New York City, as the rain starts to fall.  He’s brooding on this and that.  Who could capture this feeling, or draw those raindrops, as well as Smith could?

This is the other panel that always stuck in my mind—the one where Doc smashes open his window and discovers that the world outside has changed.  He’s trapped in his astral form while his body remains in a coma.  It’s unreal, like a dream.  Gee, which classic villain could cause this situation?  Nightmare, of course.

This comic has been reprinted a few times.  The scans you see here were taken from a Marvel Milestones reprint.  Nuff said!

Neal Adams did great work on Savage Tales covers featuring Conan, but did you know about this piece featuring Robert E. Howard's other heroes?  It was published in a Marvel black and white magazine called Kull and the Barbarians (issue #1, 1975).

King Kull and Red Sonja.  Kull's tiger totem rages in the background, while Sonja looks rather shyly toward the viewer.  It was an interesting choice to depict Sonja this way rather than baring her sword and looking feisty.

The Roman era Bran Mak Morn and the puritanical Solomon Kane.  Adams and his Crusty Bunkers crew also inked a couple of Kane stories.  By now you can tell these two images are connected together, with the fallen tree connecting all these characters together.

Neal Adams did a great job here.  Every time I look at these Robert E Howard characters, I also think that Roy Thomas is the man responsible for their popularity.  I can't believe there is a Solomon Kane movie on the horizon in 2010.  Nuff said!

To close out 2009, Alex Ross’ wonderful painting for the Marvel Encyclopedia.

We’ll see all of you True Believers back here in 2010, when these heroes hopefully return to classic form.  Nuff Said!

Here's a 1990 drawing by Javier Saltares that I found on Romitaman's website.  According to the description, this was a promotional drawing for the "second-generation" Danny Ketch Ghost Rider that debuted later in 1990.  Nuff said!

Here is the original black and white artwork for Marvel Treasury Edition #13 (1976) by Gil Kane (inked by either Romita or Sinnott or both).  You can see the paste-up logos over the artwork.  I did another post a year ago that featured Kane's sketch layout for this Giant Superhero Holiday Grab Bag.  Nuff said!

After years of reading about Isotope Comics in San Francisco and reading various interviews with the owner, James Sime, I finally indulged myself in a trip to his unique store.  James was sitting at the counter when I arrived, as friendly and enthusiastic about comics as I am.  It’s a good quality for an owner to have.  I had a brief feeling of Déjà Vu after meeting James, who is well known from CBR, Flickr, Twitter, and various podcast interviews.  Never before had I met a store owner who is well known on the Internet!

Within seconds of my arrival we started talking about Doctor Strange—after I spotted his costume hanging in the balcony.  We both agreed that the current Strange series is somewhat lacking.  In fact, James’ theory is that anything with the title “Strange” isn’t all that good.  There was the JMS series a few years ago where Marvel attempted to reboot the good doctor.  And if you remember the 1990s era comics where Doc split into two entities—one called Strange—this theory seems spot on!  We both agreed that Brian K Vaughan’s The Oath series was one of Doc’s finest tales.

Isotope’s interior design is equally friendly.  There are no long white boxes that you have to step over as you walk around.  It does not look like a refuge for seedy characters.  It is a store where you feel comfortable looking around at cool things  The store is brightly lit, there are comfortable seats where you can read stuff, and they have interesting graphic novels on display everywhere.  They have new comics as well as mini-comics.  There is also a selection of original art on display.

Isotope is famous for having unique events where creators come to do signings.  James can really think out of the box and tries to make these events special—by offering limited edition pint glasses for Darwyn Cooke or scotch tastings for Warren Ellis.  James started getting these creators to create a drawing on toilet seat covers; I’m sure it started off as a lark, but now Isotope’s upper wall is covered with dozens of them.  And James has so many, he can’t display the entire collection at once.  There’s a Warren Ellis piece featuring Spider Jerusalem right next to one by Darick Robertson, and Mark Millar drawing his rendition of Superman.

This toilet seat drawn by Darwyn Cooke makes me supremely envious.  It’s just perfect and captures everything great about Cooke’s style.  I showed this picture to my wife Teresa (who is not a comics fan) and she instantly recognized Catwoman.  That’s a testament to Cooke’s ability to draw the character in an iconic form.  Teresa wondered why no one has made a business out of selling toilet seat covers with images?  There probably is one, but not with comic characters.  I’d certainly buy this one if DC made this a licensed product.  But I wouldn’t use a backhoe to steal it.

I only spent an hour at Isotope before I had to return to work.  I bought a few great collections, Northlanders (vol 1 & 2, awesome stuff) and Criminal (2 volumes).  If you work in the financial district as I do, it’s really a convenient trip.  You can get on any outbound Muni at Embarcadero, travel to the Van Ness stop, walk up to Fell, make a left and walk 2-3 blocks to the store at 326 Fell Street. 

When I was in my 20s, I always had a fantasy vision of what my ideal comics store would be like.   I always imagined a place where collections were readily available, top-notch creators would come and socialize with fans.  And perhaps share a drink or two on special occasions.  James Sime is my idol—he not only dreamed about such a place, he made it into a reality!  Nuff said!

Links:  Isotope Comics, James Sime on Twitter