Comments on: Month of Art Stars: Artist's Choice - Alan Weiss

By: Rick Limacher

Rick Limacher — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 06:16:49 +0000

I collected comics featuring Alan Weiss art as a kid in the 70s. He was all over working with the best new comic artists. The famous fanzine STAR STUDDED COMICS featured lots of strips by Alan. He was inked by Wrightson and also penciled a panel in the first SWAMP THING story. He inked Howie Chaytkins first Sword of Sorcerary cover. Alan did sporatic inks on Jim Starlins WARLOCK and penciled the last unpublished issue. He was all over the place in the CRUSTY BUNKERS and worked for years NEAL ADAMS assistant. Neal collaborated with him, inking Alan's SOLOMON KANE story in KULL and the BARBARIANS #2. He had a mystery story inked RALPH REESE and another by TONY DEZUNIGA (this one appeared in the same comic as the first SWAMP THING). Alan wrote and draw 2 stories for WARREN's back and whites. He penciled THE BRUTE #3 for ATLAS comics. He was all over the place, but had a reputation for being bad with deadlines. Always a great artist but he never really connected with a regular gig.

By: Chris Bloom

Chris Bloom — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:19:14 +0000

I'd make an "All-Purpose Power Tool" joke, but I'm sure they were all made 20+ years ago. And I can't imagine for the life of me any good reason that I've never read TOM STRONG. Every page I've seen looks awesome.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:41:50 +0000

There is a looseness and detail to his figures that has always reminded me a little of Don Newton (a compliment as Newton has always been one of my favourite under-rated artists).

By: kaleb the hammer

kaleb the hammer — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:16:42 +0000

Oops, should have looked at the links, both the Shazam AND Avengers are mentioned. Sorry, guys

By: kaleb the hammer

kaleb the hammer — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:15:03 +0000

I loved his work on Avengers as well (two issues with the Silver Surfer). His covers were glorious, too (especially for the Amazing Spider-man issue above and Shazam (I think #34))

By: DanCJ

DanCJ — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:35:57 +0000

Sorry - not feeling the love on this one. I remember finding his art on Tom Strong really ugly. The older pages aren't so bad, but I can't see anything great about them either.

Norm Breyfogle on the other hand....

By: FGSuperman

FGSuperman — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:20:07 +0000

Thanks for this post, Brian. I've been a Weiss fan since whenever it was I first saw his work. Like many of the 70s artists I've enjoyed, though, I still wish Weiss had done more regular work. It always seemed to me that he stayed on a title for very short periods. Judging by the indexed books at the GCD, I wonder if the reason for that was his work pace, lifelong freelancer or ...?

By: kalorama

kalorama — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:38:28 +0000

Alan Weiss. There's a name out of the past I hadn't heard for a while. His work didn't show up often when I was a reading comics as a kid, but I remember always liking it when it did.

Man, I'd completely forgotten about Steelgrip Sharkey.

By: benday-dot

benday-dot — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:51:12 +0000

Weiss did some crackerjack work on the 1968 volume of Sub-Mariner. It's a tough act to fill in for Bill Everett, and of course to do so means one less issue by the legendary BE, which is a never a good thing; however, Weiss did do a phenomenal job when called on to do the work. It's worth checking out if anyone is interested in seeing more Weiss.

By: yep

yep — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:05:13 +0000

Whenever I hear Alan Weiss mentioned I'm reminded of this Avengers cover, which disturbed me greatly as a kid:

http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=36014&zoom=4

There are so many things wrong I can't count.

By: Graeme Burk

Graeme Burk — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:25:13 +0000

I'm surprised Brian-- you didn't mention one of the more significant (and/or infamous) achievements of Weiss-- he was drafted by DC to switch over the Shazam! characters (Captain Marvel et al) from the cartoony CC Beck style to a more realistic modern comics style.

http://www.comics.org/details.lasso?id=32026