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Post by arfetto on Nov 7, 2022 23:15:35 GMT -5
I can help, a bit, with Tiger Files. It was a legit series and it was supposed to be published by Image. Doug Rice and Tom Artis knew each other as part of the Chicago comic crowd. The concept was Artis and Rice was co-plotting and helping with the art. However, at that time, Diamond was threatening financial penalties for companies who kept missing release dates for items they solicited, which was aimed square at Image. They had been blowing deadlines left and right, both with their own titles (and by them I mean the founders) and with the Deathmate crossover. They basically responded by dropping a bunch of titles from non-core founders, except friends and hot titles, like the Maxx. I spoke with Rice about the situation at a mini-convention, in Springfield, IL, where I was living. Tom Artis was living in Springfield, by that point and I met him, too. Rice & Hilary Barta had done Stupid, with a second issue due to come out and the first did decent numbers. They axed it anyway. Mike Grell's Shaman's Tears was also cut, but they were soon back together. Rice was working full time in animation, for Star Toons, which picked up some work for Pinky & The Brain and Hysteria, from Warner. So, he was only doing freelance comic stuff. Around that time, he had a project that was supposed to come out, called Squadron, set in a fictional 1930s..... It never came about, as they never got the financing to print it. Meanwhile, Tom Artis had most recently worked on DC's Impact line, doing The WEB, but was replaced on the book. He had a lot of problems with deadlines, which pretty much sunk him at DC and Marvel. Most of his work had been done for smaller companies and he always seemed to be trying to hustle work. He published one issue of a Black Terror comic, that was financed by a local comic shop; but they didn't make any money on it. As it was, Artis didn't even fully ink the issue, as about the first third to a half of the issue had full inks, then it got pretty sketchy, for the remainder. I believe they had also solicited, but never published a Fighting Yank comic, since both characters were in the public domain. When I met Artis, he was sketching and did a Black Terror for me and you could also buy sketchbook pages from him. I picked up a couple of pages of character sketches that were intended to be characters within The Tiger Files, including one called Doc Hypertrophy and a female character, with no name listed. He had a couple of Tiger sketches, but pulled them out, because he wanted more money for those than what he was asking for the other pages. He had kind of developed a reputation as a bit of a BS artist, in the local comics crowd and had burned at least one local shop (the one with the comic, I believe). he had a group of "students," who mostly seemed to be gophers who may or may not have been exploited. To be honest, these are mostly impressions he gave and some things I heard from the comic shops. he and some of his crowd occasionally came into Barnes & Noble. I do know he had health problems and family problems, both of which factored into his professional problems. I liked his work on The WEB and the fully rendered stuff in The Terror (his Black Terror comic); but, it seemed like he was his own worst enemy and/or just couldn't get his personal life in order enough to get much professional work. He passed away several years ago and Mike Gold wrote well of him, on his website and he had far more dealings with him than I ever did. He felt he was a tremendous talent whose health and personal life kept him from making the impact his talent should have.
Wow, amazing. Thank you very much for this info. I figured The Tiger Files never showing up may have had something to do with that non-founder Image cancelling wave, but I was never quite sure since I only saw the ad in Stupid (which made me question whether it was a real ad) and no info of it in comic magazines that I recall. Thank you for clearing this up for me. Now I am interested in "Doc Hypertrophy" haha.
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 8, 2022 3:57:55 GMT -5
The Bullpen Bulletin page that ran the month Marvel's first Doc Savage comic debuted noted that "yep, we've got THE SHADOW lined up in weeks to come, also." Obviously, they didn't, as the Kaluta-drawn DC book premiered a year later. I can't help wondering what a Marvel Shadow would've looked (and read) like.
Cei-U! Who knows what evil lurks...?
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Post by berkley on Nov 8, 2022 9:21:36 GMT -5
The Bullpen Bulletin page that ran the month Marvel's first Doc Savage comic debuted noted that "yep, we've got THE SHADOW lined up in weeks to come, also." Obviously, they didn't, as the Kaluta-drawn DC book premiered a year later. I can't help wondering what a Marvel Shadow would've looked (and read) like. Cei-U! Who knows what evil lurks...?
I missed that announcement. I thought Marvel did a pretty good job with Doc Savage - apart from the artwork, which was only middling, especially in the black and white mag. I wonder who would have drawn the Shadow - Gene Colan?
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 8, 2022 9:45:55 GMT -5
The Bullpen Bulletin page that ran the month Marvel's first Doc Savage comic debuted noted that "yep, we've got THE SHADOW lined up in weeks to come, also." Obviously, they didn't, as the Kaluta-drawn DC book premiered a year later. I can't help wondering what a Marvel Shadow would've looked (and read) like. Cei-U! Who knows what evil lurks...?
I missed that announcement. I thought Marvel did a pretty good job with Doc Savage - apart from the artwork, which was only middling, especially in the black and white mag. I wonder who would have drawn the Shadow - Gene Colan?
Oh man, a Colan-drawn Shadow?! I want to move to the alternste eality where this happened!
Cei-U! Ohh, Uaaatuuuuu...
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Post by Calidore on Nov 8, 2022 9:51:31 GMT -5
Tom Artis' death was very sad. Peter Gillis had a nice remembrance on his blog, which is reproduced in post #11 of this thread. m.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=18419The Bullpen Bulletin page that ran the month Marvel's first Doc Savage comic debuted noted that "yep, we've got THE SHADOW lined up in weeks to come, also." Obviously, they didn't, as the Kaluta-drawn DC book premiered a year later. I can't help wondering what a Marvel Shadow would've looked (and read) like. Cei-U! Who knows what evil lurks...? I missed that announcement. I thought Marvel did a pretty good job with Doc Savage - apart from the artwork, which was only middling, especially in the black and white mag. I wonder who would have drawn the Shadow - Gene Colan?
Funny, Colan was my first thought as well. And I do think that for the Shadow, a B & W mag would definitely have been the way to go.
For a writer, given how much time Margo spent being captured and tormented by the depraved villains (in the radio show at least; can't remember about the comics), this might have been right up Chris Claremont's alley.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 8, 2022 10:00:23 GMT -5
I can help, a bit, with Tiger Files. It was a legit series and it was supposed to be published by Image. Doug Rice and Tom Artis knew each other as part of the Chicago comic crowd. The concept was Artis and Rice was co-plotting and helping with the art. However, at that time, Diamond was threatening financial penalties for companies who kept missing release dates for items they solicited, which was aimed square at Image. They had been blowing deadlines left and right, both with their own titles (and by them I mean the founders) and with the Deathmate crossover. They basically responded by dropping a bunch of titles from non-core founders, except friends and hot titles, like the Maxx. I spoke with Rice about the situation at a mini-convention, in Springfield, IL, where I was living. Tom Artis was living in Springfield, by that point and I met him, too. Rice & Hilary Barta had done Stupid, with a second issue due to come out and the first did decent numbers. They axed it anyway. Mike Grell's Shaman's Tears was also cut, but they were soon back together. Rice was working full time in animation, for Star Toons, which picked up some work for Pinky & The Brain and Hysteria, from Warner. So, he was only doing freelance comic stuff. Around that time, he had a project that was supposed to come out, called Squadron, set in a fictional 1930s..... It never came about, as they never got the financing to print it. Meanwhile, Tom Artis had most recently worked on DC's Impact line, doing The WEB, but was replaced on the book. He had a lot of problems with deadlines, which pretty much sunk him at DC and Marvel. Most of his work had been done for smaller companies and he always seemed to be trying to hustle work. He published one issue of a Black Terror comic, that was financed by a local comic shop; but they didn't make any money on it. As it was, Artis didn't even fully ink the issue, as about the first third to a half of the issue had full inks, then it got pretty sketchy, for the remainder. I believe they had also solicited, but never published a Fighting Yank comic, since both characters were in the public domain. When I met Artis, he was sketching and did a Black Terror for me and you could also buy sketchbook pages from him. I picked up a couple of pages of character sketches that were intended to be characters within The Tiger Files, including one called Doc Hypertrophy and a female character, with no name listed. He had a couple of Tiger sketches, but pulled them out, because he wanted more money for those than what he was asking for the other pages. He had kind of developed a reputation as a bit of a BS artist, in the local comics crowd and had burned at least one local shop (the one with the comic, I believe). he had a group of "students," who mostly seemed to be gophers who may or may not have been exploited. To be honest, these are mostly impressions he gave and some things I heard from the comic shops. he and some of his crowd occasionally came into Barnes & Noble. I do know he had health problems and family problems, both of which factored into his professional problems. I liked his work on The WEB and the fully rendered stuff in The Terror (his Black Terror comic); but, it seemed like he was his own worst enemy and/or just couldn't get his personal life in order enough to get much professional work. He passed away several years ago and Mike Gold wrote well of him, on his website and he had far more dealings with him than I ever did. He felt he was a tremendous talent whose health and personal life kept him from making the impact his talent should have.
Wow, amazing. Thank you very much for this info. I figured The Tiger Files never showing up may have had something to do with that non-founder Image cancelling wave, but I was never quite sure since I only saw the ad in Stupid (which made me question whether it was a real ad) and no info of it in comic magazines that I recall. Thank you for clearing this up for me. Now I am interested in "Doc Hypertrophy" haha.
I'll see if I can dig out the sketchbook pages and scan them. They are somewhat loosely rendered. I'm pretty sure that I saw another sketch posted on-line. There are a few Tiger pieces displayed on-line, when you google "Tom Artis," and "Tiger."
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Post by MDG on Nov 8, 2022 10:57:58 GMT -5
I missed that announcement. I thought Marvel did a pretty good job with Doc Savage - apart from the artwork, which was only middling, especially in the black and white mag. I wonder who would have drawn the Shadow - Gene Colan?
Oh man, a Colan-drawn Shadow?! I want to move to the alternste eality where this happened!
Cei-U! Ohh, Uaaatuuuuu...
I heard a rumor that when DC got the Shadow, Toth was in the running to work on it. Would've loved to see that.
Also a rumor about Steranko drawing it, which leads to the question: If DC had put Steranko on The Shadow, who would've drawn the second issue?
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 8, 2022 15:32:39 GMT -5
Here is a scan of the Doc Hypertrophy sketch I have, from Tom Artis...... (kind of faint, since it wasn't heavily pencilled or inked)
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Post by arfetto on Nov 8, 2022 17:06:27 GMT -5
Awesome, thank you for sharing! It is exciting to see such history of what could have been. Now I know. I also found the other Tiger Files arts you mentioned by searching his name with just "Tiger" (I always would put "Files" after). Excellent.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 8, 2022 18:29:49 GMT -5
Awesome, thank you for sharing! It is exciting to see such history of what could have been. Now I know. I also found the other Tiger Files arts you mentioned by searching his name with just "Tiger" (I always would put "Files" after). Excellent. I need to take the sketch pages to work and get better quality scans of them. Once I do, I will upload all of them,. I'm not sure if they were intended to be in Tiger Files or were just character sketches. Almost all are loose, faint pencils, though he started to ink one of the pages. From what I saw of the art, it looked like Tiger Files was supposed to feature the hero battling monsters or something along those lines, in a future setting. I found a cover image of The Terror #1, from Lead Slinger Comics.... it was the only issue they put out and it looked like the slapped together the second half, to get it published, as it wasn't fully inked, especially compared to the first half. As I understand it, the main local comic shop, in Springfield, put up some or all of the money to publish it. They either solicited a Fighting Yank comic or there was an ad or something inside. My memory 30 years later is fuzzy. Eclipse had already done their Black Terror comic, with Dan Brereton, which is why this is just called The Terror (much like in Tom Strong). The character is supposed to be the sidekick, Tim, taking over (which Alan Moore also di, with his Terror). Artis talked about coming across a beat up old 1940s Black Terror comic, where he fights a gorilla and it was so gonzo he fell in love with the character, who always did have the coolest costume in the Golden Age. This project was part of the falling out he had with the comic shop owners; some kind of argument over money. They ended up shutting down, in Springfield, after speculating on both Adventures of Superman #500 and the return of Superman 4 issues. They had made a ton of money off of the death, as non-subscribers came looking for it (making the paper, even). They assumed the same level of interest, not recognizing that the non-fans assumed he was really dead, not just mostly dead, to reappear, as per comics MO. They almost broke even after AOS #500, when the return issues were released and the audience wasn't anywhere near the level they expected. They ended up cut off from their distributor and were going directly to Sparta, IL to get comics from the printers and the capital warehouse there, because they had lost their line of credit. they closed up, abruptly, within a month or two, keeping a newer store they had opened in Litchfield, IL, further south (heading towards St Louis). A rival store picked u most of their subscribers, until one of their employees got financing to open his own store. I went to the rival, for a time, but they were bought by a scumbag, who liked to con and gouge suckers and ended up at the ex-employee's store, until my subscribing days came to an end, due to disinterest in current product. Tom Artis seemed like a really creative guy and his art was dynamic and seemed to draw positive praise (on The WEB, anyway); but, he just didn't seem to have the discipline to make it on a monthly title. Or the confidence, or a bit of both. The vague statements in Mike Gold's piece and the one linked here suggests there might have been other things in his personal life that caused distractions or impediments. Shame, really, as I think he was a greatly unrealized talent who could have become a bigger name. His style certainly fit into the Image look, while still retaining his own qualities (including being a better storyteller and designer than Liefeld or Larson).
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 8, 2022 18:31:08 GMT -5
ps I'd love to have a real copy of that jacket!
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 8, 2022 22:39:52 GMT -5
It would have been cool to see Ramona Fradon drawing THE CAT #5: But the one I'd especially have gone ape for is GRODD OF GORILLA CITY #1: The page of art above is from an article about the never-published saga of simian civilization that was published in TwoMorrows' BACK ISSUE #15. The article says the series was mentioned only in an issue of The Comic Reader in 1976, but I'm positive I knew about it from some other source back then, because I remember looking forward to it in fascination, and I didn't have any access to TCR at the time. I think it must have been mentioned on the DC Hotline, but I also have a vague memory of some survey asking the reader to pick between different characters they wanted to see in their own comic. That might have been on the Hotline, too, but I can't recall whether there was any push-button phone voting in place back then...
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Post by badwolf on Nov 9, 2022 10:02:46 GMT -5
I wish I still had those Amazing Heroes preview issues they did every year. I bet there's a lot of stuff that never came out or was altered in some way.
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Post by tonebone on Nov 9, 2022 11:11:38 GMT -5
My pick: the first Justice League / Avengers crossover originally planned in 1979 with Gerry Conway as writer and George Perez as artist. By 1979, Conway was ending a historic decade where his talent contributed to some of the the greatest comics ever published, while Perez was only growing as a fantastic artist, in-between his stellar work on The Avengers and Logan's Run and what was around the corner-- The New Teen Titans. At the time, DC and Marvel's team titles were strong with interesting rosters at the time, although I'd have to assume the crossover teams would have attempted to match characters with similar traits. I'm almost sure a 1979 version of the crossover would have eclipsed 1976's Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man just in terms of scope, story potential, and fulfilling one of the most popular fan ideas. I, too, would love to have seen all of Perez' art for this, inked, colored, the whole shooting match. Conway? Eh. He's responsible for some of the BEST comics stories of that era, but also a LOT of terrible chaff. He was very prolific during that time, but not all that he wrote was noteworthy. Read The Secret Society of Super Villains, if you don't believe me.
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Post by tonebone on Nov 9, 2022 11:16:03 GMT -5
Have no idea when Kevin Smith will enlighten us with a conclusion to this one.... Well he took 4 years to write 6 Spider-man comics, so ..... You're going to have to hide all the weed in California if you want him to produce anything new of quality.
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