Terry Doyle

In my quest to put-together more pages from the 1965 (UK) Kelly's Eye vampire story, I've now added 4 more pages (which puts me at 19 pages out of a total of 48): Episode 3 page 1 THE STORY SO FAR . . . "While in Italy, Tim Kelly, owner of the life-preserving Eye of Zoltec, learned about a sinister mystery surrounding the village of Raffino where three people had been snatched into the air by weird creatures. Tim decided to investigate and he arrived at the village just as a vast inhuman shape swooped down from the night air . . ." Episode 3 page 2 Episode 6 page 1 Episode 6 page 2 And so the hunt for more pages continues . . .

Package of 1960s UK-based strips reached me this morning (more of which, later). First up is a cover artwork of the WWII fighter pilot strip, Paddy Payne, from the August 10th, 1963 edition of LION comic-book (a British anthology title), by Joe Colquhoun:

Next up from yesterday's art package . . . Episode 4 of a 1965 Kelly's Eye vampire story that ran in the UK's comic-book VALIANT: The blank area on the first page would incorporate the (repeated) strip title, together with a story recap, during the printing process. To give you an idea of that, here's how the following week's episode would have looked in print (these strips were never colored): And here's a photo of how large the original art pages are in relation to the size of the comic-book: The 4th episode was always something I distinctly remember avidly reading as a nine year old boy and I'm delighted to have finally landed the original artwork. In recent years, I've been trying to piece-together pages from this story which ran for 24 episodes (each episode comprising of 2 pages). Currently, I have 15 pages (from a total of 48). It's extremely unlikely that I'll ever complete the serial, but now that I have this favorite episode in my possession, I'm more than happy with what I've got. The other pages I possess from this storyline are on display in my CAF, together with scans of most of the printed pages (as additional images). Should anyone be sufficiently intrigued to take a peek, just click onto the link to my CAF at the bottom of this post.

Nice homage to the early Iron Man design in that first panel Thanks! Actually, the character debuted in 1952, so similiarities to the first Iron Man costume are purely co-incidental. Here's a publishing history I lifted from the internet: "Robot Archie first appeared in the first (1952) issue of Lion, a weekly British boys adventure title published by IPC Magazines, who were at the time, the biggest publisher of weekly adventure titles in the UK along with DC Thomson. Lion was a science fiction action-adventure comic in the mold of Eagle and was a direct competitor to that comic. Robot Archie appeared in the first issue but was known as The Jungle Robot in this first issue. The character was created by writer E. George Cowan and artist Alan Philpott. The strip lasted 25 weeks before it took a five year gap and returned in 1957. This time the strip was called Archie The Robot Explorer but eventually the strip became better known as Robot Archie. The strip was one of the most popular in Lion during the 1960s but the character's adventures ended when Lion was finally cancelled in May 1974. However Robot Archie strips did appear in colour (with redrawn art from the Dutch series) in Vulcan, a short lived weekly title which was cancelled in 1976. The series was published and popular in France and the Netherlands too. In the Netherlands the series was published in the comics magazine Sjors (for which Bert Bus made new Archie material - which was translated into French too - from 1971) and two or three series of albums which - like the Archie publication in France - stopped in the early 80's. After this the character entered publishing limbo but remained well loved by fans. The character made a brief cameo appearance under the name Android Andy in Alan Moore and Alan Davis's run on Captain Britain for Marvel UK. The next appearance after this was in the pages of Grant Morrison's Zenith strip in 2000 AD. This portrayed Archie as a burned out acid casualty and part of a team of heroes called Black Flag. In 2004 a new "Classic Archie" adventure by Bert Bus was published in Dutch. In 2005 it was announced that Robot Archie, as well as all of IPC's adventure heroes, would feature in a new six issue mini-series to be published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics. Called Albion, the series is plotted by Alan Moore, and written by Leah Moore and John Reppion, with art by Shane Oakley and George Freeman. Robot Archie features on the cover of the first issue which was drawn by Dave Gibbons." Albion is a six-issue comic book limited series plotted by Alan Moore, written by his daughter Leah Moore and her husband John Reppion, with covers by Dave Gibbons and art by Shane Oakley and George Freeman. As a result of a deal forged by Vice President Bob Wayne of DC Comics and Publishing Director Andrew Sumner of IPC Media, it was published through DC Comics' WildStorm imprint. The series aimed to revive classic IPC-owned British comics characters such as Captain Hurricane, Robot Archie, The Steel Claw and The Spider (as well as minor characters like Fishboy and Faceache), all of whom appeared in comics published by Odhams Press and later IPC Media during the 1960s and early 1970s, such as Valiant and Lion. Debuting with a cover date of August, 2005 the first two issues were released monthly, with the third issue delayed two months (Moore & Reppion cited delays in scheduling impacting the art production[1]). Initially solicited release between October 2005 and January 2006, issues 4-6 were subsequently resolicited, and finally released throughout 2006, with cover dates between June and November. The TPB collection followed swiftly after #6 was released in both the US and UK, from WildStorm and Titan Books respectively.[2] The logo is similar to the one used by Scottish car manufacturer Albion Motors, renowned for their superior engineering and slogan "Sure as the Sunrise".

Nice homage to the early Iron Man design in that first panel Thanks! Actually, the character debuted in 1952, so similiarities to the first Iron Man costume are purely co-incidental. Here's a publishing history I lifted from the internet: "Robot Archie first appeared in the first (1952) issue of Lion, a weekly British boys adventure title published by IPC Magazines, who were at the time, the biggest publisher of weekly adventure titles in the UK along with DC Thomson. Lion was a science fiction action-adventure comic in the mold of Eagle and was a direct competitor to that comic. Robot Archie appeared in the first issue but was known as The Jungle Robot in this first issue. The character was created by writer E. George Cowan and artist Alan Philpott. The strip lasted 25 weeks before it took a five year gap and returned in 1957. This time the strip was called Archie The Robot Explorer but eventually the strip became better known as Robot Archie. The strip was one of the most popular in Lion during the 1960s but the character's adventures ended when Lion was finally cancelled in May 1974. However Robot Archie strips did appear in colour (with redrawn art from the Dutch series) in Vulcan, a short lived weekly title which was cancelled in 1976. The series was published and popular in France and the Netherlands too. In the Netherlands the series was published in the comics magazine Sjors (for which Bert Bus made new Archie material - which was translated into French too - from 1971) and two or three series of albums which - like the Archie publication in France - stopped in the early 80's. After this the character entered publishing limbo but remained well loved by fans. The character made a brief cameo appearance under the name Android Andy in Alan Moore and Alan Davis's run on Captain Britain for Marvel UK. The next appearance after this was in the pages of Grant Morrison's Zenith strip in 2000 AD. This portrayed Archie as a burned out acid casualty and part of a team of heroes called Black Flag. In 2004 a new "Classic Archie" adventure by Bert Bus was published in Dutch. In 2005 it was announced that Robot Archie, as well as all of IPC's adventure heroes, would feature in a new six issue mini-series to be published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics. Called Albion, the series is plotted by Alan Moore, and written by Leah Moore and John Reppion, with art by Shane Oakley and George Freeman. Robot Archie features on the cover of the first issue which was drawn by Dave Gibbons."

Package of home-grown (UK) artwork arrived this morning. First up two consecutive splash pages of the Robot Archie strip from 1967 . . . Artist is Ted Kearon. Bit of a bat theme going on with these latest additions (more of which later) . . .

That's really good - he put a lot of effort into it.

A recent-ish addition to my collection . . . a Dan Spiegle page from the (1962) 1st issue of Space Family Robinson (Lost in Space). Who said eBay is a waste of space?

A touch of class that my wife can tolerate in our main living area . . .

Wow - I would have loved to have gotten that original. I was thinking the same thing. I could whip it out at high society art gallery showings and tell people it's my Lichtenstein "preliminary drawing" and ask only $5 million for it. Then the art luvvies might question why Lichty's finished painting looks inferior to the 'prelim'

. . . and this is certainly a tale about 'stealing'. Maybe the title of this thread should be changed to, "The Great Art Theft"?

Ah, a seemingly amicable solution to a long-standing debate. For what it's worth (probably not much!), I grew up regularly visiting the art galleries of the home town of my youth (Liverpool, UK) which boasted two major art galleries. From a young age I've been exposed to a wide variety of different art styles (encompassing 'old' and 'new') . . . so I like to think my interests in original artworks are not merely confined to the 'funny-books' . . . I must confess, I'm no fan of Pollack's paint-pouring artworks (sorry, Gene, nothing innovative or genius there) . . . or Lichtenstein enlargening ben-day dots, but I do like to think I recognize talent when I see it. I'm hugely appreciative of Salvador Dali, for example, and have been privileged to see some of his originals in person. I don't go along with what 'art experts/critics' would have us believe is good. That's a bit like saying the latest (in a long line of religious nuts) should guide us, spiritually. I prefer to go along with the poster (in this thread) who suggests we should go by 'what speaks to us'. Like him, I go by some inner (hard to define) personal instinct. I know what music pleases my ears . . . I know what food-stuffs please my taste-buds . . . I know what novels keeps me enthralled . . . I know what TV shows or movies keep me entertained . . . I know what artworks connect with me. Each is judged on an individual basis/merit. 'BS' . . . I know and recognize instantly . . .

Was this during his 'Warren Kremer' period?

The Monet is real purdy.

Ursus Wehrli (tidying up 'art') . . . . . . said he couldn't figure out how to fix this Jackson Pollock, so he gave up and just put the paint back in the cans.

Excuse the lousy photo . . . And some background info . . .

I like this one. It's a refreshing change to see an artist go for a natural/realistic look - as opposed to something like the first page you exhibited, which shows Magneto as a rival to the Hulk in the muscles department.

Lets find the original image Lich swiped from, license it and sell the shirts for $50 That`s a pretty clever idea, actually. How about this one? The linework and attention to detail is easily on a par with Lichtenstein or Ramos's superhero work . . and I'm sure it carries some deep, inner meaning that, right now, I'm darned if I can figure out . . . Cool, eh? You`re totally missing the point. And it probably escapes you that my post was intended as a bit of fun, to (hopefully) bring a bit of much-needed levity to a thread that's taken itself far too seriously and meandered on for w-a-a-a-y too long.

Because Lichtenstein did it first, and the pieces that he created were a combination of irony and kitsch, while also bringing out the art aspect in something that was otherwise everyday background noise. He swiped the images . . . he didn't create them. I don't know how it works for you, but for me, personally, creativity and originality go hand-in-hand. For years I admired Lichtenstein's comic panel artwork , mistakingly believing that he had been inspired to create his own images based on the source material (comic-books) he had studied. I'm afraid that when I discovered that he merely copied published works . . . and copied them badly . . . my respect for his work quickly faded.

Lets find the original image Lich swiped from, license it and sell the shirts for $50 That`s a pretty clever idea, actually. How about this one? The linework and attention to detail is easily on a par with Lichtenstein or Ramos's superhero work . . and I'm sure it carries some deep, inner meaning that, right now, I'm darned if I can figure out . . . Cool, eh?

Parts of this thread reminded me of Steve Ditko's BLUE BEETLE # 5 (November 1968) which features an art critic named Boris Ebar as the villain-of-the-issue (spanning the Blue Beetle story through the back-up Question tale). Ditko's story arc sports lots of goofy-looking paintings and statues, sending-up the pop art world, as can be seen here in the cover reproduction: Those parts of both (connecting) stories featuring Boris Ebar, pontificating on the merits of the 'works of art' he promotes, are deliciously funny. Snatch of dialogue between Boris Ebar (the art critic) and Syd Starr (World Wide Broadcasting TV network): EBAR (holding up a ‘modern masterpiece’ showing giant feet passing by a down-and-out sat in the gutter, next to a giant discarded cigarette butt and an empty can attached to the painting): “This painting is a present for you, Syd! When I saw it, I knew a man like you would love to have it! . . . A man who understands the finer points of culture and humanity. I’m sure you recognize it as a true masterpiece and can see its symbolism is pure genius . . .” SYD: “I really appreciate this, Boris. Yes, I can see it . . . it really is all you say . . . it’s very moving . . . very enlightening . . . deep feeling . . . and . . . and . . . “ EBAR: “Yes, you understand! It represents man’s inhumanity to man! The refusal of man to help his fellow man get out of the gutter! The world walks by! Notice that brilliant stroke . . . a cigarette butt! It symbolizes that man spends his wealth on his own comforts rather than give it to others. The real attached can is pure genius! It proves the reality, the truth of it all!” Well worth checking this comic-book out!

Ramos isn't in the same league as Warhol or Lichtenstein, but he's pretty well know in the fine art world for his pop art. Wiki entry And his intent, just like Lichtenstein, was to exhibit publicly, his works are quite valuable Ramos Green Lantern sells for $600k That's rather interesting. The Green Lantern painting, as with the Superman and Atom, is quite dreadful. Some of the other works, I see from your Ramos Wiki entry link, look really good. Go figure . . .

I wonder if any of the original comic-books pages, that Lichtenstein swiped from, are known to exist?