Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Black and White Wednesday: Marvel-ous Frontispieces

Some of the best comicbook art you'll ever see can be found on the inside front covers (aka frontispieces or interior covers) of Marvel's black and white mags of the mid-to-late 1970s. Early into their magazine-publishing foray, Marvel dropped the ads from their interior covers and began running either editorials, contents pages, or frontispieces in their place. I think the interior covers gave the mags a rather classy look, and those pen-and-ink pics were often more awe-inspiring than the exterior covers. For budding young pros like Marshall Rogers, Mike Zeck, and Tim Conrad, these interior cover masterworks were sometimes a way of getting into Marvel's "front door". Here's a sampling of some of the aforementioned faves, along with pieces by more established Marvel madmen. Can you name who did what, Groove-ophile?

There's plenty more where that came from! If you wanna see 'em, all ya have t'do is ask!

9 comments:

  1. what a great post, mate. d'you know, shockingly enough, I had completely forgotten about Tim Conrad? it seems impossible, I know, but there it is. and I was SUCH a fan of his Worms of the Earth way back when. as for guessing who did what, seeing as most of them are signed ( & the ones that aren't you give away in the tags ), I'll not sit here pretending to be clever, but I will say that I've not seen the Chaykin Iron Fist one before, and that John Buscema one at the end is a major treat!

    as for seeing more. . .hell, yes!!!! get to it, Groovester!!!

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  2. Thanks, for the kudos, Joe! Yeah, my "test" was pretty easy, wasn't it? Heh, okay then, anyone who wants to show off--tell me where each piece came from. Not just the mag, but the issue number.

    See, I'm not always a creampuff.

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  3. Oh, and I almost forgot--more frontispieces to come!

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  4. Every one a masterpiece, LOVE Marvel B/W mags, and the frontipieces were always brilliant. LOve 'em all, but especially the Doc Savage & War Toy ones. Excellent, and more, more, more.

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  5. I love these! I've never seen that last Buscema one. It's always a treat to see Big John inking his own work. Where is it from?

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  6. That's from Marvel Preview #16, the Masters of Terror ish, Steve. Glad you enjoyed the post! Looking forward to The Marvels Project, btw!

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  7. Hey Groovy Agent
    Love your site & the B&W were awesome. The front pieces great topic! Many of us have forgotten these master pieces. Hope we get to see alot more on Vampire Tales, Monster's Unleashed, Dracula Lives, The Legion of Monsters,etc. Also love to see The two Spectacular Spiderman mags from 68 as well. I'd love to see one done on Marvel Preview as well. I'm collecting the pages from issue#9 featuring Man-God by Tony DeZuniga. So far I already own 16 pags from the 52 pg story. I'd love to write some articles for your site also. Especially on this issue & the Wendigo story in Monster's Unleashed #9 & the Manpibian story in Legion of Monsters#1. Looking forward to much more!! Keep up the great job! Groovy! Mike

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  8. Thanks for the kudos on the posts and blog, Mike!Seems like everyone loved the post on the Marvel mags' inside covers, so I'll be posting all I can, as often as I can, believe me!

    I'm always looking for good articles to use as "guest posts" here on DotGK, so send away! I'd love to see what you have to say about Man-God, Wendigo, and the rest. I did a post on Manphibian, already, but what the hey--it's a great story and worthy of more than one look!

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  9. Hey Groovy agent!
    Sorry I didn't see your reply until now. I've interviewed Herb trimpe & Jerry Ordway for Back issue magazine. Plus did a few aticles for Roy Thomas's Alter-Ego as well. Sorry I didn't see your post on Manpbian until after this post. I'm presently in the process of interviewing Tony DeZuniga on Marvel preview#9 Man-God. saddly I'm not computer savy. Once I figure out how to use my scanner. I'll send you copies of my 16 pages from Man-God. All which Roy & tony were kind enough to sign for me & go through all the trouble to mail for me as well. By the way my last name is really Mikulovsky not Parker. I'd love to hear from you so feel free to drop me a e-mail. Best, Mike Mikulovsky

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


All other commentary and insanity copyright GroovyAge, Ltd.

As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!