Don McGregor

Howard the Duck #2 (March, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

If you were a savvy comics fan scanning the spinner racks in December, 1975, artist Frank Brunner’s cover for the second issue of Howard the Duck would likely suggest that, following his and writer Steve Gerber’s recent skewerings of a couple of popular comic-book genres — namely, horror (in Giant-Size Man-Thing #5) and sword-and-sorcery (in HtD #1) — they were about to turn their satirical sights on the most popular of them all (at least in the American comics of the 1970s); you know, the one that revolves around colorfully costumed people with funny names.

But while that assessment would ultimately prove to be very much on the money, a turn past the cover to the book’s opening splash page would have clued you in that, before taking on the sacrosanct superhero tropes on which Marvel Comics’ hallowed House of Ideas has been built, Gerber and Brunner (joined by Steve Leialoha on inks) had one other genre stop to make first…  Read More

Defenders #23 (May, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The fifty-year-old comic book referred to in the title line of this blog post presents the second chapter of a four-part storyline.  And, seeing how we didn’t feature a post about Defenders #22 here in this space last month, regular readers of the blog know what that means: we’ll be covering that issue before moving on to our ostensible main topic, i.e., Defenders #23.  But wait, there’s more!  Because, although the story chronicled in another half-century-old comic, Giant-Size Defenders #4, isn’t technically part of the same arc, its events do preface those of the main Defenders title’s “Sons of the Serpent” saga in some significant ways.  For that reason, we’ll be spending a little quality time with it before proceeding even as far as Defenders #22.  It’s a three-fer today, folks.  Read More

Vampirella #21 (December, 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

If you read my post about Vampirella #18 back in June, you may recall that I promised at that time that I would eventually let you know how things ultimately turned out for Count Dracula, who’d begun a quest for redemption that was just getting started when that issue’s installment of the magazine’s titular lead feature reached its end.  Well, faithful readers, the time has come at last.  But please be advised that in order to do so properly, I’m first going to need to fill you in on the key events of the storyline’s chapters from Vampirella #19 and #20, so that what transpires in issue #21’s “Slitherers of the Sand!” will land, dramatically speaking, in the way its creators intended.  Also, as it turns out, this issue doesn’t really fully resolve the Dracula arc either, so we’re also going to be taking a quick look at some later appearances of the Count in Eerie as well as in Vampirella, just so we can say we’ve wrapped things up properly.

Oh, and of course we’ll also be covering the other three stories published in Vampirella #21 — the ones that don’t have anything to do with the lead feature or with Dracula.  After all, I wouldn’t want to shortchange you on that material, would I?  Read More

Vampirella #18 (August, 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog may recall, I first encountered Warren Publishing’s Vampirella in the summer of 1971, courtesy of the series’ 1972 Annual — a collection of reprinted material from Vampi’s first two years by the likes of Neal Adams, Ernie Colón, and Wally Wood, with the exception of a single new story, “The Origin of Vampirella”.  I enjoyed it, but for reasons I can no longer recall, my younger self nevertheless waited until March, 1972 before deigning to pick up a regular issue of the title. Still, I evidently liked what I found within the pages of Vampirella #17, since I came back three months later for more.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that I would have picked up issue #18 even if I’d been indifferent to, or even actively disliked, the contents of #17 — since #18’s gorgeous cover by the Barcelonan painter Enrich Torres promised an appearance by Dracula.  And in 1972, I was into any and all things having to do with Transylvania’s most famous fictional (?) denizen. Read More

Daredevil #51 (April, 1969)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When I first saw the cover of Daredevil #51 on the spinner rack fifty years ago, I believe I must have known something was up.

After all, I’d been buying and reading this series for a whole year now, and even if I wasn’t the most sophisticated spotter and identifier of individual artists’ styles at age eleven, I believe that I could tell a Gene Colan Daredevil cover from, well, anyone else’s.

Not that there hadn’t been any non-Colan DD covers in the twelve months I’d been following the book — there’d been issue #43‘s, which was a Jack Kirby job.  But that particular issue had guest-starred Captain America, and since Kirby was Cap’s regular artist at that time (and also his co-creator, of course, though I probably didn’t know that yet), that had made sense.

But who was this, who’d drawn the cover for #51?  I mean, Daredevil’s head looked… different (and not just because it was giant and translucent).  There was something sort of Kirbyesque about it, actually, but it wasn’t Kirby.  So who?  Read More