Sunday, October 29, 2006

Recommended Reading

George F. Will on what's going on in Iraq and how everyone seems to know it but Dick Cheney.

• Posted at 11:49 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Continuing with our Film Festival of Flintstones commercials for Welch's products, here's Fred enjoying their grape jelly. Again, that's Alan Reed as Fred but the announcer is played by Art Gilmore, whose voice was heard on more commercials, radio shows, movie trailers and TV spots than any human who ever lived. This can't be the only time he ever voiced an animated character but I can't think of another.

• Posted at 7:29 PM · LINK

Stamp Stuff

I received the following from Len Wein, who co-created Wolverine and wrote the comic book he mentions below...and who, more importantly, owes me many lunches and his undying gratitude for my friendship. Len writes...

FYI, the Wolverine image on the stamp is from the splash page to Giant-Size X-Men #1. It's both penciled and inked by Dave, though the version on the stamp is probably from a bad stat. You can check out any of the 42 million reprints of said issue for verification if you'd like.

BTW, I own the original art from this page. Trust me, the original looks better.

Who cares? It's only a UNITED STATES POSTAGE STAMP. Why should they bother getting a clear image on it? For that matter, why should they not print their expensive hardcover reprints from eighth-generation stats? Really, I don't know why consumers (and the artists themselves) aren't more outraged at the bad reproduction we often get when anything is reprinted.

In the meantime, several folks have identified the source of the Iron Man portrait stamp. It's from Avengers West Coast #50, pencilled by John Byrne and inked by Mike Machlan. So I think we've now identified all of the art sources and there's one more name that should be mentioned.

I've also heard from people who've written to the website address of the United States Postal Service about this and have gotten back a form response. It tells them that if they believe a correction is necessary to a stamp, they should write (paper-style) to a certain address. That's fine but I think the burden of correcting these errors should lie with the Marvel people. You can't expect the U.S.P.S. to know the difference between John Buscema and Gene Colan but someone at Marvel should. There's some individual at that company who's in charge of working out the details of this arrangement with the postal people and that person needs to put things right.

• Posted at 7:06 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

I don't mean to change the subject from something truly important like who inked the panels that are going on Marvel Comic postage stamps. But Frank Rich has a good column this weekend on where we are with Iraq. Reading the whole thing at the New York Times site requires one of their TimeSelect subscriptions but I can quote these paragraphs...

It is also wrong to liken what's going on now, as Mr. Bush has, to the Tet offensive. That sloppy Vietnam analogy was first made by Mr. Rumsfeld in June 2004 to try to explain away the explosive rise in the war's violence at that time. It made a little more sense then, since both the administration and the American public were still being startled by the persistence of the Iraq insurgency, much as the Johnson administration and Walter Cronkite were by the Viet Cong's tenacity in 1968. Before Tet, as Stanley Karnow's history, Vietnam, reminds us, public approval of L.B.J.'s conduct of the war still stood at 40 percent, yet to hit rock bottom.

Where we are in Iraq today is not 1968 but 1971, after the bottom had fallen out, Johnson had abdicated and America had completely turned on Vietnam. At that point, approval of Richard Nixon's handling of the war was at 34 percent, comparable to Mr. Bush's current 30. The percentage of Americans who thought the Vietnam War was "morally wrong" stood at 51, comparable to the 58 percent who now think the Iraq war was a mistake. Many other Vietnam developments in 1971 have their counterparts in 2006: the leaking of classified Pentagon reports revealing inept and duplicitous war policy, White House demonization of the press, the joining of moderate Republican senators with Democrats to press for a specific date for American withdrawal.

That's why it seemed particularly absurd when, in his interview with Mr. Stephanopoulos last weekend, Mr. Bush said that "the fundamental question" Americans must answer is "should we stay?" They've been answering that question loud and clear for more than a year now.

Rich seems to think that right after the election, Bush and Company will not be so worried about seeming weak or appearing to reverse course and will hurry up the withdrawal from Iraq. The idea is that they will do everything they can to make it a non-issue before this nation (the U.S. of A.) elects its next president. I'm not sure why he (or anyone) thinks that but it's probably a nicer prediction than the one that has America making an all-out blitz to quickly "win" — in whatever way could be spun as a victory.

• Posted at 9:12 AM · LINK

Stamp Update

Martin Gately tells me that the art for the Wolverine stamp is from the first page of Giant-Size X-Men #1. This comic was pencilled and inked by Dave Cockrum...so that credit's right.

John Kowalchuk recognized the source of the Spider-Man portrait. It's from the cover of the book, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics by Les Daniels and it was drawn by John Romita. So that one's right, too.

• Posted at 1:33 AM · LINK

Hulk Stomp! Stamp!

I've decided to be really anal and annoying about this. The new Marvel postage stamps (as discussed here) credit John Buscema with the Hulk image. Reader Joe Frank found its source. It's off the cover of The Incredible Hulk #200 and that cover is signed "Buckler & Romita," meaning Rich Buckler and John Romita. John Buscema had nothing to do with it.

And let's also notice that the Hulk has no stomach muscles in the stamp. This is because the drawing was clipped from that cover and someone had to paint out the image of Bruce Banner that was superimposed over the Hulk. But the person who took out that figure only partially completed the drawing to fill in the empty space...so the Hulk has non-washboard abs or whatever you'd call 'em. There are supermodels who'd kill for a tummy that flat.

Okay then. Let's review and correct the twenty stamps, starting with the ten that depict Marvel covers of the past. Click here to see the stamps themselves.

• Amazing Spider-Man #1 (Credited to Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) - I think they got this one right.
• Marvel Spotlight #32 (Credited to Gil Kane) - First appearance of Spider-Woman. Gil pencilled it but he sure didn't ink it and I'm not sure who did. Might be Klaus Janson. John Romita did a lot of retouching on it, however.
• The Incredible Hulk #1 (Credited to Jack Kirby) - Actually by Kirby and Paul Reinman.
• Captain America #100 (Credited to Jack Kirby) - Jack pencilled it and Syd Shores inked it. This is the famous cover where Shores got carried away and redrew Captain America's face in his own style...because, as we all know, Jack Kirby never knew how to draw Captain America. Marvel wound up having John Romita redraw Cap's face to something more like Jack's style.
• Sub-Mariner #1 (Credited to John Buscema and Sol Brodsky) - They got this one right, probably because I identified Brodsky in an article I published some time ago. And I just have to say that I wish one of their two Sub-Mariner images was by the character's creator, Bill Everett, just as I wish one of their Spider-Man images was pure Steve Ditko.
• X-Men #1 (Credited to Jack Kirby) - Actually by Jack Kirby and Sol Brodsky.
• Daredevil #176 (Credited to Frank Miller) - Correct, I think.
• Fantastic Four #3 (Credited to Jack Kirby) - Kirby and Brodsky again.
• Silver Surfer #1 (Credited to John Buscema) - John Buscema and Frank Giacoia.
• Iron Man #1 (Credited to Gene Colan) - Colan inked by Johnny Craig.

And here are the ten that depict these characters in portraits...

• Spider-Man (Credited to John Romita) - I don't know where that drawing's from but it sure doesn't look like Romita inking to me. I'm not even all that sure he drew it unless it's John Romita, Jr.
• The Incredible Hulk (Credited to John Buscema) - As noted, this is from the cover of The Incredible Hulk #200 and it's by Rich Buckler and John Romita.
• Captain America (Credited to John Romita) - Again, as noted, this is from the cover of Tales of Suspense #59 and it's by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.
• The Thing (Credited to Jack Kirby) - Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott, from an interior page of Fantastic Four #53.
• Spider-Woman (Credited to Carmine Infantino) - I don't think Infantino had anything to do with this. As far as I know, this drawing was done to be the corner cover box on the Spider-Woman comic series that started in '78. It first appeared on the cover of #1, which was drawn by Joe Sinnott, but I believe the corner box was the handiwork of John Romita. And you know, we wouldn't have to do most of this if Marvel had just shown these stamp designs to John Romita before finalizing them. He could have identified most of these and could even have drawn some stomach muscles on The Hulk.
• Sub-Mariner (Credited to Gene Colan) - This is a John Buscema drawing, a fact which Gene Colan himself noted this morning on the Gene Colan Mailing List. I'm going to demonstrate how much useless knowledge I have about old comics by telling you that it's from a unique 4-page pin-up section that ran in Fantastic Four #128. Ah, but that's not the real trivial part of the story which I'll post here tomorrow if I remember. Anyway, the drawing was pencilled by Buscema and inked by John Verpoorten.
• Silver Surfer (Credited to Jack Kirby) - Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott, taken from the mirror world and the cover of Fantastic Four #50.
• Elektra (Credited to Frank Miller) - Someone will need to double-check me on this but I think this is from a panel in Daredevil #168, my copy of which is in a box under another box behind a whole bunch of boxes. If it's from that issue, it was pencilled by Frank but inked by Klaus Janson.
• Iron Man (Credited to John Byrne) - I don't know this one but that looks like Bob Layton inking to me.
• Wolverine (Credited to Dave Cockrum) - It's Cockrum but it's either from a very fuzzy stat or someone else inked it. Does anyone know the source of this drawing?

For that matter, does anyone have any corrections to or arguments with my list? An artist's work appearing on a stamp is a very big deal. Some of the artists represented on the DC stamps called it one of the great honors of the careers. It would be nice to let the Marvel artists who are represented and/or their families have a thrill that has the proper names attached.

• Posted at 12:19 AM · LINK