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Post by tarkintino on Mar 8, 2020 10:47:10 GMT -5
Romita apparently drew this story under the signed name “Zakarin.” Not an alternate or assumed name for Romita; Les(ter) Zakarin was a real artist, who inked several Romita stories in the Golden Age, while Romita ghosted some of Zakarin's assignments. Zakarin left the comic business in the 50s. He was born in 1929 and passed away in January of 2003.
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Post by electricmastro on Mar 8, 2020 18:49:29 GMT -5
Romita apparently drew this story under the signed name “Zakarin.” Not an alternate or assumed name for Romita; Les(ter) Zakarin was a real artist, who inked several Romita stories in the Golden Age, while Romita ghosted some of Zakarin's assignments. Zakarin left the comic business in the 50s. He was born in 1929 and passed away in January of 2003. And that Zakarin reportedly confirmed to Jim Amash in 2002 that he only inked, never pencilled.
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Post by electricmastro on Mar 9, 2020 16:13:31 GMT -5
Vampire art from Mystic #25 (December 1953, Marvel Comics):
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Post by tarkintino on Jul 10, 2020 19:42:00 GMT -5
More Romita goodness--from the Spider-Man newspaper strip. As Romita recalls it, Lee wanted to launch a daily strip as early as 1970, and with Romita, produced two weeks' worth of strips for the proposal, as seen in the following samples-- --but it failed to be picked up. Lee would revisit the idea again in 1976, agreeing to write the strip, but Romita--by that time Art Director at Marvel--was not so enthusiastic about taking on such a job: Romita: "I wanted to keep my job. I was a 9 to 5 art director. I was also doing other things - covers, and designing toys and things like that. I didn't want to give up my job because I thought of the syndicate thing as a long shot, and with not much duration and expectation." After coming around, Romita initially only wanted to illustrate the dailies, or the Sunday strip, but ended up taking on all seven days of the strip, which launched in January of 1977. The following are samples from The Rattler storyline from June of 1977 run-- ...The Kingpin arc from July of that year-- Around this board, there's been a good amount of discussion about the quality of classic artists' work during their years in comics, including when or of their work changed (for better or worse) as time moved forward. Looking at Romita's 1970 proposal pages, then comparing it to his work from '77, its pretty clear that he did not lose his powerful edge or approach to delivering stories. The style of certain characters changed to update their look to then-contemporary times, but the quality of his art was holding strong. More to come from Romita's run on the Spider-Man daily strip.
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Post by sabongero on Jul 10, 2020 19:52:54 GMT -5
More Romita goodness--from the Spider-Man newspaper strip. As Romita recalls it, Lee wanted to launch a daily strip as early as 1970, and with Romita, produced two weeks' worth of strips for the proposal, as seen in the following samples-- --but it failed to be picked up. Lee would revisit the idea again in 1976, agreeing to write the strip, but Romita--by that time Art Director at Marvel--was not so enthusiastic about taking on such a job: Romita: "I wanted to keep my job. I was a 9 to 5 art director. I was also doing other things - covers, and designing toys and things like that. I didn't want to give up my job because I thought of the syndicate thing as a long shot, and with not much duration and expectation." After coming around, Romita initially only wanted to illustrate the dailies, or the Sunday strip, but ended up taking on all seven days of the strip, which launched in January of 1977. The following are samples from The Rattler storyline from June of 1977 run-- ...The Kingpin arc from July of that year-- Around this board, there's been a good amount of discussion about the quality of classic artists' work during their years in comics, including when or of their work changed (for better or worse) as time moved forward. Looking at Romita's 1970 proposal pages, then comparing it to his work from '77, its pretty clear that he did not lose his powerful edge or approach to delivering stories. The style of certain characters changed to update their look to then-contemporary times, but the quality of his art was holding strong. More to come from Romita's run on the Spider-Man daily strip. For some reason that's always been the facial illustrations of Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker that I associate with those two characters. Perhaps as a kid in the 1980's and I've been a buyer of the Marvel Tales comic book reprints of the 1960's Amazing Spider-Man, that's what settled in my subconscious. Just like Superman in the Super Friends cartoon series is the facial illustration I associate with Superman instead of the mid 90's Superman TAS and 2000's JL and JLU.
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Post by brutalis on Jul 10, 2020 20:15:31 GMT -5
Man was I stoked hearing about Spider-man going to the newspaper. Convinced my folks to subscribe at the very beginning for a 2 2 month subscription by convincing them of the benefits of using the discount ads. It was a splendid 2 months of clipping out the Spidey strip & glueing it to construction paper then placing in a notebook.i grew up on the Andru/Romita version and this was my 1st full on Romita and it was amazing.
Spidey and the Russ Manning Star Wars were wonders to behold for young me.
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Post by tarkintino on Jul 12, 2020 14:37:12 GMT -5
Man was I stoked hearing about Spider-man going to the newspaper. Convinced my folks to subscribe at the very beginning for a 2 2 month subscription by convincing them of the benefits of using the discount ads. It was a splendid 2 months of clipping out the Spidey strip & glueing it to construction paper then placing in a notebook.i grew up on the Andru/Romita version and this was my 1st full on Romita and it was amazing. Spidey and the Russ Manning Star Wars were wonders to behold for young me. I cut out the strips too, and built quite the scrapbook with them. Even after Romita's run ended in 1980, I was still following the dailies. Although I collected the monthly Amazing Spider-Man, I found the strip refreshing because it occupied its own world unaffected by the larger Marvel universe of characters and situations, with only a handful of guest appearances. More samples from 1977, with Dr. Doom as the first adversary Spider-Man faced in the strip-- ...and more from The Rattler storyline-- Romita was one of the few of the classic comic artists who did not need an inker.
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Post by tarkintino on Jul 14, 2020 19:01:53 GMT -5
Missed opportunity: Marvel's short lived sci-fi/fantasy adaptation series Worlds Unknown (5/1973 - 8-1974) ended its 8-issue run with a two-part adaptation of the great 1973 Harryhausen / Schneer fantasy film, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. The comic's art duties were handed to George Tuska with Vince Colletta inks--except for the splash page (Left) of part one (issue #7, which had no Tuska penciling at all, as seen below. The 31st page next to it (Right) was all Tuska & Colletta: The splash was handled in its entirety by Romita, and while it was not uncommon for Romita to touch up the work of endless numbers of artists, as in the case of his very prominent changes to Tuska's version of Taylor (Left) from the 1974 adaptation of Planet of the Apes-- Back to the splash: A totally new addition / artist was the sort of practice that happened for a number of reasons: the book's original artist had moved on to other assignments and was no longer free to add whatever the splash needed, or the layout was found to be unacceptable, thus another artist provided the kind of introduction believed to be necessary for storytelling and/or artistic demands, etc. Whatever the case happened to be, the splash went beyond touch ups, but to the 1974 reader opening the comic for the first time, he or she may have been thrilled at the idea of seeing Romita adapt the film, only for the art of others to take the adaptation in a very different direction from page two forward. Arguably a poor direction, of the sample is any indicator.
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Post by tarkintino on Oct 27, 2020 10:51:27 GMT -5
Another look into Romita's non-comic book history, and a very interesting recollection from Romita when first meeting Stan Lee: David Anthony Kraft: "Do you remember the first time you met Stan?"Romita: "Yeah. I went up to the Empire State Building and we discussed stories. He left a big impression on me--and he was very encouraging. I did about three or four stories for him which were just average beginner stories, after which I did one with a lot of elaborate technique. He went crazy, loved it. He said it was so realistic and strong.
I must have made a dozen enemies among the other freelance artists because he had asked them to work that way too, and it took twice as long. He asked them all to embellish their artwork with this elaborate technique--with all the tones, light and shade. It was murder."-- FOOM #18, June 1977So, we all know that by the time of Marvel's Silver Age, Kirby became the house style other artists were told to emulate (in their varied ways), but it seems Lee wanted his artists to draw the Romita way during the Atlas/early Marvel years. Of course, Romita would not be the only realism-oriented artist at the company, as John Severin ( Rawhide Kid), Russ Heath and Carl Burgos ( Two-Gun Kid) were also pushing the monthly comic in that direction, but Lee seemed to have turned an artistic preference page once he saw Romita's work. Speaking of his early years and the influence of realism, here are a few pieces from Romita's personal and commercial work-- LEFT: Two sketches inside the covers of Romita's childhood copy of The Count of Monte Christo. MIDDLE: 1950 - Gouache painting for a cigarette ad. RIGHT: 1951 - Oil painting for Women in Military poster.
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Post by tarkintino on Jan 21, 2021 18:59:51 GMT -5
More original-to-finished Romita work. This time, its all-Namor, including issue #67 (November, 1973) marking the debut of the Romita-designed costume, giving Namor a distinctive look in a field of costumed characters in ways the traditional green trunks could not.
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Post by tarkintino on Jan 23, 2021 17:15:48 GMT -5
More of Romita's self-inked pages for Aurora's 1974 reissue of their Spider-Man model kit, rebranded as Comic Scenes: By the time this kit was reissued, Romita had not been the regular interior artist on ASM for a couple of years (stopping at ASM #120, and co-penciling #123), but he was the title / character's defining artist, hence the reason he was approached (allegedly by Dave Cockrum, who was designing kit concepts for Aurora at the time) to illustrate this comic / instruction book.
Note the "Follow the web-slinging exploits of Spider-Man..." blurb at the bottom of the page, mirroring what Marvel was doing in its monthlies of the period.
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Post by tarkintino on Jan 28, 2021 11:27:33 GMT -5
Romita during the early years of Daredevil. This time, finishing / inking on Kirby breakdowns for issue #13 ( "The Secret of Ka-Zar's Origin!" from February, 1966)... ...and with Frank Giacoia inking on issue #15 ( "...And Men Shall Call Him Ox!" from April, 1966).
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,541
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Post by Confessor on Jan 28, 2021 16:59:12 GMT -5
I saw this rather nice John Romita drawing of Dr. Strange online the other day. Strange isn't a character you associate with "Ring-a-Ding" Romita, so it's fun to see his take on the Master of Mystic Arts.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 1, 2021 7:50:06 GMT -5
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Post by kirby101 on Feb 1, 2021 9:21:05 GMT -5
I thought Mortellaro did the background inks and Romita ink4ed the figures?
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