Captain Marvel is 75!

Captain Marvel at 75I was just giv­en leave to post this draw­ing. This year’s the 75th Anniver­sary of the orig­i­nal Cap­tain Mar­vel. FCA Edi­tor Paul Hamer­linck (for whom I’ve done sev­er­al cov­ers over the years, a num­ber of which can be found here on my site) was writ­ing an essay in hon­or of Cap’s 75th for Jon B. Cooke’s Com­ic Book Cre­ator mag­a­zine. Paul asked if I would like to con­tribute an illus­tra­tion to poten­tial­ly accom­pa­ny his essay, and left it up to me what to do. A 75-year-old Cap seemed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly like both an unex­pect­ed and yet obvi­ous way to go.

I was­n’t sure if either Paul or Jon would go for this idea. Maybe it would be a lit­tle too weird for a trib­ute. But I guess their sens­es of humor must some­times go a lit­tle towards the weird too.

Paul’s essay, accom­pa­nied by my illus­tra­tion, will be appear­ing in issue #10 of Com­ic Book Cre­ator, ship­ping in Novem­ber to your fin­er local comics shops everywhere.

Thanks, guys! This was fun!

Hap­py 75th, Cap!

4 thoughts on “Captain Marvel is 75!”

  1. Well done, Mark — although I’d like to think that Cap would­n’t have quite so many lines and wrin­kles at 75! Or maybe none at all. Bil­ly might, how­ev­er. How would a per­son age if he spends part of his time in an alter­nate body ? Or.… Or we could for­get all of that and just have some fun with the whole thing! Which is what you did here.

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    1. I’m glad you like it, John!

      Yeah, I would­n’t think Cap­tain Mar­vel would actu­al­ly age in comics (unless the writ­ers did a sto­ry where that hap­pened. Hmm; would’ve been inter­est­ing to see what Otto Binder might have done with that). But going absolute­ly lit­er­al for this 75th Anniver­sary piece just seemed like the right way to go, to try to do some­thing fun­ny and different.

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  2. Good one. Our Cap’s hair is thin­ning. But that is unlike the wiz­ard Shaz­am. And this is where things get mud­dy. And argu­ments of a “seri­ous nature” could take place. What real­ly hap­pened when Bil­ly was called or cho­sen to go down into the tun­nel? And what hap­pened after he came to the “train?” What and where was the Rock of Eter­ni­ty? Or does it mat­ter at all? For isn’t it the thou­sands of sto­ries after the Cap­tain arrived and filled out the pos­si­bil­i­ties that real­ly gave us the sto­ry? I am try­ing to imag­ine the 75 year old cap­tain with a beard. But I don’t need to, because in a cou­ple of weeks I will be 80. Thanks for tip­ping the hat (or is it the hair piece) to the Gray Pan­thers out there Mark. Let the sto­ries flow in the world of car­toon cartoons.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed this (and Hap­py Birth­day in advance).
      Otto Binder and the oth­er Cap writ­ers seemed to approach things dif­fer­ent­ly from writ­ers in the Sil­ver Age and beyond. While they would some­times pick up threads of ideas from pre­vi­ous sto­ries, just as often, they would­n’t. They seemed most­ly con­cerned with what would be fun and enter­tain­ing for the read­ers in the moment, in the sto­ry they were cur­rent­ly work­ing on. It was less about “con­ti­nu­ity” as we think of it today.

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