Best Batman poster artist of all time?!?

Here's a big hello to the world's greatest superheroes
that read the Supervator.com blog! Who's YOUR favorite
Batman poster artist? Jim Lee? Neal Adams? Frank Miller?
Someone else? Mine has always been Carmine Infantino,
the former silver age Detective Comics artist. I even think
his art was used for the box artwork on the 70's Batman
Mego action figure. Speaking of Carmine Infantino being my
all time favorite Batman artist, here's a rare treat. Here's
an original and very rare vintage BATMAN wall poster from
the 1970's, and of course this poster features the artwork
of CARMINE INFANTINO. Adam West would be proud!

Click on poster for availability!

This scarce bronze age dark knight
Batman poster measures a large
35 by 24 inches approximately,
and it was produced by a company
called Studio One. This poster
shows the Copyright dates of 1973
and 1976, and the words "National
Periodical Publications", and NPP
was the previous owner of the DC
Comic book franchise. The Caped
Crusader is shown swinging over the
landscape of Gotham City, with the
Bat-Signal beckoning in the
background. Wow.

There cannot be many of these
particular posters left in existence!
Batmania fans rejoice! Is this the
most beautiful Batman poster you've
ever seen or what?!? Click on the photo for a larger view and
for current availability.

Well, my allotted Bat-Blog time is up! See ya again, same
Bat-time, same Bat-Channel!

SUPERVATOR.COM
Rare Vintage Comic Posters and Art Web-Store

Your favorite Jim Lee work? X-Men? Batman? Superman? Wonder Woman?

Hi people! It’s been a while since I’ve had time to do a blog, but here I am. Hope all the readers of the Supervator.com blog are doing well. This blog’s subject is phenominally popular artist JIM LEE. What’s your favorite character that Jim Lee has drawn? Is it Batman, Nightwing, Superman, Wonder Woman, the X-Men? Somebody else? For me, it’s his X-Men work, such as the work he did on X-Men issue 1 back in the 1990′s. By the way, the poster shown is the huge X-Men door poster published by Marvel Press Posters back in 1992. This giant size poster is about 59 by 30 inches, and shows Marvel Universe mutants like Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Colossus, the Beast, Professor X, Psylocke, and more. Just click on the photo to see if we still have it available for sale.

Meantime, I really love Jim Lee’s artwork, and I’ve notice more than a few toys and other superhero merchandise bearing his artwork nowdays, for example, in a lot of Batman products. The man is an icon, and our cowls are off to him!

Well, that’s all time allows for this blog. Thanks for reading, and feel free to check out all the posters and artwork currently available on SUPERVATOR.COM. Tell your friends!

Have no fear: I will explain Daredevil Color Guide Art

Hello, blog and comic art fans! Tonight’s blog is gonna be about fear, but don’t worry. It’s a good kind of fear! It’s about Daredevil, the Man Without Fear! As DD’s fans know, Daredevil TMWOF started his crime fighting superhero career back in 1964, in his silver age Marvel Comics Group issue 1 debut. DD is of course the blind New York City (and once San Francisco California) attorney, named Matt Murdock. Not only did Matthew Murdock have his hands full dealing with NYC criminals by day as a lawyer, but he also dealt with crime during his nightly rounds as the Man Without Fear.

I remember as a kid reading “Giant-Size Daredevil” issue 1 (which was a reprint of an old DD annual issue), and trying like hell to make my own Daredevil billy club, as shown on one of the pages of that Giant Size comic book. Drove me and my family nuts. Hell, I was always doing something comic related, like using a car’s emergency brake cable pretending I was that Ironman villain “Whiplash”, and whipping my plastic Marx Toy Company Marvel statue set (yes, I admit it). And when I was five, I foolishly cut my Mom’s floor wax can (yes, made of METAL), and tried to squeeze into it so I could be Iron Man. It cut the living s*it out of me. And then there was the time I tried to use those Tic Tacs plastic candy dispensers to make homemade Spider-man web-shooters that I filled with Elmer’s Glue. Oh by the way, this is just scratching the surface. There was also the time I thought I was Iron Fist and tried for fight a kid named David outside on my lawn. The only thing was, David *was* actually into Martial Arts unlike myself, so I got my Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu (and my ass) handed to me damn quick. I remember crying when the Mad Hatter (David Wayne) dropped liquid cement on Batman (Adam West) at the end of a 2 part cliffhanger episode of the 1966 tv show. I was 3 at the time, and I thought they really killed my hero! I was literally  tormented for 7 days until the next episode. I wouldn’t even eat bacon when I was little, til my Mother tricked me by calling it “Batman Bacon”. I swear to GOD!  So to say super-heroes made a huge impact on my life would be a massive understatement. If not for reading comics at around age 4, I’d probably be illiterate today. School taught me nothing. All I ever needed to know I learned from Marvel Comics! YEAH! Stan Lee is still the Man!

Back to Daredevil. My favorite issues of Daredevil were his 1st appearance back in the 1960′s by Wally Wood (yes, of EC Comics fame), by John Romita Sr in the 60′s, by Sal Buscema in the 1970′s, by Frank Miller in the 1980′s, but most especially by Gene Colan. There was just something about the way “Gene the Dean” drew Daredevil that I liked better than all the other talented artists that worked on the character.

Speaking of Gene Colan and Sal Buscema, here’s a couple cool screen shots of some original Marvel Comics color guide pages we currently have available  in our eBay Store. Just click on the photos to see more information about them, as well as check to see if they’re still for sale. As you might know, color guide artwork is also known as colorist’s art. It’s the real deal (they were hand painted by Marvel colorists) , they’re one of a kind, and they don’t make color guides anymore because comics are now colored on computers. Color guides are basically copies of the black & white original artwork, that are shrunk down and given to actual Marvel employees to hand color and draw those funny “color codes” on, so the printer knew exactly which shade of blue (for example) to make Spider-man’s costume. You get the idea. And what’s best about color guides is, there is almost always just one of each page ever made. Yep, when you own one of them, you own the ONLY one of them. Cool, huh?

Are these pages not gorgeous? Believe me, they look even more vivid in person, as color guide art pages usually do. They’re normally very bright in person, compared to the actual published comic book. See, back then, Marvel Comics (or DC Comics, for that matter), could not have published the actual comic books without color guides to show the people at the printing plant exactly which shades of colors Marvel wanted for each superheroe’s costume, for the backgrounds, etc. As of this writing, we still have a limited supply of older Marvel Colorist’s pages, like the Invincible Iron Man, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer, and of course the Amazing Spiderman, among others.

Come take a look at some of these collectible rare pieces of comic book history. Collecting color guide art can be just as fascinating but MUCH less expensive as collecting comic book original art.

Thanks for reading this week’s blog!

SUPERVATOR.COM

Rare Vintage Comic Art and Posters

.

Up, up, and Away!

It’s SUPERMAN! Yes, it’s Superman, strange visitor from another planet, and it’s time for another Supervator.com blog to stir your senses. Many years ago, a company called Kitchen Sink Press came out with a compilation of the Man of Steel’s 1930′s and 1940′s golden age comic strip reprints, and they called their trade paperback/tpb “Superman: the Sunday Classics”. As it turns out, several years ago we acquired the complete printer’s proof artwork pages. Every single page. Since getting our hands on the entire one of a kind collection, we were hooked and were initially reluctant to make any of these pages for sale.

Since then, we have loosened our death grip on these old 1990′s printer proofs and have made them available via our eBay Store. Click the photo for the link to check current availability and to see larger images.

These things are just gorgeous, and I wish we’d done better scans of each page when we batch scanned them all for our records. I can’t recall for sure, but there may have been nearly 200 different proof art pages, all in living color, by the way.

They featured Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s 30′s and 40′s Sunday funnies newspaper exploits of our favorite superhero from Krypton and star of DC Comics title “Action Comics”.

Just take a look at the example we have here. Is that not gorgeous? Believe me, it’s better in person, and these pages were just meant to be framed! The late, great George Reeves and Christopher Reeve would be proud to see where their movie and tv serial namesake originated from. This particular page measures about 13 by 10 inches.

Back in the “GA” (Golden Age) of comics, Superman was the Man. To many he still is, and DC Comics has done a good job in my estimation in keeping their flagship character interesting. My first exposure to Superman was probably George Reeve’s guest appearance on the “I love Lucy” show with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, or maybe a 1960′s JLA comic book.

Thanks for reading, Kryptonites! See ya next blog!

Staff

Supervator.com Rare Vintage Comic Art and Posters

Economy sucks? This is a job for the LEGION!

Hiya, DC Comics Universe fans, comic collectors, and the many Supervator comic art and posters blog readers. Nice being with you today in cyberland. Economy got you down? Feeling powerless to do anything about it? You know, despite how we each may feel about the economic recession (or depression, depending on who you talk to), wouldn’t it be great to just call on the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES to come out and fix a few things, Legion Style? Man, that’d be great! Things would turn around in a BIG hurry, I can tell you that. And except for hanging around recently with the Amazing Spider-man (or do I have that backwards?), President Barack Obama is still just a normal man and is doing everything he reasonably can to get the Country out of the financial tar pit America currently finds itself in. And he may not pull it off, despite his best intentions. I say, let’s get some superheroes into the fray and call out the LEGION! As long as they don’t blow up the DC Universe (or ours), I think we’d be out of this economic mess real soon!

And apparently, the Legion of Superheroes is looking for some new recruits, at least from what I read on this “We want you to join the Legion” 1985  comic shop promo poster. Check it out in our Supervator eBay Store by just clicking on the photo’s link. Nothing in life seems quite so bad with one of these bad-boys hanging proudly on your wall! Only authorized comic book shop dealers got this promotional poster back in the 1980′s, and they’re scarce.

As you probably read in the headlines, I’ve also read some news forecasts about how long this economic downturn (recession, etc) is apt to last. Some analysts say we’ll pull out of this in 2009, some say much later, some say never, some say it’s impossible to recover. We’re just in too deep. I think fear is the biggest thing holding us back, like a self-fulfilling prophesy bringing about the very thing we fear. Of course, nothing’s that simple, but I’ve a feeling that we’re a tougher breed than even we give ourselves credit for, and it’s gonna be all right in the end. Whether we join the Legion or not.

Peace out,

Supervator.com Staff

What IS comic book “color guide art” anyway?

Oh, if I only had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked *that* question, I’d be paying cash for Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics  1. Well, this question comes with the territory, and I’m   happy that I’ve had so much influence in the enlightenment of many comic collectors about the nature of color guide art (also known as original colorist’s artwork). One great example can be seen on the left of this text: This is the one of a kind 1985 color guide art splash page 1 to Uncanny X-Men 191, guest-starring the Amazing Spider-man and the Avengers. The Colorist was Glynis Wein (also known as Glynis Oliver), hand painting her colors over a xerox of John Romita Jr’s art. And further below is a color guide used to create an issue of Daredevil the Man Without Fear. The Colorist was most likely Max Scheele, hand coloring over a xerox of Steve Ditko’s artwork. By the way, as of this writing, both of these pages (and many more) are available for sale at the Supervator.com online webstore. If all this talk about color guide art sounds confusing, do not panic. The info immediately below will help clear things up.

The following condensed definition of a color guide can be seen on my Supervator.com website, under each color guide art page for sale:

“Color guides (colorist’s artwork) are re-sized copies of the pencil & ink original artwork that are assigned to the issue’s colorist, and then hand colored by that colorist. Colorguides measure about the same size as the published comic book, and some have “color codes” for the printers to follow. Computer coloring has made hand painted colorist artwork extinct. This description is (C) Copyrighted and may not be used without permission.”

So yes, comic book color guides are most certainly a misunderstood art. While they are not the same as the black and white original art that many comic fans are familiar with, color guide artwork is almost always one of a kind, and *is* the original painted work of the Colorist. Confusing? Absolutely, until you’ve sold a few thousand of them.

Speaking of which, you wanna know how I first got introduced to Colorist’s artwork? You don’t? Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway, and it’s gonna take me a month to get to the point!  No, not really, but it’s all germaine to the story of how I got introduced to color guide art.  Years ago, and I mean YEARS ago, I wrote a letter to the Editorial team at Marvel Comics who were in charge of the production of Captain America comics. This was in the early 1990′s, I believe. The late, great Mark Gruenwald was writing the Cap stories, and Rik Levins was doing the art chores at that time. I wrote a letter praising the writing and storytelling prowess of the Capt America staff as I recall, and I mentioned a desire to buy some of Rik Levins original artwork. I never heard anything back from anyone at Marvel, so I finally gave up on it. Totally forgot about it.

Many, many months later, I got a phone call one day from a guy who asked for me by name. When I asked the mystery caller who he was, he said “Rik Levins”. I laughed at him, thought it was a prank, and nearly hung up on him. But after Rik mentioned the letter I wrote him, I knew he was the real deal. And as fate would have it, Rik had some FANTASTIC Captain America original art pages and covers (yes, I said covers) to offer me, before he turned the art over to his agent. There were about 12 items altogether, and I thought to myself “How in the *world* am I gonna buy these incredible pages before I lose the chance forever?” I wasn’t even working at the time! But I told Rik right there while I had him on the phone, “You’re probably gonna hang up on me, but how about (an undisclosed humble amount) for all 12 pages and covers? It blew my freakin’ MIND when he said “ok”. I couldn’t believe it, and not only did he send me the 12 pages and covers, he included a BONUS published Cap cover. Remember now, I’m not talking about color guides yet. I mean the 17 by 11 inch black & white original art! Oh my God, I wanna kick the livin’ $&%# out of myself every time I think about how I was forced to sell those Cap covers I owned back then. But I had no choice. I had to sell them while I was out of work, just to survive and pay the mounting bills. Many of us have been there, but man, that old pain is still there just thinking about it. Ok, so are you (the reader of this blog) wondering exactly which Captain America covers I once owned? They were the covers to Cap issues 404 (vs Wolverine), 409 (vs Crossbones), and 410 (Crossbones). I still love Rik Levin’s art to this day, and he was great to do business with. I miss those pages and covers something awful though!

ANYway, what in the blue hell does this have to do with my first exposure to color guide art? Ok, I’ll tell you finally. When Rik Levins shipped me the Captain America original artwork I bought from him, he also included this weird, brightly colored page showing the West Coast Avengers. I remember seeing Iron Man and Hawkeye on that page (this is a different color guide page than the Ironman vs Wonder Man and Enchantress page you see on the left). This bizarre page Rik Levins gave me was a lot smaller than regular black & white original art, and this weird little page was super bright, colored with markers, and loaded with some strange, nearly hieroglyphic type coding on it. Back then, I had no idea this was a color guide, and those “color codes” were the numbering system that professional comic book colorists used to tell the printers exactly which shades of color to use when the actual comic book goes to press. Now, as many longtime comic fans know, Rik Levins is an artist of black & white art, and not a colorist. But of course, he had access to many a colorist’s work. It was a touch of class for him to give me a bonus color guide page as a gift.

Because I didn’t know any better back then, I ended up just giving that first color guide away. Only years later, when I accidentally noticed another color guide on ebay that the lights went on for me and I got that “AH-HA!” moment. I ended up buying a huge collection from a private collector, and I was on my way.

And as many collectors know, and many collectors *don’t* know, is that color guide art is truly a lost art now. All (or nearly all) comic books created today are colored on computers, so paper color guides are no longer made. And worse, most were destroyed back in the day, because no one ever thought they’d be collectible. But then again, the same thing was originally thought about black and white original comic book art. THEN look what happened to prices and collectibility when the word finally got out! So the death of color guide production has actually led to collectors realizing no more are being made, driving some prices up, while other collectors are quietly keeping their colorist art, wisely waiting for them to become more mainstream. As far as I’m concerned, people are still getting in on the “ground floor” of color guide artwork collecting, and this form of hobby (for fun or making money) will most definitely be heading up.

Well people, that’s all I have time for in this blog. I could obviously extol the virtues of color guide art collecting for hours. Maybe I’ll devote more time to the subject in a future blog.

Thanks a Million for reading!

Supervator.com Vintage Rare Comic Art & Posters

This blog is (C) Copyright 2009  Supervator.com, and may be used in articles, press, and other blogs, PROVIDED that 1) Proper credit for this blog is given, and 2) That you include a link to Supervator.com.  No other rights are given or implied.

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