Even more Comic Book Cats highlights

Since July of last year I’ve been posting Comic Book Cats entries on the Comic Book Historians group on Facebook. The object is to see how many different pencilers I can find artwork by featuring cats. Here are 10 more highlights, taken from entries 101 to 150.

John Paul Leon

Midnighter #8, drawn by John Paul Leon, written by Christos Gage, lettered by Phil Balsman and colored by Randy Major, published by Wildstorm / DC Comics in August 2007.

“Why the hell are cyborgs stealing cats in suburbia?” That’s the question the Authority’s resident super-viollent Batman expy finds himself asking when teammate Jack Hawksmoor convinces him to get back in touch with ordinary people by searching for a missing girl’s cat. The trail soon leads to the doorstep of the local mad scientist, with Midnighter ultimately liberating the abducted animals and finding an alternative source of test subjects for the loony doctor, namely human criminals. Yeah, Christos Gage’s story is a bizarrely effective blending of heartwarming feel-good moments and incredibly dark, twisted humor.

John Paul Leon’s art has always been impressively atmospheric. His early work on Robocop for Dark Horse and Static for Milestone demonstrated an artist who hit the ground running, and who has consistently improved since then. Leon later worked on The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, Earth X and Black Widow for Marvel, The Winter Men for Wildstorm / DC, and the much-underrated revamp of Challengers of the Unknown written by Steven Grant.

Thumbs up to Richard Guion for letting me know about this one.

Marcio Takara

Captain Marvel #8, drawn by Marcio Takara, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, lettered by Joe Caramanga and colored by Lee Loughridge, published by Marvel Comics in December 2014.

“Release the Flerken” has Carol Danvers at long last discovering that her cat Chewie is actually an alien from outer space known as a Flerken. Chewie lays a whole bunch of eggs, which soon hatch, presenting us with an army of adorable-but-dangerous tentacle-spewing space cats. Carol unfortunately has to leave Chewie’s offspring in outer space as there is no way she could possibly fit 117 more cats, as well as the necessary litter boxes, into her apartment! Fortunately she finds an outer space animal rescue center to take in the adorable kittens, um, Flerkens. Soooo, anyone here looking to adopt?

Marcio Takara has been working in comic books since 2006. His work has also appeared in numerous titles, including All-New Wolverine and Daredevil for Marvel, Green Arrow and Nightwing for DC, Dynamo 5 for Image and Incorruptible for Boom! Studios. I think he’s a great artist, especially since, as seen here, he does a great job drawing cats.

Irv Novick & Joe Giella

Batman #210, penciled by Irv Novick, inked by Joe Giella and written by Frank Robbins, published by DC Comics in March 1969.

“The Case of the Purr-loined Pearl” sees Selina Kilye recruiting eight fellow felonious females to don Catwoman costumes as part of an elaborate heist. Here we see Selina and her cat Slinky mailing out invites to the future members of her Feline Furies.

Irv Novick is probably one of the most underrated Batman artists. He turned in good, solid, professional work on numerous stories throughout the Bronze Age. Here he is paired up with inker Joe Giella, another artist who has a lengthy association with the Dark Knight, including a four year stint drawing the Batman newspaper strip during the 1960s. The combo of Novick & Giella works very well on this story.

The writer on this issue is the great Frank Robbins, another regular creative presence on Batman and Detective Comics from the late 1960s thru to the mid 1970s. Robbins wrote some very clever and imaginative Batman stories, as well as occasionally illustrating them. His artwork was spotlighted in a previous Comic Book Cats entry.

George Herriman

Krazy Kat, written & drawn by George Herriman, published on July 30, 1916.

The newspaper comic strip Krazy Kat ran from 1913 to 1944. The main characters were Krazy Kat, a playful, innocent black cat, and Ignatz Mouse, a mischievous rodent who frequently throws bricks at Krazy’s head. The naïve Krazy is hopelessly in love with Ignatz and thinks that the mouse’s brick-tossing is his way of returning that love. This Krazy-centric Sunday page is a good example of Herriman’s artwork, energy, humor and narrative style.

George Herriman was born in New Orleans on August 22, 1880 to mixed-race Creole parents. He began working professionally as an artist in 1901 when his illustrations were printed by the weekly satirical magazine Judge. Herriman’s work on Krazy Kat very quickly gained appreciation among critics and intellectual, and he has been cited as a major influence by numerous other artists throughout the decades. He passed away in April 1944 at the age of 63.

Inaki Miranda

Catwoman / Tweety and Sylvester, drawn by Inaki Miranda, written by Gail Simone, lettered by Taylor Esposito and colored by Eva de la Cruz, published by DC Comics in October 2018.

I don’t want to give away too much about this fun crossover between the DCU and Looney Tunes. Suffice to say the story eventually culminates in nearly every single cat and bird themed character from DC coming together in a monumental clash. Before that, though, we have Selina Kyle encountering the very animated, so to speak, Sylvester the Cat.

Inaki Miranda broke into comic books in 2003, working on the Judge Dredd feature in 2000 AD. He then drew Fables for Vertigo / DC, which led to work on a number of mainstream DC series.

Miranda did a great job on this special. The requirements of the project meant that he had to render Sylvester as much closer to a real-world cat. He did so quite successfully, managing to still retain much of the puddy tat, um, I mean pussy cat’s personality.

Sam Glanzman

Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle #5, drawn by Sam Glanzman, written by Don Segall and lettered by Charlotte Jetter, published by Dell Comics in January 1963.

A denizen of one of those mysterious lost islands in the South Pacific inhabited by cavemen, dinosaurs, giant animals and other fantastical menaces, the prehistoric Kona made his debut in Four Color #1256. Following that he starred in his own series which lasted for 20 issues (confusingly numbered from #2 to #21). The highlight of the short-lived Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle was definitely the stunning, detailed artwork by Sam Glanzman.

Issue #5 featured a gigantic cat. The titanic tabby is revealed to be Amsat, a previously-ordinary cat kept as a mouser on a U.S. Navy ship. Accidentally left behind on an island where the military was testing nuclear bombs, Amsat grew to giant size, eventually tussling with the sharks in the waters around his island home.

Amsat is obviously intended to be a dangerous animal, but Glanzman draws him just so cute and adorable that when “the Monster Cat” is finally defeated and killed I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

Sam Glanzman is best known for the numerous war comic books he drew during the Silver and Bronze Ages. Among these were a series of autobiographical war stories about his service aboard the U.S.S. Stevens during World War II.  Glanzman also worked in the horror and Western genres. Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle enabled him to try his hand at “lost world” adventure-type stories, and he did some good work on the title. The entire issue is archived on the Comic Book Plus website.

Val Semeiks & Denis Rodier

The Demon volume 3 #8, penciled by Val Semeiks, inked by Denis Rodier, written by Alan Grant, lettered by Todd Klein and colored by Robbie Busch, published by DC Comics in February 1991.

Having been introduced by Jack Kirby in the original run of The Demon, the next major appearances by Klarion the Witch Boy and his cat familiar Teekl were in Alan Grant’s revival. Grant invested The Demon with a blackly humorous tone, which was certainly a good fit for the diabolically mischievous Klarion and his shape-shifting kitty.  This scene, with Teekl dancing to Mussorgsky, certainly encapsulated the grim, bizarre comedy of the series.

The artwork of Val Semeiks & Denis Rodier certainly enhanced the nightmarish hilarity of Grant’s story. Their depictions of the Demon Etrigan, Klarion, Teekl, and numerous other unearthly fiends were both chilling and comical. Semeiks’ inventive storytelling also effectively created a tangibly askew mood.

Semeiks’ first work in the comic book field was on Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan for Marvel between 1986 and 1989.  Moving to DC, Semeiks had a three year run on The Demon, and following that penciled Lobo, which was also written by Alan Grant. Since then Semeik has worked on a variety of projects for the Big Two and several issues of Forgotten Realms for Devil’s Due Publishing.

Jim Aparo

The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #4, drawn by Jim Aparo and written by Steve Skeates, published by Charlton Comics in November 1967.

Housewife Ruth Roland is an anal-retentive neat freak (seriously, she should have married Felix Unger; they would have made a perfect match) is more than a bit perturbed when her husband’s two friends from college drop off their cat uninvited en route to a two year stint in the Peace Corps. Ruth’s worst fears are soon confirmed, as the cat begins to run amok, destroying her domestic bliss. And, of course, since this IS a horror comic book, things soon take an even more bizarre turn.

Jim Aparo got his start at Charlton Comics during the second half of the 1960s. Aparo drew a variety of material for Charlton: The Phantom, romance, sci-fi, Westerns and, of course, stories for their horror anthologies.

Even here, at the start of his career, we see that Aparo was doing solid work. I definitely love the very effective “My cat is an asshole” montage in the bottom panel. I can so totally relate! Aparo’s editor at Charlton was Dick Giordano, who in the late 1960s went to work for DC Comics. Giordano was soon giving Aparo work at DC.  Aparo was a prolific artist for the publisher over the next quarter century.  He became one of the definitive Batman artists of the Bronze Age. Semi-retired by the mid 1990s, Aparo continued doing occasional work for DC up until 2001. He passed away in July 2005 at the age of 72.

Christopher Weyant

The New Yorker, drawn by Christopher Weyant, published in July 2017.

It’s a political cartoon featuring a cat and a dog. I’m not going to say anything else, other than I found this one really funny. The angry expression on the cat’s face is hysterical.

Christopher Weyant is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He has also illustrated several children’s books that were written by his wife Anna King.

Jim Davis

Garfield by Jim Davis, published on June 19 and July 15, 1978

Here are two early Garfield comic strips, the very first one which introduced fat, lazy cat Garfield and his long-suffering human Jon Arbuckle, and the one that revealed Garfield’s love of lasagna for the first time. (Our late, much-missed cat Squaky, who was on the chubby side herself, attempted to snatch lasagna off our stove on at least a couple of occasions.)

Garfield initially started out looking very different from the form that we are all familiar with today, but his slothful, greedy behavior has basically been the same since day one.

Jim Davis has used several uncredited assistants for most of the history of the Garfield comic strip.  So I figured I’d go right back to the very beginning, which is likely pure Davis, or close to it.  Davis has been up front about the fact that one of his main reasons for creating Garfield was to “come up with a good, marketable character” so I suppose he can’t really be criticized for relying on assistants in order to focus on the licensing end of things. Whatever his specific level of involvement in the day-to-day work of drawing the Garfield comic strip, it’s undeniable that he created a genuinely iconic character.

Thanks for stopping by. Please check out First Comics News to see all of the Comic Book Cats entries, as well as for the Comic Book Coffee archives. Although I’m no longer doing these on a daily basis, I am posting new entries whenever I happen to come across something by an artist I haven’t previously spotlighted.

The Daily Comic Book Coffee, Part 14

Welcome to the 14th edition of Comic Book Coffee. I previously posted these daily in the Comic Book Historians group on Facebook. The challenge posed by group moderator Jim Thompson was to pick a subject and find a different artist every day for that subject.  The subject I chose was Coffee.

66) Ramón Torrents

“Good to the Last Drop” was drawn by Ramón Torrents and written by Martin Pasko.  It appeared in Vampirella #36, released by Warren Publishing in September 1974.

Christina Kavanaugh, heiress to the Miller Foods fortune, has been having an affair with Bill Wright, VP of Product Improvement.  Unfortunately her husband Jim, current President of Miller Foods, has just found out.  As we see, Jim reacts badly to the news, brutally slapping Christina while she is having her morning coffee.  Jim slaps his wife so hard that she hits her head against the grandfather clock, causing her death.  This leads the grieving, still-jealous Jim to embark on a very twisted plot to gain revenge on Bill Wright, a scheme that centers on Miller Foods’ production of freeze dried coffee.  Fortunately by the end of this grim little tale karma has boomeranged back on Jim, leading him to a fitting end.

“Good to the Last Drop” appears to have afforded Martin Pasko an opportunity to let his very skewed, offbeat sense of humor go extremely wild.  The story is effectively illustrated by Ramón Torrents, a Spanish artist who had previously worked for British publishers Fleetway and D.C. Thompson on several romance titles in the 1960s, followed by short horror stories for American publisher Skywald in the early 1970s.  Torrents drew a number of stories for Warren that saw print in Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie and between 1973 and 1979.  Reportedly he left the comic book field at the end of that decade.

67) Dan DeCarlo & Rudy Lapick

“Power Shortage” from Sabrina the Teenage Witch #60, penciled by Dan DeCarlo, inked by Rudy Lapick, written by Frank Doyle, lettered by Bill Yashida, and colored by Barry Grossman, published by Archie Comics in June 1980.

Sabrina and her boyfriend Harvey are walking home from school when they see a flying carpet whiz by carrying groceries.  Sabrina rushes home and demands to know why her Aunt Hilda is using a flying carpet during the middle of the day.  Hilda explains that she forgot her weekly magical recharge again.  She doesn’t have the power to just “zap” some groceries home like she usually does, and needs to rely on the carpet.  To demonstrate her weakened power, Hilda attempts to levitate her coffee cup over, and it crashes to the floor.  Sabrina tells her Aunt she had better get a recharge soon.  Hilda then realizes that she forgot to pick up lemons at the market, and she sends the flying carpet out again.  Naturally enough, hilarity ensues.

Dan DeCarlo was definitely adept at drawing comedy.  His style was very well suited to Archie Comics, where he did great work for nearly half a century, from the early 1950s to the late 1990s.  For many years DeCarlo’s art served as the basis for the company’s house style.  Sabrina the Teenage Witch was one of the characters he had a hand in creating.

68) Mike Zeck & Denis Rodier

Damned #3, penciled by Mike Zeck, inked by Denis Rodier, written by Steven Grant, and colored by Kurt Goldzung, published by Image Comics in August 1997.

Damned features the recently-paroled Mick Thorne, who is attempting to deliver a message to the sister of his deceased cellmate Doug Orton.  Unfortunately, New Covenant crime boss Silver believes that Mick knows the location of the fortune that Doug stole from the mob before going to prison.  Mick has to avoid Silver’s thugs while trying to locate Doug’s elusive sister.

In this scene Charlotte Dahl of the State Parole Office is working late, attempting to track down Mick, as well as figure out who murdered Mick’s parole officer.  Drinking coffee to keep awake, Charlotte and her assistant begin looking through the files of other ex-cons who are now in New Covenant, searching for any kind of link to Mick.

Damned was a four issue crime noir miniseries that reunited Steven Grant and Mike Zeck, the creative team that had successfully launched the Punisher into super-stardom a decade earlier.  Damned was collected together by Cybrosia Publishing in 2003 with a new epilogue by Grant & Zeck and behind-the-scenes material.  The collected edition was reissued in 2013 by BOOM! Studios.

I’m a huge fan of Zeck, and I really enjoyed his work on this miniseries.  Rodier’s inking was a good fit for the tone of the story.  I definitely recommend picking up the trade paperback.

69) Art Saaf & Vince Colletta

“Never a Bride to Be” from Falling In Love #117, penciled by Art Saaf and inked by Vince Colletta, published by DC Comics in August 1970.

Another coffee page from a romance story?  What is it with people drinking coffee in romance comics?  Maybe that’s why everyone is so emotional and melodramatic; too much caffeine!

Lisa, the boss’ daughter, has invited young, handsome British engineer Derek over to dinner with her family.  It’s all part of a plan to try to get Derek interested in Lisa’s shy sister Dottie.  Derek and Dottie are soon dating, but Dottie is worried that Lisa is going to try to steal him away.  Indeed, Lisa soon realizes that she is attracted to Derek after all.  What’s a girl to do?

Art Saaf’s career stretched back to the Golden Age.  He did a great deal of work for Fiction House throughout the 1940s, and then for Standard Comics in the late 1940s and early 50s.  In the mid 1950s Saaf began working in television; among his jobs was creating storyboards for The Jackie Gleason Show.  He did feelance advertising work throughout the 1960s, and returned to comic books at the end of the decade.  Between 1969 and 1974 he drew a number of romance stories for DC Comics, several issues of Supergirl, and a handful of war and horror tales.

Saaf is paired here with Vince Colletta, one of his regular inkers at DC.  Colletta’s inking is fairly heavy, but you can still perceive Saaf’s expert storytelling and use of facial expressions & body language to establish the personalities of the characters.  He certainly does an excellent job differentiating between the outgoing Lisa and introverted Dottie here.  I like the awkward humor of those bottom two panels and Lisa and her parents none-too-subtly leave Dottie and Derek to have coffee alone together.

Saaf and Colletta both excelled at drawing beautiful women, so pairing them up was perhaps an inspired choice, after all.  Romance comics historian Jacque Nodell expressed a fondness for their collaborations on her blog Sequential Crush.

70) Sergio Cariello & James Pascoe

Here are two coffee-drinking pages from Azrael: Agent of the Bat penciled by Denny O’Neil, penciled by Sergio Cariello, and colored by Rob Ro & Alex Bleyaert, from DC Comics.  Issue #83 was inked by James Pascoe and lettered by Ken Bruzenak, published December 2001.  Issue #99 was inked by Cariello and lettered by Jack Morelli, published April 2003.

On the first page Lilhy, a member of the sinister Order of St. Dumas, seeks to understand the nature of evil.  She visits the Joker, currently incarcerated at the maximum security prison the Slab, to see if the insane super-villain can offer any insights.  Unfortunately she arrives just as the Joker releases a modified form of his “Joker venom” that transforms everyone in the Slab into doppelgangers of the Clown Prince of Crime.

The now-Jokerized Lilhy returns to Gotham City, where she meets with the psychiatrist Bryan.  Over coffee Bryan attempts to explain to Lilhy that humanity has struggled to understand the nature of evil throughout its entire existence.

On the second page Azrael, aka Jean-Paul Valley, is meeting with Dr. Leslie Thompkins, who has recently been treating him.  Due to the genetic manipulation and brainwashing inflicted upon Jean-Paul in his childhood by the Order, he has been experiencing serious health issues, as well as another bout of mental instability.  It appears that at long last Jean-Paul has finally stabilized, both physically and psychologically.  Over coffee with Leslie, the directionless Jean-Paul wonders what to do next.  She urges him to try to live his own life, and find happiness.

“The Evil Men Do” and “Last Respects” are written by the legendary Denny O’Neil, who passed away in June at the age of 81.  O’Neil co-created Azrael and wrote the entirety of the character’s solo series, which ran for 100 issues.  He appeared to have a fondness for the character.  Interviewed about Azrael in 2009, O’Neil had this to say…

“I wish I’d done one or two things differently, and I think the series kind of lost its way for a while in the middle of the run.  But all that aside…I don’t think there’s ever been a character exactly like Az before or since and I generally enjoyed working on him.  I wish the 100th issue could have been stronger, but it was wonderful of Mike [Carlin] to let me write it; I was only weeks past major surgery at the time and maybe a ways from my best.”

O’Neil was an intelligent and contemplative individual, qualities that were frequently present in his writing.  Although the “Joker: Last Laugh” crossover was a ridiculous event, O’Neil appears to have used this tie-in issue to briefly touch upon the subjective nature of human morality, and our struggles to understand if our actions are ethical.

Likewise, as I recently discussed on this blog, O’Neil utilized Leslie Thompins, another character he created, as a counterpoint to Batman and Azrael.  Leslie is passionately dedicated to fighting for social justice, but she is an avowed pacifist.  In the last storyline of this series O’Neil had Leslie calling out Batman for dragging the emotionally damaged Azrael further into a life of endless violence, and she works closely with Jean-Paul hoping that she will get him to see that he can walk his own path.

Brazilian-born Sergio Cariello penciled Azrael from issue #69 to the finale in issue #100.  He was initially paired with James Pasco, who inked the series for seven years.  On the last nine issues Cariello inked his own work.

Cariello was a student at the Joe Kubert School, and he later taught there.  Thinking about it, I suppose you could describe Cariello’s work as a cartoony version of Kubert’s style.  The Kubert influence certainly became more apparent in the issues where Cariello did full artwork.  It’s another good demonstration of how different inkers affect the look of the finished art.

I actually did another 30 of these Daily Comic Book Coffee entries on the Comic Book Historians group for a grand total of 100. At some point I may re-post the rest of them here on my blog. However, all of the entries have already been archived by Rik Offenberger at First Comics News. Rik is also responsible for the nifty Daily Comic Book Coffee banner seen at the top of this blog post. Thanks again, Rik.

First Comics News is currently presenting my Comic Book Cats posts, as well. I hope you will check them out.