Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Randy Garrett's adaptation of "Superman and the Secret Planet" was recently completed.  All 42 pages are online and individually accessible at

http://jimnolt.com/

The story is introduced and begins at http://jimnolt.com/sp-intro.htm

Ahhhh............:)

Randy says in his introduction that Curt Swan "was greatly underappreciated by the industry that used up his wonderful talent".

Is that really true? (I'm not necessarily disagreeing with Randy.) On the face of it, I think he's right. But hang on... Whenever someone talks about "the industry," I'm afraid a very important part of the business is left out by implication, and that is the customer. We are the customers, and if you ask the customers (who are, I'm told, always right), Curt Swan is one of the most appreciated comic book artists in history.

I don't know about that.

Sure, those of us who love Curt love him intensely, but in terms of sheer numbers, how many of us are there?  Is there a "Curt Swan Collector" magazine out there to compete with the Kirby Collector?  Do Curt's original pages fetch anywhere near the figures of a Neal Adams or Jim Lee page?  When you consider Curt's contributions, he really is underappreciated.

I don't think it's so much that Curt doesn't get his props as an artist, I think it's just that his talent is totally taken for granted.  Consider: There's so darn much of his work that it doesn't have the appeal of rarity that Adams' or Steranko's does.  It's in the style of classic illustration, and thus not as flashy or idiosyncratic as Ditko or Kirby.  It was done for the supposedly staid DC so it doesn't have the air of boldness or innovation people associate with early Marvel.  Few people would dare suggest that Curt wasn't a great artist, but he was not a ground-breaking artist and he worked in a time where people were breaking ground all the time.  Plus he'd been around for so long everyone just figured he'd always be there, so instead they focused on the "next big thing," whomever that might have been that month. And then, guess what? One day he wasn't around anymore and it was too late to give him his day in the sun.

I remember reading articles in the 80s where creators like George Perez would heap endless praise on Curt Swan, but I wasn't hearing it from fans.  And when you see a guy like Todd McFarlane (whose talent is limited at best) making gazillions of dollars, or a guy like Alex Ross coming from nowhere and getting books written about him overnight, you have to readjust your notions of what is an isn't a "fair" amount of attention.  By those standards, Swan didn't get nearly the appreciation he deserved.

Hurray!

Amazing comic!

It's perfect!

Absolutely amazing work!  All it needs is a faux cover page (what price would a 42-page comic be back then?), and a listing of the cameo roles and which episode that particular actor/actress first appeared.

also note the cameo on the final page :)

LOL, a reference to Superman's TV splitting ability and a super simian?  Too much... ;)

No, thank Rao!  I wouldn't own one if they did (the Kirby I own was purchased back in the mid-80s but my Swan was bought only 5 or 6 years ago, long after Kirby pages had become too rich for my meagre resources).

Besides Perez, Dave Sim is another artist who has studied Swan and praised his talent.  Any others?

It does seem that even older fans tend to slight Swan for the reasons you mention --but I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up in many fans' Silver Age top 20 artists, for instance.  Along with Dan DeCarlo and Kirby, I consider Swan among my "Holy Trinity" of 1960s mainstream cartoonists.  There are many many others I love, of course, but those 3 sum up the decade for me.

Neither do I now.

Too bad.

Not by artists but by perhaps today's fans.

As quoted by J. David Spurlock in the book by Eddy Zeno titled: “Curt Swan: A Life in Comics”.

“To me, Curt Swan was the essential Superman Artist. There was something about Curt Swan’s Superman that was exactly right.” - Alan Moore

“I think of him as having been a potential illustrator on a par with almost any of your top men of that day”.- Murphy Anderson

“ I was privileged to know him as a man and artist! He had no peers in either category!”-Carmine Infantino

“ He was a terrific artist and a terrific storyteller. His work gave a feeling of realism...reading one of the stories that Curt illustrated, one would get the feeling that this actually happened. Which I think is what every comic book artist should be trying to do”.- Joe Kubert

The art of Curt Swan inspired icons of the Pop-Art movement in addition to legions of comics readers. An example would be Andy Warhol’s million dollar prints based on Swan’s “Man of Steel” The list of “Who is Who” in the comic book world agree...Curt Swan will always be considered as one of the best and most talented people this industry has ever seen.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1950s-3-D-0rig-Curt-Swan-Superman-Comic-Art-Complete_W0QQitemZ200061221114QQihZ010QQcategoryZ1532QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (http://cgi.ebay.com/1950s-3-D-0rig-Curt-Swan-Superman-Comic-Art-Complete_W0QQitemZ200061221114QQihZ010QQcategoryZ1532QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

Wonderful quotes, Super Monkey. Dig what Carmine said!

Fantastic quotes...

Yikes! 8000 smackers...come on Super Monkey, that's pocket change, right?  ;)

I love the reference to how it was Krypton's atmosphere was what depowered Superman, not a red sun or high gravity.

Lex Luthor?

Suzie?

Super Moneky?

All three are there.  That person with the white hair and mustache also looks famliar and the woman looks like the Silver Age Lois Lane

One of the things about artwork is that it's always open to interpretation, but to me that looked like Jim Nolt (http://jimnolt.com/editor.htm).