Black and White Wednesday: "...The Birth of Death" and "The Origin of God!" by Jim Starlin

In 1974, Jim Starlin was at the peak of his creative powers and a sky-rocketing comicbook superstar. When fellow comicbook creator Mike Friedrich founded his "ground-level" (not quite mainstream, not quite underground) comicbook company Star*Reach--and it's flagship title, also called Star*Reach--Starlin was there contributing high-quality graphics and provocative stories the likes of which he couldn't possibly do in Captain Marvel or Warlock. 16 of the 52 pages of Star*Reach #1 (Spring 1974) were filled with Jim Starlin's opinions/flights of fancy concerning drugs, death, and religion. Here's a sampling of Starlin unleashed: "...The Birth of Death!" and "The Origin of God!"

Heavy, man. Hea-VY!

Black and White Wednesday: Alex Toth's Vanguard

What's happening, Groove-ophiles? Today's B&W Wednesday post is not only a veritable feast for the ol' eyeballs, but a missing link to the short-but-oh-so-complicated history of the meteoric Atlas/Seaboard line. Seems that when Howard Chaykin first sprung The Scorpion on publisher Martin Goodman and company, they didn't dig where Humble Howie was coming from. They then commissioned the master, Alex Toth, to try his hand at the property. Toth worked like a madman, completing a ten page strip in ten days--only to have it rejected, The Scorpion being given back (if only temporarily) to Chaykin. Toth knew he had something groovy in his hands, though, and reworked the strip as The Vanguard. A couple years later, Sal Quartuccio, publisher of the very cool ground level mag, Hot Stuf', ran the strip in (ta dah!) Hot Stuf' #4 (cover dated Spring 1977). Toth, since Vanguard was going to be published in b&w rather than the color, added gray tones, and before you can say "dy-no-mite!" Mark Forte's masked alter-ego finally saw the light of day.