Over on Facebook recently, Steve Niles posted the front and back covers to the 1975 album Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero, the rock opera which, unlike Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, never got any of its performers injured. (Well … as far as I know.) It brought back many memories, because I was on staff at Marvel then, and one of my assignments was to act as an advisor to the creators of the project, making sure they correctly understood the finer points of Spider lore.

Steve’s post sent me scurrying to find my personal copy of the album. Here’s the way most people saw the back cover.

But the copy I was given looks quite different.

I can remember long talks at a recording studio on Park Avenue during which I’m sure I was overly passionate about who the characters were and how their lives intersected. Though I never got album credit for my work, as you can see, the creators did thank me profusely for my efforts.

Terence P. Minogue wrote, “Thank you for your help with this album. You gave us an insight to Comic Art that was crucial and invaluable to completing this project.” And Tommy West and Terry Cashman also signed the album.

Who were these guys? To be honest, I wasn’t that musically inclined, so their names meant little to me, and I hadn’t realized the level of musician that was involved in the project. But by doing a search on their names now, I see that Cashman and West were producers of, and Minogue was a musician and vocalist on, the Jim Croce album I Got a Name.

If I’d realized that at the time, I would have been very impressed, and maybe in too much awe of them to propound so self-righteously about Marvel minutiae. Better that I didn’t know!

If you want a sample of how it all turned out, give a listen to a couple of cuts.

Last night, Irene and I got to talking about our history with original comic book art. The subject came up because she and her sister are about to sell a few more pieces through Heritage, some of which are amazing. (How does a 1968 Neal Adams Deadman splash page sound? I can’t recall when I last saw one of those go up for sale!) I’ll tell you more about them later as the auction dates approach, but it got me thinking about, not the best, but the first pieces of art I ever bought.

It was 1970. I was 15, attending my first comic convention—one of Phil Seuling’s July 4th weekend cons, of course. And while wandering the dealers room, I came across the following pages being sold for next to nothing.

First, a Gil Kane page from All-Star Western #104 (December-January 1958-1959), part of the Johnny Thunder story “The Gauntlet of Thunder.”

You can see it larger here if you’d like.

And the second purchase that long-ago weekend was this Joe Kubert page from G.I. Combat #64 (September 1958), part of the story “The Silent Jet.”

You can check out a larger version of that page here as well.

So what do I mean when I say I bought these two pages for next to nothing? Well, I picked up one for $1.00 and the other for $2.00, though I no longer remember which was the more (comparatively) expensive piece. (Please don’t hate me.)

So what was the best thing you bought at your first con?

A couple of days ago, I told you about some Silver Age comics art my wife was auctioning off through Heritage Auction Galleries to help fund a future trip to Machu Picchu. The bidding begins today, I think at 11:00 p.m. EST, with the auction ending next Sunday at the same time.

But it strikes me I should also show some love for my sister-in-law, who has eight amazing originals in the auction that some of you might be interested in. Check them out below, and if you know of anyone who might want to own these particular pieces, pass it on!

First up, a 1966 Ben Casey daily comic strip by Neal Adams.

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You helped send Irene and me to the Melbourne Worldcon this year by buying some of my artwork last year. Maybe you were the one who bought my Bob Stanley oil painting, or the Johnny Romita comic-book cover, or maybe even those signed prints by Berni Wrightson, Jeffrey Jones, Bruce Jones, and Mike Kaluta. If so, thanks!

But this year, we have a new destination in mind—Machu Picchu!—and therefore some new … well, old … well, let’s just call it additional artwork to sell. This time around these six pieces are from Irene’s collection, and they’ll be on sale from Nov. 7 through Nov. 14 through Heritage Auction Galleries.

First up, a cute page by Dick Dillin and Sid Greene from Justice League of America #61 (1968). It may only be 2/3 of a page due to a house ad, but it manages to pack a lot into a small space—Hawkman, the Atom, Green Arrow, and Superman. (And the Penguin, too!) Bidding will begin here Sunday.

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During a trip Irene and I made to London in 1977, the year after we’d gotten married, I found a panel in a British romance comic that seemed to represent our future. Hopeless romantic that I am, I cut it out and carried it in my wallet for several decades until it began to crumble, at which point I realized I’d better set it aside before it completely fell to pieces.

Here’s all that’s left of it.

I no longer have any memory of what comic this panel is from. But since you were all so helpful in solving my last comics mystery, it occurs to me that one of you must know. So—any ideas?

(Check out a larger scan of the panel over on Flickr if you think it would help.)

I was watching the September 22 episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit earlier this week—though describing what I was doing as “watching” may be overstating the case. I really don’t have the time to focus my attention on the TV and literally watch. Except for some special programs that are near and dear to my heart, such as Breaking Bad or Mad Men (or Deadwood or The Wire or Treme), I tend to treat TV like radio, and simply have the set on in the evenings while I continue to work, work, work.

Anyway, at one point in the episode, the detectives visit a foster home and come across a very special guest star—the stack of comics pictured below.

Sorry I couldn’t grab a crisper shot off the screen!

I recognize the comic at the top of the pile as being The Eternals #1 from October 1985, but I can’t identify any of the others by the little we see of their covers.

But a few questions come to mind.

1) How much does that 25-year-old premiere issue go for these days? Can someone check a price guide for me? Which leads into the next question …

2) If that comic turns out to be expensive, is it a comic that a little kid, maybe 8 or 10 years old, living in a group home with other kids in 2010, could possibly afford to own? That is, does it make sense in terms of the story, or did a set dresser grab a pricey comic without thinking?

3) Finally—anyone recognize any of the other comics sticking out of the stack?

As you can tell, whenever I see comics appear in the context of a TV show, I start over-thinking it …

My wife and sister-in-law spent the week poring over their collection of original comic book art, and for the most part remembered how every page came into their possession and where each was originally published. But there were a few pages for which the second part of that equation was a mystery.

That’s where you come in.

Any idea what comics these pages appeared in? We’ve been able to figure out a few nuggets of information, but not enough to ID them completely, especially since the comics themselves were disposed of many years ago.

If you can help, please let us know!

This page of Don Heck art was part of a backup story featuring Jason Bard, and presumably appeared in an issue Detective Comics during the ’80s. But which issue? (more…)

You’ve probably already heard this one. A couple, about to get married, go through their family albums in order to put together a wedding video and discover a photo of the two of them taken during separate family vacations at Disneyland long before they’d ever met.

Just in case this one passed you by, here’s the story:

The reason I’m bringing this up is because it got me to thinking about another photo which might exist somewhere out there—one taken of Irene and me long before we met. (more…)

Kudos to the editors of The Paris Review for including an interview with R. Crumb in their Summer 2010 issue. That magazine has published interviews with writers and poets since it began, but this is the first time it has ever featured an interview with a comics creator.

I’m not so happy that the interviewer described Crumb as “perhaps the most influential cartoonist of his or any generation,” since, even though he’s a great talent, I wouldn’t consider him the most influential. There are many other candidates for that position. No Joe Shuster, no superheroes. No Jack Kirby, no Marvel Universe. And as Cortney Skinner just pointed out to me, can you imagine a world with no Walt Disney?

But that wasn’t what so horrified me I felt compelled to set the issue down and come tell you about it. No, what disturbed me was one of the things Crumb had to say in answer to a question about which art supplies he uses. His response caused smoke to erupt from my ears and nostrils, and I had to stop and vent.

When asked what kind of paper he used, Crumb said:

Well, I use the old Strathmore vellum surface paper, which is the best paper you can get in the Western world for ink line drawing. It has a good, hard surface. I have it mailed from the New York Central Art Supply in New York. For a while I was using this old Strathmore paper from fifty years ago that some guy sent me, it had bad comic art on one side, hacked-out comic work from 1959, 1960, but the paper is superior to anything you can get now. It just holds the ink better. I ran out of that and now I use this new stuff that’s not quite as good.

I don’t often go WTF, but Crumb—WTF? Say it ain’t so!

Alas, I fear that it is.

Can any Crumb experts out there attest to validity of this statement? And—assuming it’s true—can you let the rest of us know what original mainstream comics artwork is now hidden on the flipside of Crumb drawings?

Oh, the humanity!

Long before I worked with or beside either of these guys as a comics professional, I interacted with them both in the role of annoying fan with a sketchbook. So to annoy them even further, I present two sketches I got from today’s birthday boys long ago and far away.

First up, a drawing by Neal Adams done at a July 4th Seuling con during those much more innocent days before he started charging $10.00 per sketch in ’72 or so. (And who knows what he’s charging now!)

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