More like Fletcher Hanks and Basil Wolverton

[garbanzo]

I am completely obsessed with the work of these two masterminds. I just got the 2 beautiful Hanks books from Fantagraphics, and have been collecting all the Wolverton reprints I can get my hands on (though I very much prefer Spacehawk and his other scifi stuff to his gross-out caricatures and gag comics like Powerhouse Pepper).

Who else did similar work in the early 40s? I love the solid colors, the rigid rectangular framing, the absurd stories full of mystical rays and monsters, the wicked murderous vengeance disguised as poetic justice... I want more!

[narfstar]

If you do not yet have it, there is a Wolverton Bible. He illustrates the Bible, pretty nice.

[garbanzo]

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a pricey book so I haven't purchased it yet, but I do have Agony and Ecstacy which collects a few hundred drawings from his illustrated bible. Great stuff indeed!

But I'm really after more early science fiction stories with a style similar to Spacehawk and Stardust. I just read Superworld 03, and the first story really hit the spot. I'll keep poking around the few sci-fi titles from the early 40s, and some of the variety titles, and see if I can locate any more along these lines...

[SuperScrounge]

For Centaur Comics Wolverton did the Space Patrol feature in Amazing Mystery Funnies.

[garbanzo]

Space Patrol is also reprinted in Wolverton in Space, a nice B&W collection that Dark Horse put out a few years back.

I picked up a copy of Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941, and the first hardcover volume of Planet Comics reprints. They are keeping me satisfied for now

[crashryan]

This won't help much because the work doesn't date from the 40s, but there was certainly a 40s vibe to the short stories Matt Fox inked for Marvel in the mid-1960s. Though these backups were pencilled by Larry Lieber, Fox's personal style dominated them. A strange, obsessive pulp rendering style that was easy to hate, but strangely easy to like as well.The end results have sort of a Wolverton vibe to them. The stories, alas, were bottom-of-the-barrel post-code weird tales and were pretty lame..

 I have no idea whether Marvel has reprinted these oddities. They appeared in the back of books like Strange Tales or Tales of Suspense when those titles had a superhero lead story followed by a throwaway. Here's a sample page from a comicartfans gallery:

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=458058&GSub=71964

[darkmark (RIP)]

Matt Fox on his own was definitely bizarre.  Check the GCD for him...not much of his stuff has been reprinted, although one GIANT-SIZE DRACULA from the 70's reprinted a vampire story of his.

[garbanzo]

Good tips, thanks.

Just got Wolverton Bible on eBay for $20. Happy.

[mikecatron]

Creeping Death from Neptune is a new Wolverton collection/bio from Fantagraphics. I didn't work on it, but I did work on Spacehawk, and I got much more into Wolverton then. I'd say Creeping Death is a must-have for any Wolverton fan. Early art, correspondence with editors, biography, and tons of art and stories. Very nice package, too. (I swear I never even saw it before I got a printed copy.)

http://www.fantagraphics.com/browse-shop/creeping-death-from-neptune-the-life-and-comics-of-basil-wolverton-vol-1-7.html

-- Mike Catron