There are some good things about being born in the 1950′s. Playing football in the streets (less cars), watching England win the world cup, and collecting comics in the 1960′s in the middle of an exciting time that is now called the ‘Silver Age’, (‘Gold’ is pre 1950′s).

Jim Steranko at Marvel and Neal Adams at DC Comics were the most prominent new artists of the late ’60s to enter a field that had been relatively hostile to new artists … and they brought breaths of modernism, referencing advertising art and pop art as much as comics.

The customer is always right, so if your clients make any suggestions to you, it’s worth following up. I am currently painting pictures of Batman for one of my customers. I would not normally have chosen this subject as Batman is a DC (Detective Comics) character, and I have always been a Marvel Comics fan.

I have already supplied a painting of Voldemort (Harry Potter’s arch enemy) for Esther, who gave it to her son for his birthday. Now her other son also wants a painting, and he is a Batman fan. Although the customer is always right, you can still negotiate and adapt any suggestions made.

Size really does matter, especially when it comes to Newspapers. In the UK the popular press (The Sun, Daily Mirror, Star) are ‘Tabloid’ size (small), and the quality press (The Times, Telegraph, Independent and Guardian) are ‘Broadsheet’ (large).  Or at least, all the quality press USED to be broadsheet, until the Times reduced their pages to tabloid, and lost me as a reader.

I have always read broadsheet newspapers, and the reason is they don’t just print the news! You get features on the latest developments in Science, Philosophy, the Arts, Medicine, Astronomy, anything that they think will be of interest to their readers. Yesterday was a case in point.

Collecting Marvel Comics is the most profitable thing I have ever done, and has given me immense pleasure over the years. I sold the majority of my Marvel Comics in 1997 to help fund a new business venture. 

This was before the Internet and eBay. My Marvel Comics ended up in a specialist catalogue and auctioned by a London company. The notional cover value was around £20,000. I ended up with £7,000 and was happy with that. Most of them had cost me a shilling each (5 new pence), so it was a fantastic profit.

Writing blog posts can be fun, especially if you only write about subjects that interest you. However, you could also make money while enjoying yourself, so you may as well optimise your article to enhance the money-making possibilities.

Following on  from my Affiliate Marketing post, I will look at ways to make money from my hobby – collecting American super-hero comics. I already have affiliate links for two comic collecting products that will earn me 50% or 60% of each sale.
 
I also have created a new website to sell my Marvel Comics, so I will want to link my article to that as well. Before jumping in with my blog post and writing anything that comes to mind, it’s always worth doing some keyword research.

The artist Steve Ditko collaborated with writer Stan Lee to forge a unique style for Spider-Man that the film director Sam Raimi has reinterpreted for the screen.

Although Stan Lee created the character and wrote the origin story, Steve Ditko felt restricted by Lee’s editorship and asked if he could plot the Spiderman stories. Lee eventually agreed to this, although no other Marvel artist in the early 1960s had won this concession.

Ditko would hand over the completed Spiderman illustrations and Stan Lee would insert the dialogue. This created the unique Spiderman style with numerous pages dealing soley with Peter Parker’s private life, instead of battling the latest super-villain, which tended to happen in other Marvel titles.

The late Jack Kirby is an artist and writer who  has been associated with some of the best comics in the superhero genre, primarily with Marvel.

He was a loyal, and more importantly prolific, lieutenant to Marvel’s editor Stan Lee. Sometimes his artistic quality slipped when he was simply drawing too many comics, but he was always a superb draughtsman and had an excellent eye for dramatic action sequences.
 

When Kirby had the time he could come up with some stunning visuals. One of my favourite comic covers is Fantastic Four # 72 which introduces a new character ‘The Silver Surfer’ .

The Silver Surfer had religious overtones when it was first published. The alien Norrin Radd had offered himself as a sacrifice to save his planet Zenn-La from Galactus – ‘the devourer of worlds’.

Galactus needed to consume living planets in order to survive.  However he transformed Norrin Radd into the Silver Surfer to become his herald, finding suitable alternative planets throughout the universe.

Captain America - Jim Steranko cover #111

Silver Surfer - Jack Kirby cover Fantastic Four #72

I have sold the majority of my childhood comic collection, but have regained pleasure from comics by painting some of my favorite covers.

I used to draw and paint entirely by eye, which involved a lot of rubbing out. However I don’t see the point of this now, when I can easily trace the image I want, which just leaves me to concentrate on the painting.

Jonathon Ross is a big comics fan and he produced a documentary for the BBC on his favourite artist Steve Ditko.

Ditko wasn’t my favourite, but I thought he was a great visual story teller, and I was impressed enough to paint one of his characters called ‘The Creeper’ which he created for DC Comics.

Ditko was influenced by the philosophies of Ayn Rand and this is reflected in the characters he created such as ‘Hawk and Dove’, also for DC Comics.