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.
Color guide for Daredevil issue 356, page 31 (Sal Buscema). DD gets decimated by arch super-villain the EEL!
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?
The one of a kind color guide art for Daredevil issue 363, splash page 16 (Gene Colan)
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!
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Rare Vintage Comic Art and Posters
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The Big Daddy of them all: The 1966 Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-man 6 foot MMMS Door Poster!
the SIX FOOT TALL 1966 Steve Ditko MMMS Spider-man Door Poster
Drum roll, please…… This is THE rarest and most sought after Marvel Comics poster of all time: the 1966 Spider-man six foot door poster produced by the Merry Marvel Marching Society (MMMS) fan club, featuring artwork by original Spiderman artist and co-creator STEVE DITKO. As of this writing, this poster is available on eBay.com. Just click on the poster’s photo for the link.
From what I’d heard behind the scenes years ago, this 1960′s Spidey door poster was going to be the first in a series of Marvel Comics Group superhero door posters, and can you believe the cost was just $1.99? That is not a misprint. Kind of blows my mind. My supposition here is that perhaps Marvel did not sell enough units of this poster to make it financially worthwhile to produce other Marvel Comics Group MMMS door posters. Doesn’t seem possible, does it? Maybe $1.99 was too much to ask back then? Either way, it’s a shame.
Now, can you just imagine what the other 60′s Marvel door posters would have looked like? I can. Let’s speculate a moment. Because the year was 1966, you can bet Jack “King” Kirby would have had a hand in some of the images chosen, and maybe John Romita Sr and Gene Colan. If anyone can put the entire Fantastic Four or Uncanny X-Men on one 6 foot tall by 32 inches wide poster, it’s Jack Kirby. A Don Heck Mighty Avengers poster might have been tough to pull off because of the number of heroes on the team, but I can easily envision a Gene Colan Iron Man or Namor the Sub-mariner door poster produced from an old silver age Tales of Suspense or Tales to Astonish comic book. Kirby would of course been tapped on the shoulder to do a Captain America or Mighty Thor poster. And Jazzy Johnny Romita would have been the man for a giant-size Daredevil door poster, and of COURSE Spider-man too if Ditko hadn’t already done it. I can’t claim to like the poses or scenes chosen for many of the comic superhero commercial posters (think of the 1966 Batman Personality Poster that says “Nonsense, there’s no such thing as” (ghosts) by Carmine Infantino), but they picked the ultimate Spider-man pose for the Ditko door poster. This was one of the few that was done right. It was used on tons of Spider-man toys and memorabilia later, and was even the corner “price box” icon for Amazing Spider-man comic books during the 1980′s.
All this speculation on “what if” Marvel door posters reminds me of something really important that I’m sure 1 in ten million Marvel 1960′s fans even know about. Remember the medium sized 42 by 29 inch Spidey and Incredible Hulk posters by “Personality Posters”? And do you also remember the 8 mini posters set (about 17 by 11 inches each) that were sold all together in a plastic bag with a “Marvel Superheroes” header card? Well, if you recall, artist Marie Severin drew (I believe) all 8 of the heroes, which were Spider-man (based on the earlier Ditko pose), the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Submariner, Dr Strange, and the Human Torch. BUT, did you know that Stan Lee and Marvel had considered or had planned to ALSO release mini posters of Daredevil, Dr Doom, and the Thing from the Fantastic Four? It’s true. I saw the original art to all 3 of the unpublished posters on eBay back around 1999. They were listed in someone’s auction, then for unknown reasons the auctions were stopped before there was an official winning bidder. Broke my heart, because I was planning on taking a shot at acquiring all three.
Well, I’m out of time, and it’s time to get back to the business of selling rare old comic book posters and color guide artwork. But the above makes me bummed out to think that there could have been an entire series of 1960′s Marvel king-size door posters that collectors could still be fawning over and seeking out today.
Thanks a million for reading Marvelmania fanatics, and see ya next blog!
Staff
SUPERVATOR.COM rare vintage comic art and posters