Early 1980s RockOn Poster Catalog

These posters will be recognizable to mall denizens of the early 1980s. There's a selection of posters of rock and roll stars, plus posters by Bernie Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith and other fantasy and science fiction artists of the era.

 

The Complete Web of Horror

 Web of Horror only lasted for three issues, but what a run it was. The black and white horror comic magazine featured the talents of Bernie Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Mike Kaluta, Frank Brunner, Ralph Reese and others.

Stories from these issues have been reprinted across various books collecting the work of the individual artists or later horror comic anthologies. But here is the chance to own a hardcover collection of all three issues PLUS previously unpublished stories from the never published issue #4 and stories destined for the magazine that saw print elsewhere.

There's also informative introductions and historical material.

AND if you pledge $100 (all the money going to pay royalties to the creators and their estates) you get the hardcover book, a slipcase, a bookplate signed by Mike Kaluta, and a set of Web of Horror bookmarks. For a $30 pledge you can get a set of Web of Horror postcards.

The book will be published by Fantagraphics, but only if the money can be raised to pay the royalties. As of this writing there's only seven left of the package that includes the book. Please pledge to this worthwhile project now! Pledge at the link below.

The Complete Web of Horror Indiegogo Page

UPDATE: Goal has been met and all books with slipcases and signed bookplate have been sold. Some postcard sets still available. You will be able to purchase the regular book from Fantagraphics in 2023.

 

 

The Complete Web of Horror Indiegogo Page.

Coloring the Bernie Wrightson Coloring Book

 This guy is coloring Bernie Wrightson's Color the Creature coloring and doing a hell of a job. Here's a link to his web site and some more examples.

Swamp Thing Covers by Bernie Wrightson

House of Secrets #92, July 1971.

Swamp Thing #1, November 1972.

Swamp Thing #2, January 1973.

Swamp Thing #3, March 1973.

Swamp Thing #4, May 1973.

Swamp Thing #5, August 1973.

Swamp Thing #6, October 1973.

Swamp Thing #7, December 1973.

Swamp Thing #8, February 1974.

Swamp Thing #9, April 1974.

Swamp Thing #10, June 1974.

DC Special Series Vol. 1, #2., September 1977.

DC Special Series Vol. 2, #14. Summer 1978.

Roots of the the Swamp Thing #1, July 1986.

 

New Edition of Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein

If there's one thing that will get to start this blog again, it's a new edition of Bernie Wrightson's classic Frankenstein. This edition was just published by Gallery 13, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Even though the image is cropped, doesn't that cover look nice?

                                                                                                                                      

Unfortunately, what's nice about this ends there. Let's open the book up, shall we?

Oh look! No endpapers! Don't worry. They're randomly inserted elsewhere in the book. But how about the illustrations?

Many of them are printed much too dark, losing much of Wrightson's stunning linework and negating the main reason to buy this book.

Did I mention the size? The book is only 6 1/4" x 9 1/4". Smaller than a bronze age comic book. That's the real crime here. I don't understand why anyone would bother releasing this book in such a small format. This review could really just say "Smaller than a comic book" and that would tell you all you would need to know.

Part of me is glad this book is in print in any format, and I certainly hope his estate gets some money from it but I feel like this is a lost opportunity. All the older editions of this book are expensive on the secondary market. This book is legendary, and likely a lot of new or younger Wrightson fans don't have it. I could some of them so happy to finally get this book and being like "This is it?" 

I think the best edition of this book is the 2008 Dark Horse edition. Some people say the reproduction is better in the earlier Marvel / Dodd-Mead edition but I think you need a magnifying class to tell the difference. The Dark Horse one is larger, printed on higher quality paper and much better designed. If you can save your money and pick up one of those editions that's currently the best way to see this masterpiece. I guess if you can't afford one of those and have to have something, get this Gallery 13 edition. Or, if you're a nut like me and buy this book in languages you can't even read, then you probably already have it.

Some of you may have heard IDW is planning an Artist Edition of this book, with the art reproduced full size and photographed in color to pick up every bit of underlying pencil and nuance in the inking. That was supposed to be out in October 2019. At a panel from the online San Diego Con in August 2020 the editor said it will be out early next year. Let's keep our finger's crossed.

1982 Bernie Wrightson Interview

In October 1982, The Comics Journal published a lengthy interview with Bernie Wrightson. That's when I was first really getting into Wrightson and I read that thing over and over. Looking at it now, I realize the interviewer was sitting flipping through A LOOK BACK as he did the interview, and that kind of limited the questions in my mind. It's still a great interview. It's online here.

The Wrightson Completionist: Part 11

The eleventh in a series of posts highlighting oddball Bernie Wrightson items in my collection.

What do you do when you've bought all the Bernie Wrightson stuff, except for the stuff that's really expensive (S&N The Stand book, weird-ass Nakotomi prints they made five of) or impossible to find (Nozdrovia, Gothic Blimp)? The answer is you start buying foreign editions of his work, which I've spent a lot time doing the last couple years.

Here's an Italian edition of Wrightson's masterwork: the illustrated Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus by Mary W. Shelley. It's smaller than the Dark Horse edition or the original Dodd-Mead edition, about 7" x 9 3/4". It has the full endpapers and all the illustrations. Like the Dark Horse edition, there are small greyish vignettes from the illustration on the previous page.

Nothing here you haven't seen before, but if you're a nut about this like me, it's worth getting. As of this writing, it's available on the Italian Amazon page, your regular Amazon user name and password will work. It ended up costing me about $35 with postage. It took about two or three or weeks to get it in the mail. The book is published by a company called Oscar Ink. It's a hardcover and is 302 pages.

Ciao everybody!

A TRIBUTE TO BERNIE WRIGHTSON: HEROESCON 2017

Bernie Wrightson Tribute panel at the Heroes Aren't Hard to Find Convention in Charlotte NC, June 2017. Participants are John Totleben, Jason Moore, Tom Yeates, Scott Hampton and Joe Jusko.

Bernie Wrightson

Husband, father and comic book artist Bernie died yesterday, March 18, 2017. Anyone who had visited this blog more than once probably knows my affection for him and his work. Almost everything you have seen posted on this blog grew out of my fascination with Wrightson and his work. He opened me up to a whole world of art, from his contemporaries and The Studio gang, to the EC artists, Roy Krenkel and earlier masters like Alex Raymond, J.C. Coll and N.C. Wyeth. Thank you Bernie, for all the wonderful art you've given us over the years.

Bernie Wrighson Frankenstein Portfolio

The first of Bernie Wrightson's three Frankenstein portfolios. This was released by Tyrannosaurus Press in 1977 in a signed and numbered limited edition of 1000.

Swamp Thing Around the World

Bernie Wrightson's run on Swamp Thing is some of the most reprinted art of that era. The muck monster has been particularly popular in Europe, with many foreign language publications of the saga. This point will highlight a few, but by no means all of them.

The cover on the right is from one of my favorite editions. They were published in Denmark by Rune Press. These were the first foreign Swamp Thing comics I bought. They are large, magazine-sized and the first album reprints the first issue and the origin story from House of Secrets #92. The next two volumes, Patchwork Manden and Varulvens Nat reprint the next four issues. The books are printed in black and white with glorious reproduction, every fine line and twist of the brush shows up. These must have been printed from the original negatives or first generation stats. I don't know if the series continued to reprint the rest of Wrightson's run on the title. The only possible drawback to this edition would be if they did not reprint all of Wrightson's issues of Swamp Thing. Below is a panel from Swamp Thing #4.

The French publisher Les Editions du Fromage printed a beautiful set of Wrightson's complete run in two volumes. These boast the same superior reproduction of the Dutch editions but are slightly smaller in size, they measure 7.25" x 10.5". The first volume reprints the story from House of Secrets #92 and the first five issues of Swamp Thing, the second volume the remaining issues #6-10.

They were published sometime in the late-1970's and worth the sometimes hefty price if you really appreciate Wrightson's fine linework. Short of an IDW Artist Edition, this is the best presentation you will see of this historic run. Below are a couple panels from this edition.

Next up is a set of two German volumes: Das Ding Aus Den Sumpfen and Die Nach Der Fledermaus. These both measure a little over 6" x 10" and are printed in color. They were printed in 1990 by the publisher Carlsen Verlag.

The coloring in them as the same as DC's The Roots of the Swamp Thing reprint series from 1986. The first volume reprints issues #1-5 and the second volume reprints the remaining issues and the Swamp Thing story from House of Secrets #92.






Another German offering is Die großen Phantastic-Comics #57 - Sumpfding - Ein Leben für die Ewigkeit. This magazine sized issue sports the front half of Bernie's painting for the cover of The Roots of the Swamp Thing #1 and reprints the first two issues of the comic. Again, the coloring is the same as 1986's The Roots of the Swamp Thing. I couldn't find any references to any subsequent issues of Swamp Thing in this series. The cover is pictured below.

Last is a bizarre little Spanish volume: La Cosa Del Pantano published by Toutain Editor. There is no publication printed in it. This is magazine size and utilizes Wrightson's Swamp Creature from his Color the Creatures coloring book as a cover.

This reprints the origin story from House of Secrets colored by someone who favors yellow and pastel hues. A shot of some of the interior pages is below. The colors are actually much more washed out than the photo shows. It also reprints the first four issues of the comic in black and white. The reproduction is serviceable, but nowhere close to quality of the French of Dutch editions discussed above. I don't have any more information about this, I don't know if they published subsequent issues or not.

I hope you've enjoyed this little tour around the world with Swamp Thing. When I first ordered the Dutch editions from a catalog in the pre-internet 1980's I wasn't even sure what I was getting. But now with resources like the Grand Comics Database and being able to order from European eBays and Amazons the hunt is much easier but still a challenge. I can promise if I find anymore foreign Swamp Things, you'll see them here!