Top Tens: Mike Kaluta

Mike Kaluta began his comic book career working in fanzines before moving onto Charlton in 1969 where he worked on teen romance, western and the “Great Battles of History” comics series. His obvious artistic talent meant that only a few years later he moved to DC where he created numerous covers for DC’s Batman, mystery, war and fantasy titles as well as working on the “Carson of Venus” feature in Korak, Son of Tarzan. However, it was in 1973 that he reached comic book superstar status when he began work on DCs Shadow title, a comic that he left after only 4 issues and for which he is still suprisingly best known for. Although considered one of comics best artists he created surprisingly few actual comic strips in his long career and focused his output on numerous covers for companies including DC, Vertigo, America’s Best Comics, Marvel and Harris comics. Below are some on my favourite of Mike Kaluta’s many comic book covers to go with the above issue of Batman issue 253 (November 1973):

The Shadow 1 – November 1973

Batman 428 - April 1973 - The first comic I bought with a Mike Kaluta cover.

Detective Comics 431 – January 1973

Batman Family 19 – September 1978

House of Mystery 261 October 1978

Conan the King – November 1984

Conan the Barbarian 167 – February 1985

Vampirella 2 – 1992 (cover from Comic book auctions)

Detective Comics 428 - October 1972