Sunday, 25 May 2014

PART TWO OF THE SUPER HEROES COVER & IMAGE GALLERY...

Images copyright DC COMICS

Time for part two of The SUPER HEROES gallery, featuring cover art by U.K. artists that U.S. readers may not have seen before.  The late VANESSA MORGAN was the editor of this title, which puts me in mind of another female editor - PIPPA M. MELLING - who was the first editor of The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL back in 1972.  MWOM once promised to print a photo of Pippa, but never got 'round to it.  If by some remote chance anyone who knows Pippa might be reading this, ask her to get in touch through the comments section, as I'd like to publish a photo of her and fulfil Marvel's promise of long ago.  It'd be nice to give her the recognition she so richly deserves while, hopefully, she's still around to know about it.

Anyway, that's enough of the opposition, let's return to DC.  Some great covers (even if the STARRY-EYED SIREN's body is a little elongated in the lower regions), by the cream of the crop of British talent around at the time.  And wait 'til part three, when we'll have an absolute stoater of a cover in issue #7, featuring CHRISTOPHER REEVE and the bad guys from SUPERMAN II.  However, that's for next time - be sure to join us then.
















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10 comments:

  1. Staz Johnson26 May 2014 at 00:08

    What's the odds that when Curt Swan was tasked with designing Vartox, DC editorial sent him a photo of Sean Connery in Zardoz, for reference?

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  2. Kid26 May 2014 at 00:32

    I think it's always been acknowledged that Vartox was based on Zardoz, SJ. What I find interesting however, is that as time went on, his hair line got lower and looked less receding.

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  3. Staz Johnson26 May 2014 at 01:27

    Ahhh.. my bad. I confess I had never heard of Vartox, & thought I was making a hitherto unreported observation...

    Nice to see these 'Superheroes' covers by the way. I remember this mag on the newsstands, but never picked up a copy. Shame I didn't, it would be nice to own some of those classic tales in large format black & white. In retrospect, I think at this point (as far as comics went) I'd totally given up on super-heroes in favour of 2000AD & Heavy-Metal magazine... maybe Warrior too, but I'm not sure of the dates & if this was slightly prior to Warrior. I only got back into American comics a couple of years later when Don Newton started working regularly on the Bat-titles.

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  4. Kid26 May 2014 at 01:38

    I think Warrior came out while The Super Heroes was into its last few issues, Staz - or not too long after. Talking of Batman, I loved Don Newton's art when he was being inked by Alfredo Alcala - pure class.

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  5. Unknown26 May 2014 at 12:59

    Pipa Melling, now that is a blast from the past,I was always keen to see a picture of her as well. I remember reading that at the time Pipa was the editor the UK Marvel comics were put together and edited in the States by Larry Leiber (actually I may have read that from yourself Kid) so if true, I wonder what Pipa actually did as "editor"?

    I recall Marvel UK published pictures of the UK team when Bernie Jaye was the editor in the early 80s (think this around the time of the UK books like Deaths Head etc being published - I might still have this somewhere).

    The cover of issue 5 of the Super Heroes (Superman) looks rushed (ok it looks poorly painted) I remember being taken aback by ho poor ( imho) it when I first saw it (mind you I still bought it). Love that Adam frogman page, one of my favourites of his.

    I really liked Don Newtons work at Charlton (Phantom etc) but felt after his initial few years at DC his work got pretty average there (New Gods etc) Would love to see Alcala inking Newton (cant recall that) sounds like it could be special stuff.

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  6. Kid26 May 2014 at 14:11

    I think Pippa's title as 'editor' may have been an 'honorary' one to some extent, McScotty, in that the comic was put together in the States so she had no real input into the contents. However, she probably liaised with advertisers and printers, as well as the readers, and initiated lettering corrections (usually made by Dave Gibbons) that the State-side team had missed.

    Like you, I wasn't impressed by the New Gods series that Newton drew, but his Batman art inked by Alcala was something else. I'll do a post about it some day, McS, so you can see what you missed.

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  7. John Pitt26 May 2014 at 21:38

    The 2 softcover specials, Kid - one was Superman, what was the other one?

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  8. Kid26 May 2014 at 22:48

    There're pictures of the 3 Annuals and 2 Specials in the post 'Some Fantastic Place...', JP - the 2nd one was also Superman.

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  9. Dougie31 May 2014 at 15:36

    I loved that Legion issue. In the intervening years, I had lost the 70s giant that had printed the HQ schematic. So, in the early 80s, The Super Heroes was something of a link to the previous decade.

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  10. Kid31 May 2014 at 15:51

    The Super Heroes was a great little run of mags, Dougie - just a shame it didn't last more than 19 issues.

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