Jonathan Ross meets Jim Steranko

missingtime

Jim Steranko. Many of you will not have heard his name before, a dreadful truth that troubles me every day. If he were French they'd have his statue in parks, Italian he'd be on their stamps, Japanese and he'd be doing commercials for videogames and fermented soya bean soda. But in the English-speaking world, we still woefully undervalue these master storytellers who choose panels and word balloons to work with.

To my fellow enthusiasts he is a Genius, a Wizard, a Master, a God. A one-of-a-kind, self-promoting hipster/huckster with the finest hair I've ever seen on a man of his age. He is also one of the handful of pioneers who can be said to have genuinely revolutionised the art of graphic storytelling. Glimpse his work and, before you even know exactly how he's doing it, you instinctively know it is different – better – than the norm. You'll also be hopelessly hooked. For life. Non-comic addicts might think I exaggerate – but step away from my hyperbole, and allow yourself a little time with the examples we have printed here. The work should speak for itself.

The story of Steranko's early years – the son of first-generation immigrants who came to America and worked, worked, worked for their family and future, while young Jim studied the funny pages in the Sunday newspapers for escape – is not unusual in the world of first-generation comic-book professionals. But unlike his contemporaries, who headed straight into an art course or an apprenticeship with the older guys in the industry, Steranko went off and learned stage magic, fire eating, the jazzmaster guitar, escapology. He briefly plied a trade in all those fields, before his exceptional eye for design and a desire to tell stories and create whole worlds took over. He gravitated towards comics, and found himself at the self-styled "House of Ideas": Stan Lee's Marvel Comics in its pop-art, counter-cultural heyday.

Initially, Steranko's drawing, like that of so many who kickstarted their career at Marvel during the late 60s, was heavily derivative of the "king of comics", Jack Kirby – a one-man powerhouse who contributed more then anyone to Marvel in its glory years, with his prodigious output, remarkable imagination and aggressive, muscular style. But Steranko soon outgrew his teacher, at least in terms of innovation and sheer in-your-face pizzazz, adding modern design ideas, pop-culture references to Dalí and the like, and brilliant cinematic pacing to his pages. Once seen, Jim's work from this period is hard to forget. The art bursts from the page and burns itself into your memory.

The rest is here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/21/jim-steranko-comics-jonathan-ross

Nice article I thought. As you are probably aware Wossy is a huge comic book fan and his enthusiasm comes through in it.

Ring4Fea

Not a SINGLE FFFFFOOOOOOOKIN' REPLY TO A THREAD ON THE GREAT GREY GOD STERANKO...???


THere is no word in any language from any epoch to REMOTELY ascribe and describe the SHAME of this.

SHHHHAAAAAAAME!!