Saturday, February 18, 2017

Iron Shadows in the Moon Part One

Iron Shadows in the Moon
Part One
By John Buscema and Alfred Alcala (art) and Roy Thomas (story)


One of the most impressive pieces of artwork in a 70s comic is that created by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala for the February 1975 (issue No. 4) of The Savage Sword of Conan

It's based on 'Shadows in the Moonlight', a Robert E. Howard story that appeared in Weird Tales in April,1934.

Althought the copy of SSoC that I scanned 'Shadows' from is beat up and browning from age, when scanned at 300 dpi, the artwork holds up very well......in my opinion, very little artwork presented in comics since, has approached the level of skill displayed in this one issue of a comic magazine that was printed on cheap-grade paper.



To my eyes, it looks like Buscema supplied the breakdowns, while the majority of the 'real' artwork was done by Alcala, as his distinctive pen-and-ink style is apparent in every panel.

I'm going to post 'Iron Shadows in the Moon' in two parts; part one is below, and part two will be in my next blog post.






















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