I explained last time how, when Big Bang Comics did a couple issues focused on the fictitious history of the company (mimicking Steranko’s History of Comics volumes), they needed a whole bunch of fake covers to pull it off and make it all feel believable. Here’s another one from the bunch I generated.
I drew this back then, inked (I believe) by Jeff Meyer. And now for the first time, appearing in color! It’s fun to finally see this realized in this form, after having it exist only in black and white for all these years.
I’m not exactly sure where the idea for this cover came from. Perhaps I was thinking about Simon & Kirby’s kick-off run of Captain America, which seemed to draw a lot of inspiration from the “weird menace” genre of pulps (an ingredient I’m surprised that most people don’t seem to pick up on). I kinda wish I could read “The Vampire of Varney Street!”
I had fun doing this. Hope you enjoy it!
For me, the success of these covers can be found in the fact that I want to read the story that they represent, even though that story doesn’t exist.
The other thought that crosses my mind is that this cover would never make it in a post code environment, until the seventies when vampires were “okay” again. This particular cover, I’m guessing, is meant to represent the time period after the war but probably before the early 50’s.
The best part is the sense of excitement and fun that you deliver on these projects, and this cover has both of those qualities.
Glad you like it.
I believe I was actually inspired by a lot of the “weird menace” pulp genre-type characters that Simon & Kirby did in their kickoff run of Captain America. You’re right that after the Code came in, a story like this would not have been possible until the Comics Code was revised in the early ’70s for the first time.
The coloring certainly completes an undone task and brings your inspiration to more complete existence. I would certainly like to see these and other Big Bang characters be animated, I cannot imagine a good reason why they could not be. Except someone to put up the dough to do it. There is already a sort of Batman ’66 spin on the characters. It hardly matters that the current generation may not get the reference. In fact, it might be better that that group does not. At any rate, thanks Mark for the re-creation.
Glad you like it, Joe.
So far as I know, there was never an attempt to do an actual Big Bang cartoon. But I did do a few animated style models (à la Batman: The Animated Series style) of the Knight Watchman and some other characters from that strip. I even did a fake cover in that style, which may show up online at some point if I get a chance to color it finally.
Now while there wasn’t a cartoon, there was a live action pilot made with some of the characters some years back!
Hi Mark,
I did ink these two “Red Hot” covers (this post and last). Fairly certain I *didn’t* ink the “Venus” cover, though, which is a shame, because HG Peter is one of my all time favorite Golden Age artists.
Did you get my email a while back?
Hope all is well.
Jeff! Good to hear from you!
I could’ve sworn the Venus one was one of your ink jobs, but I didn’t go back and check the credits in the the Big Bang History issue it appeared in. I will have to do that. Like I think I mentioned in one of these posts, I was surprised to find I penciled so many fake covers for that project. And I think you inked the lion’s share of them.
I did not receive an email from you! Sometimes weird things happen with my ISP classifying stuff as spam or junk when it isn’t. But we’ll see what can be done to rectify that.
I can re-send the message — nothing top secret, just saying hello and catching up.
Enjoying the blog, especially the process posts, which are always interesting.
You’ve got mail!
Glad you’re enjoying the posts; I find it interesting when other artists post about their processes, or their thoughts as to why they did what they did. So it’s good to know that it’s enjoyable when I do that here.