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Sunday, November 07, 2010


Number 838


The man with the "S" on his chest


It's been too long since I posted a Bill Everett story, or a story about the character that got Everett started, Sub-Mariner. In this story Sub-Mariner is easy to spot, even in civvies, because he's got an "S" on his chest.

I notice that Namora wears no civilian clothes. She has a cloak which she wears over her sexy swimsuit. In the last panel Sub-Mariner is wearing a suit and tie, yet when being presented a medal Namora is still in her cloak.

It's obvious by looking at this strip from Blonde Phantom #17, Spring, 1948, that Everett had fun drawing. His villains are great. The "steward" at the bottom of page 3, and the bad guy with the piano teeth are very funny. His artistic approach in "The Case of the Deep Sea Swindle" leans toward comedic exaggeration, and I like it.








4 comments:

Unca Jeffy said...

My feelings on everett exactly, Pappy. This was a guy who liked drawing...you can see the fun he had in the fluidity of his poses and raw framing and staging...I hate using words like that, especially about someone as natural to the art as Everett.

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

By way of tHoIA, I was alerted to Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics by Blake Bell.

Pappy said...

Everett was one of the true originals who helped develop the form of comic books in their earliest days. I find his original Sub-Mariner stories some of the better superhero stories of the era.

Kirk said...

Early on, the Sub-Mariner was more of an antihero who occasionally fought the original Human Torch. Bill Everett was waaaay ahead of his time in that regard.