Today is Jack Kirby's birthday.  Even though he's not around, I still like to celebrate with a big old stogie and some Kirby comics.  Well, maybe not a real cigar, but here is one classic Marvel image you will like.

This is one of the Marvelmania posters that Jack Kirby did in the late 60s, featuring Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-Man, Doctor Doom and Silver Surfer.  The Jack Kirby Collector Magazine #47 had this on the cover, which is where the scan came from.

Here is the original un-colored drawing, from Tod Seisser's gallery at ComicArtFans.

For another tribute to the King, check my Amazing Heroes 100 article on Giant-Size Geek that features a few cartoons from Kevin O'Neill, William Messner-Loebs, and Scott Shaw.  Nuff Said!

Link: Tod Seisser's Gallery at ComicArtFans.

Link: TwoMorrows Publishing.

Here's a classic Jack Kirby poster from the 1960s for the fan club Marvelmania.

See the link below for more Kirby cover scans.  Nuff Said!

Link: The Mighty Thor - Volume 1 Omnibus by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Jack Kirby

Link: Thor Omnibus by J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel

Link: Tod Seisser's Gallery at ComicArtFans.

This week's Thing comes a real Dude, Steve Rude!

The Thing is his ever-lovin' self, with a nice editorial comment added, to boot!  Check out Steve's website where he does all kinds of cool commissions like this one.  Nuff Said!

Link:  Steve Rude's Gallery at ComicArtFans.

Link:  Steve Rude Original Art.

Mark Millar once remarked that he has several notebooks with all kinds of ideas for Marvel characters.  His new Ultimates mini-series has been giving him the opportunity to showcase a lot of revised heroes and villains. 

Ghost Rider appeared in Ultimate Comics Avengers, Vol. 2: Crime and Punishment.  His first appearance was in this glorious double page spread.  His Ultimate origin still remains tied to Satan, and this supernatural creature is more than a match for the Ultimate Avengers.

M. Schulman is the lucky fellow who owns the pencils to this page by Leinil Yu.  I was surprised to see that Leinil pencils the image on paper, not that I object, I just assumed all young artists drew on the computer.

Millar's take on Ghost Rider is a nice tweak, giving Johnny Blaze a new motivation to keep riding on his hellcycle.  This series also featured the Punisher, who joins the Ultimate Avengers--against his will--to hunt down the Ghost Rider.  The only problem is that he approves of the villains that Ghost Rider is killing.

One piece of Ghost Rider movie news came last week:  Ghost Rider 2 will go into production very soon in Romania.  It will be shot in 3D, of course, because you demanded to see a flaming skull as close as possible.  Don't look too closely at the Penance Stare in this film. 

According to this Nicholas Cage quote on Comic Book Movie News (who got it from MTV):

"This story picks up eight years after the first film. You don't have to have seen the first film. It doesn't contradict anything that happened in the first film, but we're pretending that our audience hasn't seen the first film. It's as if you took that same character where things ended in the first film and then picked it up eight years later - he's just in a much darker, existential place."

One stroke against this film right on the starting gate is that Cage is back as Johnny Blaze.  Who wants to see a middle aged man as Ghost Rider?  Johnny Blaze should be no more than 30 years old.  Eva Mendes won't return as Roxanne Simpson, saving me from another frontal lobotomy.  The directors are Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who produced an entertaining movie in Crank, but fell apart in other works.   

I really don't demand too much from this type of movie.  The first Ghost Rider film I can still watch, if I fast forward right to the scenes where the flesh burns off Cage's face.  The scene at the end with the cowboy version of Ghost Rider, played by Sam Elliott, riding on a flaming horse was really cool.  Nuff Said!

Link: Schulman's Gallery on ComicArtFans.

Link: Ultimate Comics Avengers, Vol. 2: Crime and Punishment

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Doctor Strange hasn't been lucky in terms of sales, but when it comes to artistic talent, he magically attracts the best: Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Barry Smith, Frank Brunner, Michael Golden, etc.  In the 1980s, after he had set the comics world on fire with the X-Men, Paul Smith drew a handful of issues starring the mystic master.

Doctor Strange #56 was Paul Smith's second issue.  The cover really stands out in my memory, because it's beautiful, elegant, and efficiently designed.  The "shot" is taken from an angle below so that you can see the stars and planets in the background.  Doc doesn't need to fight anyone, to sling any spells or fight Dormammu to be cool.  He's just ultra-cool enough with his look, costume, Eye of Agamotto, etc.  The cover was drawn in 1982.

Tom Horvitz has the original cover over on ComicArtFans.  Would love to have a good scan of the original.

Here is the original splash page to that issue, inked by Terry Austin, who had worked on the series since Marshall Rogers took over a couple of years before.  Austin was the perfect inker for Smith.

This 1980s period was a particularly good one for Doctor Strange--I heard Brian Bendis talking about the Smith run on Word Balloon a while ago.  Check out Essential Doctor Strange Volume 4 TPB (v. 4), which contains the above issue, as well as the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers storyline where Clea ultimately breaks Doc's heart.  It also includes the Michael Golden story in issue #55 that inspired many artists to work on Doctor Strange.  Nuff Said!

Alex Ross painted version of the Avengers, in a print titled Assemble that was published for Comic-Con 2010 at Marvel Art Works.

Ross has an uncanny knack for cherry picking my favorite eras of the Marvel Universe for his paintings.  This team, from left to right, has the key players from the Roy Thomas years:  Black Panther, Hawkeye, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Vision, with Giant-Man's visor looming in the background.  Nuff Said!

Link:  COMIC-CON 2010: First look at 'Avengers Assemble' painting by Alex Ross

Link:  First Look At Alex Ross' Assemble Print Featuring Marvel's Avengers

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You've probably seen these mega giant-sized wall posters that Marvel Comics has been producing over the past couple of years.  Olivier Coipel's Thor poster was one of these grand behemoths, a 10 foot long panorama of all things Asgardian. 

The poster originally appeared on the covers to the Tales of Asgard mini-series from 2009.  Here is the finished cover to Tales of Asgard #1, with inks by Mark Morales.  Note that this is classic Thor, in his old Jack Kirby designed costume.

Here are Coipel's original pencils to the cover.  I am amazed at the detail and the shading,  You can see Coipel even drew Thor's kneecaps, even though he knew they would be obscured by the boot cuffs after the inking.

tales of asgard 1 cover by *MarkMorales on deviantART

Mark Morales provided the finished inked version on his deviantART site.  Please click on it to see a larger version.  Morales has lots of great artwork and commissions on deviantART to look at.

Even more artwork after the break...

Here are five posters featuring the Marvel Universe's greatest characters that no true believer can deny are superb!  Four of them I have featured previously, but the first one I believe is new to my site...

Arthur Adams produced the "Marvel Heroes and Villains" lithograph for Dynamic Forces.  We could easily peg these versions of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, and their various villains in the mid 1960s era.  You've got Daredevil standing next to Black Widow, that edges you in the 1970 territory.  :-)

Golden drew this poster of the Marvel Universe in the 1970s.  It actually may have come out around 1980 or so--Moon Knight is featured, and he wasn't popular until the late 70s with his series starting in 1980.  But it's very 70s in spirit, with the All-New X-Men, Storm's classic costume, the Avengers (just love the Vision sinking into the ground), Black Bolt, Hulk, Doc Strange, Silver Surfer, and the Watcher on the left.  There's a few Marvel Monsters with Ghost Rider and Man-Thing.  Heck, even Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, and Captain Universe are in there.

Golden also drew this print that was featured in a 1980s Marvel Calendar.  You can immediately see the difference in this post-Secret Wars era, with Spidey's black costume, Beta Ray Bill, Grey Hulk Joe Fixit, New Mutants, Archangel, and Iron Man's armor that he donned in IM #200.  Note also the prominence of Daredevil and Elektra due to Frank Miller's work on the series.  The Punisher, another top seller, is also in the background.  Beyond the characters, the awesome sauce is the setting--the heroes in front of the Pan-Am building and crawling around the statue in front.

Alex Ross produced this cover for the Marvel Comics Encyclopedia.

This widescreen poster by David Finch, collecting all of his covers from X-Men Legacy, will be arriving in comic stores this June.  Didn't read the series, but this image is stunning.  Classic X-Men and New X-Men as bookends, with Sentinels, Hellfire Club, and Magneto sandwiched in-between.  Nuff Said!