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quoted verbatim from an email I got from something calling itself "Super Hero News"...
For Immediate Release
In 2001 comic legend Irv Novick took a fall and was wheelchair bound. He was still in a wheelchair when he attended the 2002 Comic Con International. In 2003 Irv entered a physical rehabilitation center where he live to this day. Irv is now 88 years old, it is unlikely that he will ever be released. Any fans, or professionals who would like to send cards or letters can send them to this address...
Sylvia Novick
71 Beechdale Rd.
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. 10522-3001
It will not be possible for Irv to respond individually to card and letters, but he would definitely appreciate words of encouragement from his fans and fellow comic professionals.
The family request no phone call or personal visits.
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Irv Novick is probably best known for drawing THE FLASH and several BATMAN comics during the 1970s, though he had been working in the comics biz as an artist since the 1940s.
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I still find it bewildering that Stan isn't in a wheelchair.
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The most bewildering thing about Stan Lee's condition is that anyone believes that dead muskrat on his head is his real hair.
I love the guy, but cmon, even Burt Reynolds laughs at that toup...
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 Uh..................It's not real?
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Quote:
The Time Trust said:
quoted verbatim from an email I got from something calling itself "Super Hero News"...
For Immediate Release
In 2001 comic legend Irv Novick took a fall and was wheelchair bound. He was still in a wheelchair when he attended the 2002 Comic Con International. In 2003 Irv entered a physical rehabilitation center where he live to this day. Irv is now 88 years old, it is unlikely that he will ever be released.
I always find remarks like this interesting...it makes it sound as though he's imprisoned. He's an old man. He should go into hospice and die at home with his loved ones.
We all wear a green carnation.
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Quote:
Jim Jackson said:
I always find remarks like this interesting...it makes it sound as though he's imprisoned. He's an old man. He should go into hospice and die at home with his loved ones.
And exactly who pays for hospice care, or hospital care, hmm? Somehow I don't think Irv retired from DC or Marvel with a great healthcare or severence package. What with him doing work-for-hire, and all. Unless one of the Novick family members found their fortune, I think the bills involved would be somewhat daunting. Even this rehab center is probably a drain on whatever finances he and his family have.
Uschi said:I won't rape you, I'll just fuck you 'till it hurts and then not stop and you'll cry. MisterJLA: RACKS so hard, he called Jim Rome "Chris Everett." In Him, all porn is possible. He is far above mentions in so-called "blogs." RACK him, lest ye be lost! "I can't even brush my teeth without gagging!" - Tommy Tantillo: Wank & Cry, heckpuppy, and general laughingstock ![[Linked Image from i6.photobucket.com]](http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/JoeMama13/RedSoxBanner05.png)
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Quote:
Joe Mama said:
Quote:
Jim Jackson said:
I always find remarks like this interesting...it makes it sound as though he's imprisoned. He's an old man. He should go into hospice and die at home with his loved ones.
And exactly who pays for hospice care, or hospital care, hmm? Somehow I don't think Irv retired from DC or Marvel with a great healthcare or severence package.
Medicare paid for my father in law's hospice.
JJ
We all wear a green carnation.
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In any event, jokes about fake hair and debates about the costs of hospice aside, my sympathies go out to Mr. Novick, one the unsung greats of the 60s and 70s. Novick drew seveal top DC characters, most notably Batman and the Flash, in a solid, clean, style that fell somewhere between Neal Adams and Curt Swan in terms of realistic, naturalistic art. When inked by DC's best, such as Dick Giordano, Novick's work was especially sharp. However, even a bad ink job couldn't ruin Novick's work very much. Here are some links to Novick artwork: http://www.kirbyart.com/art/novick-batman247-25.jpghttp://www.lambiek.net/artists/novick_irv/novick_w_von_grawbadger.gif
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the G-man said:
...my sympathies go out to Mr. Novick, one the unsung greats of the 60s and 70s. I completely agree. As I've said often, the quintessential Batman was from 1969-1975, during the period where Novick was the most prolific of the Batman artists. the G-man said:
Novick drew several top DC characters, most notably Batman and the Flash... I remember him best for his 70's work on BATMAN, DETECTIVE, FLASH and WORLDS FINEST. The first work I saw Novick do for DC was drawing BATMAN in 1969. And despite that Novick isn't a fan-favorite, I've always enjoyed his BATMAN and DETECTIVE work just as much as that of Neal Adams. Some great Novick stories I can think of offhand, Novick did interior story art for these issues (covers are by other artists): - BATMAN 217, "The Case of One Bullet too Many", where Robin graduates high school and goes off to college:
fullsize.217.GIF
BATMAN 224, a human interest story, about the death of an impoverished elderly black man, who turns out to be a former great trumpet player of the jazz era:
fullsize.224.GIF
BATMAN 227, "The Demon of Gothos Mansion":
fullsize.227.GIF
BATMAN 241, "At Dawn Dies Mary Maguffin":
fullsize.241.GIF
DETECTIVE 418, a team-up with the Creeper:
fullsize.418.GIF
DETECTIVE 425, a Shakespearian murder mystery:
fullsize.425.GIF
DETECTIVE 427, featuring a creepy murdering robot doll, that mixes science and the supernatural:
fullsize.427.GIF
FLASH 237, a typical Novick FLASH story, but interesting to me for the future setting, and the competition between Flash and Reverse Flash, for Iris Allen's affection.
large.237.gif
Novick has never been a fan-favorite, but throughout the 1970's era, he produced a number of memorable stories that are certainly as fondly remembered as the stories and covers by Adams, Wrightson, Kaluta, Aparo, Almendola, Chaykin, Simonson, Gil Kane, and others of the same period. Novick's "The Demon of Gothos Mansion" (BATMAN 227) is as thrilling to read as Adams' "The Secret of the Waiting Graves" (DETECTIVE 395). Both Novick and Adams, in their respective stories, capture perfectly the Gothic atmosphere, and both artists consistently generate the mood and mystery in their stories that made BATMAN and DETECTIVE so enduringly great in the 70's. I'd compare Novick's style most closely with that of Dick Dillin, or of his frequent inkers, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin. He certainly deserves praise as one of the unsung talents of comics storytelling, and has pencilled many of my favorites.
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I thought I'd dig up some Novick covers, since I didn't display any in my last post. Novick began doing BATMAN covers with issue 201 (May 1968), and began doing interior art on the series with issue 204 (August 1968). Novick continued to do interior art for 7 years on Batman, (except for the occasional Neal Adams issue) until issue 268 (December 1975) and later did scattered issues after that. But Novick was the cover artist on most issues from 201-216, until Adams took over as the primary cover artist. Here are some Novick covers:    larger/full-size images of these covers: fullsize.201.GIF fullsize.202.GIF fullsize.204.GIF    fullsize.205.GIF fullsize.209.GIF fullsize.211.GIF    fullsize.212.GIF fullsize.214.GIF fullsize.216.GIF
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My pleasure, TTT. Novick did a lot of stories, but not many covers. Here are some he did during a 6-issue stint on WONDER WOMAN, from 1967-1968:    fullsize.172.GIFfullsize.173.GIFfullsize.174.GIF   fullsize.175.GIFfullsize.176.GIFfullsize.177.GIFNovick did both covers and interior stories in the first four issues shown, and covers only on the latter two. And here's a great checklist I found, of over a thousand Novick stories and covers catalogued and indexed, from 1939 up to his retirement: http://www.comics.org/search.penciller=novickI'm both surprised and not surprised at how much of Novick's work I've read. From the 1960-1985 period, many I'm familiar with, despite my not knowing that they were by Novick. Novick's longest and best-known runs are on BATMAN, DETECTIVE and FLASH. But Novick has also done work on: ALL-AMERICAN MEN OF WAR, BATMAN FAMILY, BRAVE & THE BOLD, CAPTAIN STORM, DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR, DC COMICS PRESENTS, DC SPECIAL SERIES, G I COMBAT, THE JOKER, LIMITED COLLECTORS EDITION (reprints), OUR ARMY AT WAR, OUR FIGHTING FORCES, SEA DEVILS, SHOWCASE, STAR SPANGLED WAR, STRANGE SPORTS STORIES, SUPERBOY, SUPERMAN, SUPERMAN FAMILY, SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE, TEEN TITANS, WEIRD WAR TALES, WONDER WOMAN, and WORLDS FINEST. Which is to say, Novick has quietly been a major contributor to the history of comics. And that's without even going into his Golden Age and non-DC work. I'm surprised by how much Novick has contrbuted to DC's war titles from the 50's up till the early 70's. But then, most of these were uncredited in the published books. Regardless, Novick has illustrated many of my favorites, and his BATMAN and DETECTIVE issues in particular are ones I treasure.
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I was curious about Mr. Novick's current status, since I haven't heard anything in
a while about him.
Unfortunately, Irv Novick passed away on October 15th of last year.
A link to one obituary, by Mark Evanier:
http://www.mightycrusaders.net/irv_novick_1916_2004.htm
For myself, and many others, I'm sure, Irv's work will be enjoyed for
many years beyond his passing.
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Sad to hear that. His artwork is probably somewhat of an acquired taste for people used to the polished comic artwork of today. You have to respect the man for his contribution to superhero comics, though, from the Golden Age on up to the early 1980s.
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Yes, TTT, Novick's art is certainly different from the current era. But for me more enjoyable than virtually anything published over the last decade. There was more of an emphasis on heroes and character in earlier eras. Now comics are more about attitude, cynicism, shock elements, profanity and big explosions. One more set of Novick covers for your viewing pleasure, all from the 1968-1969 period, on the covers of DETECTIVE COMICS 374-393. After which period, again, Neal Adams became the cover artist for the Batman titles.    ( Click on images to enlarge )      Infantino illustrated DETECTIVE 327 to 367 (1964-1967). And so Novick was the transitional artist between Infantino's run, and Neal Adams' run that began in issue 395. And even during Adams' 1970-1974 period on BATMAN, Novick was far more prolific on the series than Adams. So I really think of the 70's as the Irv Novick period on BATMAN (most issues from 204-268), with a few nice fill-in issues by Adams. On DETECTIVE, Novick began doing cover art with DETECTIVE 374 (May 1968), and did the bulk of covers up to 393 (Nov 1969). And in the 1970's Novick also did interior art on issues 414, 418, 419, 425, 427, 431, 434, 435 and 489. These interior pages from DETECTIVE 427, which I linked a few posts above, are more typical of Novick's art from the period I loved his work most, in Novick's 70's period on Batman: But the covers above are a good representation of his earlier late 60's work on DETECTIVE and BATMAN, leading up to what was, for me, his peak period, at least on BATMAN and DETECTIVE, from 1969-1975.
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For anyone else out there who's a Novick Batman fan like myself, I recently discovered a second Novick BATMAN run, in issues 310-311, 313-320, 322-335, 338-339 and 341-342, spanning a period from April 1979-Dec 1981. Interesting to see Novick working on the series with other inkers than Giordano (mostly inked by McLaughlin, but also a sampling of other inkers, including 310 inked by Giordano, as well as a few issues inked by Bob Smith, Steve Mitchell, and Vince Colletta.) There's also quite a rotation of writers on this later run, mostly scripted by Wein, but also Englehart (issue 311), O'Neil (320), Wolfman (328-335), Thomas (338), and Conway (339, 341-342). I'll always prefer the Robbins/Novick/Giordano and O'Neil/Novick/ Giordano run (216-266) but it's also nice to see Novick's later collaboration on the same series, revisited with these other talents.
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I thought McLaughlin (mosty recently known for his now-concluded run on the excreable Gil Thorp comic strip) was a terrible, terrible, inker and pretty much ruined Novick's pencils during that second run. Of course, as I've mentioned before, DC had a history in the 70s of pairing good pencillers with really shitty inkers.
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Yeah, in the 70's I recall McLaughlin mostly for inking Novick on FLASH, and Dillin in WORLD'S FINEST.
Bob Smith was another DC inker of the time that a lot of people hated. Although as a big Grell WARLORD Reader, I found Bob Smith a good inker, relative to Vince Colletta who he replaced on the series (issues 42-50, if I recall, and Colletta on issues 16-41).
A lot of the inkers at both Marvel and DC were hangovers from the Golden Age, or early Silver Age, just churning it out there at the end of their careers: Joe Geilla, Jack Abel, Sam Grainger, John Tataglione, Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta, Art Saaf, Bernard Baily, and a few who were still doing good work like Murphy Anderson and Bill Everett.
It was actually some of the newer inkers in the late 70's and early 80's at DC who I felt did even more lackluster work, such as Dennis Jensen, Joe Staton, Rodin Rodriguez, and Rick Magyar. I always felt Romeo Tanghal diminished Perez's art too, popular as he was. My favorite inker on Perez was Pablo Marcos.
Novick's best inker by far was Giordano. I actually think McLaughlin more often inked Novick's work though.
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Joe Geila is still out there, drawing, of all things, the Mary Worth comic strip.
I have to say back in the 60s Geila wasn't a bad inker. He used to ink a lot of the Infantino Batman stuff
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Yeah, I have a complete run of those Geilla-inked DETECTIVE issues, from 327-380. I remember Geilla most for inking Sekowsky on JLA. And yes, in that time relative to other inkers of the time, he had a relatively nice and clean style. I was thinking of his work relative to other inkers in the late 70's. An example I can think of offhand is MISTER MIRACLE 23, where he inked Michael Golden's first issue on the series. Two other inkers I'd put in the same category are Sid Greene (also a DETECTIVE inker), and Chic Stone (FF 28-38).
I'm amazed Geilla's still alive and drawing. He must be older than dirt!
The only other I can think of offhand from that era whose still alive is Stan Lee, who at last look was 92, and apparently still going strong.
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