I love Ken Barr's work, he's known to many US enthusiasts for his superb renditions of Doc Savage, The Hulk and The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu as well as covers and artwork for James Warren's Creepy and Eerie magazines. But before he moved stateside in 1968 he was the man responsible for putting the grit, sweat and tungsten lighting into the covers that graced the bulk of the early years of Commando comics.As we're currently celebrating fifty years of Commando, editor Calum Laird will be asking readers to suggest favorite issues they'd like to see reprinted.
So here's some ideas:
All images © DC Thomson 2011.
Check out the Commando website for more up to date information on this ever popular series of comics.
More to follow tomorrow.
I must admit that I'm really enjoying the current run of early reprints. Having just picked up 'Mighty Mike' I wasn't just impressed by its Ken Barr cover but also by Cam Kennedy's excellent artwork and - above all - by Cyril Walker's clever script. In fact I'm rather surprised nobody's ever thought of adapting some of these stories into film scripts over the years.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, in spite of the work Barr produced in the 1970s for Marvel Comics and James Warren I'd say that his greatest claim to fame in the US would have to be as the first artist of Bob Kanigher's long-running Losers series in Our Fighting Forces, where he set the bar for such stellar talents as Ross Andru, John Severin, George Evans and Jack Kirby!
Call me a nit-picker, but as much as I liked the occasional Commando story, the one thing that really put me off was the typeset lettering. Interesting stories, great artwork....but that type! Must be just me - I also found it jarring with the lettering in the old EC stories (except for Kurtzmann-edited material; don't know how expensive it was to get it hand-lettered, but it made a world of difference).
ReplyDeletecheers
B Smith
cheers
Baden