11 O'Clock Comics Episode 22

[Equinox]

Which Peanuts Character Are You?

You are Lucy van Pelt. You know what you want and you know how to get it, even if it means pulling the football away. Your forwardness sometimes comes off as aggression, and you have some work to do in the sensitivity department.
 

[WetRats]

I'm Charlie Brown and Lucy.

Very odd combo.

[Bigred5]

Thanks for getting me through another work day, guys. Loved the reminiscing of Johne Byrne's Superman. Vince was on point in regards to Curt Swan. The guy was very talented, but he overstayed his tenure on the book by a couple of decades.

By the way, after I switched from comics to working full time in animation, The Saban "Silver Surfer" was one of my first gigs. My stuff never got seen however since it was canned while the second season was in production! It's a shame, cause I think it had some potential, but a lot of the board artists on first season weren't action adventure guys, and people like my self, Chuck Patton and others came on board for the second season to get more Kirby into the poses and overall storytelling.

[VinceB]

By the way, after I switched from comics to working full time in animation, The Saban "Silver Surfer" was one of my first gigs. My stuff never got seen however since it was canned while the second season was in production!

There wouldn't happen to be a, um, DVD or anything of that work floating around, would there? 

If you ever feel like rambling on your time on the SS cartoon or the business in general, feel free. IFO would love to learn more. 

[David]

There wouldn't happen to be a, um, DVD or anything of that work floating around, would there? 

Heh.

If you ever feel like rambling on your time on the SS cartoon or the business in general, feel free. IFO would love to learn more. 

Same here.

[Bigred5]

Well, I spent about 5minutes staring at my screen trying to figure out what IFO means (Internet  Forum?) But I am happy to ramble. I will try to post more often on your site since I've pretty much zeroed in on you guys as my favorite comicbook podcast along with Around Comics. We are all about the same age and seem to feed off similar stuff which is why its so great listening to you.

Anyway, I was given a couple of Silver Surfer epsiodes on tape back in the day, but pretty much dumped or handed off all my vhs a few years ago. I would say the best bet is to look for them on places like youtube or maybe pirated DVD. There is not much I can say on the show beyond what I stated since the show collapsed within weeks after I was hired. They liked my work, so they transfered me over to a Captain America series that was starting up. I was thrilled, since he is one of my all time favorites, and because they had the balls to have it set in WW 2 fighting Nazis. It was a lot of fun, at least for a month or so until that got canned as well. Saban eventually went on to produce a season of "Spiderman Unlimited" which was described to me early on as Spiderman meets the Planet of The Apes but with flying cars, at which point I said "I'm outta here" and took up an offer to work at Sony animation on a variety of shows for the next three years.

[David]

IFO = I for one

[Dave Wyndorf]

Great episode guys! Nice to hear more of David.
 A couple of thangs about the Miller/Janson penciller/inker relationship. It was not uncommon for Miller to ink his work uncredited on his jobs with Janson. Just check out the Joker death scene in the Dark Night Returns and you'll see what I mean. Most of the splash page stuff also. Same thing on the team's Daredevil run. Splashes, close ups.
It also worked the other way around some times on the Daredevil run. Sometimes Janson would actually pencil AND ink whole sequences while only getting credit as inker. (I'm a stickler on this shit.)

On Superman artists, pleeeeze let us not forget Gil Kane's run on Action comics in the 80's!(Why no trade of THIS stuff, I wonder?) AND let us not forget it is KANE's  super-cool design of the Brainiac robot thang that is part of the reason the current Gary Frank Action Comics run looks so good. KaneKaneKane!

Also, Neal Adam's Superman covers are nothing to sneeze at either! And Murphy Anderson! Classic, safe as milk, Zzzzz. But I love him anyway.

Finally, George Perez is a GIANT! Byrne too!
Gotta go, real busy these days. Men of comics, I salute you!

[Bigred5]

Thank you Mr. Price. I'll get the internet shorthand down eventually

[David]

Thank you Mr. Price. I'll get the internet shorthand down eventually

No worries.

[David]

Great episode guys! Nice to hear more of David.

Aww, you're too kind, Mr. Wyndorf.

A couple of thangs about the Miller/Janson penciller/inker relationship. It was not uncommon for Miller to ink his work uncredited on his jobs with Janson. Just check out the Joker death scene in the Dark Night Returns and you'll see what I mean. Most of the splash page stuff also. Same thing on the team's Daredevil run. Splashes, close ups.
It also worked the other way around some times on the Daredevil run. Sometimes Janson would actually pencil AND ink whole sequences while only getting credit as inker. (I'm a stickler on this shit.)

And one of the many reasons I'm glad you hang out here.

On Superman artists, pleeeeze let us not forget Gil Kane's run on Action comics in the 80's!(Why no trade of THIS stuff, I wonder?) AND let us not forget it is KANE's  super-cool design of the Brainiac robot thang that is part of the reason the current Gary Frank Action Comics run looks so good. KaneKaneKane!

And that's another.

Also, Neal Adam's Superman covers are nothing to sneeze at either! And Murphy Anderson! Classic, safe as milk, Zzzzz. But I love him anyway.

Agreed on both.  And speaking of Superman, I always thought the Swanderson team was one of the great ones.

Finally, George Perez is a GIANT! Byrne too!

Booyah!

Gotta go, real busy these days. Men of comics, I salute you!

Right backatcha!

[Equinox]

Also, Neal Adam's Superman covers are nothing to sneeze at either!

Word!  Neal's artwork was THE main reason I bought the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali treasure edition book.  Damn, there was some great art on those pages. 

[David]

Neal's artwork was THE main reason I bought the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali treasure edition book.

Neal Adams and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali

From Comic Book Artist Special Edition

Editor's Note: I may be in the minority fandom opinion on this, but I've long felt that Neal Adams' Superman vs. Muhammad Ali was his best work for DC Comics. It appeared on the stands in late 1978 - just as I was losing interest in comics, and Neal's storytelling and technique blew me away. So, in planning this "Best of '70s DC Comics" issue, I asked Neal and my pal (interviewer/designer/historian extraordinaire) Arlen Schumer, if they could do a brief interview about the story behind the story. In phenomenally short turnaround time, Neal gave us the definitive interview on the project, Arlen sent us original art and the tapes, and transcriber Jon B. Knutson finished the transcript in record time. My sincere thanks to all. As this is an edited version of their discussion, CBA plans to present the entire transcript in the upcoming Comic Book Artist Collected Volume 1 (reprinting the out-of-print CBA #1-3 with new material) including more unseen art. This interview was conducted in Neal's Continuity Studio on November 12, 1999. - JBC

When I saw Joe's original cover (he hadn't done detail to the background) with the two figures, I thought, "Gee, you know, no matter what I do, I don't think I'm going to come up with a better layout than Joe." So I essentially took his layout, and just put my own drawing into it, and if somebody recognizes the pose of, say, Superman as not being a typical Neal Adams pose, it's a Joe Kubert pose, adapted to my style.

. . . .

So, there were people I just left out. But there were other people I'd already put in there. For example, John Wayne decided he didn't want to be in it, but I'd already drawn him. So I decided, "I don't want to take him out, but on the other hand, I don't want everybody to know it's John Wayne." So we put a mustache on him. So, if you look very carefully on the front cover, you'll see a guy with a mustache sitting right next to Johnny Carson, and sure enough, that's John Wayne with a mustache. You'll see next to Ron Howard, is a guy with a mustache-that's Fonzie [Henry Winkler] with different hair and a mustache.

. . . .

Want to know what it's like for Neal to have fun? This page [pg. 15]! [laughter] You'd think there's something mundane in a scene with policemen lining up, holding people back, but for me, the challenge is to take a mundane situation and make it interesting. That's what I used to do when I did my Ben Casey comic strips-I learned this process of how you take something that's not that interesting and make it interesting by the way you do it. So, any time we've calmed down and the characters are talking to one another, I would find ways of making that panel interesting... the cops lined up in front of the people, the way it's colored, the way you can feel the sunshine of day on the situation, you can see the cops become a symbol of what happens when cops hold people back.

. . . .

People criticized this story, saying, "Why did you want to do this Superman vs. Muhammad Ali-it's ridiculous." Not for one second is this story ridiculous-it's a terrific story. It was a pleasure doing it. As far as I'm concerned, Superman and Muhammad Ali are the greatest. Two Jewish boys from Cleveland, Ohio, and the Black heavyweight champion of the world-that's what it's all about.

Read the full page of excerpts here.

[Dave Wyndorf]

Thanks for the Comic Book Artist story David. Great magazine, huh?

[David]

Thanks for the Comic Book Artist story David. Great magazine, huh?

You can say that again.

[Equinox]

Thanks for the Comic Book Artist story David. Great magazine, huh?

Seconded!  I hadn't heard of the article previously and really enjoyed the read; karma and thanks to David!

[Bigred5]

Superman vs. Muhhamad Ali was the bomb, but it was Neal's work on Batman that made me want to draw comics. I had one of those comic book record dramas when I was a kid that featured Neal's Batman story that ended up with the Joker and a shark filled aquarium, and I literally copied every panel of that story. Speaking of which, I would love to see Vince drop in more of that kind of stuff into the podcasts like back in the bullpen bulletin days. Loved listening to the Man Thing record dramas from the '70s. Just keep it all comic book related, 'cause I think he lost some of us with some of his wilder experimentations.

Equinox, please keep posting. You have the greatest avatar ever. I can't get enough of seeing the hot chick from G4's boobs handled.

[Dallan]

Equinox, please keep posting. You have the greatest avatar ever. I can't get enough of seeing the hot chick from G4's boobs handled.

Seconded!  I was thinking the exact same thing, Bigred5.

[Equinox]

Equinox, please keep posting. You have the greatest avatar ever. I can't get enough of seeing the hot chick from G4's boobs handled.

Count on it!  And for even more booby love, don't forget to check out http://bullpenbulletinspodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=10.msg32#msg32 kids! 

[Chad (Grilled Cheese Sandwich)]

Anyone else feel that? That hint of desperation starting to creep into your peripheral vision...the additional foot-tap as you sitting pondering what thread to peruse next...that growing sense that something is coming...

EPISODE 23...

It's coming...I can feel it...like a Phil Collin's song in the 80's...there's no escape...