Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Valentine's Special: "Heart of Stone" by Tony DeZuniga
Happy Valentine's Day, Groove-ophiles! Ol' Groove has to get in touch with his soft side every once in a while, don'tcha know. And hey, if a tough-guy artist like Tony DeZuniga can go from the savagery of strips like Jonah Hex and Conan to a soapy sensation like the one he did for Girls' Love Stories #160 (May 1971--author unknown), then so can I. After all, Ol' Groove doesn't have a "Heart of Stone", y'know!
Thank you,Mr Groove!
ReplyDeleteA whole lotta love to you and everyone!
And I know who the author to this story is;
judging by the white doves in the scene on page three,it's got to be John Woo.
I'm right,right?
/Mr Anonymous
Thanks, Groove. Sadly, the Groovy Age was the last time that American comics seemed interested in reaching a wider audience than just superhero fans. It was still a time when artists like deZuniga and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Kirby and Ditko and Heck and Wood and so many more were just as great doing romance or horror or war or humor as they were doing superhero and sword-and-sorcery stories.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully drawn story---and DIG THOSE ELEPHANT BELL BOTTOMS/CAPRI PANTS on page four! Now THAT'S groovy!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, for me the early '70s were the last hurrah for mainstream comics. As the other fella said, there was much more variety in genres. When Wrightson, Adams, Windsor-Smith, Steranko left comic books for magazines, advertising illustration, fine art prints, and self-publishing, respectively, I pretty much did, too. Then the falling page count with rising prices in the late '70s were the proverbial nail in the coffin.
Thanks for sharing scans of a story THAT'S BETTER DRAWN THAN ANYTHING OUT THERE IN THE MAINSTREAM THIS MONTH, BAR NONE. De Zuniga was the first and one of the very best of the 'Filipino Invasion' of the '70s. Right on!