Daredevil 233, Pages 03 and 04

Here's a great sequence from possibly the best Daredevil story ever written - Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Born Again (originally published in Daredevil 226-233). This was a favorite of mine from back in the 80's, and still holds up very well all these years later. I've owned page 4 for years, and knew the whereabouts of page 3 for almost as long. I don't know why I put off obtaining it for so long. I'm glad it was still available once I finally decided to do something about it. I always enjoy having pairs of pages since comics are a sequential medium and it really helps relay the impact of the story. (click for larger image)

Rip Kirby 1954-01-25

I had a small strip art collection some years ago (chronicled in CFA-APA issue 65), but sold most of it off. I was trying to condense my collection down to the bare essentials, which meant retaining only the stuff I was most nostalgic for (i.e., 1980's comic book art). I do have a real soft-spot for the photo-realistic strip art of the 1940's-1960's however. There were some tremendously talented guys producing the most beautiful art on a daily basis. Among the best were Alex Raymond, Leonard Starr, Jose-Luis Salinas, and Frank Godwin. I own or owned strips by all of them, but I did sell my only Raymond a while back.

My interest in these strips has been rekindled lately, and I was lucky enough to find this excellent Alex Raymond Rip Kirby at what I thought was a bargain price. Raymond is considered by many to be the best strip artist of all time. I won't pick favorites, but I'm glad to have another Raymond in my collection. (click for larger image)

Here's a close up of panel one showcasing Raymond's great brush and pen work. (click for larger image)

Fantastic Four 253, Page 20

UPDATE: SOLD IN 2012!

I had nearly the entire issue of this book, but never planned to keep it. I sold all but this page. For years I had hunted down Byrne FF art, and I especially wanted a nice early page featuring inks done using "traditional" inking tools (i.e., pen and brush - all the later stuff was done with magic marker). I was finally able to buy an example, but had to buy all the pages together. That shows you how rare this stuff is. Ironically, after I purchased the near-complete book, early pages began hitting the market after all. Go figure. Anyway, great inking on this page - very detailed. Compare this to the later pages I have from the 260's and you'll see the difference. (click for larger image)

You can read about my hunt for John Byrne Fantastic Four art in some of my CFA-APA articles (click for link)