Note: While this writing has been posted after G.I. Joe issue #300 went on sale, it was written before that date.
– – – – – – – –
After a healthy, 12-year run, G.I. Joe is ending. Again. But this time, it doesn’t hurt.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Back issues
Andy Mushynsky ink art – G.I. Joe #28
Last month I posted a photocopy of Marie Severin’s pencil art to a single page of G.I. Joe issue #28, cover dated October 1984, and offered a small, incomplete professional biography of Severin. If you haven’t looked, head over there first, as this new post is a companion piece.
When I think Andy Mushynsky, I first think “He inked Rod Whigham’s run on G.I. Joe,” but he also contributed to Spider-Man pages and covers, that of the Amazing, Spectacular, and Web of variety, and others, plus Topps’ Zorro. And there’s a G.I. Joe gap in the first sentence of this paragraph, as Mushynsky didn’t just ink Whigham, but Ron Wagner after him and Frank Springer before. In total, Andy Mushynsky inked 31 issues of A Real American Hero! Plus 10 of Special Missions.
The one that concerns us today is #28, that single issue penciled by Marie Severin. You’ve seen some pencils, and now here is a photocopy of the original art to that same page 18 with inks by Andy Mushynsky. Click to enlarge.
Mushynsky was born in West Germany, studied English Lit at Colgate, and worked in publishing, social justice, and art direction. Through a connection with his studio mates, Mushynsky started inking for DC Comics, and then for Marvel on series like Power Man and Iron Fist and Vision and the Scarlet Witch.
In a 1985 issue of David Anthony Kraft’s Comics Interview with Dwight Jon Zimmerman, Mushynsky refers to that Avengers maxi-series, stating that “I’ve discovered that because the super-hero characters are so much less detailed than the G.I. Joe characters — who have all these weapons, ammo belts and a multiplicity of details for each character — that the inking goes much more quickly. And the fact that the super-heroes have more open forms enables me to use more line-weight variations…. The Vision and Scarlet Witch is turning out to be a lot more brushwork, which is fun. And when I get tired of the brush, I can go back and pick up my pen and do little G.I. Joe figures.”
He does make the point that it’s a challenging series.
–
Filed under Back issues, Comic Books, G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes
Marie Severin pencil art – G.I. Joe #28
When we think of G.I. Joe comics in the 1980s and ’90s and we’re considering art, names like Trimpe, Vosburg, Wagner, and Wildman come to mind. (And about ten others.) There were American men (and a Brit) who penciled 22 pages at a time for this monthly series. Emphasis on that word, “men.” Yes, it was mostly men who created G.I. Joe and related books like Special Missions, the Yearbooks, and the like. Women did work on Real American Hero, with color, lettering, and editing contributions from folks like Glynis Oliver, Janice Chiang, Vickie Williams, Bobbie Chase, Renee Witterstaetter, and Hildy Mesnik. And women were indeed writing at Marvel, on New Mutants, for example, and drawing pages and stories for the House of Ideas on Star Wars, Power Pack, Muppet Babies, Sub-Mariner, Incredible Hulk, and What The–?! (Slight emphasis on those final three.)
But no woman ever drew an issue of Marvel’s G.I. Joe, with one exception. That would be Marie Severin.
Severin might be best known for five things:
1) She colored most of the horror, crime, and sci-fi EC Comics of the early 1950s. (She is one of my favorite colorists, and as an extension of my strong feelings heard on the Talking Joe podcast, if you’d like another notion on what not to do with color, hey, Gemstone and Dark Horse, don’t recolor Marie Severin’s work for your EC Archives and call them in the spirit of the originals. They’re not.) Severin’s limited choices were great. Her use of 64 colors may look limited or old-fashioned, and the occasional pink sky or all-red panel may look like a mistake or a cop out. I assure you they are not. Click to enlarge.
As I say on Talking Joe, sometimes less is more.
2) She penciled a bunch of Sub-Mariner, What The–?!, and Incredible Hulk. Click to enlarge.
…And inked and colored dozens and dozens of Marvel pages, too, for all sorts of super-hero and non-super-hero titles. And knew so much about color, and was so good at it, she because head of Marvel’s coloring department.
3) More recently, Marie Severin recolored a few of her own EC stories for Greg Sadowski’s amazing Krigstein book.
(Fun fact, Severin recolored six Krigstein Atlas stories for Sadowski’s other Krigstein book.)
4) She was John Severin’s sister. Man, there’s a guy I wish had drawn G.I. Joe! Oh well, we’ll just squint at his Semper Fi and pretend it’s a Larry Hama-written Real American Flashback. But being someone’s brother isn’t a career highlight, so I’ll loop back around for another bullet point:
5) In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she sketched out almost all of Marvel’s covers for other artists to draw. You can learn more in Dewey Cassell’s TwoMorrows book, Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics. Click to enlarge.
In it, he said: “She was not the first lady in comics, but she is unquestionably the first lady of comics.”
But the reason you’re here today is because Marie Severin penciled one issue of G.I. Joe. And it’s awesome. Here’s a photocopy of Severin’s pencils for story page 18 (that’s not counting the ads). Click to enlarge.
Of course this is “Marvel style,” so Severin here is working from a Larry Hama plot, and writing in clarifications and any small changes in the margins. (She didn’t invent this, Trimpe did it as early as issue #1 — this was a standard practice.)
Seeing uninked work like this is a real transformation, or un-transformation, as it were, a sideways kind of time machine. Severin was a great artist, and I’m struck by how well she fit into the style of the monthly G.I. Joe. That might be more indicative of the fact that Marvel had a house style in the 1970s and ’80s — the post Romita/Buscema/Kane/Adams mix you get in a John Byrne, Herb Trimpe, or Ron Wilson. But for many years I’ve glossed over Real American Hero #28 even being a fill-in. Sure, it’s in the middle of Frank Springer’s short run, but stylistically, it does not stick out. It just looks like G.I. Joe.
And no shade on anyone else, but it actually looks better than some other issues. Severin was that talented.
Certainly Andy Mushynsky’s inks have something to do with this consistency — he inked most of Springer and stayed when Rod Whigham showed up shortly after. On the topic of Mushynsky, let’s take a look at this page-as-inked next time here at A Real American Book! But I sure wish Marie Severin, Mirthful Mistress of color and inks and cover designs, had penciled more issues.
——-
As a postscript, I’ll note that Marvel’s G.I. Joe cover run is similarly allotted by gender. Men like Zeck, Kubert, and several of the series’ own interior artists drew the covers, and with one exception, no women ever drew a G.I. Joe cover. That would be issue #153, which was penciled by Amanda Conner.
Also, to further tease my next blog post (let’s say a week, okay?), I’ll point out the next time Marie Severin drew G.I. Joe characters, not for very long, not very big, and not in the pages of G.I. Joe.
Filed under Back issues, Comic Books, G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes
Now Co-Hosting Talking Joe podcast
After my big interview with Mark “Funky Bunch” for a special episode of Talking Joe (between episodes 103 and 104, December 2020), Mark told me that the podcast was at a crossroads. After two years of hard work, founder Chief Stride was retiring, and Mark was considering a change in format or was a looking for a new co-host. And would I be interested? I’ll go into this more in a week or two in my big A Real American Book! year-in-review post, but the answer turned out to be yes.
Continue readingFiled under Back issues, Talking Joe podcast
G.I. Joe #35 by Mark Bright
In the numbered 30s, the monthly G.I. Joe comic was a scheduling challenge. The series was about to get a new regular artist, certain issues needed to advertise key toys based on the scheduling of particular TV commercials that hyped the comic, and of course, every issue needed to be approved by folks at Hasbro. Issues #35 and #36 had six artists between them, one of whom was Mark D. Bright.
Filed under Back issues, Comic Books, G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes
Hub Comics in the news
Photo by Jamie Meditz
Not much touted here is the fact that I own a comic book store. It’s a recent development, and with our renovations still ongoing (shelves, paint, lights, awning, website), it’s a little harder to blog and write. On the plus side, our customers always have IDW’s full line of G.I. Joe comics and graphic novels to choose from. Both myself and the store are in this week’s issue of DigBoston, a free arts and nightlife newspaper, and I manage to give some attention to Real American Hero.
A longer version should be online in a week. Thanks to interviewer Corey Estlund, photographer Jamie Meditz, and art director Scott Murray for the kind coverage.
Filed under Back issues, Hub Comics, Reading comics
The Comic That Changed Everything – Part 14
Part 1 – [2] – [3] – [4] – [5] – [6] – [7] – [8] – [9] – [10] – [11] – [12] – [13]
In our last episode, Tim stretched out this story of getting into G.I. Joe comics by also including Marvel super-hero books like Uncanny X-Men. This week he gets back to G.I. Joe. Sort of.
After that first mail order in the early summer when my brother Kevin and I got 11 G.I. Joe back issues for $22, we were hooked on the process. New Jersey-based East Coast Comics, the fine retailer that had filled that first order, was smart to include an updated catalog (a pamphlet, actually) with it, and some months later we gathered our pennies and plotted to fill more holes in our G.I. Joe run. At this point, the series is on issue #95 or thereabouts, so we’ve got 70 comics or reprints to track down. Several options offered opportunities to get those comics, each just uninteresting enough that I will probably blog about them individually on upcoming Fridays – finding other comic book stores, attending our first comic book convention, sampling a mail order company beyond East Coast Comics. But for today: Our second and third mail orders.
This probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but for me this image is all nostalgia: The handwriting of my 11-year old self, my mom’s signature, specific G.I. Joe gaps we were attempting to fill, the fact that I still didn’t understand what “Alternates” were – (second choices in case a comic was sold out, so East Coast didn’t have to issue credit slips), and the fact that we were trying out a new series (Nth Man, Ninja Turtles Teach Karate).
Also, memory is funny in how often it turns out to be wrong: This scan concretely places when we bought issue #36 of The ‘Nam, meaning I was incorrect a few weeks back in this very blog. I must not have bought that issue at the Montgomery Mall Waldenbooks as 6th grade began. Apparently it arrived by mail a few months later. I have no recollection of receiving this box, although I do remember thinking Solson’s TMNT book was an amateurish affair, remarkable considering how amateurish the production in Mirage Studios’ actual Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was. So this must have arrived right around Christmas of 6th grade. Anyway, there it is, what was probably our second ever mail order.
But let’s skip a few months ahead to spring of 6th grade. The first two mail orders have arrived quickly. Kevin and I have saved up enough money to place a big order, and with East Coast selling many issues for less than a dollar, this was not going to be 10 or 15 comics. No, this time we ordered 40 G.I. Joe back issues. It was bold, exhilarating, and nerve-wracking. Even though we were clearly comics buyers by now (Joe, The ‘Nam, Marvel super-hero books, Ninja Turtles), it’s still a transition from being boys who spent money on toys to boys who with our own money bought things to read. (Chapter books and the occasional Garfield collection were paid for by our parents.) This shift represented, in a very real sense and not just symbolically, us growing up and away from childhood. We bought toys and played with them for a few more years (me much longer than Kevin), but toys’ days were numbered the moment I bought that first Joe comic. (Except for me becoming a vintage toy collector, another topic for another day.)
My friend Will (Hi, Will), also in 6th grade with me, was becoming a comics reader as well. And comics had a certain currency in my tiny classroom. One friend talked about Wolverine. I drew a cutely terrible Batman parody in my notebook. And new G.I. Joe issues did appear each month concurrent to all this. But as the weeks went by, I got anxious about this big mail order. Why was it taking so long? Why was it taking weeks when the earlier order had only taken one? Was the package lost somewhere en route? Did East Coast abscond with our money? Was the parcel stolen from our front stoop? During lulls in class I would fantasize to Will about what it would be like to open a box with 40 comics in it. To instantly more than double the size of our collection.
The specific scenario I kept painting went like this: Arriving home one day, I’d notice our screen door propped open, even though it always closed shut on its own. Something must be in the way, something I couldn’t see from the car. We parked. I approach cautiously. Now the box is revealed: It’s eight feet tall, cardboard, sealed with packing tape. It can only be one thing. It can only be an East Coast Comics parcel bursting with comics. Literally, the box edges are no longer straight, parallel, and perpendicular, as if the comics are forcing their way out, the packing tape starting to tear, like a cartoon container for some magical energy, some tazmanian devil, some pressurized tank ready to explode. Inside the house I cut it open, but a tidal wave of newsprint pages and glossy covers, G.I. Joe comics the likes of which I’ve never known, surge out as if from a fire hose, like an avalanche, pushing me back, smothering me, the sound like the crash of beach surf!
Will and I said this to each other in a stage whisper, as I’d act it out in my seat, making the rumbly sound effect for the shower of comics. It was a vignette we’d quietly pantomime for each other, sitting in our seats during a lull in class. Will’s enthusiasm only reflected back on me, and the wait only became more difficult.
WHEN WOULD THE BOX ARRIVE?
Filed under Back issues, Reading comics
My First Comic Book Ever Was “G.I. Joe Yearbook” #3 – Part Three
Note for last week’s readers: The part two chicken scratch doodle of Another World has been partially updated.
In our last episode, Tim bought his first comic book ever, G.I. Joe Yearbook #3…
G.I.Joe Yearbook #4 cover art by Mike Zeck, 1988.
Then, what I believe is one year later, but could have been only half that, we returned to Another World. I bought G.I. Joe Yearbook #4, looked at but passed on another Mad, and Kevin bought two back issues: G.I. Joe #61 and #62. (Or maybe he’d bought them on that first visit? Memory’s funny that way.) At home he promptly put them on a high shelf in his room where I couldn’t reach them. He never offered them to me, and I never snuck a peak when he was elsewhere. I didn’t even touch them until later when we were regular comics readers and those two issues were incorporated into our burgeoning G.I. Joe collection. This should demonstrate the strange disinterest I had in comic books at that initial point. (It is also indicative of our overly strong sense of personal ownership. My toys were mine, Kevin’s were his. We didn’t share, and we didn’t much trade. This is not meant to sound mean, it’s just how our personalities worked. We played with our G.I. Joe toys side-by-side, my characters and vehicles interacting with his, but him only holding and role-playing with his, and me with mine. Weird, I know. It’s worth an entire blog post, how we played with our toys.) By then we had found D&D wares at the Waldenbooks at our mall (an important location that I’ll come back to in a later blog post), and rarely returned to Another World. In fact, I don’t think Kevin ever went back. I did go every year or three — it was friend and future editor Nick Nadel‘s local shop once he entered the picture, but until I had a driver’s license there was no point in shopping at this third-closest store. It did move and renovate, and finally closed when parent company/comics mail order giant American Entertainment went belly up a decade later.)
But back to those two issues–
G.I. Joe #61 and #62 covers by Mike Zeck, 1987.
Before Kevin whisked them away I do recall seeing these two covers, which by themselves form a kind of contained story, and being worried for the protagonists. This is a point I’ll come back to at a later date on the blog — the power of the cover image — but for now you can likely acknowledge that even if you’re not a G.I. Joe fan or a comics reader, these guys are in trouble. The barbed wire, the handcuffs, the menacing weapons. Trouble!
As with the first comic I’d bought, Yearbook #4 did not turn me into a lifelong reader. I just recall thinking there weren’t enough Joes in the lead Oktober Guard story, being confused by the recap pages that mixed narration with word balloons, and wishing the Joes in the back-up yarn wore their regular costumes and not their civvies. Years later Tony Salmons would give me some original art from that story.
G.I.Joe Yearbook #4 original art by Tony Salmons
So here’s where the biography stands: Kevin and I have been buying G.I. Joe toys and watching the G.I. Joe cartoon for four years — half a lifetime. For me it vies with Transformers as my favorite thing ever, for Kevin it’s no contest. We read books and newspaper comics, and now own four actual G.I. Joe comic books. But we’re still not readers! What’s missing?
Tune in next week!
Filed under Back issues, Prehistory
My First Comic Book Ever Was “G.I. Joe Yearbook” #3 – Part Two
In our last episode, Tim’s parents took him and his brother to their first comic book store…
29 July 2011 - Still updating this art. At left, Another World's back entrance, not open to foot traffic, on Wisconsin Ave. On right, the front entrance on P Street. Wisconsin is visible in the background.
But this is where my memory gets fuzzy. I believe we went to Another World one more time, six months or a full year later. As best as I can piece it together, on the first visit, in addition to the Dungeons & Dragons set, I bought two periodicals: I saw an issue of Mad Magazine and had to have it. Mad was still a kind of forbidden fruit, and we had just gotten into it a few months earlier, but our subscription hadn’t kicked in. For now it was the serendipity of seeing one on a newsstand, having the money, and getting the parental permission. My other buy was G.I. Joe Yearbook #3. (I should here define the series “G.I. Joe Yearbook” as an annual run of double-sized specials that complemented the regular, monthly G.I. Joe series.) Interesting, Kevin also bought a copy. Why did it grab us? Probably because the cover showed favorite characters in distress, a scenario I was intrigued to see to its resolution.
Art by Mike Zeck.
I don’t want to undersell that point. The cover made me worried about the characters. Snake-Eyes is in trouble! Scarlett defends him! Storm Shadow — a villain — is also helping? (This is a stark contrast to many comic book covers nowadays that feature glamor poses with little drama or story content.)
So Kevin bought Yearbook #3 as well – we were occasionally selfish and territorial about our possessions, and didn’t consistently share everything.
Yearbook #3 was just a curiosity. It did not turn me into a lifelong comics reader. That would happen two years later. But it was still an entertaining book, with a wordless story told only in pictures and pantomime that did in fact follow up on the cover image. My aversion to newsprint was abating. (I can’t reconcile how newspaper comics were fine but comic books printed with the same palette on the same stock were not. It might be that I was used to higher quality color and printing from glossy magazines like Hotdog and Dynamite, that I was already picky and fetishizing the bound periodical as a keepsake.) (I mean “festishizing” in the general, non-sexual sense of the word.) But as much neat content as it had, like a fun “Kitchen Viper” joke, and an article on the TV show, Yearbook #3 was still this weird… thing I didn’t entirely love. It’s like an album you don’t appreciate until months or years later, but in this analogy, it wasn’t a single album, it was the entire pastime of listening to music. I liked prose books, I liked magazines, I liked Garfield collections, I liked cartoons, but comics still hadn’t clicked.
I recall pulling Yearbook #3 off my shelf and reading it a few times afterwards, one time lying on my brother’s bedroom floor. But it sparked no storylines for our G.I. Joe toy games, and no discussion of buying additional comic books.
What was the comic that changed Tim’s life forever? Tune in next week to find out!
Filed under Back issues, Prehistory
A Real American Book! 