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Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Marvelmania: Posters - Part 2 -Kirby, Trimpe, Romita, Steranko, Purcell

Of all the Marvelmania adverts perhaps the most iconic were the ads for their Superhero posters. These were large 2ft x 3ft posters featuring some of Marvels top characters of the time that were released in two sets. My personal favourite, set B (advert above) featured three classic Jack Kirby posters of the FF, Silver Surfer, and Thor along with the rather strange addition of a Black Knight poster which was credited to artist Howard Purcell.
The Black Knight poster seemed to be a strange addition to this set as the character wasn't particularly popular (and was totally unknown to myself) at the time. However, I do remember thinking it was an excellent poster. Howard Purcell is not an artist I am aware of but his style looks a bit like John Buscema to me.
Set A (advert above) was also pretty impressive and featured the art of Kirby, Sternanko,Romita and Herb Trimpe.
The Hulk poster was pencilled by Kirby and redrawn by (then current) Hulk artist Herb Trimpe.
John Romita's Spider-Man poster was also based on a Kirby original (see below - coloured version of Kirbys original pencils from "The Kirby Collector" magazine) .
Dr Doom by Kirby. At this time Dr Doom had his own strip in Astonsihing Tales and was of course arguably Marvels main bad guy, so a poster was a good choice. This is one of my all time favourite Kirby pieces of comic art.
Set A was rounded of by the above Steranko Captain Americ poster - another belter.
Above: Kirbys origial Spider-Man poster.
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4 comments:

  1. Rip JaggerAugust 23, 2023 at 4:45 AM

    I lusted after these posters for decades. In recent years four of them have been reprinted and I snapped them up. They are they Kirby FF, Thor and Silver Surfer. There's a Cap one by Kirby which was also used, it's a repurposed cover. The three others were specifically done for Marvelmania. The fact that Kirby was not properly remunerated for these was a factor in his leaving Marvel. He'd been told for several years he'd get a cut of his work used beyond the comics and it never happened. The ones which were redrawn by Trimpe and Romita really annoyed him, though he didn't have a grudge against the artists, who like himself were just doing as instructed.

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    1. McSCOTTYAugust 23, 2023 at 6:17 PM

      I liked that Kirby Captain America poster and cover which I assume that's the cover of Cap 106 (that's on this blog somewhere) as well. I remember reading that Kirby was unhappy with Marvelmania, but as they weren't actually Marvel I always wondered why that was a factor in him leaving Marvel.

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  2. KidAugust 23, 2023 at 10:59 AM

    It has to be said, looking at his Spider-Man poster, you can see why it was redrawn by Romita. Regarding his Hulk poster, I always wondered if Trimpe completely redrew it on a separate piece of art board, or simply 'redrew' it as he inked Kirby's original. Having said that, I have a dim memory of having seen Jack's version, so if I'm remembering correctly, I guess that answers my speculation. I'm not too keen on Steranko's Cap poster - the right leg is far too long.

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  3. McSCOTTYAugust 23, 2023 at 6:22 PM

    There is no doubt the Romita version of Spider-Man is superior ( or maybe that should be more on character). Replacing the Kirby drawn robots\aliens with the Green Goblin and Doc Ock was much more in line with the character. I like Steranko's poster but his style did tend to exaggerate limbs etc.

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