CBI Archive
365 Reasons to Love Comics #63
Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 6:52 PM EST
Updated: Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 6:54 PM EST
Reiterating the rules: This here column’s a daily, yearlong look at what makes comics great. Some reasons are obvious, some are totally obscure; all of them, however, are why I love comics, and hopefully why you too love comics, or will come to live them. A nice, archive-y list can be found here.
It’s Mike Week here at Comics Should Be Good! Or at this column, anyway. You’ll see what I mean in a minute, as we take a look at one of Declarative Rabbit’s favorites.
3/4/07
63. Michael Golden
As Declarative Rabbit stated himself, “The only golden rule is that Michael Golden rules.” And how, my fine lepus-y friend!
Michael Golden is an exceptional artist who I’m sure we all wish was doing more work in the industry. He’s drawn a ton of covers and a few runs of interiors, but I wish he’d do more. I remember his great work in The ‘Nam most of all, but he’s also drawn everything from Batman to the Micronauts to Bucky O’Hare! At the moment, he’s doing covers for Heroes for Hire and Marvel Adventures: Iron Man. Let’s hope he gets the chance to draw some more interiors. They’re gorgeous.
He’s got the expressive line of an expert cartoonist, and he produces dynamism like no other. But, you know, I’m a terrible art critic, so let’s just look and see for ourselves, eh?
Michael Golden doesn’t have a very large internet presence, but there is some great stuff out there. Check out his Comic Art Community gallery as well as this terrific Retrospective and the Gallery that comes along with it, courtesy of Photon Torpedoes. There’s a lot to love at these links, and what they say and show is better than what you’ll find in this measly column!
I tip my hat to Michael Golden! The man’s a brilliant artist.
13 Comments
Greg Burgas
March 4, 2007 at 8:01 pm
He drew the Annual in which Rogue was introduced, too. Cool stuff.
Andrew Collins
March 4, 2007 at 10:49 pm
For some reason, I always lump Michael Golden in with all of the other great “Mikes” who came out of the 70’s comics scene, like Mike Zeck, Mike Ploog, Mike Kaluta, and Mike Grell…any of them deserve a profile on the list because they’re all great…
carpboy
March 4, 2007 at 11:22 pm
I think you missed the Best Michael Golden Cover of All.
DanCJ
March 5, 2007 at 2:03 am
Wow that’s a hideous cover!
I have to admit I’m not that familiar with Michael Golden being more of a DC man (especially of old) but that Nightwing picture is excellent.
Fledermaus
March 5, 2007 at 3:18 am
He did some pretty covers for Detectice Comics as well, here’s my favourite:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=fullsize&issue=24038627564%20628
Greg Burgas
March 5, 2007 at 7:25 am
Michael Golden didn’t draw that Barbie cover. Or at least he didn’t sign it. Mary Wilshire did. (Isn’t her first name Mary?)
And those Detective covers he did (less than ten, I think) were very neat.
Alonso
March 5, 2007 at 8:13 am
Thanks for the Michael Golden plug! He’s one of my absolute favorite artists. It was baffling to me that, at the New York Con, he wasn’t surrounded at his table. I got the chance to talk to him for a couple minutes, and was blown away by how humble and self-effacing he was.
Oh, and one of my favorite Golden shots: That big Marvel Universe book that came out ten years ago has a two page spread that he did of the 80’s heroes. Amazing picture. Can’t find a scan though…
Alonso
March 5, 2007 at 8:16 am
Oh, and for all you Golden fans: there’ll be a Michael Golden Modern Masters out in June.
james
March 5, 2007 at 11:35 am
that first picture, with Nightwing on a train; from which comic is it?
Brian Cronin
March 5, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Nightwing #73
DanCJ
March 5, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Ooh - I remember that run of covers. They were excellent. I remember a very good one with Batman hanging upside down from a tree
Pól Rua
March 5, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Michael Golden is my favourite Batman artist, based mostly on a spectacular run of Batman stories from the old ‘Batman Family’ series.
The Kirbydotter
March 9, 2007 at 11:20 am
Michael Golden is like Neal Adams, he could make you buy comics with his gorgeous and cool covers. And like Adams, you could aften become disapointed as soon as you actuallly opened the book to read it.
He made me collect ROM, MICRONAUTS, and the Roger Stern run of DOCTOR STRANGE(which was a good thing since I would have missed a great run).
Golden’s work in BATMAN FAMILY is among my favorite too.
Golden is from the same new wave of the early bronze age as Wrightson, Simonson, Kaluta, Chaykin, Marshall Rogers. It’s a sad common trait that most of these guys produced very little in the many years they have been in the business.
Golden is also one of these artist who has to ink himself to do his art justice. Do you guys remember a BATMAN SPECIAL from a few years ago, with a one-shot villain called the Wrath which was horribly inked by Mike DeCarlo I think.