I’d thought I’d shared all the gems from my Marvel Comics days which I have squirreled away in my subterranean vault … until a query from a Dave Cockrum fan proved me wrong.

I got an email an hour ago asking about a villain I’d come up with for Captain Marvel #55 (March 1978)—Deathgrip!

I’d previously told you how I’d seen artist Dave Cockrum design that character’s costume, and he wanted to know whether any of Dave’s preliminary drawings still existed. And that made me suddenly realize …

Why … yes.

Not sure why I never thought to let you see this aspect of Dave’s genius before, but here it is now—Deathgrip as we in the Marvel Bullpen first saw him.

Amazing, isn’t it?

I’m so glad Dave’s dream—which I recently discovered expressed in an interview published in Fantastic Fanzine #10 (1969)—came true.

Aren’t you?

As I flipped through the March 2014 issue of Marvel Previews late last night—which I’d downloaded to my iPad, as that’s how I do most of my comics reading these days—I came across a listing for the upcoming Marvel Masterworks: Captain Marvel Volume 5, which will include my seven-issue run on that title.

Made my heart glad to see those comics getting renewed life. Back when I wrote them, I’d never have dreamed they’d be reprinted in a hardcover book.

If you ever wanted to get your hands on those issues without having to pore through the ’70s bins at your local comics shop, now’s your chance!

I checked out Richard Guion’s fun site Giant-Size Marvel today and was pleasantly surprised to see that he’d posted the original art to the cover of an issue of Captain Marvel I wrote a long, long time ago.

When I asked Richard where he’d found the art, he told me that it had sold yesterday at Heritage Auctions—for $26,290.00!

And if I’m correctly interpreting the Heritage stats, it’s the second highest price ever paid for a Gil Kane cover, exceeded only by the cover to The Avengers #134, which went for $41,825 on August 13, 2013.

I guess when I wrote, “oh, what a killer cover from Gil Kane,” I knew what I was talking about!

Because my seven-issue run on Captain Marvel will soon be reprinted as part of a Marvel Masterworks edition, I pulled out the original art I’d received for having written those issues. I don’t recall the full details of what share of the finished art the penciller and inker received, but I ended up with two pages per book. And sometimes the backs of those pages are as interesting as the fronts.

On the flip side of page 10 from issue #49—the first issue I wrote—is a rough pencil sketch of the villain The Cheetah.

I assume the sketch is by Al Milgrom, the penciller for that issue. Here’s what the character looks like inked and in color, as seen from his introduction on the cover of Captain Marvel #48, which is the previous issue. (more…)

Soon, nearly every story I wrote for Marvel Comics (save for a Master of Kung Fu, all issues of which I believe are in limbo due to rights questions with the Sax Rohmer estate) will be back in print. That’s because on June 24, 2014, Marvel Masterworks: Captain Marvel Volume 5 will be published, collecting my seven-issue run of the space-born superhero Mar-Vell, bookended by a few issues created by others.

Here’s the cover, which uses art from Captain Marvel #50, in which I separated Mar-Vell and Rick Jones.

And here’s an alternate cover, which I believe is for those who’d prefer their volume to carry the numbering system of the complete Marvel Masterworks run, rather than that of the individual title. (more…)

I’ve been rereading my late ’70s run of Captain Marvel this weekend (for a reason which will eventually be made clear) and noticed something I should have spotted at the time, but never did. (Or maybe I did, but forgot that I had. I’m leaning toward the former, though.)

A couple of years ago, I told you about a page of George Tuska art intended for Captain Marvel #54 which was at the last minute replaced by a Dave Cockrum splash page. Well, as I took a look yesterday at Captain Marvel’s origin story, first published in Marvel Super-Heroes #12 way back in 1967, that proverbial lightbulb went on over my head.

I suddenly saw that in his replacement page, Dave had done an homage to the cover which had started it all—

—and I’d never noticed!

Cap’s walking down a city street toward the reader, filling the page, right foot forward, people pointing, the background crowd mere silhouettes … it was obviously meant to be a tip of the hat to the Gene Colan classic.

How did I not see that immediately when the art was handed in back in 1977?

A third of a century for the scales to fall from my eyes. Wow.

Surely you had all noticed this a long time ago. Why didn’t any of you tell me?

Continuing my efforts to make sure history won’t be the lost in the event anything catastrophic were to happen to my possessions—one reason I shared a never-before-seen Don Perlin drawing two weeks ago—here’s another missing piece of the Marvel puzzle.

Back in the late ’70s, I wrote seven issues of Captain Marvel. (That’s Marvel Comics’ alien Captain Marvel, not the Captain Marvel of the Billy Batson/Shazam variety.) Here’s the cover from my penultimate issue, cover-dated January 1978:

The cover was drawn by Keith Pollard, while the interior of the issue was drawn by George Tuska. All but the final page, that is, which was drawn by Dave Cockrum: (more…)