First Wolverine Appearance Sold for $657,250!

Back In 1983, Herb Trimpe generously gave a piece of original art to a star struck teenage fan as a souvenir on his visit to the artist's home one afternoon — but neither had any idea that the ink, graphite and blue pencil drawing would turn out to be one of the most important comic book images in the past forty years. The page from The Incredible Hulk #180 from 1974 featured the very first appearance of every one's favorite X-Men, The Wolverine, one of the most popular characters in Pop Culture in recent times. As the character grew in significance  over the years to a worldwide following, the owner decided to auction off the historic page and realized a staggering $657,250 a few weeks ago, a new high record for an American panel page. Fortunately the consignor has decided to donate part of the profits from this huge sale to The Hero Initiate, a non-profit charity dedicated to providing financial assistance to comic book artists in need.
 



Comic Artists Speak...Joe Kubert

This award winning American artist is best known for his work at DC Comics on Sgt. Rock and Hawkman, Joe Kubert's, long career spans decades including his own creations of Tor, Son of Sinbad, and Viking Prince. He also produced the syndicated newspaper strip Tales of the Green Beret with writer Robin Moore. Founder and art teacher at The Kubert School, Joe helped others find their artist talents through his instruction including two of his sons, Adam and Andy.

 

 

Gold Key Comics: Captain Johner and the Aliens

Appearing as a back-up series in the first issue of Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #1 in February of 1963, "Captain Johner and the Aliens," was another  of Russ Manning's creations  that quickly became a fan favorite and classic of science fiction comics. It appears the artist adapted the premise of "The Aliens" from the historic short story "First Contact" by Murray Leinster, AKA William Jenkins, originally published in Astounding Science Fiction in May of 1945. Manning's sleek and futuristic spaceships likewise recall those beautiful covers of the many science fiction pulps of the era. As this striking end page shown below demonstrates, Johner's has first contact with an alien race and develops a trade agreement with planet Earth. After his success on Tarzan of the Apes,  the artist created his "Magnus" and "The Aliens" feature as Gold Key unleashed what was arguably their most exciting heroic comic book with this publication, featuring Manning's breath-taking art. Manning's crisp, clean inking style worked perfectly with his intelligent scripts  as his line art was heightened by the publisher's "borderless" panel approach. This Silver Age spectacular appeared as a four page second feature in twenty eight issues of the original Robot Fighter series before being reprinted under both the Gold Key and Whitman brands in its own 1967 edition, also being done once again by Valiant Comics years later.



Ten Comic Strip Cartoonists at the Drawing Board

Mort Walker

George Herman

Frank Robbins

Elzie Segar

Charles Schultz

Will Eisner

Bob Montana

Milt Caniff

Al Capp

Chester Gould