Arlen’s Blog
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TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #1
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club TONIGHT @ 6pm EST!
#1 THE GREATEST SILVER AGE ARTISTS: The main banner image for my webinar is taken from my wraparound illustration of all the signature comic characters–in their most iconic positions– of the greatest artists of the Silver Age, printed on the hardcover underneath the silver dust jacket of my book that the webinar is based on, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art: silverageofcomicbookart.com
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #2
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club TOMORROW, Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST!
#2 NEAL ADAMS: The work Adams produced near the end of the Silver Age caused something akin to a revolution in the comic book medium. During this period, Adams forged definitive artistic identities for several leading characters, while his renditions of practically every DC comic character (and genre) on hundreds of covers effectively gave the company its only bulwark against Marvel’s artistic hegemony of Jack Kirby (and later Jim Steranko). Adams’ visual acuity enabled his writer collaborators to break new ground telling the kinds of stories that could be told in comics, and in doing so, influenced an entire generation of artists; for Adams occupies a unique place at the crossroads of comic book history: his work is the bridge between the end of the Silver Age and, with its plethora of graphic styles, today’s modern age of comic book art.
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #3
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club THIS Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST!
#3 JIM STERANKO: Steranko has worn many hats in his career–artist, author, illustrator, art director, designer, entertainer–but he wore them ALL when he put on quite a show at Marvel Comics at the end of the Silver Age. It began in 1966 when he was handed complete control of Jack Kirby’s James Bond-knockoff Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, which he promptly used as an unlikely launching pad for his meteoric rise to prominence. Each issue, each cover, each page of Steranko’s was a supercharged surprise, as he relentlessly, iconoclastically experimented with mixed media applications, fusing a graphic designer’s with an illustrator’s approach to the medium of sequential storytelling.
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
Arlen on The Other Side of Midnight!
Have We Entered the Twilight Zone…for Real?
Arlen Schumer with Richard C. Hoagland on The Other Side of Midnight!
TONIGHT, SUN MAR 29, 9 pm-Midnight PST / Midnight -3 am EST
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #4
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club next Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST!
#4 GENE COLAN: The nascent Marvel Comics style of heroic—yet somewhat tragic–protagonists made Colan perfect for bringing to superheroes like Iron Man, whom he began to draw in 1966, a realistic, human side. Colan commented, “The only problem I had in the beginning was getting an expression on his face. I wanted the reader to feel his emotion at times, not just be a metal figure always looking the same. So I took some poetic license. I tried not to overdo it—after all, it is made of metal. I tried to be very subtle with it, add a little humanity to the face.” By turning the character’s mute helmet into a mask of tragedy, imbuing him with the pathos of a man trapped in a prison of armor, Colan forever owned Iron Man.
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #5
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club next Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST!
#5 JOE KUBERT: This cover detail from OUR ARMY AT WAR #196 (Aug. 1968), for the story illustrator Kubert also wrote, “Stop the War—I Want to Get Off!,” is ostensibly about the World War II character Sgt. Rock, but it can easily be viewed as Kubert’s sublimated reaction to the war in Vietnam. “This dealt with World War II,” Kubert said. “The idea that I did this as a form of self-expression about Vietnam is not so. But at that time, like most people, I trusted the government to do what they were supposed to be doing. It was only later that I, like so many others, came to know what a fiasco the whole Vietnam thing was.”
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #6
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club next Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST!
#6 GIL KANE: The apotheosis of the early ’60s DC Comics technohero, scientist Ray Palmer (a.k.a. miniature superhero The Atom), in exalted gratitude to science and technology, as drawn by his creator Kane and inked by Murphy Anderson, from Showcase #34 (Oct. ’61), the character’s first appearance.
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #7
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club next Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST!
#7 JACK KIRBY: Artist/storyteller Kirby and dialogue/caption writer Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four, the flagship title of Marvel Comics, had the same impact on superhero comics in the ’60s as the Beatles had on rock & roll (and would have been known as “The Fab Four” first, had Marvel publisher Martin Goodman not changed Lee’s original title for the group, the Fabulous Four, right before publication of the 1st issue in 1961). My Illustration based on art by Kirby, inked by Joe Sinnott, from Fantastic Four #44 (Nov. ’65), after the ’64 Meet the Beatles album cover photo by Robert Freeman.
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #8!
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club a week from today, on Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST:
#8 STEVE DITKO: The pages of Steve Ditko’s Dr. Strange (1963-6, Marvel Comics) were a surrealistic journey through the wondrous worlds of Ditko’s artistic imagination, in which form was given to bizarre dimensions and alternate realities–like this mind-meld with his mentor, The Ancient One–that were prescient precursors to the psychedelic art of the ’60s!
TIX: nyadventureclub.com
TOP 10 SILVER AGE IMAGES #9
In preparation for my SILVER AGE WEBINAR via NY Adventure Club 9 days from today, on Wednesday, April 1st @ 6pm EST!
#9 CARMINE INFANTINO: The 1st of the 8 artists featured in my book, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art (that this webinar is based on), Infantino was the premiere DC Comics artist of the early Silver Age (1956-70)–his sleek, slick style symbolized early ’60s America, as shown here in the moderne, California-style ranch house that his signature character, super-speedster The Flash, is racing away from!
TIX: nyadventureclub.com