Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got ten new comics.

Archer and Armstrong – 12

East of West – 5

Ghosted – 2

Harbinger – 15

Mind the Gap – 12

Saga – 13

Savage Dragon – 190

Savage Dragon – 190 Digest Size (!?!)

Walking Dead – 113

Deadpool – 14

This week’s comic book cover to look at and examine is “Sub-Mariner” #48 by Gil Kane and Bill Everett. This is a comic book that I’ve had since I was a kid. It’s from 1972 and was probably about four or five years old before it found it’s way into my hands. Though the Sub-Mariner series had some forgettable stories in it they often had nice covers. This is one of the covers I’ve liked since childhood.

The first thing you notice it that this is one of those “In a box” covers. During this time period Marvel adopted this box design for all of its covers. There was a box in the center with the art inside and the logos on the outside. Years ago I asked John Romita (the second Spider-Man artist and Marvel’s art director at the time) why they did that. He recalled that it was to honor the Fantastic Four’s twentieth anniversary. I like a lot of Marvel’s covers from this period. Maybe because Gil Kane drew so many of them.

This cover has a lot going for it. I like the composition, the drawing, the rendering, and the color. Kane gives us a nice pose on Dr. Doom that makes him look powerful and menacing. Sub-Mariner looks like he’s taking no crap and protecting the fallen woman. Two strong figures in opposition. The foreshortened space that Subby’s feet and the woman are in doesn’t quite work as well as it could but I like the twist of the Sub-Mariner’s forward foot.

It’s the color that holds together the swamp they are standing in. Nice muted browns and greens that describe the scene well. The shading on Dr. Dooms cape and armor are also well done. I’m not exactly sure what that tentacle in the foreground is but the orange/brown color ties in nicely with the swamp and adds a good sense of space to the cover. The red logos sit in their spots outside the box and behave. That’s always good.

The final thing I’ve always liked about this cover is Bill Everett’s inks. He is the man who created the Sub-Mariner way back in the late 1930s. Everett lays down some nice ink lines here. His Sub-Mariner has a lot of delicate hatching in him while Dr. Doom has strong bold black lines. It makes for a good combination.