I recently came across a wonderful little story done by Jim Steranko for Comixscene #4, published May-June of 1973.
‘The Block’ isn’t the world’s best story, nor is it Steranko’s best work; it’s very heavy handed in delivering it’s message that drugs are bad. What it does have is a very Eisner feel to it, from the grand splash page to the photo-realistic New York that just seems to ooze atmosphere.
Pretty beautiful stuff, eh? New York just lends itself very well to romanticism, even stories that end with death seem to be joyous. Think about any of Will Eisner’s work, or Frank Miller’s original Daredevil run. I cannot imagine Marvel Comics working half as well as it does if they used a fictional stand in instead of New York.
I had the chance to interview Jeff Lemire a while back at Big B Comics. While the interview got completely ruined due to technical malfeasance, I did get a few scoops including the line up of guest artists that would be helping out on Sweet Tooth #19. Needless to say I’m beyond pumped for this week’s issue as it contains not only Nate Powell and Emi Lennox but my personal favourite creator of the moment Matt Kindt. Here’s a quick preview of some of the artists, you can check out the full pages over at Vertigo’s ‘blog.
One of the amazing things about Steranko is that for each graphic story he did staring with his Gothic Horror story Shadow House, he would create a totally new style to fit the story.
Actually, The Block IS one of Steranko’s best works.