|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Nov 29, 2019 9:28:05 GMT -5
Here's an interesting Legion souvenir: The original drawing of Emerald Empress by Jim Shooter, age 13. When he was put on Legion in the first place, he provided not only scripts but designs and layouts.  Yes, I was surprised in reading through the Legions in the past few months, and looking up the creator credits (I put all this in a spreadsheet) to see that Shooter had penciller credits on some of his early stories, though, like you say, it was probably "just" layouts. Very impressive! Apparently, he did so because he thought that's what you were supposed to do! He didn't know how comics worked at that point, obviously. |
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Nov 29, 2019 12:03:23 GMT -5
^^^ To add on to what dbutler69 said: back then Shooter didn't type his scripts, he drew his scripts in comic book panel format, i.e., layouts. In the beginning he'd sent in some cover ideas to Weisinger. Weisinger was impressed and asked for more samples, eventually asking Shooter to create some stories that would go with his cover ideas. (Weisinger's MO was that the cover comes first...then a story is written to fit the cover premise.) Shooter's mentioned that while the artists didn't always use his layouts they were gracious, especially Curt Swan (who nevertheless asked Shooter to stop including so many Legionnaires in a single story  ). Here's an example of a Shooter layout from the TwoMorrows book The Legion Companion:  I recognized that as being from Adventure #362; here's the finished product as interpreted by artist Pete Costanza.  |
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Nov 29, 2019 17:15:46 GMT -5
Shooter was a better artist at 13 than I was, and definitely a better writer. I wrote some awful junk at that age. Dave Cockrum was another who sent in ideas with character designs but is pretty well known for it. I loved in one of the TwoMorrows mags the story about the Hawkman #11 cover with The Shrike and how the Murphy Anderson cover original went off (to Pendleton, Oregon?) as payment. I think things got a bit more closed off for that kind of by mail activity later on sadly (the sheer volume I suppose), but I did get sent a lot of copies of pencil pages to do sample inks on a few times by mail and encouraging letters from a couple art department staff (circa 1993-94). I have The Legion Outpost book, do I start looking for the Companion? I wanted to mention that I was really happy with the circa 2003 repro of Superboy #147... it had the Supergirl and the Super Pets stories I had been wanting. There was a bit new work in it also from the time it came out. You can tell the newer repro by it's really shiney heavy stock cover and the lack of the 25 cent price.   |
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Dec 1, 2019 11:32:20 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Dec 1, 2019 14:11:28 GMT -5
I used to have that issue (but with popped staples if I remember correctly) and some of the ones right after. Adventure #346 is quite a debut for a teenager or any ager, four interesting new characters! The art is a bit more dynamic that John Forte's was.
|
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Dec 4, 2019 16:44:32 GMT -5
... The art is a bit more dynamic that John Forte's was. Sure, but don't forget that Curt Swan had been the regular LSH artist since Adventure #340 (Forte had become very ill and had to stop drawing. He passed away the following year). Anyway, I imagine regular LSH readers who were used to that smoothly perfect Swan art must have been somewhat surprised when they opened #346. Swan returned with #347, which contained the second half of this story. As an adult I appreciate Forte's work much more than I ever did back in the day as a young reader. When I was reading the Swan/Costanza/Papp/Mortimer-illustrated Legion I was also buying a lot of back issues of the Forte Legion and his work looked sooo old-fashioned, especially for stories set in the future. But what this "disconnect" did (for me, anyway) was add an interesting layer to the Legion's adventures. I looked at the Forte stories as legendary, almost Homeric tales...with the later Swan-and-others-drawn LSH escapades as more in line with the universe (and future universe) that existed in the rest of the Superman mags. |
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Dec 5, 2019 10:16:08 GMT -5
I thought Forte's Legion art was good. Sure, not the most dynamic, but I think that's fairly common with Silver Age DC titles anyway.
|
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Dec 5, 2019 22:19:22 GMT -5
I think he did some good covers. I remember really liking the one with Lightning Lad in a prison on the moon if this was him.  |
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Dec 5, 2019 22:44:01 GMT -5
^^ That's Curt Swan inked by George Klein. Forte never pencilled a cover for DC; inked a few, but #280 was the only Adventure cover that he inked. Wish I could say I knew that off the top of my head! www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/creator.php?creatorid=124&credittype=Cover I was fascinated by his Legion art as a kid. Those stiff poses of his made group pictures of the LSH members look like a collection of statues. They all look so natural, don't they?  But his facial expressions were often great. (Check out Lex Luthor in that last panel.)    Weirdly attractive art once you got used to it. |
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Dec 6, 2019 13:52:36 GMT -5
I wonder if Swan was trying to incorporate the John Forte style even just a little for the Legion covers? I remember an earlier non-Legion issue and his Superboy cover art was very recognizable there (and amazing: great illustrator).  |
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Dec 6, 2019 14:11:17 GMT -5
That's a really nice cover, but no, I don't think so. If anything, Forte might have tried to capture some of Swan's approach, as Swan had drawn Superboy and the Legion characters before Forte inherited the Legion when they replaced the Bizarros as the back-up strip in Adventure.
|
|
|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 7, 2019 13:06:52 GMT -5
Forte was actually a pretty dynamic horror illustrator on some of the knock-off EC books. I wonder if there was a mandate not to get the kiddy superhero fans too worked up?
|
|
|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 7, 2019 13:11:36 GMT -5
Also I only started getting into it in the last 5 years, but I love the SA Legion so much.
|
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Dec 7, 2019 15:37:39 GMT -5
That's a really nice cover, but no, I don't think so. If anything, Forte might have tried to capture some of Swan's approach, as Swan had drawn Superboy and the Legion characters before Forte inherited the Legion when they replaced the Bizarros as the back-up strip in Adventure. Right. Since the mid-1950s was the main cover artist for all the Superman-related comics, starting with the "junior" books: Jimmy Olsen, Superboy and Adventure (a Superboy comic in Weisinger's eyes, even after the Legion took over the lead slot) and then graduating to major leagues with Action and Superman circa 1957...plus World's Finest when that book was handed to Weisinger in 1964 and so of course Curt promptly became WF's regular cover artist. The only exception to this was the Lois Lane book; in the beginning Swan handled the LL cover art for a few years, before Kurt Schaffenberger took over the cover duties. To state the obvious, Swan had the golden touch when it came to those covers, even though they weren't flashy. No matter how preposterous the cover scenario, Swan played it straight, which proved to be an irresistible hook for the viewer surveying the newsstand comics--they had to read that story! |
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Dec 8, 2019 15:00:18 GMT -5
Here's another one I liked and kept for a long time.  And the last Superboy solo cover on the title for a long while...  |
|
). 
