Part One
Don Heck
There was a time in the mid to late 1970’s when a rabid young Marvelite raised on the groundbreaking work of such titanic artistic talents as Starlin, Russell and Gulacy might pick up a copy of their favourite Marvel comic and find, to their horror, Don Heck’s name in the art credits of that particular issue, replacing their regular much loved artist (this sort of thing happened with alarming regularity during this time- The Dreaded Deadline Doom was practically omnipresent ) .Admittedly, this period wasn’t exactly Don’s best output (for whatever reason) but this disrespect was completely undeserved. I intend to make the case (turns to the jury) through the earth shattering power and influence of this blog, that Mr. Heck was a fine artist and storyteller who deserves to be up there with the best comic book creators.
Exhibit A
Don Heck had been a successful comic book artist since the late 1940’s. He was a superbly versatile artist who could turn his hand to everything from Westerns to Horror. He had a sophisticated touch, but he was also capable of roughing it up, as the examples of the work he did for Comic Media in the 50’s i’ve posted show.
All of this might have made some of us opinionated teenage Marvel fans in the 1970’s sit up and take notice if we’d seen any examples of the great earlier work that Don had put out ! The pages from the March 1954 issue of Danger i’ve shown are excellently drawn . The art is hardly recognisable as the Don Heck of the 70’s, a thicker and bolder line clearly influenced by Don’s idol Milton Caniff but still his own. His page and panel designs really draw the reader in and the story just flies by ! Marvellous stuff .
