Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Black and White Wednesday: "Comes the End Time" by Richardson and Alcala

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! The last great mag turned out by Warren during the Groovy Age was The Rook. What made it great for Teen Groove, though, was not the lead/title feature (though I truly dug it), but the inclusion Alfredo Alcala's classic hero Voltar as a back-up strip. Now, at the time, I'd read about Voltar in Maurice Horn's The World Encyclopedia of Comics and I'd seen Alcala's work in places like DC's mystery mags and Marvel's various Conan comics, so I knew what to expect. Or so I thought. When I flipped to "Comes the End Time" (scripted by Will Richardson aka Bill Dubay) in The Rook #2 (cover-dated February 1980), I was blown away. I knew about Alcala's lush inks, his feathery line that made his characters look more like three-dimensional statues than drawings. But the full- and double-page spreads, the amount of eye-boggling detail--I wasn't ready for that. Are you?
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2 comments:

  1. Mars Will Send No MoreSeptember 28, 2011 at 1:17 AM

    These scans really show off Alcala's talent! Not only are they light years beyond the composition and rendering from his Weird War Tales stories, they also make his inks appear much more crip than the poor paper quality and printing quality that made some od his Swamp Thing work seem a little muddy. Another B&W Wednesday slam dunk!

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  2. AnonymousMay 1, 2014 at 3:32 PM

    Actually, Alfredo Alcala originally drew VOLTAR in 1963, so this barbarian hero predates Frazetta's interpretation of Conan by several years (and looks remarkably similar).

    Chris A.

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