Hello everyone!

[Guardian7]

I actually thought this site was GAC with a face-lift. BUT... apparently it is its own site... so here I am!

I am a big fan of reading Golden Age stories. They are a fun time in the history of comics (irregardless of how inane some of them can be - which is sometimes part of their charm).
I am (as some know) a big ole honkin fan of CENTAUR comics stuff. Having another site to discuss this stuff in is very cool (Plus I see a lot of familiar faces from GAC).

Anyhow I am a non-publishing (so far) illustrator and do artwork more for me (usually) and for kicks.

I just did some illos of revamped (not by me) characters from the Timely Era/Marvel Comics. Specifically the Liberty Legion. I figured I'd give everyone a peek at my art... maybe sometime I will post other artwork if this Forum decides to ever have a place for artwork.

So without further adieu...

Miss America (I actually tried to harken back to her original outfit with that boss collared cape of hers).

MISS AMERICA v the ICE-THING!

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t225/Samcub/MissAmericavstheIce-Thing.jpg

Next are three members of Thomas' Liberty Legion: Miss America, Blue Diamond and Thin Man.

LIBERTY LEGION in the SAVAGE LAND!

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t225/Samcub/LibertyLegionintheSavageLand2withlettering.jpg

Other than that... don't be afraid to say hello...

G7

[bchat]

Have you ever checked-out The Collectors Society forums?  There's a whole thread (265 pages at last count) dedicated to "Centaur Comics".  Mostly, it's cover scans of books members there have purchased, but there are also some interior shots from a few books, the occasional cover recreation and a neat little run of covers from French comics featuring The Masked Marvel, Fantom of The Fair, The Eye & The Clock.  Here's the link: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=677111&fpart=1

I like the Liberty Legion drawing, probably because it reminds me of the cover to the second volume of "The Illustrated Comic Collectors Handbook" (from the SFCA).

[Yoc]

Very nice work G7!

We're our own site though we do share the same PD focus and many of the same members as GAC.  But you wont find post 1960 books or fanzines here like you can on GAC.

-Yoc

[Guardian7]

I can see what you mean Bchat (Cover of "The Illustrated Comic Collectors Handbook") Though I have never before seen the cover... Unfortunately one Jungle pic tends to look similar to another. Though I think mine has a grossly amount of detail too it that the ICCH doesn't. I was going to color mine as well and I probably would have picked similar colors (of course lots of green with sunlight spill ins).

Thanks for the compliments guys.

I wish I could do Liberty Legion stories without all the polluted garbage Marvel has fostered onto our poor Golden Age heroes that formed that particular team... Oh well... dream I suppose. Heh!

I am a member of that particular forum you mentioned Bchat  Collectors Society Message Boards. I believe it is the place where I first saw a pic of Solarman and heard about his history (in the VERY short installment he appeared in within WHAM#1). Though I have not frequented it too often of late). Thanks for bringing it back to my attention.

It is wonderful to have all of these sites to have the kind of access to the Comics that are allowed.

G7

Hop to:

[bchat]

I can see what you mean Bchat (Cover of "The Illustrated Comic Collectors Handbook") Though I have never before seen the cover... Unfortunately one Jungle pic tends to look similar to another. Though I think mine has a grossly amount of detail too it that the ICCH doesn't. I was going to color mine as well and I probably would have picked similar colors (of course lots of green with sunlight spill ins).

I didn't intend to imply anything between your work and the cover to the Handbook ... and I hope you didn't think I was.  With all the comics and related books & images that have been produced since Day One, some similarities are going to happen, intentional or not.  Besides, how many different ways are there to draw characters walking through a jungle?  I could have just as easily compared your drawing to a scene from the movie "Leech Woman", but the Handbook popped into my head first.

  I wish I could do Liberty Legion stories without all the polluted garbage Marvel has fostered onto our poor Golden Age heroes that formed that particular team... Oh well... dream I suppose. Heh!

Well, you could always take PD heroes (like Plymo The Rubber Man, Super-Ann & Amazing-Man) and replace the Timely heroes, then go from there with your stories.

[Guardian7]

I presently am setting the stage to do and use the PD chara from the Centaur Line.
Probably in some ONLINE COMIC. Since I doubt anyone will pick it up or even be interested in picking up. If I had the cash... I would certainly self publish... even at a cost. But alas I don't. One day maybe I will (since winning the lottery seems more feasible than finding a decent job! LOL).

Here is a montage of images I have done of Centaur chara (some are simply enhanced pencils others are inked line art) . It gives a fair idea that I have a pretty firm grasp on their appearances (Plus I do believe my artwork does the characters justice).

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t225/Samcub/CentaurUniverseRevisited.jpg

This of course does not include any sequential pages that I have done though haven't posted to anyone (no I don't plan on posting them until I figure exactly what I am going to do with them and whether or not I want my stories of them to appear).
I will say that I do plan on remaining as strict to the characters as they have been presented. It won't be a modern age take on them. Though I may take a few liberties with costumes. An extreme example of this is as here with Solarman (His color scheme is based on the first image I got of him from the net. Not knowing that he wasn't Green-orange-pale yellow and black: He IS bright blue-red-yellow with Black shading).

Here is a montage of the two (same) images of Solarman... I flipped the wrong colored one just to make the pic look neat! LOL

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t225/Samcub/Solarmanyinyang.jpg

Here is my drawing of the wrong color scheme... but still lookin pretty sharp I think.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t225/Samcub/Solarman2c1.jpg

Just so everyone knows... this doing characters in color thing is utterly new for me (ask Comicsnorth if you don't believe me - not usually my forte... but I am getting faster at it. Most certainly covers and any pin-ups I decide to do will be in color when this Online Comic gets started).

I of course will never do a character that I know absolutely nothing about. Which is why I am leaning away from the (Detective) Eye (Sees) and Masked Marvel. I have a few of their stories... and they seem pretty much of a similar pattern. I just want just a few more stories to just cement them more solidly in my head.
I don't plan on introducing too many of my own characters into the stories -- as there is SUCH a host of characters to be culled from the pages of all the Centaur stuff, even the ones that played bit parts or had more HUMAN level stories -- All of them could and should be used before I pile a bunch of my own crap on top of everything.
Most likely if I do indeed do it. It will be soldiers, lab assistants or other possibly necessary side characters.
I only plan on introducing one character and that is because I do not feel that some minorities are represented (or in the case of the period these take place in... shown VERY stereotypically bad). Product of the times, but still something I plan on doing something about and addressing.

Anyhow... that is the plan at least on paper... *wink*

Cya
G7

[bchat]

Well, I for one hope you do post your stuff somewhere.  You have a nice style which reminds of John Byrne & Jerry Ordway a little bit.  TNT Todd especially looks cool.  I enjoy seeing "fan art" where people are drawing PD characters.  For example, there is an entire card set called "Golden Age of Comics: Heroes & Villains" from Breygent Marketing which is fun to look at, but I haven't seen too many people creating stories using the characters.

[narfstar]

Really great looking stuff. I especially like The Arrow. Nice mysterious look

[Guardian7]

Hey... I'll take a "reminds" someone of JByrne/JOrdway compliment anytime!

In the case of TNT Todd... no offense to the original artist... but I couldn't do anything more than go up with him. He was a hard nut to crack for me at first because his suit pattern from the front to the back seemed (and is in some panels) wholly different. Then there was that god awful helm of his... I never thought I would get that down pat from any position except a straight on one... Then in one moment it seemed to click and I had it downpat.
TNT Todd is like Wildfire (LSH) only decades older.

The Arrow is a wonderful character to draw. I have a lot of different colored/styled outfits to choose of his (most of the changes in outfits being pretty subtle). But drawing bowmen is pretty easy. I think the Arrow is just as menacing as Batman. Everyone seems to fear him the same way... and that is in broad daylight. I can not imagine how much more scary he would seem in the dark of night.

I'd like to do a teaming of Arrow with the Clock.

Doing Amazing Man is where it truly is at for me. I have pretty much three complete stories with Aman and one strongly involves TNT Todd. Most of the layouts are done. The covers have turned out kick-ass for them.
I will likely do Anthologies... Much like the original AMAZING MAN COMICS was. Though with Aman's portion being much larger.
So several other characters will likely appear (listed on the left or right of the cover in boxes, circles or stars).
Right now on the docket for appearances at first are Dash Dartwell, Plymo the Rubber Man (with a guest appearance by Miraco the Great and it will lead to a larger story involving even more characters) and Solarman (who is a total open book for me to play with).

My "Want to do's" is a pretty large volume of characters: Inner Circle, Reef Kinkaid, Blue Lady, Iron Skull, Shark, Jay Douglas and his Dinosaur Forest, Minimidget and Ritty, Owl, Black Panther, The Eye, Super-Ann (and by default Mighty Man), Man of War and of course everyone I listed above.
Not including all the stuff of World War Two and all it entails. 

Big wants I know. But I have sworn this year that I will do a comic.
I am a huge fan of WWII heroes and this particular Comic Group was left hanging (Plus they are PD).
Hopefully this will be one that anyone that desired to could see it, could and would. I would love it if I became an internet must read. But with the age and obscurity of said chara... plus the fact that I want to (for the most part) remain true to the characters based on who they are and NOT make some sort of uber-modernization of them. Might make them a bit bland for today's audiences. But I know one thing... the fights will be anything BUT bland! You guys have only seen my stand and pose work... but once I start doing action... Well... maybe I'll just wait and let you decide for yourselves.

As you can tell I am hyped on doing this. Hope I don't lose steam! *wink*

Just for the heck of it... here is an Amazing Man pic that I may have shown before on GAC.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t225/Samcub/AmazingMan3.jpg

Cya
G7

[bchat]

In the case of TNT Todd... no offense to the original artist... but I couldn't do anything more than go up with him. He was a hard nut to crack for me at first because his suit pattern from the front to the back seemed (and is in some panels) wholly different. Then there was that god awful helm of his... I never thought I would get that down pat from any position except a straight on one... Then in one moment it seemed to click and I had it downpat.
TNT Todd is like Wildfire (LSH) only decades older.

The original artist for the superhero version of TNT Todd was, in my opinion, definitely not suited for superhero stories.  He wasn't a bad artist, but his figure drawing just wasn't strong enough to make the character look dynamic, especially when TNT Todd was flying around & blowing things up.  Another artist, like yourself, drawing TNT Todd can make it work because it is, I think, a cool costume design ... except for the inconsistent way the original artist drew the front & back (I don't see how it matched-up all the way around as he drew it).

Just wondering:  Are you keeping "TNT Todd" as his name?  I think he's a potentially great character but having "Todd" as part of his "superhero name" always seemed kind of silly to me.  Kind of like if Captain America was actually called "Captain Steve" or Superman was called "Super Clark".

As you can tell I am hyped on doing this. Hope I don't lose steam! *wink*

I hope you don't lose steam either.  You seem pretty excited about it, so run with it!

[Guardian7]

Well... I was going to remain faithful to the name TNT Todd... though it certainly isn't high on my list of favorite names (But oddly enough it was growing on me). I may just denote him to TNT (Even though there is a one shot hero by that same name - I can't actually see them getting all worked up over a name - Particularly those two characters). I thought about going with Agent TNT (which has a nice ring to it). Since he does work for the Government and is in fact a G-Man (Ace at that!)... so he is an Agent. At least that way I could step away from the Todd Moniker portion of his name.

I actually just downloaded KDF 19 tonight... which is cool... TNT Todd Ace G-Man (before he gained powers) has a group of foes called the 1001. Didn't Booster Gold have a bunch of bad guys by the same name?

Plus that issue also gave me another Eye story to soak in.

I also downloaded FunnyPictureStories v2 9... That Jack Strand character has some wonky adventures. That man is as bad as Reef Kinkaid for being and going places.

The oddest thing about the CENTAUR UNIVERSE is that they have (some) unusual places that if you combined them (the stories) into a coherent universe... That there is a KNOWN underwater Kingdom (at least by the goverment - From the Jack Strand story) and a known Amazon Island (From the Lucky Lee story in Liberty Scouts 2) that is populated by Amazon looking women... and a port town? Okay... different... but I plan to run with all of it. Just have to find a useful story for them.
The underwater Kingdom is way cool because of the Shark, Neptune, Possibly Craig Carter and last but not least Frogga (From Barry Flynn).
The Amazons are likely story fodder for the exact same characters with the exception of Frogga and you might be able to throw Man of War on that list (since he is attached to Mars or Hades).

Then of course there is the UBER-COOL city of Atlantia (From Reef Kinkaid - a character that is just the total adventurer)... and its obvious attachments to the legend of Atlantis.

Jay Douglas' Dinosaur Forest (The Island near South America + I LOVE DINOSAURS and drawing them!) and of course Challenger plateau.

The cool as heck Inner Earth scenario of Chuck Hardy (which in my eyes could be made even better than Mike Grell's Warlord).

From the unusual valley that was home to Mighty Man to the ruins of Speed Centaur's race... there is a LOT to play with... not including the most important one... The Tibetan Monestary of the Council of Seven, The Home of Aman and the location of the eventual City of the Green Mists.

I am sure I am forgetting things... but that is just the surface stuff... there is all kinds of stuff just begging to be played with.

In my eyes Malibu's Protectors dropped the ball... Altered the characters so much as to make them unrecognizable. The stories were decent enough... but certainly not as strong as they could have been and they truly failed to grab the reader from the get go. But I have to give that series some credit. They reinvested my interest in that obscure comics group again.

Anyhow... I have blithered on long enough...

cya
G7

I am lucky... I am near Michigan State College. I can get access to Centaur Comics that are not available here.   

[bchat]

Well... I was going to remain faithful to the name TNT Todd... though it certainly isn't high on my list of favorite names (But oddly enough it was growing on me). I may just denote him to TNT (Even though there is a one shot hero by that same name - I can't actually see them getting all worked up over a name - Particularly those two characters). I thought about going with Agent TNT (which has a nice ring to it). Since he does work for the Government and is in fact a G-Man (Ace at that!)... so he is an Agent. At least that way I could step away from the Todd Moniker portion of his name.

I actually just downloaded KDF 19 tonight... which is cool... TNT Todd Ace G-Man (before he gained powers) has a group of foes called the 1001. Didn't Booster Gold have a bunch of bad guys by the same name?

"Agent TNT" sounds good.  I don't know about "Booster Gold" since I don't read that book.  That character works better for me within a group, and I haven't purchased a DC title in a year or two now.

In my eyes Malibu's Protectors dropped the ball... Altered the characters so much as to make them unrecognizable. The stories were decent enough... but certainly not as strong as they could have been and they truly failed to grab the reader from the get go. But I have to give that series some credit. They reinvested my interest in that obscure comics group again.

My Opinion: I liked what Malibu did with the characters and the entire line has remained one of my favorites to this day.  In fact, I just finished-off my collection of their books a few years ago.  Somehow, I missed the Handbook when it first came-out, and I never picked-up the issues of Ex-Mutants after the "big crossover" (which the creators were against, by the way).  Those books are also a big reason I'm a fan of the "Centaur" characters, since they were my introduction to them.

Yeah, the characters are different than they originally appeared, but that's Malibu wanted to do with them and it worked for a little while ... and perhaps longer than that if a certain group of creators didn't complain so loudly to management about "competing superhero lines".

I am lucky... I am near Michigan State College. I can get access to Centaur Comics that are not available here.   

Any chance you could get images of some sort of those "missing books"?  Even a bad image is better than none.

Not sure if you noticed but the Collectors Society forum has a thread here showing images (photos, not scans) from Amazing-Man Comics 26, including another Amazing-Man story and the 2nd (and last) Meteor Martin story (to have been continued in the "next issue" of Star & Stripes ... which never happened). 

[JVJ (RIP)]

Just wondering:  Are you keeping "TNT Todd" as his name?  I think he's a potentially great character but having "Todd" as part of his "superhero name" always seemed kind of silly to me.  Kind of like if Captain America was actually called "Captain Steve" or Superman was called "Super Clark".

Hey, bchat, Just consider "Todd" as his LAST name and it might sit a little better with you

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[JonTheScanner]

MLJ did have a Bob Phantom in the day.

[Guardian7]

Okay. Well I am going to take the subject matter of Centaur Comics out front. No need hogging all of this on my own front... but if anyone is interested I will still spotlight artwork here... either design stuff or maybe coming attractions.

The Biggest thing for me to do is to get the First Issue done.

Irregardless of anything... #1s should be special... and that is what I want it to be (So I am trying to weed out the weaker stories and put the ones that will hopefully turn heads without twisting them off! LOL).

Cya out front...

That Amazing Man issue certainly has peeked my interest... See ya out front.

G7