I first discovered Joe Staton's far-out pencil stylings when I nabbed the first issue of E-Man off the top of a stack of comics waiting to be put on the old spinner rack. His cartoony-yet-realistic pencils, coupled with a very slick inking style just grabbed me and never let go. Not only did Joe do magnificent work on E-Man, but his work found its way into tons of Charlton comics. He did some outstanding stories for titles like Haunted, Haunted Love, Ghostly Haunts, the Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, Teen Confessions, and many others. Let's face it, Joe Staton was Charlton's Jim Steranko/Neal Adams!
Before ya knew it, Joe was at Marvel, doing superb work inking Sal Buscema on the Avengers and then the Incredible Hulk. He also did art jobs for the black and white titles, like Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. Then, suddenly, Joe was at DC back at the drawing board. He did magnificent work on a variety of titles, especially All-Star Comics (the Justice Society of America, baby!), Green Lantern (first in Adventure Comics, then on the main book), Plastic Man (in Adventure Comics), and Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Joe was also penciler and co-creator of such milestone stories as the Untold Origin of the Justice Society, the All-New Doom Patrol, and the daughter of the Earth-2 Batman and Catwoman, the Huntress.
Joe continued right on out of the Groovy Age, working on everything from Superman to a revamped E-Man to American Flagg. In the 90s Joe was a regular artist on the Batman Adventures titles, among other things, and today he's working on such far-famed comic characters as Scooby Doo and Jughead. And through it all, he's managed to keep E-man going in some form or fashion.
Go, Joe!
Joe Staton was great! I bought a giant pile of Charltons at a flea market when I was 12. In fact the big octo-space monster pictured on the cover of Haunted later turned up on Scary Tales. Great to read about those Charltons! Hard to find information on that house.
ReplyDeleteI'll definitely cover lots more Charlton in the future. Have you ever heard of a magazine published by TwoMorrows called Comic Book Artist? They devoted two full issues to Charlton (one to the 60, one to the 70s). Here's the link.
ReplyDeleteHey Groovy One!
ReplyDeleteI'm forwarding on this link to Joe.I used to buy everything he drew & inked! From E-Man, all those great Charlton Ghost & Monster comics All his DC work JSA,GL & especially his inks on the Hulk. Over Herb Trimpe's last year on the book & Sal buscema's great pencils also.