Friday, September 18, 2009

Famous First Fridays: Dave Gibbons' U.S. Color Comicbook Debut

Award-winning Watchmen artist/co-creator Dave Gibbons had to start his color comicbook career somewhere on this side of the pond (according to his bio, he started working circa 1973 in British comics). It looks like he crossed over during the Groovy Age, with Giant-Size Marvel Chillers volume 2, number 1 (November 1975). Hidden in the middle of this part original/part reprint sixty-eight page scream-fest we find his humble debut, "The Borrowed Face", written by Carl Wessler. Dig it, baby!
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8 comments:

  1. John SinclairSeptember 18, 2009 at 3:06 AM

    Um, American comics possibly. But he was already working hard in UK comics years before that.

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  2. The Groovy AgentSeptember 18, 2009 at 6:20 AM

    I should (and have) added "U.S." to the title.

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  3. The Groovy AgentSeptember 18, 2009 at 6:25 AM

    And I've edited the text a little for clarity.

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  4. BooksteveSeptember 18, 2009 at 7:42 AM

    Hah! Beat ya! October, 1974 in THE MONSTER TIMES.http://booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com/2006/04/early-dave-gibbons.html

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  5. The Groovy AgentSeptember 18, 2009 at 12:32 PM

    Wow! Good find, Booksteve! I'm gonna change the title one more time...and then I give up! ;D

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  6. UnknownSeptember 18, 2009 at 4:57 PM

    Wow. This truly is a groovy site!

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  7. senskiSeptember 18, 2009 at 5:58 PM

    It always intrigued me that, to the best of my recollection, the only writing Carl Wessler ever did for Marvel was for these three GS Chillers issues; he seemed so inextricably associated with DC. Or did he also write some of those pre-superhero stories for the company after his stint with EC?

    PS - I am in awe of the blog. You are excavating such an important part of my life. Kudos!

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  8. The Groovy AgentSeptember 20, 2009 at 7:38 PM

    senski and Wilfredo--thank you and welcome to the blog!

    As for your question about Wessler, senski, a quick check of the Grand Comics Database reveals that Marvel reprinted a lot of Wessler's 1950s Atlas stories, but commissioned more than a few new stories from him (during the mid-70s) as well, including some for Tales of the Zombie! I also see stories for Charlton and Warren turning up in the search, as well. Wessler was quite prolific, and the majority of his work was, indeed, for DC.

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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.


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