I was aware of the Crimson Avenger from his appearances as part of The Seven Soldiers of Victory, but I really became a fan when I read the back-up story in DC Comics Presents #38, "Whatever Happened to the Crimson Avenger?", by Len Wein. It's a great tale about heroism and self sacrifice, and it made me want to seek out other stories starring the red-suited hero. I must not have been the only reader to feel that way, because DC put together a 4-issue Crimson Avenger mini-series not too long afterwards, something I never thought that I would see.
Nice you should have one of the other Crimson avengers team up With golden age Dare devil
ReplyDeleteLove the site. So much work! How long have you spent putting all this together? You have the knowledge of a baby boomer {born around 1960?} but the skills of a much younger person...are you in the computer industry?
ReplyDeleteI read all the posts in one go. My eyes hurt. I think you've done a brilliant job.
Keep going. Why not eliminate those ******* price bar panels?
[why don't publishers simply put them on the back of their mags and reduce the ads fractionally?
Cheers. Paul K. S.
I was born in 1969, not in the comp industry - if you read all the posts you will see I have learned as I have gone along, most of those early MS Paint covers are pretty rough.
ReplyDeleteI like the UPC symbols, every comic I collected growing up had one, so it doesn't look like a real comic to me if I don't include it (ditto the comics code seal). Once I come up with a concept I spend 3-4 hours on a cover usually.
Glad you enjoy the blog!
I remember reading that backup story, it was pretty good. I liked the character and I was sad to see that in the forties his sidekick Wing was a racist Asian caricature.
ReplyDeleteSorry; I have to say it.
ReplyDeleteThis cover really makes me see red.
@Ross: You probably know that Crimson Avenger started out as a kind of Shadow/Spider clone before switching to tights. What I hadn't learned until recently is that right before Crisis, Roy Thomas was planning to use "All-Star Squadron" to write origins for golden age characters who never had full origin stories, either using them as extended flashbacks or fill-in issues between arcs. When Crisis created a new DC in need of a single coherent history those scripts became the basis for the "Secret Origins" series instead. Crimson Avenger was one of the first characters used (his first published appearance was between Superman and Batman) and it looked like Thomas had planned on making him a bigger player in DC history than he had been. In the golden age Sandman origin, he gives Wesley Dodds the gas gun! (That was corrected by "Sandman Mystery Theatre".) Years later John Ostrander connected him to Nanda Parbat. And right before New52, Len Wein's "DC Universe Legacies" established the Crimson Avenger as the first Mystery Man/super-hero.
ReplyDeleteYet, I've never heard of a trade collecting his stories (except for the Seven Soldiers' stories).
Yeah, I love the mystery man history to the character. I made reference to his pioneering ways in my Thing/CA cover. A TPB would be cool, but I'm not holding my breath...
ReplyDeleteHi Matt!
ReplyDeleteLove your covers, great work. Many of them end up in my Superhero screen saver lol! I use a lot of comic images like you, but I use them to create computer icons.
I imagine, like me you have a large library of cropped images of Super heroes, logos, and other comic book graphics to use in your work.
My company Images2Icons started out from a hobby creating computer icons from graphics already existing, and with some graphic assist from myself, I the started making them from images customers sent me. although I charge for the personal photo type, I give away the "copyrighted character" icons for free. I post guides to the icons at both my page and pinterest as you can see here: http://pinterest.com/bronzetiger/dc-comics-computer-icons/
After college (MA in Visual Communications) I turned the business into a full fledged graphic arts studio. I have one studio in town here (Sadler, Texas) and am starting one soon in a nearby city.
It's great to see someone else that enjoys tinkering with the classic images like I do, isn't it great?
I sent you a FB friends request, just because. Also if you ever need a crop in a hurry because you don't have time to make one let me know, as I said I have a huge library of crops and would be glad to send them to you.
Keep up the great work! Talk to you later.
Sincerely,
Christopher Chance