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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 13, 2019 14:22:08 GMT -5
I'll argue all day on Grell, apart from acknowledging that earlier work was rougher than later; and, yes, superheroes weren't his natural inclination. He was definitely doing Adams heavily, on his superhero work; but, that was both what the DC editors wanted and the examples he saw when he left the Air Force. Warlord onward, he pulls more and more from his own artistic influences. Wonky anatomy is often a bit down to deadline pressure preventing time to "fix" things. Grell was probably the first artist whose work I really noted, for the artist, especially once I saw Warlord. I liked Legion, though, yeah, Grell is still rough there. It was also his first regular series, while the rest of his work was fill-ins and back-ups, until he was the regular on Green Lantern/Green Arrow (probably because of the Adams look) and, then, Warlord. The early Warlord issues, have some wonkiness and there are some weak reproductions; but, you just see Grell get better and better, with more and more lush details. I'm a huge devotee of the great book and magazine illustrators, who influenced Grell and his work would eventually reach those levels. Difference is, those guys were paid much better, for fewer illustrations. Grell had to churn product, like the rest. Grell's work in the Donning/Starblaze edition of Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood is a fine example of what he could do, given time, as are his later covers, from 90s Green Arrow and elsewhere.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 13, 2019 14:24:12 GMT -5
ps, I have a Robin Hood sketch that Grell did for me, at a convention, which graces my walls. Grell's pencils are just beautiful to look at. Like Colan, it takes an inker who is really in tune to capture the subtleties of the pencil art.
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Post by rberman on Feb 13, 2019 14:24:55 GMT -5
ps, I have a Robin Hood sketch that Grell did for me, at a convention, which graces my walls. Grell's pencils are just beautiful to look at. Like Colan, it takes an inker who is really in tune to capture the subtleties of the pencil art. Post it in the "original art" thread!
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 13, 2019 14:36:22 GMT -5
ps, I have a Robin Hood sketch that Grell did for me, at a convention, which graces my walls. Grell's pencils are just beautiful to look at. Like Colan, it takes an inker who is really in tune to capture the subtleties of the pencil art. I do wonder why Grell was never inked by anyone, especially someone who could have smoothed out those stiff, overly angular figures or softened that harsh look his drawings often had in the early days. Maybe he worked fast --- I don't wonder that editors often are prone to value speed and reliability over quality -- and also earned more by doing the inks? And, yes, that Robin Hood illustration is much more appealing than most other stuff of his I've seen and read.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 13, 2019 22:35:02 GMT -5
Wait--at least with Grell, this cod be considered an odd one-off cover considering the work he was doing on Superboy starring The Legion of Super Heroes at the same time . Wait a second, you have seen the interiors since '68, right? Not sure what you mean here. Grell didn't start till the mid-70s. On Superboy? His first issue was #203-- "Massacre By Remote Control" from August of 19 74. The Grell-penciled cover of JLA #117 was published in April of 19 75--pretty much the same period. My reference to the interiors was a counter to any claims against Grell's quality of art (on that cover, or elsewhere) compared to what had been found in the interiors of JLA since August of 1968. That has been said of his run on Green Lantern / Green Arrow, but the only Adams influence I recognized was Grell's attention to detail on even the most mundane of objects. He was nowhere being a "realistic" artist, but that detail and flair for keeping the characters moving in a story made his work a favorite, particularly on Superboy starring the Legion of Super Heroes.
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Post by rberman on Feb 14, 2019 6:45:31 GMT -5
JLA #119 “Winner takes the Earth!” (June 1975)Creative Team: Written by Elliot S! Maggin. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: The pink polyps of power have decided that humanity itself is a disease which needs to be eradicated, so the JLA can’t just hide on their satellite. The phrase “butts kicked” is actually used to describe the JLA’s poor results to date. The polyps even chase the JLA up to the satellite, adapting to use the teleporter. But just when all is lost, Hawkman returns from Thanagar, bringing both Hawkgirl and the Equalizer Plague which has been afflicting his planet for the last two issues. This somehow makes the JLA not only equal to the adaptoids, but superior. They gather the polyps and dump then on an uninhabited planet. My Two Cents: So, the adaptoids instantly adapted to be immune to the Equalizer Plague. Then the Plague caused the JLA to be equalized, thus also becoming immune to the Equalizer Plague. So… how does the plague help the JLA to become stronger enough to not only equal but overcome the Adaptoids at that point? My head hurts… The main purpose of this story seems to be to put Hawkgirl back in play. Bates and Maggin have been playing up a Green Arrow/Hawkman rivalry to try to add some Marvel-style intra-team conflict to the mix. But the bad feelings are entirely one-sided. Hawkman is a bland character who never says or does anything interesting, and Green Arrow’s unmotivated insults toward him just make GA sound like a super-grump, and he regularly gets chastised by his team-mates for it. Brad Metzger gives a rationale for this feud in his 2004 series Identity Crisis, a story which makes many fans seethe, and I’ll have more to say about it three issues from now.
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 14, 2019 8:26:48 GMT -5
Not sure what you mean here. Grell didn't start till the mid-70s. On Superboy? His first issue was #203-- "Massacre By Remote Control" from August of 19 74. The Grell-penciled cover of JLA #117 was published in April of 19 75--pretty much the same period. My reference to the interiors was a counter to any claims against Grell's quality of art (on that cover, or elsewhere) compared to what had been found in the interiors of JLA since August of 1968. That has been said of his run on Green Lantern / Green Arrow, but the only Adams influence I recognized was Grell's attention to detail on even the most mundane of objects. He was nowhere being a "realistic" artist, but that detail and flair for keeping the characters moving in a story made his work a favorite, particularly on Superboy starring the Legion of Super Heroes. I thought you were implying that Grell had been drawing interiors since the 60s. I realize he didn't start till the mid-70s. And that JLA cover didn't look a whole lot different to me than the work he was doing on the legion over in Superboy, especially compared to Cockrum, whom he replaced. I didn't care for Grell's style for reasons I stated before, and by comparison, I'll take the various Legion and Superboy artists who worked on the books in the late 60s /early 70s -- Swan, Bob Brown, Wally Wood, Dave Cockrum -- over Grell. It's a matter of taste and artistic preference, I guess.
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Post by rberman on Feb 15, 2019 8:10:53 GMT -5
JLA #120-121 “Adam Strange” (July and August 1975) Creative Team: Written by Cary Bates with “Adam Strange consultant Jack C. Harris.” Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. JLA #120 “The Parallel Perils of Adam Strange!”: A Zeta-Plus Beam transports five JLAers to Rann to help him defeat the same giant laser pistol that he previously faced in Mystery in Space #77 (1962). His fiancée Alanna was killed by a repeat appearance of the giant magnifying glass from Strange Adventures #242 (1973). Next up is a repeat of the giant albino bird Kalulla from Mystery in Space #83 (1963), then the giant robot Borg from Mystery in Space #85 (1963). This last foe shockingly shoots the JLA with a beam that turns them all to dust! This is all the work of old JLA foe Kanjar Ro, originally from JLA #3 (1961) but then seen in a JLA/Adam Strange crossover in Mystery in Space #75 (1962). JLA #121 “The Hero Who Jinxed the Justice League!”: Adam Strange travels to Earth to personally tell the rest of the JLA about last issue’s events, which takes four pages. The JLA have no time to deal with him; they’re off to Long Island to fight the cloud-monster from Mystery in Space #81 (1963), leaving Strange alone on the JLA satellite. Soon Kanjar Ro appears there to mock him. Adam Strange grabs Kanjar Ro’s control rods, catches a Zeta-Plus Beam back to Rann, and uses a machine to imprint himself with Kanjar Ro’s thought patterns so that he can control the biometrically locked control rod. Somehow this doesn't turn Strange evil, though. Strange uses the rod to free the five “dead” JLAers from the prison spheres holding their essences, as well as the essence of his beloved Alanna. Two Zeta-Plus Beams later, everybody has gone to earth, defeated the cloud monster, captured Kanjar Ro, and returned to Rann for the wedding of Adam Strange and Alanna. Yay! Continuity References: None, and there really ought to be some considering how much of this material has been seen elsewhere before. What’s up, editor Julius Schwartz? My Two Cents: It’s an action packed story, and I must say that the apparent atomization of five JLA members makes for a good cliffhanger between the two issues! Subtract a few points for the way the menaces were basically a greatest hits of former Adam Strange adventures, but still, an interesting tale with high stakes. Strange himself is shown to be off his game due to the recent death of his girl, which is reasonable of him. The art on #121 seemed unusually good with Frank McLaughlin now on inks, and the cloud-monster versions of the JLA were effectively colored too. Black Canary purports to have never heard of Adam Strange before. That would make sense, because she is from Earth-Two. However, she was present in issue #95 when Adam Strange and his Zeta Beam were being discussed, as shown in the 2nd and 3rd panels below. Minor detail. There’s one unintentionally hilarious shot of Kanjar Ro sitting on a dock gloating over defeated JLAers; he looks like a kid watching the ocean surf. Super—villains, like superheroes, should not wear short shorts.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 15, 2019 14:07:02 GMT -5
Two of my earliest JLA reads, thanks to a friend lending them to me. This cemented a love of Adam Strange; a hero with a brain and a pretty cool uniform;! James Robinson seemed to agree when he had Jack Knight land on Rann and meet Adam, then had Adam return to Earth and help protect Opal City. Much better than that deconstructionist mini-series, of the 90s.
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 15, 2019 14:18:13 GMT -5
ps, I have a Robin Hood sketch that Grell did for me, at a convention, which graces my walls. Grell's pencils are just beautiful to look at. Like Colan, it takes an inker who is really in tune to capture the subtleties of the pencil art. I do wonder why Grell was never inked by anyone, especially someone who could have smoothed out those stiff, overly angular figures or softened that harsh look his drawings often had in the early days. Maybe he worked fast --- I don't wonder that editors often are prone to value speed and reliability over quality -- and also earned more by doing the inks? And, yes, that Robin Hood illustration is much more appealing than most other stuff of his I've seen and read. I liked Grell's work on Warlord, GA, Sable and Starslayer and I'm willing to say that his weird and wonky anatomy just became a style to me, Similar to Kanes Nostril fixation Or Starlins tilted panel were in their work.
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 15, 2019 14:20:51 GMT -5
I could swear that Alanna got vaporized in another Adam Strange Story. Maybe a back up in another book.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 15, 2019 16:17:45 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm digging the Grell covers as well. His anatomy is - how do I put this nicely - atrociously terrible. But he has an expert sense of composition and I like the sense of balance and symmetry on all these covers.
(Although the "Left half of the cover mirrors the right half" trick might be a little over-used, here. But it's a good trick!)
I'm appreciating Dillin's sense of naturalistic body language and facial expressions, though - He's not a super dynamic artist but he's good at grounding his character's emotional reality. It's a little refreshing after seeing the Adams style "the backgrounds disappear and eyes bug out and mouth opens and neck elongates to an impossible angle" completely over-the-top approach to depicting character's emotions copied all the damn time.
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 15, 2019 16:42:51 GMT -5
I think Adams must owe you money or something for you to have those negative things to say about his art. IMO, to compare Dillan to Adams is to embarrass Dillan.
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 15, 2019 16:44:31 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm digging the Grell covers as well. His anatomy is - how do I put this nicely - atrociously terrible. But he has an expert sense of composition and I like the sense of balance and symmetry on all these covers. (Although the "Left half of the cover mirrors the right half" trick might be a little over-used, here. But it's a good trick!) I'm appreciating Dillin's sense of naturalistic body language and facial expressions, though - He's not a super dynamic artist but he's good at grounding his character's emotional reality. It's a little refreshing after seeing the Adams style "the backgrounds disappear and eyes bug out and mouth opens and neck elongates to an impossible angle" completely over-the-top approach to depicting character's emotions copied all the damn time. Why would you keep Adam Strange and Alanna with their backs to the readers when it's clear who they are, even thought the cover copy gives away what little mystery there might be anyway? Your observation about the cover designs is spot-on. Every cover (including Giordano's) from #117-121 is essentially the same. Heroes (usually) split into two halves by a screen or something like that, littered with too much copy. My guess is that someone (Giordano) was designing these and trying to make it easy for Grell and Chan. It is interesting how much better the Chan cover on 120 is thanks to the Garcia-Lopez inks. Granted, it's tough doing covers with lots of characters, but at least steal from some decent cover designs. Maybe even float a few heads!
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Post by rberman on Feb 16, 2019 18:29:37 GMT -5
JLA #122 “The Great Identity Crisis” (September 1975)Creative Team: Written by Martin Pasko. Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. The Story: Dr. Light shoots JLA members with an “Amnesium” ray which scrambles their secret identities; then he lays booby traps in their homes. Each trap would be no problem for the hero who really lives at that home, but the confused hero who visits instead is ensnared. (The trap which ensnares Bruce Wayne at Ollie Queen’s apartment is “irate neighbor,” how humiliating!) Aquaman is somehow immune to the mind-scrambling Amnesium, and he frees his friends. Everybody heads back to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude for a lengthy fight with Dr. Light which occupies most of the issue; they avoid his exploding holographic duplicates and win the day. Continuity References: This is a flashback issue, “the shocking story that explains how… and why… the JLA must know each other’s alter egos.” But it’s not clear when it’s supposed to take place. And the implied reason (“so we can overcome traps at each other’s houses in case our minds get switched”) seems… contrived? Covers That Lie: The JLA never have any idea that Aquaman may be in danger, let alone dead. My Two Cents: The underlying idea of this story is a great one that I’ve seen in various TV shows: What if the characters thought they were each other? It’s really fun to see actors on a TV show switching their roles, especially if you’ve had a chance to get to know them. Hijinks will inevitably ensue, as seen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Conundrum” (1992) and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Tabula Rasa” (2001). Unfortunately, applying this plot device to the JLA merely highlights how poorly developed their characters are. When they step into each other’s shoes, there’s no discernible difference, except for their inability to escape the traps which Dr. Light has set at each home. Pasko abandons the amnesia plot after only six pages; most of the issue is actually a slugfest in which Aquaman plays a major role; I think Pasko was trying to make this an Aquaman focus issue. The centerpiece of Pasko’s plot is the question of whether Aquaman has a secret identity. On page 3, Dr. Light declares that Aquaman has no secret identity and will thus be immune to his Amnesium; therefore he lays a separate bomb trap for Aquaman. But on page 12, Aquaman explains to Dr. Light that he really does have a secret identity of Arthur Curry. This means that he would have been vulnerable to the Amnesium, but we've already seen that he was unaffected, so why? Pasko was trying to come up with a plot twist, but he seems to have gotten tangled in it himself. Pasko treats Dr. Light’s “army of mirage-doubles” as if they were clones rather than illusions; they are the ones who laid all the booby traps. Later, he makes mirages which are somehow also bombs. Only in comic books, folks… There’s a delightful panel in which Aquaman commands pet fish to push so hard against their aquarium that it flies across the room and shatters a window. Only in comic books, folks… Aquaman calls Dr. Light “crud.” Hey, watch the pottymouth, mister King of the Seas! Pasko introduces an element of in-fighting, as several JLAers complain about their uselessness against an ice-monster at the beginning of the issue. Pasko also leaves hanging the most important plot point of this “Great Identity Crisis:” Dr. Light now knows the secret identities and home addresses of several JLAers, including Batman! How much will this information be worth on the criminal black market? This ball is totally dropped by every future JLA writer, until Brad Meltzer picks it up with his own Identity Crisis mini-series in 2004, in which amnesia and Dr. Light figure heavily, so issue #122 was probably his inspiration. In that series, we learn that Zatanna, with assistance from a cabal within the JLA, has repeatedly wiped the memories of criminals whenever they learn the heroes’ secrets. This was a controversial series due to the death of one popular supporting character, and the heel turn of another, but I must say the Zatanna revelation makes sense of a lot of apparently cavalier past behavior on the part of the JLA. The kicker is that Zatanna didn’t even have to be involved if Superman has a chunk of Amnesium sitting in his trophy room.
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