sketchbook page

sketchbook page

the silver surfer

the silver surfer (after john buscema)

"I'm hit!" (after John Buscema)

o, bitter victory!

Based on the cover to Silver Surfer #11 (1968) by John Buscema

team-up thrillers

This book, collecting six Marvel comics, came out in 1983 and was my introduction to Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and the Silver Surfer, amongst others (sure, it was also the first time I had ever heard of the X-Men villain Lucifer, or of Pepper Potts, or Kulan Gath, or Kurrgo--the Master of Planet X!...but I digress).

Looking back on it now, the inclusion of the team-up story featuring Spider-Man and Red Sonja seems...mightily weird. And the Hulk/Thing story isn't really the stuff of legends, either (I guess they didn't want more than one Jack Kirby story in the book, so they went with a fine-but-not-classic Hulk vs. Thing by Len Wein, Jim Starlin, and Joe Sinnott from Marvel Feature #11, instead of what would be my choice, a classic Hulk vs. Thing story from Fantastic Four #25)...but there's Iron Man fighting Captain America drawn by Don Heck, the X-Men vs. the Avengers by Kirby, Spider-Man vs. Daredevil by Ditko, and Thor vs. the Silver Surfer by John Buscema.

And my first real introduction to the Surfer was this panel:

Isn't that awesome? No wonder he became my favorite superhero character.

feelin' melodramatic

Art by Jack Kirby--inked, I believe, by Herb Trimpe--from Silver Surfer #18 (1970), words by Stan Lee