The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
Even cancellation can't stop indiana Jones from appearing in Marvel Comics!

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Mephisto

New member
Jono11 said:
Who was the creative team on the last few issues? Was there any indication that there was going to be a change between #34 and #35? If not, it would be worth trying to contact the creators that worked on #34.

That is probably the best thing to try. They may have even produced the art for the issue. There is a lot of unpublished Original Art out there. They also tend to stay with the artists longer than the published art. I have never seen any art from an issue 35. I have had a couple of the covers offered to me privately from this series but I prefer the painted art to the Dark Horse issue. Pen and ink just doesn't look as good on the walls.

It appears Ditko did the interiors for issue 34. He is a recluse and I'm not sure he would even answer an inquiry. However Danny Bulandi was the inker, so he may know and Jim Shooter or Keith Pollard may know as well.
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
Jono11 said:
It appears Ditko did the interiors for issue 34. He is a recluse and I'm not sure he would even answer an inquiry. However Danny Bulandi was the inker, so he may know and Jim Shooter or Keith Pollard may know as well.

Best people to ask would be either Linda Grant or Ralph Macchio.

JuniorJones said:
I'm not sure but wasn't it advertised in Marvel Age along with the cancellation?


You try and prompt but... Here's issue 35 - Marvel Age.

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Mephisto

New member
I don't know that Grant would actually know if he art was produced after she wrote u tje script. A lot of writters don't do the lettering on the art.
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
Mephisto said:
I don't know that Grant would actually know if he art was produced after she wrote u tje script. A lot of writters don't do the lettering on the art.

The question is whether the issue was produced.

As Dikto is notoriously reclusive and Danny Bulanadi has sold all his original Indiana Jones art it may be tricky to confirm any art was produced.

As Macchio was the commissioning editor he would have assigned the issue's creators. If no answer can be had from Macchio then the next logical step to confirm if the issue was planned would be Linda Grant.
 

Mephisto

New member
I am going to write Ditko. He is hilarious when he writes back. Someone once wrote him him for an autograph and he replied he doesn't sign them...yet he signed the letter he sent back. He seems to be good about responding it's just he may not give you what is being asked for. I emailed Bulanadi's art rep but I'm not sure I will hear back as, it is often hit and miss with artists although rep's seem more likely to write any type of response. I also shot Pollard a message to see if he remembered creating any other covers.
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
Mephisto said:
I am going to write Ditko. He is hilarious when he writes back. Someone once wrote him him for an autograph and he replied he doesn't sign them...yet he signed the letter he sent back. He seems to be good about responding it's just he may not give you what is being asked for. I emailed Bulanadi's art rep but I'm not sure I will hear back as, it is often hit and miss with artists although rep's seem more likely to write any type of response. I also shot Pollard a message to see if he remembered creating any other covers.

Good luck with the Dikto!!

Pollard's response would be interesting.
 
This probably won't apply to Steve Ditko, but a thread on another messageboard where we discussed Master of Kung Fu had the book's longtime writer, Doug Moench, chime in with a "Thank You", and that was nice!
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
For those who are not aware of the reason why the artist team changed on issue 3. This was due to the death of Gene Day by a coronary in his sleep.

Here's part of an interview that took place with Jim Shooter in September 1982.


Jim Shooter: Well, Gene never left. Gene, unfortunately, died last week.

Interviewer: We're talking about Gene Day?

Jim Shooter: Yes, of a heart attack but uh…at the point when he died he was still doing a regular series for us, THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES and quite a lot of other work besides. I know that Gene, like many other guys, was doing some work on the outside for independent, smaller publishers and like that.
 
JuniorJones said:
For those who are not aware of the reason why the artist team changed on issue 3. This was due to the death of Gene Day by a coronary in his sleep.

Here's part of an interview that took place with Jim Shooter in September 1982.


Jim Shooter: Well, Gene never left. Gene, unfortunately, died last week.

Interviewer: We're talking about Gene Day?

Jim Shooter: Yes, of a heart attack but uh…at the point when he died he was still doing a regular series for us, THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES and quite a lot of other work besides. I know that Gene, like many other guys, was doing some work on the outside for independent, smaller publishers and like that.


Gene Day's death was the first time I learned of the demise of a comic book creator, and I felt his loss keenly then--I was 11 years old in 1982--as his work on Master of Kung Fu and an issue of Star Wars (#68) had such beautiful detail. No one drew cathedrals and graveyards like Gene Day. He also used a storytelling technique that employed all the panels on a page to follow a single page of action. There's a fight sequence in Master of Kung Fu #115 where this is realized to perfection.
 

phantom train

New member
InBanana Jones said:
Gene Day's death was the first time I learned of the demise of a comic book creator, and I felt his loss keenly then--I was 11 years old in 1982--as his work on Master of Kung Fu and an issue of Star Wars (#68) had such beautiful detail. No one drew cathedrals and graveyards like Gene Day. He also used a storytelling technique that employed all the panels on a page to follow a single page of action. There's a fight sequence in Master of Kung Fu #115 where this is realized to perfection.

I was also a fan/collector of Master of Kung Fu and Star Wars comics in the early '80's, and I agree that GD's artwork was groundbreaking, breathtaking, incredibly detailed, and powerful. Day's work on MOKF was especially incredible, and many of his panels deserve to be framed as works of art. (His artwork in Star Wars was amazing as well, i.e. the issues when Leia was looking for Han Solo and ran into a group of Mandalorian warriors (i.e., Boba Fett's) ).

I remember reading MOKF towards the end of the series (it ended with issue #125), and being surprised that Day wasn't doing the art in these final issues. However, I didn't realize until years later that Gene Day had passed away during that time.

Not to get too much off topic, but here's hoping that MOKF will be reprinted at some point in the future, since my original comics are long gone (this won't happen anytime soon because of rights/licensing issues, but one can always hope).
 
phantom train said:
I was also a fan/collector of Master of Kung Fu and Star Wars comics in the early '80's, and I agree that GD's artwork was groundbreaking, breathtaking, incredibly detailed, and powerful. Day's work on MOKF was especially incredible, and many of his panels deserve to be framed as works of art. (His artwork in Star Wars was amazing as well, i.e. the issues when Leia was looking for Han Solo and ran into a group of Mandalorian warriors (i.e., Boba Fett's) ).

I remember reading MOKF towards the end of the series (it ended with issue #125), and being surprised that Day wasn't doing the art in these final issues. However, I didn't realize until years later that Gene Day had passed away during that time.

Not to get too much off topic, but here's hoping that MOKF will be reprinted at some point in the future, since my original comics are long gone (this won't happen anytime soon because of rights/licensing issues, but one can always hope).


Buying and reading those Star Wars comics are vivid in my memory, such was the impact of Day's artwork on me. I was big on realsim as a lad, but Day's work was Gothic, though I wouldn't know the term yet. While Star Wars was my introduction to Gene Day's art, MoKF is what truly made the impact. Issue #108 was the first one I got and it was a great spy story as well; I've always been a huge Doug Moench admirer.

I believe the lettercol of issue #120 of MoKF announced Gene Day's death, though I recall reading about "the late Gene Day" in another lettercol, perhaps it was Star Wars.

Fortunately, MoKF is easily found and at decent prices. I recently completed the run and I'm so happy I did. These are some of the greatest--though underappreciated--comics ever published.

I read in a Doug Moench interview that the reason Day was taken off of MoKF is because Jim Shooter didn't like Day's "odd" layouts and so he moved him to the ordinary-by-comparison Indy comic, though Day still managed some of his trademark layouts in issue #3.

As for TFAOIJ, I have a hard time getting into the stories after #24, which was the last one I bought during the original run and coincidentally where vol 2 ends. Maybe it's the odd--for Indy, at least--Steve Ditko art which I love in other contexts, but for Indy, a more realistic approach works best. I've yet to pick up vol. 3, but will do so, if only to complete the run. I only have #26 and #32 of the latter period of the book.
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
I think that we have similar stories in regards to Gene Day. At the time of his death he was developing an interesting style and breaking away from his underground stylings and becoming a real talent.

Ditko out of context is difficult and was only doing loose breakdowns with the majority of embellishing by Danny Bulanadi. Additionally, John Romita redrew a majority of faces, so a lot of what Dikto is, is lost.
 
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phantom train

New member
JuniorJones said:
A link for those interested in discovering more about Gene Day. I recommend you do.

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-art-stories-gene-day-in-his.html

Thanks for posting this link - the article/blog on GD is amazing, and extremely informative. I had completely forgotten (or never knew) that Day had done that Batman cover, and I didn't know about the ROM cover either (ROM is another comic, along with MOKF, that hasn't been reprinted because of licensing issues). Also great to see is the one-panel b&w SW picture from the first film. Very, very cool.

I also had no idea that GD had gotten let go from Marvel before he passed away - very unfortunate. The story of him spending the night in the Marvel offices in the winter is very sad as well - however, this shows how conscientious he was about his work (IMHO, this story is also an example of the problems that pre-Internet/e-mail comic book artists/creators/writers had if they didn't live in the city where the comic book administrative offices were located. These days, however, I would think that a lot of these issues are taken care of online).

The irony regarding the difficulties he was having @ Marvel is that, irrespective of these, he was such a superb artist (and, IMHO, he was the best artist to work on MOKF). In fact, I would even go so far as to say GD was one of the top ten (or maybe even top five) best comic book artists of all time, period. Yes, that's high praise for someone who, overall, doesn't have a lot of output because he passed on so young, but the work that he did do really resonated. And, for the record, I'm a huge comic book fan & have read/collected comics off and on since the early '80's, so I have seen a large amount of comic book artwork (both good and bad).

Hopefully at some point down the road a huge Omnibus (or set of Omnibuses) of all of the art that GD drew (both full comics & individual covers) will be produced.
 
phantom train said:
The irony regarding the difficulties he was having @ Marvel is that, irrespective of these, he was such a superb artist (and, IMHO, he was the best artist to work on MOKF). In fact, I would even go so far as to say GD was one of the top ten (or maybe even top five) best comic book artists of all time, period. Yes, that's high praise for someone who, overall, doesn't have a lot of output because he passed on so young, but the work that he did do really resonated.

I agree completely. I prefer Day's MoKF work even over the (deservedly) highly-praised artwork of the great Paul Gulacy.

My associations with Day's work are also nostalgic. I can't help but think of early comic book criticism periodicals, the early years of the comic book store "boom", certain sci-fi and role-playing novels and games; it often comes back to me in a Proustian "woosh" when I delve deeply into Gene Day's work.

For those who have learned of Gene Day's work through that Indy issue--there's precious little to savor, but what there is...it's magic. Issues #108-109 of Master of Kung Fu are my personal favorites.
 

RaiderMitch

TR.N Staff Member
Guys if you are looking to buy some of Danny's Marvel Indy try Anthonys art in new jersey. He has an ebay store and most of the art is between 75-100 per pages. He had a Herb Trimpe cover for issue 19 I think but wanted 1500. I talked him down to 1000 but I asked Herb Trimpe himself if he art was worth that price and he laughingly told me no. So I passed. If I find his card I'll give it to you. Speaking of Gene Day I do remember how sad that was. Don't forget another great from the 1980s Marvel writer Bill Mantlo who suffered a devastating brain injury after getting hit by a motorcycle. He is still alive but I believe his brother cares for him now.
 
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