Battle of the Golden Age Sci-fi Series 2 2

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

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[Flex Mentallo]

Wally Wood knew Matania's work and borrowed from it [just as Al Williamson borrowed from Frank Bellamy.]

Edited January 15, 2022 by Flex Mentallo

[Flex Mentallo]

"Never draw what you can copy; never copy what you can trace; and never trace what you can cut out and paste in!" 

Wally Wood

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Al Williamson and Frank Bellamy

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Frank Hampson

 

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Al Williamson

 

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Of course they all swiped from each other. Bellamy admired Matania, for example. Even the great Frazetta swiped from Wally Wood!

"I did those covers at a time when I had total mastery; I could draw anything and draw it superbly. Remember that, up to that point, I had been drawing in pen and ink for 10 years professionally. I was drawing every day. The more you draw, the better it gets. At least, that's the way it worked with me. I tried to vary my approach on each one of the Famous Funnies covers -- different subjects and different rendering techniques. I don't want to bore the fans by imitating myself and I certainly don't want to bore myself. On one cover I used Craftint board just to change the look a bit. I even swiped an interior rocketship scene from Wally Wood on one of the covers. I did it deliberately. Why not? If you're going to swipe a rocketship interior, who better than Wally Wood? I try never to swipe. I prefer to make things up. This was a little tribute to Woody. Wally was very pleased. We used to have fun with one another in those days by doing that kind of thing. The guys loved my covers; Steve Douglas (the art editor of Famous Funnies) just loved my stuff. It really is some of the best drawing I ever did. Some would argue that the Canaveral Plates from the early '60s were better. Maybe they're right. All I know is that I was very pleased with those Famous Funnies covers; they are me at my very best."

[Flex Mentallo]

And respect to the OP for putting Strange Adventures at the top of the list! Going back a decade or more, I had a near complete run, sadly long gone. I loved the title as a kid, particularly the Space Museum stories!

[Flex Mentallo]

Cant forget about this either!

 

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The interior certainly lived up to the promise of the cover in this case.

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..and this is Space Ace, from Jet Powers #4

[LDarkseid1]

Flex throwing the gauntlet down on all things Sci-fi 💪. Lots of super cool pieces!

[Flex Mentallo]

On 1/16/2022 at 5:21 AM, LDarkseid1 said:

Flex throwing the gauntlet down on all things Sci-fi 💪. Lots of super cool pieces!

Apart from my Planets, most of my sci-fi is now in collected editions. A great deal of the greats have now been collected! Sadly, DC has not properly collected Strange Adventures, though just before the DC Archives line ended, they trailed a Captain Comet Archive. It was never published, but if they had restored the artwork in preparation, perhaps one day it will see the light of day. They did at least collect Adam Strange.

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Flex Mentallo