Monday, October 31, 2011

Artwork stolen from Joe Giella






The following message was sent by Jim Amash to various mailing lists:


For Immediate Public Release,

A certain person Joe Giella trusted apparently stole a few pieces of original comic art from his house, mostly likely on Sept. 7 and Oct. 13 of this year. We want to get the word out so that anyone who may have already purchased this work or may be contacted about it will know it's considered stolen property, and hopefully will help get Joe's artwork back to him. A police report has been filed in the case, but spreading the word to the comics art community is absolutely vital. Here is a list of the stolen art:

Flash #144 "Menace of the Man Missile", pages 1 and 9. Pencils by Carmine Infantino.
Detective Comics #329 "Castle with Wall to Wall Danger" pages 7 and 8. Pencils by Carmine Infantino
Green Lantern/Green Arrow #107 cover. Pencils by Joe Staton.

This person is believed to have taken art from another comics art veteran, too. Anything you can do to spread the word would be very appreciated. Let's try to catch this thief.

-Jim Amash

[Artwork/bio at the top of this post taken from the National Cartoonists Society's webpage]

Friday, October 28, 2011

Lynda Barry interview on Late Night with David Letterman (video)

I was reading this much linked-to Lynda Barry profile from the New York Times, and the article mentioned that she'd been a guest half a dozen times in David Letterman's show. It turns out that one of these interviews was uploaded to YouTube less than a week ago. The interview (ostensibly to promote Barry's book The Fun House) is from 1988, when she had recently moved to New York.





The first volume of a ten-volume set reprinting Lynda Barry's work, Blabber Blabber Blabber, will be published by Drawn & Quarterly in November.

UPDATE: Mike Lynch had already posted it.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Unpublished Superman story from 1944

Looking at the original art for sale over at Heritage Comics I found the following: a complete (and previously unpublished) 12-page Superman story from 1944, "Supermite!", presumably written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster's studio. The pages can be found here.


Maybe not as exciting a find as the famous "K-Metal" story from 1940, but still an entertaining story featuring mad scientist Luthor and the classic Superman-Clark Kent-Lois Lane triangle. I don't know much about prices for original comic art, but some of the current bids seem to still be quite low. The next few weeks should let us know if these pages end up selling for a price as high as the price of Jerry Siegel's potential clone.

2011/10/28 update:  A couple of details I didn't mention yesterday: Heritage's description mentions that the story came from the collection of Jack Schiff, and also that the late Richard Morrissey had identified the writer as Jerry Siegel (which would suggest that the story has been circulating in fandom for some time).

Sunday, October 9, 2011

An amazing resource: Martin O'Hearn's blog


Martin O'Hearn is a fan and historian who has been studying American comics for decades. I remember first hearing about him thanks to the late Rich Morrissey, who'd share O'Hearn's research with us over at the Grand Comics Database mailing lists, describing his capacity for identifying uncredited writers thanks to thorough and detailed examinations of their tendency to use certain words and patterns in their work, and by identifying their writing quirks in general. Several of the credits you see in the GCD today are due to Martin O'Hearn's research.

I had noticed a few months ago that he'd started posting comments in comic-related blogs, identifying uncredited writers and artists. But what I didn't know was that he'd started a blog for sharing his knowledge. He's been posting writer William Woolfolk's records, posting corrections to GCD credits, and even identifying a Jack Kirby story that has been miscredited for decades. Give his blog a look.