Tartag Countdown

Yesterday i made mention of stumbling across a story drawn by John Tartaglione which i enjoyed the splash panel artwork, but we went off in a different direction.

Today, we loop back. Here's that 7 page story...

This 6 page tale is the first confirmed story pencilled by Tartaglione...
 

This 5 pager continues our cycle of picking up one thread one pulling at another. In this case, Joe Maneely - how have we not seen him at all yet on this blog? (Same way we hadn't seen Tartag, obviously. But we'll be back)...
 

This 4 page tale is probably my favorite of the batch, just because...

This 3 page story is the first time i know of John working directly with Stan Lee, long before his best known works for Marvel...

This 2 pager is or is not the first of his 2 page tales, depending on whether or not you count illustrations for the 2-page text features. (Today, we're not)
 

And, lastly - his first confirmed cover for a 1 page piece -
 

By the way - did you know that his son, John C., is an artist in his own right? I'll try to herd the ol' brain around so show some of his paintings.

page art by John Tartaglione from Justice #23, Young Men #11, War Comics #6, Venus #14, Adventures Into Weird Worlds #14, Romantic Secrets #15, and Secrets Of Love And Marriage #9 (1951, 1953, 1958)

The Lighter Side Of Martian Invasions

We've got just a quickie post at the moment. Yesterday (per posting time reference) was a bit of a trial. I wound up being dragged across Idaho in burning heat for too many hundreds of miles and a wretchedly large number of hours to help a friend. I'm making this post with some ready material as i wind down for what may be around the clock slumber. Hence this short post in case i'm not functionally awake again today.

A great many of us grew up reading Dave Berg in Mad magazine, most notably his Lighter Side Of... features. So deeply ingrained is that association that we often forget that he worked in comics for well over a decade before joining the staff at Mad back in '56. In fact, he even worked as part of the Will Eisner Studio and did features for Timely/Atlas/Marvel.

Since we'll be looking at Venus sometime soon, let's go to a back-up tale in issue #13 of that comic for a look at his work five years before he joined up at Mad (author unknown) -

It's been said before, but - I'm off!
G'night all.

art by Dave Berg for Venus #13 (1951)