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Little Stan Lee on cover; double sized; Byrne c/a; Kirby art 20TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE (11/81) COMIC BOOK IMPACT rating of 6 (CBI)



Artists Information

Jack Kirby is called 'The King of Comics' for a reason, during his career that spanned six decades he gave us many of the most iconic characters the medium would ever see. From his introduction of Captain America at the height of World War II it was clear he wasn't your ordinary comics artist. But it was his creative explosion at Marvel Comics in the 1960's that cemented his legacy, over a short period of time Kirby would give us The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, The Hulk, The X-Men, Thor, Ant-Man and Nick Fury just to name a few. Kirby would then go to DC and create his Fourth World, introducing Darkseid, Mister Miracle, The New Gods and a host of cosmic supporting players. Long live The King.

Terry Kevin Austin is an American comic book artist who is best known for his exceptional inking talents. Austin’s inking — especially in the period of the 1970s and early 1980s — is notable for its smooth, precise rendering; and extremely detailed backgrounds, making his embellishing work easily identifiable. His style has been highly influential on a subsequent generation of inkers including Al Gordon, Andy Lanning, Scott Williams and Rob Liefeld. Austin grew up in Detroit, Michigan and attended Wayne State University. He started inking comics as an assistant to Dick Giordano and Neal Adams, doing “Crusty Bunker” work for Adams’ Continuity Associates. Austin came to prominence in 1976–1977, inking Marshall Rogers’ pencils on a celebrated run of Batman stories for DC Comics’ Detective Comics collaborating with writer Steve Englehart. During this same period, Austin inked Michael Netzer (Nasser) on DC’s Martian Manhunter in Adventure Comics and Green Arrow/Black Canary in World’s Finest Comics, as well as Al Milgrom on Marvel Comics’ Captain Marvel. He later teamed with Rogers again on Marvel’s Doctor Strange. X-Men In 1977, Austin and penciler John Byrne became the new art team on Uncanny X-Men. With writer Chris Claremont they produced a series of stories — particularly “The Dark Phoenix Saga” — which elevated the title into the top-selling American comic book. Post X-Men Austin left Uncanny X-Men in 1981 and has since worked on a variety of titles for both Marvel & DC, including Doctor Strange (over Paul Smith and Dan Green pencils), Superman vol. 2 (over Byrne), Justice League (over Kevin Maguire) and Green Lantern (over Darryl Banks). Austin contributed to several anniversary issues for DC including Justice League of America #200 (March 1982), Superman #400 (Oct. 1984) and Batman #400 (Oct. 1986). He was the regular inker of DC’s Superman Adventures for nearly six years, from 1996–2002. His inking work since 2002 has included over fifteen years of inking the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series for Archie Comics, which he continued until the series cancellation in 2017.

Richard "Dick" Ayers was an American comic book artist and cartoonist best known for his work as one of the main inkers during the late-1950's and 1960's Silver Age of Comics, including some of the earliest issues of Marvel Comics' including Jack Kirby's The Fantastic Four. He is the signature penciler of Marvel's World War II comic Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, drawing it for a 10-year run, and he co-created Magazine Enterprises' 1950s Western-horror character the Ghost Rider, a version of which he would draw for Marvel in the 1960s. His career would span 7 decades until his death in 2014.

Frank Giacoia (July 6, 1924 – February 4, 1988) was an American comics artist known primarily as an inker. He sometimes worked under the name Frank Ray, Giacoia made the rounds to almost every Golden Age publisher, notably working on Flash and Batman stories, he also worked at Timely during this period. In the Silver Age Frank worked on many Jack Kirby pages, particularly in Captain America, and he also notably inked the first appearance of the Punisher in AMS #129.

John Byrne is one of the most storied creators in the history of comics. Beginning his career at Charlton he quickly moved over to Marvel Comics where he established himself early on as a workhorse and fan favorite, he would draw early appearances of Iron Fist before landing the gig working with Chris Claremont on X-Men. Claremont and Byrne would create several of the most memorable storylines in the history of the X-Men, their Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past stories have been adapted into three feature films. Byrne would convince Claremont to not kill Wolverine, proving to be one of the most lucrative decisions in Marvel's history, he would also introduce Kitty Pryde and Alpha Flight during this time. After his work on X-Men, Byrne would have a short run on The Avengers before launching his second classic comic run, this time on Marvel's first family The Fantastic Four, writing and drawing the title for five years. Byrne would leave Marvel for DC in the mid 1980s where he was tasked with revamping their flagship Superman titles, he would draw two Superman titles a month while writing a third. After two years at DC, Byrne returned to Marvel where he would create memorable stints on She-Hulk, Namor The Sub-Mariner, and Iron Man. In the 90's Byrne would work on several creator owner titles at Dark Horse, including his Next Men (which would introduce Mike Mignola's Hellboy), Babe and Danger Unlimited. In the years that followed Byrne would create many more books, often working on titles that inspired him as a boy including a revamp of Jack Kirby's Fourth World and DC's Doom Patrol and The Demon.

Al Milgrom is an American comic book writer, penciler, inker and editor, primarily for Marvel Comics. He is known for his 10-year run as editor of Marvel Fanfare; his long involvement as writer, penciler, and inker on Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man; his four-year tenure as West Coast Avengers penciler; and his long stint as the inker of X-Factor. He often inked Jim Starlin’s work. Milgrom is the co-creator of DC superhero Firestorm.

Joe Sinnott is an American comic book artist. Working primarily as an inker, Sinnott is best known for his long stint on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, from 1965 to 1981, initially over the pencils of Jack Kirby. During his 60 years as a Marvel freelancer and then salaried artist working from home, Sinnott inked virtually every major title, with notable runs on The Avengers, The Defenders and Thor.

George Roussos also known under the pseudonym George Bell, was an American comic book artist best known as one of Jack Kirby's Silver Age inkers, including on landmark early issues of Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four. Over five decades, he created artwork for numerous publishers, including EC Comics, and he was a staff colorist for Marvel Comics.

Pablo Marcos Ortega, known professionally as Pablo Marcos (born March 31, 1937), is a comic book artist and commercial illustrator best known as one of his home country, Peru’s, leading cartoonists and for his work on such popular American comic characters as Batman and Conan the Barbarian, particularly during the 1970s. His signature character was Marvel Comics’ the Zombie, for which Marcos drew all but one story in the black-and-white horror-comics magazine Tales of the Zombie (1973-1975). Pablo Marcos was born in the small town of Laran, Chincha Alta, Peru, and moved with his family to the capital, Lima at age five. His parents, Pablo (a taxi and gasoline-truck driver) and Maria Ortega Marcos, had four children at the time: Gloria, Berta, Pablo, and Manuel, later to be joined by Alfredo (who would become a cartoonist and caricaturist in Peru as an adult) and Oswaldo. While at the Bartolomé Herrera high school, Marcos studied under teacher and artist Juan Rivera Saavedra, who introduced him to the works of Argentine, Chilean, Italian and American comic artists such as Alberto Breccia, Arturo del Castillo, Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth, Hugo Pratt, Alex Raymond and Jose Luis Sallinas, among many others. Political cartoonist Julio Fairle had Marcos fill-in for him with spot illustrations in the influential Latin American newspaper La Prensa, which led to more newspaper work. Marcos later contributed caricatures to such weekly political magazines as Rochabus and Zamba Canuta while still an economics major at Peru’s University of Lima. During the 1960s, Marcos drew such comic strips as Benito Puma and James Bond 007 in Peruvian newspapers. He became art director of the newspaper Expreso, working as well on its evening edition, Extra, and a weekly supplement, Estampa. Marcos became nationally known in 1965, following his illustrations for the trial and execution by firing squad of a convicted rapist. This wider recognition led to advertising artwork and high-profile political, news and sports illustration. He began freelancing for the Mexican publishing company Editorial Novaro and in 1968 moved with his family to Mexico. Marcos moved to New Jersey in the U.S. in the 1970s. Warren Publishing art director Billy Graham assigned him his first American-comics work, penciling and inking the six-page story “The Water World”, by writer Buddy Sounders, in Warren’s black-and-white horror-comics magazine Creepy #39 (May 1971). After another Creepy story and one in companion magazine Eerie that year, Marcos drew comics exclusively for rival Skywald Publications’ Nightmare and Psycho from May 1972 to May 1973 cover-dates. Skywald co-founder Sol Brodsky introduced Marcos to fellow Peruvian artist Boris Vallejo, who became a mentor. When Brodsky, who had been Marvel Comics’ production manager, left Skywald to return to Marvel, he brought Marcos along as an artist and later his staff assistant for roughly two months. Marcos began drawing covers for Marvel UK titles featuring such characters as Captain Britain, Dracula as well as working on “Planet of the Apes”. Marcos’ naturalistic, “illustrative” style, similar to that of Neal Adams, became a mainstay of Marvel’s black-and-white horror-comics magazines Dracula Lives!, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie, Vampire Tales and others. The exposure afforded by industry leader Marvel made Marcos a popular artist of the 1970s. His first color-comics work in the U.S. was the cover of Marvel’s Giant-Size Dracula #2 (Sept. 1974). Marcos’ color-comics interior-art debut came at publisher Martin Goodman’s short-lived Atlas/Seaboard Comics, illustrating the sword-and-sorcery title Iron Jaw #3 (May 1975). He went on to draw the following issue, plus the Iron Jaw story in Barbarians #1 and the cover of The Brute #3 (both July 1975) before the company folded. Marcos next freelanced for DC Comics, drawing Man-Bat stories in Detective Comics and working on an issue or two each of series including Freedom Fighters, Kamandi, Kobra, Secret Society of Super-Villains and Teen Titans before returning to Marvel to do art for issues of The Avengers, The Mighty Thor and other comics. In 1980, Marcos additionally freelanced for an Italian comic-book series, Tremila Dollari per Ebenezer Cross Western Story, and created the series “Dragon” for the Mexican magazine Ejea. By the early 1980s, Marcos was at work at what would become one of his signature characters, inking penciler John Buscema on Conan the Barbarian comic books, the black-and-white magazine The Savage Sword of Conan and the newspaper comic strip. Marcos reduced his workload in September 1985 in order to tend to his severely ill wife. Marcos later illustrated a long run of DC's TV tie-in series Star Trek: The Next Generation through the early 1990s and again from 1993–1994. His last known comics penciling for several years was the 14-page painted story “Om”, scripted by Ron Fortier from a Marcos plot, in Quantum Cat Entertainment’s Frank Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated #7 (July 1999). He returned as an inker two years later on a handful of issues of CrossGen’s Ruse, Mystic, Crux, and Silken Ghost through 2003, and once again did penciling from 2006 to 2008, on comics including Dynamite Entertainment’s Red Sonja and Savage Tales.