Top Tens: Frank Brunner

Frank Brunners first venture into comics was as an artist and writer for “Web of Horror” (Major Publications) before moving to Warren where he worked on their “Creepy”, “Eerie” and “Vampirella” titles. However, it was at Marvel where I first came across Brunners work in the 4th issue of the re-launched “Doctor Strange , Master of the Mystic Arts" title in 1974. Although that would be the last US issue of this comic that I would see for a few years, I was fortunate enough to read his excellent Dr Strange strips when it was reprinted a few years later in UK Marvels weekly titles “Avengers” & “Super Spider-Man” starting from his first Dr Strange work in Marvel Premiere. Although Brunners comic strip career was relatively short he worked on some of Marvel’s best comics and produced some of their most striking covers of the 1970s - some of my favourites are shown below.

"Howard the Duck" - #2 - March 1976 - Along with his work on Dr Strange, Howard the Duck contains my favourite Brunner art. Although he only drew two issues of Howards own comic along with a couple of strips in "Giant Sized Man-Thing" his artwork is fun, adventurous and exciting without ever becoming overly cartoony. You can see some of Franks art from "Howard the Duck" #1 here.

Red Sonja #12 - Cover art only - November 1978

Ka-Zar #4 - Cover art only - July 1974 - This is a pretty poor issue of Ka-Zar that featured some of Don Hecks poorest art.

Supernatural Thrillers # 11 - February 1975 - Cover art only - My most recent back-issue purchase from last week based only on Brunners amazing cover (and perhaps the cover price of only £3).

Journey into Fear #17 - October 1973 - Cover art only.

Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #6 - December 1975 - Cover art only - Brunner painted a few covers for Marvel's monthly titles including "Savage Sword of Conan"

Giant Sized Man-Thing #4 - May 1974 - Cover art by Brunner.This issue also featured the first solo tale of "Howard the Duck" by Brunner and Stever Gerber.

Marvel Premiere # 12 -August 1973 - Cover by Brunner with internal art by Brunner/Crusty Bunkers. Marvel Premiere # 9 at header - July 1973 - with internal art by Brunner and Ernie Chua. As noted above my first (and favourite) Frank Brunner comic was "Dr Strange Master of the Mystic Arts" #4 - you can see some pages here.

Super-Team Family # 3 - February 1976 - Cover art only - I think this may have been Brunners only DC cover.

Cover from Grand Comic database.

Brunner has for the most part now left the world of comics and now focuses on producing commissions, the occassional comic book cover for companies like Dynamite, and fine print portfolios - the above painting is taken from Heritage Auctions.

Gone but not forgotten: "What's love got to do with it ?"- Romance comics - Steranko, Romita, Colan

As we enter February, the “commercially” sanctioned month of love I thought it would be as good a time as any to visit possibly the most maligned of all comic book genres – the romance comic. Although these comics were of little (if any) interest to most boys back in the day, the fact was that romance comics were huge with thousands of titles published between 1947 and 1977, despite this and seeing these comics in the spinner racks it never crossed my mind to even peek inside a romance comic let alone buy one. Well, that was up until around 2010 when I heard that these titles included art by many of comic’s greatest artists including John Romita Senior, John and Sal Buscema, Jim Steranko and Alex Toth. Arguably the most sought after of these titles from the 1970s period is the above issue of “Our Love Story” (#5 - June 1970 - cover by John Romita) which featured Jim Steranko’s only romance strip and art by John Buscema, Gene Colan and John Romita.

Above the excellent splash page to the first story in this issue by Stan Lee - "But he's not the boy for me!" by John Buscema and Frank Giacoia.

The second Stan Lee story in this issue is "But he's the boy I love!" with art by Gene Colan and John Romita.

Rounding of this issue is the excellently illustrated strip “My Heart broke in Hollywood!" by Jim Steranko.

Although I only have a handful of romance comics in my collection it seems that the letters pages did not wax lyrical over the content of the actual strips and the heroes latest battles, instead they focused on the more real life issues of the trials and tribulations of dating and young love.

My only other issue of a Marvel romance comic is the above #4 of "Our Love Story" (cover by John Romita from April 1970) with some great art by Gene Colan,Sal Buscema,Frank Giociao and Don Heck.

My third and only other romance comic is of DC's popular "Young Love" #73 (below) from April 1969. Although the art in this issue is not as impressive as the two Marvel titles above, it does feature an excellent story illustrated by the great Alex Toth.

Around the late 1970's romance comics seemed to vanish from the spinner racks just like the Western, humour and war comics that thrived at this time. While many romance comics seemed on the face of it to be drab soap opera dramas, I'm sure many (mostly) girls enjoyed them as pure escapism, perhaps that’s why they "disappeared" at a time when comics were becoming darker and had to be taken "seriously". Personally, as I read these comics (especially the Marvel issues) you could see the soap opera romance elements of these wonderfully fun tales being played out in titles like Spider-Man , Daredevil and many others superhero comics.