Acknowledged In Their Own Time?

Looking over a stack of early 1970s DC comics I just bought, I realized that the company had Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, and Wally Wood working for them all at the same time. I wonder what that was like, from the editorial end? I wonder if it was like, "we've got these landmark comic book people working for us right now." Or if the three were even appreciated as such at that point. Or were they looked at as just artists, just employs. It's not like they were working on the top books, though perhaps the intention with New Gods was to be the next big comic? I don't know.


It just goes to show, it's all relative. Who are our Kirbys, Ditkos, and Woods right now, that we don't even quite realize it? Or do we (and the industry) do a pretty good job now in recognizing our true geniuses?

Was Just Reading That Gene Colan Tribute Book...

...damn, what a difference an artist of Colan's caliber has on a comic!

Take the early Iron Man stories in A Tribute To Gene Colan, for instance. Now, this isn't what I consider Colan at his apex, when he found an inker like Tom Palmer who knew how to really interpret what Palmer calls his "cinematic soft pencil rendering." But Colan just gave so much added value to those Tales Of Suspense issues. From the dramatic angles to the realism of the faces. Even Iron Man's immovable mask is bent in a powerful grimace that seems to emote.

But it's in Tomb of Dracula that Colan, in my opinion, really hit his stride. Dracula, as depicted in a way only Gene Colan could, looks like Satan himself. Not even horror movies have been able to capture a menacing enough Dracula in images (I love Bela Lugosi and all, but he's really sort of cuddly in comparison).

What really blows my mind, however, is how much product artists like him would put out back then. And the writers, too. And how long some of them would stay on runs.

Good stuff.