RKMBs




http://www.glimmergraphicsprints.com/MWKHorizons1.html


Interesting to see guys we think of as comic book gods, and to see for all their talent, they struggled initially to get in the door and find work.
And how they slowly worked their way in. Even Al Williamson in 1970-1971 was not the big deal he is now, and had only been
working professionally for less than 20 years.

For Wrightson and Kaluta to have not only admired the E.C. work of artists like Krenkel, Williamson, Wood, and Orlando, but to have actually
hung out with them and learned from them directly in New York City, is amazing to think about. What a way to break in!




A sampling of Kaluta's early greatness.
From KORAK issue 50, Jan-Feb 1973.

Kaluta's work discussed on "Carson of Venus" was in KORAK issues 46-56, and TARZAN 230.
Among the best of the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations.

But alas, not concluded.







A favorite Kaluta painting of mine, "Old Glory", from Kaluta's "The Studio" period (1974-1979).
Where Kaluta drew the patriotic scene from raising the flag at Iwo Jima, and replaced one
of the soldiers with a robot.

Also used as the cover for Marvel's UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION magazine, issue 2, in 1975.
An interior story based on the cover was illustrated by George Perez.





For your reading pleasure, the complete Kaluta run of "Carson of Venus" backups in KORAK 46-56:


"Carson of Venus" chapters 1 and 2, by Wein/Kaluta, from KORAK 46 and 47, May and July 1972

"Carson of Venus" chapters 3 and 4, from KORAK 48 and 49, Sept and Nov 1972.

"Carson of Venus" chapters 5 and 6, from KORAK 50 and 51, Nov 1972 and Jan 1973.


"Carson of Venus" chapters 7 and 8, from KORAK 52 and 53, June and August 1973.

"Carson of Venus" chapter 9, from KORAK 54, Oct 1973.

"Carson of Venus" chapter 10, from KORAK 55, Dec 1973.

"Carson of Venus" chapters 11 and 12, from KORAK 56, Dec 1973, and TARZAN 230, Feb 1974.


Regrettably, that's where Kaluta's run ended, unconcluded.

I'd love to see a collected edition with a new conclusion by Kaluta. Kaluta has said he's a huge follower of Edgar Rige Burroughs,
so was very enthusiastic about doing the series in the first place. He might welcome the opportunity to work on it again.



I'd forgotten, the first chapter adapting Burroughs' "Pellucidar" was also in KORAK 46, by Wein/Weiss.
The series continued a few months later in WEIRD WORLDS 1-7.

WEIRD WORLDS 1-3 issues continue with the by Wein/Wiess creative team.
In WEIRD WORLDS 4, "Pellucidar" is by O'Neil/Kaluta !
In WEIRD WORLDS 5-7, "Pellucidar" is by O'Neil/Green.


WEIRD WORLDS 4, Kaluta/Orlando cover.

Also in 1-7 is "John Carter of Mars", issues 1-3 by Wolfman and Murphy Anderson, issues 4-7 by Wolfman/Amendola.
Starting in 1976, Wolfman did another JOHN CARTER series in his own book for Marvel. Initially with Gil Kane, then
later with Phillipine artists, and a very new-to the field Frank Miller for one very nice issue.


I doubt anyone didn't love the TARZAN adaptations by Joe Kubert.

I also loved the Frank Thorne run on KORAK.
Kaluta was in good company with the talent involved in all these adaptations.



Another lesser-known Kaluta work is his brief "Spawn of Frankenstein" series that ran as a backup series
in PHANTOM STRANGER 23-25, November 1972-March 1973, and the cover only for issue 26 (shown here below). You can read all 3 backup stories at the above link.

Spawn of Frankenstein in issue 26 ceases to be a backup series, and has his final chapter as part of the Phantom Stranger story, drawn by Jim Aparo.




Like Wrightson's IDW series FRANKENSTEIN ALIVE ALIVE in recent years, "Spawn of Frankenstein" picks up with the Frankenstein monster thawing out
from Polar ice where he was at the end of the novel, and continuing the character from Mary Shelley's novel in modern times.
It makes me think, in combination with his lifelong association with Wrightson, that he would be the perfect artist to do the
concluding fourth issue of the unfinished Wrightson series.

A few years ago, Spawn of Frankenstein had an appearance in Giffen's new O.M.A.C. series. To my knowledge, the first time
the character has seen daylight since 1973.







Another of my favorites, Kaluta's intro page from HOUSE OF MYSTERY 202, May 1972.

One of a dozen or so intro pages Kaluta did for DC's mystery titles.





From DETECTIVE 431, Jan 1973.
Kaluta did a number of exceptional covers for DETECTIVE, BATMAN and other titles.

Looking at his work, I think the number of covers he did far exceeds the number of interior pages he's done.
At precisely the time Neal Adams stopped doing covers, Kaluta and Wrightson filled the artistic void quite nicely.





Another of my favorites, from DETECTIVE 427, just a few months after I began reading comics.

This cover was also re-worked as a promotional poster for the EERIE ART CENTER EXHIBITION that I saw in my area in 1982.
The best exhibit of comic art I've ever seen in a museum.

Pages by:

* Steranko (the title double-page splash from "Dark Moon Rise, Hell Hound Kill"),
* Wrightson (the 7 huge original pages of "The Muck Monster"),
* Kirby/Sinnott (the huge double-page spread from FANTASTIC FOUR 62, of the FF standing
in front of a giant TV screen, watching Reed Richards fall through the Negative Zone, with
photo-collage added for effect on the Negative Zone side of the screen),
* EC comics pages by Wood, Kurtzman, Williamson and Frazetta.

It was a fantastic show. What could be better to top it off than a Kaluta exhibit poster?

The old ladies who worked at the museum rolled their eyes at the notion that this could be considered "art".
That actually made me appreciate it even more.





Another of my favorites. From an announced 1980 graphic novel titled DRAGON SHADOWS, that was
to be written by Harlan Ellison and illustrated by Kaluta.
Alas, while Kaluta was eager to do the project and quickly sent out this cover that was used
in advance promotion, Ellison delayed and delayed his writing on the project, and it was never
produced. So all we have of it is this beautiful page.

At some point it was also released as a limited edition print.




From 1972, a set of FORBIDDEN TALES OF DARK MANSION intro splash pages, issues 7-12.
Plus 3 covers, on 7, 8 and 13.



Aside from the above KORAK back-up series, much of Kaluta's early DC work was for
HOUSE OF MYSTERY, HOUSE OF SECRETS, and other DC anthology titles.

Speaking of Kaluta, Batman and the Shadow:
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman_Vol_1_253




Yeah, that Batman/The Shadow team-up story in BATMAN 253 was a good one. Enhanced by it having a nice cover
by Kaluta, and a story by Dennis O'Neil, the creative team on THE SHADOW series.
And seeing the regular BATMAN creative team of O'Neil, Novick/Giordano do the Shadow was interesting contrast to
the O'Neil/Kaluta team in THE SHADOW regular series.

I also liked in the story how Batman was inspired to become a crimefighter by The Shadow preceding him.
An acknowledgement that Walter Gibson's THE SHADOW magazine was the inspiration for Bob Kane creating BATMAN.

The follow-up story in BATMAN 259 was enjoyable too.







"Solo" (1977), from Kaluta's period in The Studio.
One of my favorite Kaluta poster/prints, that I've had matted and on the wall for over 20 years.

Along with half a dozen others.



Another early Kaluta story for your reading pleasure, from SUPERMAN 240, May 1971.
A "World of Krypton" story, titled "The Man Who Cheated Time", an early 7-page Kaluta offering.



Hidden behind a Neal Adams cover.



Kaluta's only other offering in SUPERMAN was in issue 400, "The Last Son Of Krypton", one of
several visions of Superman in the future, by Steranko, Williamson, Rogers, Miller, and this
6-page offering by Kaluta (only this first page posted online: )











A tribute by Kaluta to "HOUSE OF MYSTERY, R.I.P. 1951-1983", where Kaluta did about 2 years of his earliest work at DC (1970-1972)
on splash pages, anthology stories, and covers. And actually, Kaluta likely did more covers for HOUSE OF MYSTERY than any other
magazine! Right on up to HOUSE OF MYSTERY'S cancellation in 1983.

Kaluta's art spanned from HOUSE OF MYSTERY issues 185-321.





One of the first Kaluta covers, from HOUSE OF MYSTERY 200 :



Kaluta also did a beautiful intro splash page, and a 7-page story based on the cover.
You can view the cover, splash, and first two story pages at the linked cover image above.

You can see the same images with the complete story HERE.







Kaluta's cover for HOUSE OF MYSTERY 202, May 1972. I find demon babies particularly creepy.

I posted the splash page from the same issue a few posts above. Shepherd Cain, with his evil-looking flock of sheep.



And a month later, the Kaluta cover for BATMAN 242.



These, along with Kaluta's covers for DETECTIVE COMICS on issues
423 (May 1972), 424 (June 1972), 426 (Aug 1972), 427 (Sept 1972), 428 (Oct 1972),
431 (Jan 1973, which I showed in a post above), 434 (Apr 1973), 438 (Jan 1974),. were my introduction to Kaluta's work.

Very distantly after, Kaluta also did the cover for issue 572 (March 1987), a special 50th anniversary issue of when
DETECTIVE 1 was published in 1937.




A single cover Kaluta did for ADVENTURE COMICS 425, the issue where the book took on an anthology format.



The interior stories by Alex Toth, Dan Green (among his first), Gil Kane, and
a favorite of mine "Captain Fear", a 6-part pirate story by Alex Nino.

I love the 1930's/1940's pulp flavor brought on by DC bringing back many of
their cover Golden Age logos in the early 1970's, on titles like ACTION COMICS,
DETECTIVE COMICS, and ADVENTURE COMICS, along with the Edgar Rice Burroughs
material in TARZAN, KORAK, and WEIRD WORLDS, which THE SHADOW by
Kaluta added to in 1973.
All reviving a pulp era from 30 years prior.




This post about Kaluta gives an overview of the early years of Kaluta's career, and a number of the covers
I haven't shown yet. Along with brief mention of his "Carson of Venus" and "Spawn of Frankenstein",
and THE SHADOW series, as well as mention of his fanzine work, and his work in "The Studio" period,
with Jeff Jones, Barry Windsor-Smith and Berni Wrightson.

I'd forgotten that an issue of GREEN LANTERN 84, July 1971 (story by Dennis O'Neil, pencils by Neal Adams,
inked by Berni Wrightson) had a story about a city of factory workers who accept pollution, loss
of personal safety and chemical brainwashing of their company, in exchange for good-paying corporate
jobs. The machine that causes the pollution makes a sound, KA-LOO-TTA, that at a time when the artist
wasn't well known, was an early introduction for readers to the correct pronunciation of his name!


It also mentions, as I cited before, that Kaluta was the visual photo-reference for the villain
character in Wrightson's "Swamp Thing" story in HOUSE OF SECRETS 92.

The STARSTRUCK series, despite being among the nicest comics art by Kaluta, has a story that barely
makes sense to me. But it's parody, so that's mostly the point. And Kaluta did designs for a
stage play version of the series. I have the HEAVY METAL issues the was first serialized in, before being
collected in Jan 1985 as a Marvel Graphic Novel.
I didn't know till now Kaluta collaborated on a music video with Allan Parsons Project!

Like Wrightson, Kaluta has done a huge range of work, both inside and outside of comics.




Aside from many pin-ups in fanzines, Kaluta's first professional comics work was a 4-page backup in
FLASH GORDON 18, October 1969.

I have FLASH GORDON 13-17 with art by Pat Boyette on the Flash Gordon stories. Which, on their own,
I find enjoyable. Unfortunately, I've never managed to track down a copy of 18 to get this Kaluta story.
But fortunately, our groovy friend was gracious enough to post this historic first Kaluta story online.



FLASH GORDON is an unusual series, in that it was discontinued and recontinued after some time gaps by multiple publishers.
1-11 published by King Features (Sept 1966-Dec 1967)
12-18 by Charleton (Feb 1969-Jan 1970)
19-27 by Gold Key (Sept 1978-Jan 1980)
and
28-37 by Whitman/Gold Key (April 1980-April 1982)

Issues 31-33 have a great 3-part movie adaptation by Bruce Jones and Al Williamson. Also available in an 8" X 11" offset-printed
trade paperback and hardcover editions. Williamson also did great movie adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back(1980),
Bladerunner(1982), and Return of the Jedi(1983), all in MARVEL COMICS SUPER SPECIAL,
and all very much worth having.





Another of Kaluta's pulp-ish looking covers, from DETECTIVE 438.
I think the circular composition particularly adds to the Golden Age/pulp visual sense.








These two obscure covers of FROM BEYOND THE UNKNOWN 18 and 19.
Again manifesting a 1940's brand of science-fiction pulp style.

 Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy




Another of Kaluta's pulp-ish looking covers, from DETECTIVE 438.
I think the circular composition particularly adds to the Golden Age/pulp visual sense.


That is one of the first comic books I remember buying on my own with my own money.
Thanks for posting.


 Originally Posted By: the G-man

That is one of the first comic books I remember buying on my own with my own money.
Thanks for posting.


One I love too.

Those 100-page issues were some of the best collections of both new and reprint material. A great selection of Golden Age
and Silver Age material, If the great Goodwin Batman stories, and the award-winning Goodwin/Simonson "Manhunter" stories weren't enough!

I especially like 439 that has "Night of the Stalker", another award-winning classic.







Another Kaluta poster from his The Studio period.
Titled "The Sacrifice" (1976).
And another I've had framed on the wall for over 20 years. Kaluta did several Conan posters,
and a number of CONAN and SAVAGE SWORD and KING CONAN covers.

It always surprised me he didn't do any Conan stories. He clearly has an affection for the character.



And pardon my maleness, but that's a dynamite ass on that barbarian slave girl!


More Kaluta covers in the S-F/pulp style, from the series TIME WARP in 1979-1980, that ran 5 issues (a later thinner 32-page version
replaced it a few months later in the revived MYSTERY IN SPACE 111-117, since apparently the dollar-book format wasn't selling. )

But in TIME WARP's brief run, it presented some of the nicest covers in comics history, all by Kaluta








Here's another link showing a few STRANGE ADVENTURES covers Kaluta did.
In addition to the FROM BEYOND THE UNKNOWN covers I posted earlier.








Slight digression here but I've always wanted to see someone redraw that cover from MiS #111 and replace the kid and toy soldier with Calvin and Hobbes

A comics artist once told me the pros often throw stuff like that into backgrounds, because it adds another layer of enjoyment to readers,
who can go back and look at the art later and enjoy details like that on re-reading, even after they've already read the story.

I don't think Calvin and Hobbs existed in 1980 when that cover was done, but the kid with his doll is reminiscent of the character, and it would
be a nice tribute cover to see!


I never found a copy of this poster, but it's one of Kaluta's posters I always wanted to have,
titled "The Fate of Dollies Lost In Dreams."





Likely inspired by Winsor McCay's Little Nemo In Slumberland










A rare war series cover by Kaluta from Feb 1973, about 6 months before his run on THE SHADOW began.

Kaluta only did the cover, but this issue also has 2 pretty cool backup stories, one an early Howard Chaykin story "To Stand, To Die"
with 2 brothers fighting on different fronts in the Revolutionary War.
And a second DD 479 series Pacific War story by Sam Glanzman "The Islands were Meant for Love", set during the Battle of Okinawa, and
shore leave for the crew after in the Phillipines.
I always thought Glanzman would have been an interesting fill-in artist for an issue of THE SHADOW, having a compatible style to that
of Kaluta.
In addition to the DD 479 series of backups Glanzman did for a decade or so across DC's war titles, he also drew the Haunted Tank for a
long run in G.I. COMBAT across the late 1970's and early 1980's, and two Marvel Graphic novels on the Pacific War.





And speaking of THE SHADOW...




I'm glad that even after Kaluta stopped doing interior stories, he kept doing beautiful covers, and kept a hand in the series.
The entire 12-issue series, with covers, is long overdue for a collected hardcover.








Another war series cover by Kaluta, WEIRD WAR TALES 12, March 1973.

I always enjoyed the blending of the supernatural mixed with the horrors of war in WEIRD WAR TALES. Kaluta demonstrates his skill
at doing horror material here.
Despite his talent for it, he did very little in the way of stories, but a lot of covers. I'm grateful for the work Kaluta gave us in that vein,
across DC's mystery titles, and atmospheric BATMAN and DETECTIVE covers along similar lines.






HOUSE OF MYSTERY 210, Jan 1973 cover.

I'm hard pressed to say whether I like best Kaluta's horror/mystery work, his war covers, his historic/gothic work,
his 1930's work on stuff like the Shadow, or his retro-1930's S-F pulp futuristic stuff. Regardless, there's
decorative sophisticated linework that really holds the eye.






This is actually a new cover, part of a series of covers in a playful "what if", as if they were made for a 1973 comics series from DC that
never happened, a The Shadow/Batman team-up book called THE SHADOW AND THE KNIGHT, formatted to look like covers
from the 1972-1973 era.
Others in the series by Chaykin, Brunner, Gulacy, Simonson, Tuska and others, 16 covers in all.


The full set here.








I love Kaluta's lavishly detailed cityscapes, often crammed into small panels of a larger page.
Even Kaluta's futuristic cities have a retro-1930's feel to them. You could look at his images for hours, savoring all the detail there to explore.









The Kaluta priunt "The Stealer of Souls", used here as the cover for THE MICHAEL Wm. KALUTA TREASURY (1988), mostly a sketchbook,
with some text about the drawings included, and an extensive checklist of Kaluta's work up to that point, not only in comics,
but also posters, prints, illustrated books, fanzines, and museum art exhibits.







This one was used as the wraparound cover to THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE CONAN UNIVERSE, Jan 1986.
With a lot of added Marvel-style clutter on the printed version.





Apparently DC and Dynamite had the idea to actually publish a THE SHADOW AND BATMAN series, using
the Kaluta cover as one cover for a 6-issue limited series (versions 3A, 3G and 3J).
With about a billion other variant covers by others. Born from what was originally only an imaginary
team-up comic series, styled to look like a 1973-1974 DC series.






The black and white pencil version of that CONAN UNIVERSE wraparound cover is pretty damn impressive.








One of the later THE SHADOW covers by Kaluta, interior art in these last three issues by E.R. Cruz.













The other Kaluta covers on all the E.R. Cruz issues, the last 3 issues of the series.








Without text, the Kaluta cover for the PRIVATE FILES OF THE SHADOW hardcover (1989).
Reprinting issues 1-4 and 6, with a new 20 page story. The complete Kaluta run.
Unfortunately not reprinting the covers.
Again, long overdue for a new hardcover collecting the entire 12-issue series.





A link to all 12 issues of DC's 1973-1975 THE SHADOW run. I love the Robbins and Cruz issues as much as the Kaluta run.
Kaluta did 1-4 and 6.
Frank Robbins did art on 5, 7, 8, and 9.
E.R. Cruz did art on 10-12.

And no doubt, it was O'Neil's scripting of the entire series that gave it a consistency throughout the artist changes.
If I were going to do a collected hardcover, I'd also include a SHERLOCK HOLMES one-shot by O'Neil/Cruz that came out
about the same time as issue 12.
And I'd want to include JUSTICE INC (the Avenger) 1-4, out about the same time as issues 9-12, scripted by O'Neil, art by Al McWilliams
(issue 1), and Kirby (2-4). A logical inclusion because like THE SHADOW series, all were scripted by O'Neil, and because the Avenger
also appeared in SHADOW 11. Another 1930's pulp/crimefighting series.

Maybe followed by another hardcover of O'Neil and others' work on the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations from TARZAN 207-256,
KORAK 46-56 and WEIRD WORLDS with various writers and artists like Kaluta, Weiss, Adams, Anderson, Almendola, Morrow and
Chaykin.

Possibly followed by a SWORD OF SORCERY 1-5 collected reprint, that also collects work by O'Neil, Chaykin, Kaluta, Wrightson,
Simonson, and Adams (as Crusty Bunkers), and Starlin.
And maybe include Chaykin's Ironwulf stories from WEIRD WORLDS 8-10 to fill out the volume with more O'Neil/Chaykin material.

Beyond obvious picks like the O'Neil/Adams BATMAN and DETECTIVE runs, and their Green Lantern/Green Arrow run, O'Neil did a
ton of groundbreaking work that I'm amazed hasn't been reprinted yet.
Including a Swan/Anderson SUPERMAN run (233-246), and WONDER WOMAN 178-202, that had Zen-Bhuddist themes and was
interesting because Diana Prince had no superpowers, just her wits and some martial arts skills, that made an interesting break
from the regular series.







An unpublished cover to THE SHADOW 5!
The published cover is by Robbins.







A cool poster-within-a-poster Illustration of The Shadow.
Either a house ad or a commission piece, I can't recall which.





A similar poster-within-a-poster composition, this one I first saw in THE STUDIO book.




















From 1970-1981, with Conan, Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Tarzan, Korak, Pellucidar, John Carter, Doc Savage, Fu Manchu, The Shadow, the Avenger, Almuric and several other 1930's pulp-character revivals on the stands, someone who grew up in the 1930's must have been astonished at the ratio of characters they grew up with that were back in print on the stands as new comic series.

But I think none were as evocative of the original series as O'Neil/Kaluta's THE SHADOW. Particularly in these covers.



I rarely buy new comics these days, but one recent release I sought out, CARSON OF VENUS: PIRATES OF VENUS, a two-issue re-release of the 1972-1973 stories Kaluta did for KORAK 46-49 (issue 1), and 50-53 (issue 2). The adaptation Wein and Kaluta did of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pirates of Venus novel.

The new covers alone are beautiful, more like hardcover book covers than comics covers, which I'm sure was the intent of their design.


There are four more stories not reprinted (from KORAK 54-56, and TARZAN 230), as they began an incomplete storyline. But I'd still like to see a third issue to collect these stories and some other Burroughs-related Kaluta pages and covers.


I posted links to read all the Kaluta "Carson of Venus" stories online, every Kaluta story, earlier in the topic.






I found some really nice early Kaluta work from some early fanzines.

https://stendec8.blogspot.com/search?q=kaluta

The first is MONSTER TIMES 17, Nov 30 1972. A Kaluta story page "Crash Landing' (from another fanzine titled HERITAGE, a Flash Gordon story in all but name) appears on page 9. Plus lots of other great art by Reed Crandall, Gray Morrow, Frank Brunner and others. The double page of Robby the Robot with a girl in his arms (pp 16-17) appears to be possibly Neal Adams, or a really nice Gray Morrow page. The ads show a lot of Frazetta posters and books, I had no idea Frazetta was so popular even back in 1972. Page 1 looks like a Steranko page, but is signed by an artist I don't recognize. Plus a lot of classic S-F movie photos. The one of Rod Serling looking all "groovy" and beatnik from an Ironside episode cracked me up (page 11).
Even a 1972 John Byrne 2-page story!

Plus two more fanzines. MONDO-CON (1971) has one page by Harper/Kaluta (they collaborated a lot in the early 1970's). Plus tons of other nice pin-up pages by Vaugn Bode, Steranko, Al Weiss, Jeff Jones, Wrightson, Larry Todd, Mike Gilbert, Steve Stiles, Brunner, and Nicola Cuti.

The second fanzine, REALITY 2 (1971) has 14 pages of Kaluta, including several stories. And includes pin-ups and stories by Larry Todd, Reed Crandall, Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Williamson, Kenneth Smith, Chaykin, and Al Williamson.

It's amazing what these guys did for virtually nothing, that are now almost priceless and hard to find. Many of these fanzines only had a print run of 200 to 500 copies, at most. A treasure from comics history someone was good enough to post online.









A page from Kaluta's STARSTRUCK graphic novel (Marvel Graphic Novel 13, Jan 1985). At 74 pages, the most new art until recently of any Kaluta book.
Beautiful art and colors, it was previously serialized in HEAVY METAL from Nov 1982 to July 1983, in episodes of 7 to 10 pages per issue.
It's beautiful to look at, fun and playful, but a bit cynical and deliberately silly for my taste. But still beautiful work. My favorite part is the spaceships, panoramic landcapes and the retro-futuristic technology, much of which looks like it could have been in the 1926 film Metropolis, or the 1936 Flash Gordon movie serial. Clearly, Kaluta was deeply invested in this series. It is the longest continuing series Kaluta has worked on.

In 1985, there was a sequel Marvel/Epic Comics STARSTRUCK series that ran 6 issues, 30 pages per issue. But for my taste while nice art, not as nice as the original graphic novel. And truly awful and garish coloring. Some colored by series writer Elaine Lee, some by Steve Oliff (usually the absolute best colorist in the business), colors so garish that it diminishes the story.

There were two final Starstruck stories in this era, in ROCKETEER ADVENTURE MAGAZINE 1 (10 pages)and 2 (11 pages) for Comico in 1988 and 1989. A 3rd issue was published by Dark Horse in 1995, with no Starstuck story, but Kaluta along with Sandy Plunkett and Arthur Adams assisted Dave Stevens in an artist jam on the Rocketeer story.

All of which totals about 280 pages of combined work on the STARSTRUCK series, that I'm aware of. Which is more than all his other comics work combined, except for maybe cover art pages.

So it's definitely an important part of the Kaluta canon of work.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstruck_(comics)







Two more sample pages from the first graphic novel.









There's kind of a Peter Pan type of whimsey and youthful mischief to the lead characters, as their playful bickering and misadventures take them all over the galaxy.






WEIRD MYSTERY 1, another of my favorite mystery covers by Kaluta, from August 1972. Enhanced all the more by the cover story being written and illustrated by Kirby, and more Kirby work in issues 2 and 3 (the contents of the aborted SPIRIT WORLD 2 magazine, published in another form in these WEIRD MYSTERY 1-3 issues, and in DARK TALES OF FORBIDDEN MANSION 6. )

Kaluta also did an interior story, "The Strange Ones" in issue 24, the last issue of WEIRD MYSTERY, in 1975. About a year after he finished his classic run on THE SHADOW, and was still doing covers for the E.R. Cruz issues.








A 2009 MADAME XANADU cover by Kaluta.

There's a beautiful design sense to Kaluta's work, clearly influenced by Art Deco, Alphonse Mucha, and the broader Art Noveau style.





Someone out there shares my love for Kaluta's "Carson of Venus" series. IDW released it as a hardcover in 2014. Although I couldn't find it on Amazon.
But Lonestar (mycomicshop.com) does have a listing for it.
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=25195829


I also found this cover on Pinterest, possibly from another printing of the book, or from an interior title page of the above hardcover:





.


Another interview with Kaluta, discussing his early days as a comics artist, up through his run on THE SHADOW for DC :

http://kaluta.com/pages/bio/intvwcba.html

I took the liberty of inserting links to each of the issues mentioned, so you can instantly see each story discussed by Kaluta in its entirety, at ReadComicOnline.

Quote
Comic Book Artist: Were you much of a comics reader as a kid?

Michael Wm. Kaluta: I wasn’t a student of comics when I was young, I was a plain old reader. Junior high school was the time when I stopped reading any kind of comic books avidly and high school was when I started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs avidly, looking at the illustrations. In the year I took off between high school and college, I met Steve Hickman, a big Burroughs fan. Then, through Hickman I met Steve Harper, who had the information about all of the old ERB illustrators. It was a real shot in the arm to see all this imagery that obviously had inspired Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta. We all loved ERB and the illustrations; we loved those worlds almost to the point of wanting to go and leave this life behind. Most of the time the two Steves and I were together, we were drawing and drawing and drawing.


CBA: I was fortunate enough to see, hanging on Carmine Infantino’s apartment wall, an original by St. John and across the room is your illustration for the masthead for the Korak, Son of Tarzan letters page.

MWK: That’s not my masthead drawing. The one that Carmine has was actually by Roy Krenkel and inked by Jeff Jones. It’s inked on vellum because Roy had done his in ballpoint — and it’s pure Roy. It looks like my style because Roy so influenced me. The reason that I know that it’s not Roy’s original is because I have Roy’s ballpoint original in my Studio. It’s flattering to hear I did that art but it’s not too surprising. I studied Roy — who said, “Don’t study from my work because you’ll just learn my mistakes!” I told him that his mistakes are gold. If I’d have done that beautiful Korak figure, leaning to the side shooting the arrow straight up, I’d have just retired.

Hickman, Harper and I got to New York in 1967 to attend the SCARP Con, where we met up with the guys from the EC fanzine Spa-Fon: Rich Hauser and Helmut Mueller. We hung out at Phil Sueling’s table and he was, of course, always willing to introduce us to all the good artists. This young Catholic kid from Baltimore, Bernie Wrightson, was at the convention and he won an award for best young talent. We all met, hit it off and went everywhere together. The guys from Chicago said, “Frank’s upstairs and he wants to meet you,” so we ran up the nine flights. We were too impatient to wait for the elevator! We all had portfolios under our arms and we went to Frank’s room. Ellie was there and so were their kids. Frank was on his hands and knees trying to plug a TV set in for his kids to watch cartoons. Then he looked through our portfolios, one by one, as we were standing there, awestruck to be in the presence of the Master. I don’t remember what he said to me, if anything, because Bernie had presented him with a drawing and Frank said, “Look, here’s a bunch of Johnny Comet originals — go pick one.” They were Sunday pages! It was flawless work! Later, the Chicago Boys, with Bob Barrett and Frank, brought Frazetta’s originals to the hotel. We had this big artfest up in the room and everybody there went absolutely bugfuck looking at this stuff. It was also very sobering because after staring holes through the paperback covers the originals were so much more painterly with so much incredible depth — I was not the only guy to think “...might as well just give up... this guy is too good!”.


CBA: What were your aspirations as a young artist?

MWK:I never even thought about being an illustrator or comic book artist. I’d just finished my second year of college...I didn’t know what I was going to do, stay in school or join the army. After the next SCARP convention, Phil Seuling contacted me and said that Al Williamson had seen stuff that I did and was interested in talking to me about maybe helping with a story. That flipped me out. At the next New York Convention I went up to Al and he gave me a script that he was having trouble getting in to. He asked me to stretch it out. “Give me plenty of boots, girls, dinosaurs and stuff” he said. I made 7 pages into 12. Al still has my fumbling pencil originals and unless he gets mad at me we won’t tell anyone. They’re really awful, awful stuff. I was so uptight about doing the job that I just rendered and detailed it to death. Later Al did a fine job with the story and let me doodle a bit on a page or two. DC Comics published it under the title The Beautiful Beast.


CBA: Did you meet Jeff Jones at around this time?

MWK: 1967... Jeff had been the winner of best young talent at the previous SCARP convention and so we got to meet him there and see some of his originals. Fairly amazing. We (Steve Hickman, Steve Harper, Bernie and I) went to his apartment uptown in New York — in the same building Bernie and I would eventually live.


CBA: Was this the place where First Fridays was held?

MWK: The First Friday Get Togethers I remember best took place in Jeff and Weezie’s new apartment on the sixth floor. It had a very large living room. Anywhere from five or six to 25-30 people would show up. It was a very eclectic crowd; one one hand, you had Bill Stillwell who was studying to become a surgeon and on the other, Larry Hama, fresh back from Vietnam with sunglasses and camouflage clothing (a frightening-looking man; a sweetheart who looked like a warrior — which was what he was!). Then there would be little Rick Bryant…


CBA: Did Woody come over at all? (Wally Wood)

MWK: Not that I recall.


CBA: So there was a Marvel crowd who would hang out at their own place, and your own crowd at First Fridays?

MWK: The First Friday Get Togethers were open to all, but the crowd tended to be folks who wanted to go on and do anything that had to do with comics or painting. None of us had become “company men” yet. Roy Krenkel was usually the center of attention when he was around because he was so funny and so unusual. He was always the teacher. We’d all sit around talking about our stuff and where we wanted to go. Roy would show us old-time illustrators from his vast collection. Everybody drank in the art and inspiration.


CBA: How did you become involved with DC Comics?

MWK: When I first came to New York, in January 1969, I went right out the 60 miles to Al Williamson’s place and stayed there, working on the story I’d pencilled, helping out with Al’s daily strip (Secret Agent Corrigan) and looking at his phenomenal original art collection — more Hal Foster originals than I ever dreamed of seeing.

After two weeks, I got a call from Berni who said I had received a package from Charlton Comics with a script enclosed. Al said, “Hey, that’s real work! Off you go.” Al had talked to Dick Giordano, who at the time was an editor at Charlton, to see if he could give me a job.

Before anything could come of that, Dick went over to DC Comics. Charlton Comics still had my samples... I guess they liked them... out of the blue Charlton sent me a 3 page script, full of adventure, and those hard to draw subjects: people and horses. I drew it for $20 a page, sweating every line and turned the pencils in. Then they told me the pencils were lost but offered me another script. This one was a western. Al had given me all this great horse reference from The Cisco Kid newspaper daily proofs.

THAT helped me immensely. After the Western, Charlton gave me a romance story which I tried my best on but I turned in a real goofy job. So the editors finally realized that I wasn’t a western or romance artist and they found the adventure strip pencil pages that they’d misplaced. So I inked that, sent it in and got my other ten dollars.
[ Kaluta's first published work was a backup in FLASH GORDON 18, Jan 1970 "Great Battles of History:Shiraz" (4 pages). About early muslims battling on horses.
The western story is " The Amazons of Reed’s Crossing" in BILLY THE KID 85, July 1971 (4 pages), also reprinted in issue 145.
The romance story is TEEN CONFESSIONS 59, Dec 1969 "Off the Beach" (5 pages) ]

About that time Al said that I ought to go over and see Dick [Giordano] at DC Comics. I had been going over there with Bernie who was drawing the Nightmaster stories at the time [in SHOWCASE 83 and 84, June and Aug 1969. Partially drawn, uncredited, by Kaluta and Jeff Jones ].
One time, Bernie and I were sitting in the little lobby and Dick [Giordano] came out to escort him in. I said, “If you have a little one or two-page script lying around…”
Berni comes out later with a big Cheshire grin on his face and says, “Here you go,” handing me a two-page script.

I must have spent four or five weeks just going around and around with these two pages! I did it, took the pencils in and Dick started to teach me the rudiments of storytelling. I had just been doing drawings. He taught me with overlays but said, “Don’t change this — just ink this up. We’ll give you another one.”

Dick eventually gave me three two-page strips, one Bernie helped with a lot with the figure-work (I had been helping Bernie with the Nightmaster stories, helping to draw the panoramas that Bernie was uncomfortable drawing... it was a trade-off).
[ HOUSE OF MYSTERY 195, Oct 1971( 2 pages), WITCHING HOUR 7, March 1970 (2 pages), and the cover and 2 intro pages for SECRETS OF SINISTER HOUSE 6, Sept 1972, cover also on issue 7, and an intro splash page in issue 11 ]

The wonderful thing was, that after those three stories, Dick gave me a five-pager (The Coming of Ghaglan) [ HOUSE OF SECRETS 87, Aug 1970, (6 pages) ] that I went absolutely crazy on and had the greatest time doing. I used Zip-A-Tone (without even asking, as far as I can remember), did all these neat effect things and brought it in. Everybody loved the story saying it was so unusual and graphic (even though the drawing was somewhat crude). It looked like I’d get more work soon. But Dick went freelance again and he was the only editor I knew there! I should have talked to the other editors but I just didn’t even think to schmooze around. So then I had my hiatus from DC for maybe a year or so.


CBA: On average, how long did it take for you to do a page?

MWK: Three days. For me, my overhead was so low that any kind of money was pure gold. I have no idea how I made it through some of those months of slow work.


CBA: Did you aspire to a regular gig or just go along project by project?

MWK: I didn’t even think about doing regular comic book work. One thing that frightened me about comics was that I never knew how to draw the same face twice — but I later learned that people give you a lot of leeway (especially kids) and the faces don’t have to look the same.


CBA: How did you get back to work at DC Comics?

MWK: I can’t recall. Somehow I ended up back there, probably by just hanging out in the coffee room. Every once in awhile we’d hang out in Neal Adams’ special room watching him draw — he had this big projector that would blow-up his little sketches onto the drawing paper.

I always had my portfolio along and at one point, Julie Schwartz came to the door and announced that he needed a good science fiction artist to do a five-page story. He asked, “Who do you know? Who’s good?” And I poked my head around the door and said, “I’m pretty good and I have some stuff.” He bellowed to me, “Who’re you?” And I said, “Mike Kaluta.” “Kaluta? I’ve heard that name before.” The reason he heard that name is due to Neal using it as a sound effect in the “Peril in Plastic” story from Green Arrow/Green Lantern — everybody in the office had been chanting, “Ka-looo-ta! Ka-looo-ta!” for weeks. [ GREEN LANTERN 84, July 1971 ]

Julie looked through my stuff, said it was okay, and he gave me the Amazing World of Krypton story.
[ SUPERMAN 240, July 1971, "The Man Who Cheated Time" (7 pages) ] Besides a pile of covers later on, I worked with Julie on just that one job. We were friends ever since but, boy, he made me erase so much stuff. I kept putting in more than he thought the story needed. His old time Superman approach was very much aimed at younger readers — nothing and everything was left to the imagination.

One day a bunch of professionals had met at the office to go on a field trip to Sparta, the comic book printers and see how things were done. I felt a misanthropic wave and didn’t want to be there so I went up to the empty office and was doodling. Carmine Infantino, then President of DC Comics, came by and said, “Mikey, ever thought about doing covers? I think you’d do good covers. Tell you what: drop off a few Batman ideas and I’ll see what we can do.” So I started drawing them up and took them in. Carmine picked one and that became my first of a successful run Detective Comics covers.
I was flattered beyond belief.
[ covers on DETECTIVE COMICS 423, 424, 426, 427, 428, 431, 434, 438 and a decade later, 572 ,
and BATMAN 242, 248, 253, and a pin-up in 1986 in BATMAN 400 ]


CBA: Would Carmine do the breakdowns to the covers?

MWK: Rarely ones that I followed. He would do one but I would do my own thing and he would say, “That’s great, Mikey, do that.” Once, he said, “No, do it like I drew it,” and the finish looked just like an Infantino layout — a ghost coming through a wall with upper body, one knee and one hand coming through the bricks. I caught hell from my editor but Carmine had wanted it that way.

Carmine was very, very good to me. I wasn’t a Neal Adams or Bernie Wrightson. My stuff was much cruder. Enthusiasm, mood and possibly concept might have carried my stuff but I had no real technique. Somehow they dug my potential and I’m very grateful to all the people up at DC. Carmine was always there and he always had a good word to say. Neal would always help me out and walk me through stuff — sometimes to my detriment. There was one mystery story I did about a boxer who gets bitten by an ant. Neal helped me with the layouts — there’s all these little Neal Adams’ cliches in the story that don’t really work with my novice style. However, there’s some really nice drawings of city scenes in that story... images that would eventually blossom in the Shadow material.
[ HOUSE OF SECRETS 98, July 1972, "The Born Loser"( 9 pages) ]

At one point while I was doing the House of Mystery and House of Secrets covers, Joe Orlando came into the room where I was sketching and said, “Listen, DC is getting the license to the Edgar Rice Burroughs characters. Is there anything that you’d like to do?” I said, “John Carter of Mars!”
But Joe said, “No, no. Murphy Anderson has wanted to do that since he was a kid. What else? Tarzan?”
I knew I wasn’t going to get any of the big ones so I said, “How about Carson of Venus?” He said, “I don’t know if I remember that one.” He got Len Wein to do the scripting and I did the drawing. It was a good team. Eventually Len left for other things and it came down to me to adapt and draw it myself.
[ KORAK 46-56, 1972-1974, and one last episode in TARZAN 230, May 1974.
Also one issue of "Pellucidar" in WEIRD WORLDS 4, March 1973 (12 pages), plus covers on 5, 6 and 10 ]


CBA: Joe Kubert fondly explains how absolutely, painstakingly literal your adaptions were.

MWK: That was my intent, although I skipped a scene and caught all hell from the Burroughs fans. I was so hungry to get to the airplane and make Carson the character Burroughs intended, the Aviator, and in my haste I left out a primal scene that everyone loves (and Frazetta did so beautifully on the cover of Lost on Venus). I just kind of skipped it.

The one place where Joe Kubert and I bumped heads was when I drew a scene on board a ship where Carson and his other captives were planning a mutiny. I had a shot of Carson and a whole bunch of close-ups of five or six faces. When the galleys came out, Joe had put lines on their faces, lines atop of their eyes, beards, and mustaches over the characters’ faces and I did my version of hitting the roof. (It’s very difficult to hit the roof when you’re talking to Joe Kubert, of course, because he could just stand up and poke you!) I said, “Joe, what did you do?” He said, “Well, you handed in a job where the drawings weren’t finished.” I said, “Yes, they were! You put beards on these guys but Venusian guys don’t have facial hair — it’s a big deal in the books!”

He actually did his version of an apology: “Maybe you knew what you were doing and maybe I was wrong doing that.”
That’s the story that I tell whenever I can, to Joe’s charming discomfort. He’s invited me once or twice to the commencement exercises at The Joe Kubert School in New Jersey — with the big turkey dinner and all — and I’d tell that story so the youngsters would giggle about him.

But, after that incident, Joe would just let me do what I wanted with Carson until DC could no longer afford to publish it. They were paying a lot to ERB, Inc., and to the artists. At this time they also found all those great artists over in the Phillipines and Spain who would work for chump change (great money to them but a third or a quarter of what I was being paid). DC Comics said if I could do an entire page for $26, including the lettering, I could continue. I tried but I just couldn’t for that kind of money.


CBA: Did you begrudge that?

MWK: Yeah! That was my baby! I really did like Carson of Venus. As a kid I’d read the stories over and over again — I liked the character and loved the world. I had all sorts of plans of getting him through the zombies and off to Havatoo, the industrial city. In the comics, I got right to before he got to the Dark Castle — I had adapted two books and the beginning of the third. There were four books in all.


CBA: Was there any discussion to have you finish the adaptions?

MWK: Sure, but not by DC Comics. Right now, Dark Horse has the ERB license and if they could just find the originals, or good copies, they’d want to reprint the DC stuff and add as much as I could handle. I’d probably draw in the Basto/Tharban sequence I left out 25 years ago. At this time I’ve finished a cover for Dark Horse Presents featuring Carson. His poor airplane has crashed again and he’s sitting in a swamp looking off where Duare’s face looms in the distance.

CBA: Why did Carmine and Joe Orlando go off to the Phillipines looking for artists?

MWK: They went all over the world looking for new artists.


CBA: It seemed like a slap in the face to you guys getting in the Phillipine artists — as wonderful as some of them were…

MWK: That took Carson of Venus away from me, but it was my working on The Shadow at the time, doing such slow work and thinking way too much about the material, which got me way behind deadline.
[ Full art and covers on THE SHADOW 1-4, and 6, 1973-1974. After being let go as series artist, Kaluta still did covers only for issues 10-12 in 1975. ]

Doing 20 pencil and ink pages every two months plus writing and drawing the 5 Carson back-up pages was way beyond what I was capable of at the time.

In my own way I got the job done, but at the cost of my editors’ nerves. I missed a Shadow issue by dithering around for a number of months and came back with the sixth issue, which I had in on time. I decided, at that point, that I knew what I wanted to do. Carson was gone. All I had was The Shadow.

I decided to focus in, draw the stuff, and get it done — become a real journeyman. But DC said that they’d rather that I get off the book because I wasn’t doing it fast enough. So I said, “Okay,” and folded. I went into a funk for awhile, stopped drawing comics. The next Art that happened was a pile of posters that came out from Chris Zavisa. Single Image Illustrations: what I was destined to do, anyway.


CBA: What was the genesis of your drawing The Shadow comic? Carmine remembers it as you were the one pushing it.

MWK: Nope. I had no use for The Shadow. I had read a couple of the Belmont books in junior high school — they were the bad ones and I never had read any of the good ones, the original pulps.

But in 1973 I was hanging out in the DC coffee room with Steve Harper. Denny O’Neil and Steve Skeates were there. They were kind of blue, shaking their heads, and I asked what was the matter. “Well, we can’t find anybody to draw The Shadow.” Bernie was supposed to have done it — he did that beautiful one-page lead-in [used as a house ad in KAMANDI issue 2] — but [Wrightson] got the Swamp Thing series to do.
They’d asked Jim Aparo but he was way too busy.
Jim Steranko wanted it but also had a friend he wanted as writer.
Denny was to write it. Alex Toth really wanted to do it but he definitely wanted to write it himself. (That series he did called The Fox was probably from the layouts he did for a Shadow pitch.)
Toth was real keen to do it and that would have been real interesting to see!

So, Harper said, “I really think that they want you to ask them to do it.” I said, “What are you, nuts? I’ve never done 20 pages — I can’t do that!” He said, “Go ahead and ask them.” So I said to Denny: “I’d like to do it if you want.” He said, “Hold on. I’ll be right back.” He went off to talk to Carmine, came back and said, “You got it.” It was very exciting to think that it went that fast. With the first script I had three months to draw and I sunk everything I had into it. I had a great time doing it and it was very well received.

They published that sample page by Bernie as a house ad. It was the one with the fake guns. Bernie never has cared about the reality of objects. He did people and folds downs so beautifully, but he never gave a damn about what a .45 or an airplane looks like. One small point of pride that I can take is that, gee, I know what a .45 looks like! [laughs] If I could have rendered them like Bernie did his fake ones maybe my life could have been easier.


CBA: Did you do a lot of research?

MWK: Yeah, but I also relied on my cityscapes to evoke mood. It was all I could lean against. That and the fact that I knew what machines looked like. Getting to draw The Shadow was a very lucky break and I’m surprised that I got as much done as I did.


CBA: You were jazzed doing the book.

MWK: Absolutely, though I really knew nothing about the character. I called up Steve Hickman and asked, “What’s this guy all about?” I started getting packages from people I had never heard from before. They introduced themselves as big Shadow fans and gave me tons of reference material. This stuff just flowed into the house.

I started knowing a lot more about the character than even Denny seemed to know. That might have been my downfall because I got a little edgy with him over a few of the story elements — he had been the writer on GL/GA and those were the kind of stories I thought I was going to get. What I got was The Shadow and at the time, I didn’t appreciate it a bit. I thought that it was just tame old stuff and I would just gild the lily, making it as look good as I could.

About five years after doing them, I read all the stories back-to-back and realized how good they were — how Denny’s stories melded with my art and finally I understood why people liked the stuff so much. For some reason, when I was drawing them I wanted the stories to be “more” — and I didn’t even know what I meant by that. But Denny did exactly what was needed. They were great stories.


CBA: Did you want more violence?

MWK: More “‘30s”. The most violence that appeared was in the art. Denny would say, “I’m not sure we should be doing this,” because, in that first issue I drew the Shadow actually killing somebody. It’s very unsung, but it might be one of the first times under the Comics Code that a star of a book actually kills somebody in such an off-hand manner. Strangely to us, we got a lot of Crayoned Letters demanding more and congratulating us for not messing around.


CBA: Did they tell you that they were going to use your name as a sound effect in GL/GA?

MWK: Don’t you know the story that goes along with that? Neal Adams loved the sound of my name and it’s because of that a lot of work at DC became available to me. He had a little poem: “Kalutaberry wine tastes so fine/Kaluta-kaluta-kaluta!” He just made up these little ditties and they stuck in his mind. So when “Peril in Plastic” came along, they needed a name for the widjet in the story and a sound effect for the machine that made them, so Neal said “Kaluta.” (I have to think it was Neal’s Idea.)

I knew about it from that point and I was highly flattered. Denny gave me a copy of the proofs two months before the book came out, and I said, “Oh, this is great!” I read it, laughed, and was quite touched, actually.

After I drank my fill of this, I sent it to my parents and wrote, “Check this out.” A couple days later, I got a call from my dad who said, “Son, I read that comic book.” I said, “Well, what do you think?” He said, “Well, I think I’m gonna sue them!” I stammered, “What?! For what reason?” He said, “I never gave them permission to use my name.” Then he cracked up and said, “I’m not going to sue them but, I’ll tell you what: next time you see this writer, Denny O’Neil, tell him your dad’s going to sue him. Just like that. Let’s see what he does.” I said, “Okay, I’ll try it out.” So, when next I saw Denny walking down the hallway at the office, I said, “Denny, I’m really embarrassed but my dad’s going to sue.” Denny freaks and I’m trying to say that I have nothing against it, but it’s my dad — what can I do? Off he goes and off I go, going our separate ways and... I forget to tell him it’s a joke!

Honest to God, I didn’t mean for it to go for as long as it did, but it had to have been days if not weeks. So later, I’m in the office and here comes Denny. “Tell your dad that I’m ready. My lawyer and I are ready for the lawsuit.” I said, “Denny, that was a joke.” I don’t remember if he said anything or just shook his head and walked away.

I wasn’t the most fun artist for Denny to work with but as he has said, it was a winning combination and we produced good comic books. But I was difficult to work with, I didn’t meet my deadlines and I was not professional.

At one point, he suggested that I see a psychiatrist. He seemed to imply I spent all my work time sleeping with all the girls. Everybody thought I did! They gave me such a rep! I was a nice guy and if there was a girl in the office, I would chat with her, we’d go out to lunch and hang out — but I wasn’t sleeping with them! As for the guy who wanted to think that, ahh, let ‘im!


CBA: How did you hear that you were off The Shadow?

MWK: I was called into Carmine’s office and he said, “Listen, Mikey: you’re missing a deadline on this thing.” I said, “I’m back on my feet and I really feel that I can commit to it.” But he said, “Well, we’re thinking about it a little differently here. Maybe it’s not really your kind of stuff…”

At that point, I knew that he hadn’t even looked at The Shadow. I told him that during this time I had been drawing a back-up to Korak and I realized that he hadn’t even known about that either. My God, he had so many other irons in the fire. He couldn’t possibly follow all these little things, as much as he may have wanted to. Carmine was a terrific artist himself, and to be behind The Big Desk being traffic manager, well, it was a waste in too many ways. So, the decision had already been made. But, to his credit, Denny had said we were a winning combination and that he would’ve rather stuck with me. warts and all than go with somebody else.

In interviews since then, I have said some dissatisfied comments about Denny and our interactions. But I was younger and I realize now that if I had only been easier to deal with, I would probably have gotten a lot more work done.
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Another Kaluta single-page favorite of mine, from AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS 6, May-June 1975, that had gone unpublished up to that point.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Amazing-World-of-DC-Comics/Issue-6?id=100342#51

It was reprinted in color in HOUSE OF MYSTERY 250, Feb 1977 :
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/House-of-Mystery-1951/Issue-250?id=70797#22
Originally Posted by Wonder Boy
[Linked Image from 2.bp.blogspot.com]


Another Kaluta poster from his The Studio period.
Titled "The Sacrifice" (1976).
And another I've had framed on the wall for over 20 years. Kaluta did several Conan posters,
and a number of CONAN and SAVAGE SWORD and KING CONAN covers.

It always surprised me he didn't do any Conan stories. He clearly has an affection for the character.

Updated with a new link that displays.

Similar compositions by Kaluta of Conan are used as the covers for both HOT STUF' 7 in 1977, and EPIC ILLUSTRATED 4 in 1980.

And the CONAN THE KING issue 20 promotional poster.
Among multiple other CONAN THE KING covers on issues 19-31, and 49-53

And the aforementioned OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE CONAN UNIVERSE, wraparound cover, and poster.
Also reprinted in 2020.
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[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]

"Ayisha" by Kaluta, released as a poster in 1979.
And also one of the book plates in THE SWORDS OF SHAHRAZAR collection (1976) of Robert E. Howard stories featuring middle east adventurer Kirby O'Donnell, a predecessor and influence on creation of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark film series.



[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]

"No, you damn swine !" From the same book. Also released as a poster.



[Linked Image from pictures.abebooks.com]



By my account, the most beautiful of Kaluta's illustrated books. Three poster-worthy full-page color paintings.
The rest of the book in decorative black and white pen-and-ink smaller illustrations.

Kaluta did a previous LOST VALLEY OF ISKANDER collection (1974) of Robert E. Howard stories, with another minor mid east adventurer character, Francis X. Gordon. But while still nice and consistent, I prefer the later book.

Kaluta also did an illustrated version of the story Fritz Lang's 1926 Metropolis film was based on, in a decorative 8" X 11" illustrated hardcover. Kaluta's version was published in 1988, that I was disappointed with when it came out, but I haven't seen it again in over 30 years.

Kaluta also did illustrations in the 1990's for a new printing of at least one of Harry Harrison's series. I've only seen a paperback version, which I liked. I hesitated to buy it for some reason, then wished later I had.
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[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]

"She's Leaving Home" by Kaluta.
Another of my favorites by Kaluta from his The Studio period, released as a poster/print in the late 1970's, that I've enjoyed framed on the wall for many years.
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[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]

Cover for GHOSTS 7, Sept 1972.



[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]

HOUSE OF SECRETS 101, Oct 1972.
Originally Posted by Wonder Boy
.

http://www.kaluta.com/pages/portfol...%3A+Old+Glory&imgbig=oldglorybig.jpg


A favorite Kaluta painting of mine, "Old Glory", from Kaluta's "The Studio" period (1974-1979).
Where Kaluta drew the patriotic scene from raising the flag at Iwo Jima, and replaced one
of the soldiers with a robot.

Also used as the cover for Marvel's UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION magazine, issue 2, March 1975.
An interior story based on the cover was illustrated by George Perez.


[Linked Image from cafans.b-cdn.net]

Updated, with new links.
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And in magazine cover form, on UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION 2.

[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]

As Roy Thomas explains in the opening editorial, Michael Kaluta wanted to do a cover featuring a robot, editor Roy Thomas suggested the theme to Kaluta. And after that discussion, the cover was completed by Kaluta.

And after the cover was submitted, Roy Thomas approached Tony Isabella and George Perez to come up with their own story based on the cover image. Which is a really interesting Perez story, one of his earliest stories for Marvel. And you can see a strong influence in this early story from Rich Buckler, because before Perez got his first pro work at Marvel, he worked as an art assistant for Buckler. Regardless, a good story. Good enough that it was reprinted just a few years later in MARVEL PREVIEW 20 (BIZARRE ADVENTURES) in 1980.
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[Linked Image from 1.bp.blogspot.com]

A Batman pin-up by Kaluta, done for the artist-jam BATMAN 400 anniversary issue in 1986.
I think it gains quite a bit in poster-like enlarged form.
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[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]

Another Batman pin-up by Kaluta, that also could double as a poster.
I like the composition, of a girl reverently carving the Batman image as a giant statue. Beautifully colored too.

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EDIT: I looked it up, this pin-up appeared with about a dozen others in BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT 50, Sept 1993.
https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-legends-of-the-dark-knight-issue-50/
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[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]


A pin-up by Kaluta, one of several artists contributing a portfolio of backup pages to SANDMAN 50, June 1993.

Aftter a lengthy lead story by Neil Gaiman and P.Craig Russell.
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[Linked Image from 4.bp.blogspot.com]

And the cover from FORBIDDEN TALES OF DARK MANSION 7, Sept-Oct 1972
Kaluta did covers on issues 7,8, and 13. This one for issue 7 stands out the most for me.
https://viewcomiconline.com/forbidden-tales-of-dark-mansion-07/

And Kaluta did opening splash pages in issues 7,8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. The one I like best is in issue 8.
https://viewcomiconline.com/forbidden-tales-of-dark-mansion-08/

This was some of Kaluta's early work for DC, that it didn't occur to me to link in the quoted interview above, about Kaluta's early days working for DC.
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Another of my favorite Kaluta intro splash pages, from HOUSE OF SECRETS 98, June-July 1972.
Where Kaluta also did the cover and the cover-feaured lead story.

Here's the full issue in its final form in color, for your reading pleasure. More of Kaluta's early work.
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-secrets-1956-issue-98/
© RKMBs