...but Hex did lead off the mag with "Promise for a Princess" by co-creators John Albano and Tony DeZuniga. Hex's third outing shows the creators getting comfortable with who Jonah really was (a savage barbarian out of time--Ol' Groove thinks of Hex as a sort of Conan with guns). The tale is action packed, emotional (and admittedly a bit manipulative in that department), and beautifully illustrated. Check it out...
Speaking of beautifully illustrated, if you're still wondering why El Diablo got the cover on this ish, well, Ol' Groove can't tell you for certain--especially when you notice that his story is only four pages long. Perhaps editor Joe Orlando just had a beauty of a Kubert ED cover lyin' around? Or maybe four pages worth of the art combo of Neal Adams and Berni Wrightson illustrating a Cary Bates western automatically made it cover-worthy...
All Ol Groove can say for sure is that Weird Western Tales #12 was one fantastic comicbook!
I was wrong when I said that Green Lantern # 84 was a one time collaboration between Neal Adams and Bernie Wrightson as this comic proves. I think they teamed up for one more El Diablo story. Each time it was a comic book gold medal.
ReplyDeleteBerni also inked a single page of GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW #82 (the Harpies story), as well as Neal's cover pencils for BATMAN #241.
DeleteRegards,
Chris A.
Thanks for the post. I appreciate the efforts you put into your site! I always liked the old El Diablo strip. Interesting throwback to the groovy age to find a Neal Adams Deadman book and a Tony Isabella Black Lightning book on the newsstands. There must be other creators still working today on characters they were associated with back in the day, but none come to mind.
ReplyDeleteBerni also inked Neal's cover for DC SPECIAL #11 ("Beware...the Monsters are Here!") in 1971.
DeleteThe one page on GL/GA #82! I always wondered about that. Was it a tryout for #84? Never knew about Batman # 241. I'll have to check it out. It's funny. Despite how many times they were teamed up, I never felt Dick Giordano was Neal Adams' best inker. Palmer and Wrightson were so much better. I'd place Giordano in the same category as Sinnott. Very good inkers who were lauded and awarded but overrated. Certainly Palmer, Austin, Rubinstein were much better and should have received the Alleys and Shazams those 2 did.
ReplyDeleteDon't sell Dick Giordano short, though. He was quite a talent! His inks looked great on Neal Adams' GL/GA and BATMAN pencils, and did much to improve Frank Brunner's fine pencils on DR. STRANGE #1-5 in 1974. Dick actually had a better understanding of human anatomy than Berni Wrightson, but Wrightson was a great stylist and did remarkably inspired work during his peak period from 1970-1980. Occasionally Dick would pencil AND ink comics stories, such as this one from WONDER WOMAN #200 (cover by Jeff Jones):
Deletehttp://babblingsaboutdccomics.blogspot.com/2016/01/wonder-woman-200-beauty-hater-and-intro.html
Neal Adams has said in interviews that he felt that Tom Palmer was his best inker (outside of Neal imking himself), but he was happy with Dick's work, too.
Regards,
Chris A.
P.S. Terry Austin and his tech pen inking? BLECCH! Dead, uniform line weighs. No life to them. Berni's fluid brushwork has SO much more expression in it.
DeleteI bought this comic back in the '70s and still own it. Teaching at the Kubert School since 1992, I see the original art for Joe's cover every time I pass by the front office. How many of you noticed that he added an extra segment to the horse's front legs? And it still looks terrific! Kubert was one of the greats.
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