Top Tens: José Luis García-López

José Luis Garcia-Lopez worked on various Argentine comic strips before he began work on several romance titles for Charlton Comics. In 1974 he was hired by DC and moved to New York where he began working on titles like Superman, Batman, Jonah Hex, Cinder and Ashe, Deadman, and the New Teen Titans. My own personal introduction to Lopez’s work was on the DC title "Hercules Unbound" # 2 in 1975 (cover below) Lopez also provided the inks over Wally Woods pencils on this title however, Wally's style was so dominant that it was hard to see what Lopez's work looked like. That was until he was given the job of creating both covers and pencil art on the early issues of “DC Comics Presents” (1977) where is stunning art and design work shone through. At a time (circa 1977/8 ) when I was losing interest in many US superhero comics J Garcia Lopez “drew me back in” to give them a second chance. Below are just a few of my favourite Lopez covers:

Page Turners: Dave Cockrum

Dave Cockrum always aspired to become a comic book artist and in 1968 his first published work appeared in the “ Fantastic Fanzine“ which directly resulted in him being hired by Warren in 1971 to pencil a "Vampirella" strip. His obvious talents soon caught the eye of DC where he became assistant to Murphy Anderson and in 1972 he was given the option of working on DC’s "The Legion of Super-Heroes" strip.

In 1972, the LSH strip appeared as a back-up tale in DC ‘s Superboy comic, it was here in #195 that I first came across Dave Cockrum’s art in the LSH tale "One Shot Hero" (splash page above) which I have blogged about before. Prior to Cockrum’s arrival the LSH characters looked dated and by all accounts sales in the series were dropping, so with little to lose he began updating the teen heroes' costumes to dramatically “sexy” effect (something that Mike Grell would expand on when he took over the art chores) and moved the strip toward more of a science- fiction feel. With updated costumes, new characters (Wildfire etc) and a new writer in Cary Bates , the title picked up and became one of DC’s best sellers (for a time ) and resulted in the Superboy comic being retitled “ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes” from issue 197.

Above: From "Superboy and the LSH" 100 page special showing the then new LSH "sexy" costumes .

Above: Page from "Superboy and the LSH" #197

Above: Page from "Superboy and the LSH" #198

Above: The cover to "Superboy and the LSH" #199 one of only a handful of Cockrum pencilled LSH covers (this was of course inked by the excellent Nick Cardy)

Above: Splash page from " Superboy and the LSH" #202 - this was Dave Cockrum's last issue before he left for Marvel. This tale was was inked by Mike Grell, who would take over the title from issue 203.

In 1974, Cockrum fell out with DC when Carmine Infantino refused to return a page of art that he produced for “Superboy and the LSH” # 200 , the marriage of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel (page above). On joining the House of Ideas Cockrum co-created, with Len Wein, The new X-Men , introducing new characters including Nightcrawler , Storm, and Colossus. Taking a led from his success at the Legion, Cockrum also redesigned the X-Men costumes transforming the title from a failing comic into a media sensation and a Marvel money making machine.

Above: Page from X-Men #96 - This was my first issue of the new Uncanny X-Men - I was never a fan of the original X-Men, but I loved this version - Image from the Epic collection.

Above: Splash page and pages 2 and 3 from X-Men #107

Above: Pages 2 and 3 from X-Men #101 (and cover at heading) - images from the Epic collection.

Seemingly Cockrum did not benefit financially from the success of the X-Men and left the title after two years (returning three years later for a short time), after this he worked on several titles including Ms Marvel where he redesigned her costume (above splash from Ms Marvel #20)

Above: Splash page from Batman #412 (image taken from the internet)

Above: From "The Legion of Superheroes" #300 - Dave returned to the title that started it all for him with a nice chapter in this anniversary issue - previous Legion artist including James Sherman and Curt Swan also provide art.

After leaving Marvel Dave’s career did not go as well as most fans would have thought it should have. His creator owned title “ The Futurians” originally published by Marvel, was a critical success but a commercial failure. Although he did occasioanl work for Marvel and DC by the 1990s his style was out of favour and he found regular work with various lesser-known publishers (Acclaim, Defiant, Broadway, Claypool) who would all go out of business, leaving Dave facing financial ruin. In 2003 with his health failing, he was admitted to hospital. Fortunately, the comics industry rallied round with a benefit auction and book of artwork by his peers (The Uncanny Dave Cockrum Tribute) and Marvel (to their credit) came up with a generous retirement settlement for him in 2004. Sadly, in 2006 Dave Cockrum passed away at the age of 63 due to complications from diabetes

Gone but not Forgotten: The Comic Book Letters pages

Although the comic book letters page is not quite dead,the popularisation of email and the internet has pretty much reduced their numbers to near extinction levels. The letters page was always a favourite part of any US comic book that I bought in my teens as they offered a sense of community at a time (in my town at least) when comic fandom was not a thing and where familiar names would pop up month after month (or week after week in the UK) including many letter writers that would eventually became professionals in the industry including Bob Rozakis, Martin Pasko, and Mark Gruenwald. An additional plus for myself was always the letter page header which in some cases were a work of art on their own. Below (and above )are some of my favourites.

Above: Mighty World of Marvel (UK) letters page logo

Above: Avengers weekly (UK) letters page

Above: The UK weekly Spider-Man comic had several letter page titles (the first being "The Web and the Hammer" as the original comic featured Spidey and Thor repritns) - the above is from the "Super Spider-Man" comic.

Above: The letters and editorial page from the weekly "POW" and Smash comic from the mid /late 1960's by Odhams. Odhams published comics featuring UK originated strips and Marvel reprints and these titles were probably the first place in the UK that readers/ fans could regularly talk about comics and contact each other.

Above the letters page from the UK weekly Valiant and Lion comics (1970). UK comics letters pages usually consisted of readers submiting jokes or stories that rarely had anything to do with the actual strips in the comic.

Happy New Year from Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes are remembered for many things from their flights of fancy to their philosophical talks with each other. But of all the strips that were produced by their creator Bill Watterson, the strips that featured Calvin building a series of Snowmen are perhaps the most edgy and fun . The strip above heralding the New Year says so much about human nature. Due to some caring activities I may not be able to reply to any comments for a few days, but I hope you all have a wonderful 2025.

Post Christmas present to myself - Marx Marvel Superhero figures

On a Boxing day visit to a local antique shop, I came across a figure of a Marvel superhero (Iron-Man) which seemed to trigger a memory that was buried deep in the recesses of my mind. After chatting to the stall owner, he informed me that this figure was part of a set that made up some of Marvels first models and were advertised in their comics back in 1967-1970. Although I had no memory of the actual figures, I immediately remembered the advert (shown below) and had always wanted to purchase one when I was a kid, if I ever managed to see them. I had no idea if these figures were ever on sale in the UK in the late 1960s or early 1970s but some 54 years after first seeing these advertised I have now managed to purchase a figure - 10 year old me would be very happy.

Above my Iron-Man figure (approx 15cm ) - I'm not really into models or action figures but this one looked so cool and I had some Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket (it only cost me £5). The picture above (and at the heading) is from the internet and shows the other figures that were available.

Above is the advert that appeared in many of the early Marvel comics advertising these figures.These were produced by Marx and featured figures of Captain America, Daredevil, The Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man and Thor. The first set were cast in various colours including blue, green, orange, and bright red, with later versions being coloured brown, dark red, silver, and grey.

Merry Christmas from Calvin and Hobbes

I have always been a fan of newspaper comic strips and have picked up and thoroughly enjoyed collections of strips like the "Wizard of ID", "B.C.", "Hagar the Horrible", "Beetle Bailey" and many more over the years. However , the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” created by Bill Watterson is indisputably my all-time favourite comic strip. I have read the entire strip from start to finish through the various collections that were published (not being a reader of the newspaper the strip appeared in at the time in the UK) . After over 10 years of unrelenting fun Bill Watterson decided to end the series with the above wonderful Sunday colour page on 31 December 1995. It was the Christmas strips that showed "Calvin and Hobbes" at their funniest so sit back and try to remember a time when it was just fun being a kid.

Calvin and Hobbes follows the adventures of a precocious six-year-old boy named Calvin and his best friend, a stuffed tiger named Hobbes who comes alive when Calvin is alone. The strip is not just a series of gag cartoons but is a blend of satire that regularly pokes fun at the absurdities of modern life, from religion to politics and at the same time focuses on the simple joy of just being a kid, something I’m sure most readers of this blog can relate to.