Groove's Faves: "Cat" by Moench and Gulacy
Master of Kung Fu #38 (December 1975). Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy (with Dan Adkins) give us near comicbook perfection with "Cat".
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.
All other commentary and insanity copyright GroovyAge, Ltd.
As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!
Truly beautiful artwork and great story too! Moench & Gulacy on Master of Kung Fu produced some of the best comics ever. And Adkins inks here were magnificent too.
ReplyDeleteIt used to bug me when an artist used an obvious likeness as a character.
ReplyDeleteIm not talking about bruce lee,Im talking Marlon Brando,Marlene dietreich.
Paul Gulacy used them throughout his shang-chi work,and it did not bother me in the slightest.
I adored his work then,the attention to detail and sheer talent was jaw-dropping.
I don't enjoy his current work as much,I associate a lot of it with age but these pages above are just brilliant.
I think that Paul Gulacy said, in an Amazing Heroes interview from the late 80s, that Steranko inked the bottom 3-panel tier of page 8. However, in the letters page of Amazing Heroes #167, Dan Adkins said that wasn't true, but that Steranko inked a certain panel over Gene Colan's pencils in Daredevil #42, inked the cover to DD #44, inked page 11 of Captain America #104, and inked a couple of panels in the Dr. Strange story in Strange Tales #166! Sorry I don't have the specifics (I am at work without that issue in front of me), but this is why I looove reading old fanzines!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful indeed! In my opinion ( for what it's worth )this is not only the single best issue of MOKF but one of the best Marvel comics of the '70s. I love Doug Moench's great dialog and all the Eisner-esque touches to Gulacy's art... with one page reputedly inked by Gulacy's idol, Jim Steranko...
ReplyDeleteAnd it still irritates me that I can only read a print copy of this on that cheap and nasty paper Marvel were using in the '70s. The Essential MOKF is still only a dream because of the rights situation surrounding the Fu Manchu character. How many people read Sax Rohmer's dated, borderline racist novels today? Surely his estate would have more to gain than to lose if they allowed Marvel to use the character's name and likeness? It makes no sense...
I was always more of a DC fan, than Marvel, but I would be remiss if I didn't admit that the Master of Kung Fu series was a consistently good series with many high points.
ReplyDeleteWow! Fantastic storytelling!
ReplyDeleteDamn I miss that series. I really wish Marvel would come to terms with Sax Rohmer's estate and reprint this entire series in a Treasury or Essential series already!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree with above comments re. Marvel and Rohmer estate working it out. A Marvel Masterworks edition or two of the Moench/Gulacy Master of Kung Fu would be awesome. It was simply amazing stuff.
ReplyDelete