If the credits in the Grand Comics Database for Marvel’s
Black Rider #8 (actually #1, 1950) are correct, then the artists who drew this story are giants of comic art. That seems appropriate since the story is called “The Mystery of the Valley of Giants.” GCD says (with their ? meaning they’re not quite sure) that the story was drawn by Syd Shores, Joe Maneely, John Severin and Russ Heath. Wow! What a crew. If you are an art spotter you can go through and see where each artist’s style pops up.
Not only are those art credits interesting, the cover photo is claimed to be Stan Lee in costume. Maybe any gun experts reading this can tell me if the pistols Stan “Black Rider” Lee is holding are real. To me they look like a set I wore circa 1952. They came with a Hopalong Cassidy outfit I got for Christmas.
Definitely cap pistols, unless the model is one of the giants.
ReplyDeleteThe ring & pinkie fingers are supposed to be on the grip too, not hanging loose.
Those alleged guns are just awful!
ReplyDeleteThe world of science and academia do have a fair amount of people storming out, swearing to prove their genius to the world. (I'm not aware of any cases in which a person who has done this goes on to indeed prove his genius, though I have little doubt that some small share of these folk are indeed utterly brilliant.) That world doesn't have a lot of cases of people being told that the rest of the community of researchers has determined to stop them because the world is not ready for their work. On the other hand, it wouldn't shock me if a chancellor somewhere had at some point got the campus police to smash-up someone's laboratory.
Anyway, it looks as if ol' Zugg was just left to die! That hardly seems appropriate!
A real brain teaser. I see evidence of Shores and Severin throughout and Heath on some pages.
ReplyDeleteCan't seem to find any short-limbed characters, so that must mean that Maneely didn't contribute. The more I think about it...GCD is just playing with us and this in reality was penciled by Vince Fago and inked by L. B. Cole.
Mike, the most obvious styles I see are Severin and Shores. I don't see Maneely, either, so maybe he did something, maybe he didn't.
ReplyDeleteI can help guys. This is a prototypical Timely staff jam-job. The splash was penciled by Syd Shores and his pencils are elsewhere under other's inks. Heath is very hard to see, if he is there at all. You can see, among other places, Maneely on p.9, panel 4, p.10, panel 6 (the indian in the foreground), p.12, panel 5 (not to be too minute, but that arm on he giant was inked by Maneely!) and p.16, panel 4. And there are other hands beyond the 4 mentioned. This is why Timely-era staff work is so damn hard to really provide credits for! John Severin is all over pages 17 and 18. Both Maneely and Shores will have runs later on this title. This is one long staff mish-mash.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your expertise, Doc.
ReplyDeleteI imagine this might have been a job done for a tight deadline.