"This day's experience, set in order, none of it left ragged or lying about, all of it gathered in like treasure and finished with, set aside." –Alice Munro, "What is Remembered"
From Young Love #8 (October-November 1954), here’s “Teen-Age Temptress,” with straightforward, sensitive graphic storytelling by reliable Simon and Kirby studio workhorse, Bill Draut, whose vigorous visualization of “The Right to Love” was featured on RCN on 06 May 2011:
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When Draut was good, he was very, very good…
“Out of Context” is a new category here at RCN intended as a catch-all for individual panels, short sequences, and single pages that have caught my eye for some reason or other in otherwise forgettable comics stories. Sometimes I’ll post my finds with a comment or two, but most of the time, I’ll probably just let the image speak for itself.
My first “Out of Context” offering is a beautifully composed, startlingly intense image that visitors who’ve explored the nooks and crannies of this site might recognize from RCN’s “Send a Private Message” page:
Although I originally posted “Go away! Please, please go away!” alongside RCN’s contact form as a joke, I suppose some of you might also conclude from that odd juxtaposition that I’m a bit conflicted about having to deal with the public, and you know what? Some of you might be right.
BTW, if you don’t know what story that panel is from, but want to, the name of the JPEG reveals all.
From my collection:
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Click here to view all of the book and magazine covers with art by Jeffrey Jones that I’ve posted so far.
From Our Army at War #254 (February 1973), here’s “The Tally,” with script by Robert Kanigher and art by Alex Toth:
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From First Love Illustrated #44 (September 1954), here’s “The Right to Love,” with uncredited story art that “this checklist” on the Kirby Museum site attributes to Bill Draut, whose style here is economical and attractive; the Caniff-influenced cover art, which looks to me to have the hero kissing a totally different woman that the one in the story, is by Lee Elias, who wisely signed his work, thereby ensuring that he would get credit for his contribution, in print, at the time the comic was published:
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Anyone know if Darwyn Cooke has ever acknowledged Bill Draut’s work as an influence?
From Ghostly Haunts #38 (May 1974), here’s “The Weirdest Character I’ve Ever Known!” written by Joe Gill and illustrated in fine style by Tom Sutton (1937 – 2002); the striking cover artwork is by Sutton, too:
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And, from Ghostly Tales #152 (December 1981), here’s “There’s Life in the Old Girl Yet!” written by Joe Gill and illustrated by Tom Sutton:
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When comics aficionados are asked to name their favourite artists, Tom Sutton’s name almost never comes up. But it’s not because Sutton wasn’t capable of producing elegant, inspired work; it’s because, for whatever reasons, personal, temperamental, financial, etc., Sutton did way too much work in comics that he actively disliked doing and what’s more, let it show on the page — unlike, say, Alex Toth, who tended to give his all to every script, good, bad, or indifferent, that he was hired to illuminate.
[N.B.: I just noticed that the sixth page was missing from the first story. I uploaded it, but I got the image number wrong in the gallery code. So that’s been fixed.]
From Journey into Mystery #3 (October 1952), here’s “The Stroke of Midnight,” with uncredited script and art, although according to this page at comics.org, pencils and inks are by Vic Carrabotta (an artist I’d never heard of until I stumbled across the story a couple of months ago):
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And, from Tower of Shadows #1 (September 1969), here’s “At the Stroke of Midnight,” with script and art by Jim Steranko:
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Notice there are two covers above. The one with the couple staring wide-eyed at you, the reader, as they recoil, screaming, from an unseen horror, was designed and illustrated by Steranko specially for the inaugural issue of Tower of Shadows but was (in)famously rejected by editor Stan Lee in favour of a far more pedestrian effort by John Romita, et al., that featured a goofball portrait of the magazine’s host, Digger, in the upper left-hand corner. The title — “At the Stroke of Midnight!” — was also a Stan Lee imposition. Needless to say, Steranko was not pleased with what he viewed as Lee’s picayune editorial busywork. Here’s how the incident is described in the “Tower of Shadows” page at Wikipedia:
“At the Stroke of Midnight,” Steranko’s lead story in the premiere issue (Sept. 1969), won a 1969 Alley Award for Best Feature Story. Its creation had led to a rift between the celebrated Steranko and editor Lee that caused Steranko to stop freelancing for Marvel, the publisher that had showcased his highly influential work. Lee had rejected Steranko’s cover, and the two clashed over panel design, dialog, and the story title, initially “The Lurking Fear at Shadow House.” According to Steranko at a 2006 panel and elsewhere, Lee disliked or did not understand the homage to horror author H. P. Lovecraft, and devised his own title for the story. After much conflict, Steranko either quit or was fired. Lee phoned him about a month later, after the two had cooled down, and Steranko would return to produce several covers for Marvel from 1972-73.
Following a winter of greater than normal snowfall here in Saskatchewan, residents have been scrambling in April to control the runoff. Here are three snapshots that I took yesterday (18 April 2011) from Regina’s Pasqua Street bridge, looking upstream at Wascana Creek and the flooded paths and greenspaces of Les Sherman Park:
Ragged Claws Network 