Jim Steranko
Encyclopedia
James F. Steranko is an American
graphic artist, comic book
writer
-artist
-historian
, magician, publisher and film production illustrator
.
His most famous comic book work was with the 1960s superspy feature
"Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
" in Marvel Comics
' Strange Tales
and in the subsequent eponymous series. Steranko earned lasting acclaim for his innovations in sequential art
during the Silver Age of comic books
, particularly his infusion of surrealism
, op art
, and graphic design
into the medium. His work has been published in many countries and his influence on the field has remained strong since his comics heyday. He went on to create book covers, become a comics historian who published a pioneering two-volume history of the birth and early years of comic books, and to create conceptual art and character designs for films including Raiders of the Lost Ark
and Bram Stoker's Dracula
.
He was inducted into the comic-book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
to settle in the anthracite coal-mining region of eastern Pennsylvania
. Steranko's father, one of nine siblings, began working in the mines at age 10, and as an adult became a tinsmith
. Steranko later said his father and uncles "would bootleg coal — they would go up into a mountain and open up a shaft." One of three children, all boys, Steranko spent his early childhood during the American Great Depression
, living in a three-room house with a tar-paper roof and outhouse
toilet facilities. He slept on a couch in the nominal living room until he was more than 10 years old. Steranko's father and five uncles showed musical inclination, performing in a band that played on Reading radio in the 1930s, Steranko has said.
Steranko recalled beginning school at age 4. Later, "Because my father had tuberculosis
(and I tested positive), I began third grade at what was called an 'open-window' school, a facility across the city that had a healthy program for kids with special problems. I was bused to school for four years, then dropped into standard junior high." There, being smaller and younger than his classmates, he found himself a target for bullies and young gang-members until he studied boxing and self-defense at the local YMCA
and began to successfully fight back. His youngest brother was born when Steranko was 14, "severing even the minimal interaction between me and my parents."
Steranko had begun drawing while very young, opening and flattening envelopes from the mail to use as sketch paper. Despite his father's denigration of Steranko's artistic talent, and the boy's ambition to become an architect
, Steranko paid for his art supplies by collecting discarded soda
bottles for the bottle deposit and bundled old newspapers to sell to scrap-paper dealers. He studied the Sunday comic strip
art of Milton Caniff
, Alex Raymond
, Hal Foster, and Chester Gould, as well as the characters of Walt Disney
and Superman
, provided in "boxes of comics" brought to him by an uncle. Radio programs, Saturday movie matinées and serials
, and other popular culture
also influenced him.
Steranko in 1978 described some influences and their impact on his creative philosophy:
act, and in his teens spent several summers working with circus
es and carnival
s, working his way up to sideshow
performer as a fire-eater
and in acts involving a bed of nails
and sleight-of-hand. At school, he competed on the gymnastics
team, on the rings
and parallel bars, and later took up boxing
and, under swordmaster
Dan Phillips in New York City
, fencing. At 17, Steranko and another teenage boy were arrested for a string of burglaries and car thefts in Pennsylvania.
Up through his early 20s, Steranko performed as an illusionist, escape artist
, close-up magician in nightclubs, and musician
, having played in drum and bugle corps
in his teens before forming his own bands during the early days of rock and roll
. Steranko, whose first band, in 1956, was called The Lancers, did not perform under his own name, claiming he used pseudonyms to help protect himself from enemies. He also claims to have put the first go-go girls
onstage. The seminal rock and roll
group Bill Haley and his Comets was based in nearby Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, and Steranko, who played a Jazzmaster guitar
, often performed in the same local venues, sometimes on the same bill, and became friendly with Haley guitarist Frank Beecher, who became a musical influence. By the late 1960s, he was a member of a New York City
magicians' group, the Witchdoctor's Club.
Comics historian Mark Evanier
notes that the influential comic-book creator Jack Kirby
, who "based some of his characters ... on people in his life or in the news", was "inspired" to create the escape artist character Mister Miracle
"by an earlier career of writer-artist Jim Steranko".
for local dance clubs and the like. He moved on after five years to join an advertising agency
, where he designed ads and drew products ranging from "baby carriages to beer cans". Interested in writing and drawing for comic books, he visited DC Comics
as a fan and was treated to a tour of the office by editor Julius Schwartz
, who gave Steranko a copy of a script featuring the science-fiction adventurer Adam Strange
. Steranko recalled in 2003, "It was the first full script I'd ever seen, complete with panel descriptions and dialogue. I learned a lot from it and eventually went on to create a few comics of my own."
After first attempting to find work at Marvel Comics in 1965, Steranko instead entered the comics industry with Harvey Comics
, landing assignments under editor
Joe Simon
, who as one writer described was "trying to create a line of super heroes within a publishing company that had specialized in anthropomorphic animals
." Here Steranko created (or helped create) and wrote the characters Spyman
, Magicmaster and the Gladiator for the company's short-lived superhero line, Harvey Thriller
. His first published comics art came in Spyman #1 (Sept. 1966), for which he wrote the 20-page story "The Birth of a Hero" and penciled the first page, which included a diagram of a robotic hand that was reprinted as an inset on artist George Tuska
's cover.
Shortly afterward, Steranko showed his "Secret Agent X" proposal to Paramount Television
's animation unit in New York City
(nothing became of it), and met with Marvel editor Stan Lee
. Steranko inked a two-page Jack Kirby
sample of typical "Nick Fury" scenes (first published in 1970 by Supergraphics in the extremely limited edition "Steranko Portfolio One", and then again thirty years later in slightly altered form in the 2000 trade-paperback collection Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.), leading to Lee's assigning him the "Nick Fury" feature in Strange Tales
, a "split book" shared each issue with another feature.
Future Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas
, then a staff writer, recalled Steranko's arrival at Marvel:
, with the latter supplying such inventive and enduring gadgets and hardware as the Helicarrier
— an airborne aircraft carrier
— as well as LMDs (Life Model Decoy
s) and even automobile
airbags. Marvel's all-purpose terrorist organization HYDRA
was introduced here as well.
Steranko, hired as an unknown commodity with "little experience in comics", began his stint on the feature by penciling and inking
"finishes" over Kirby layouts in Strange Tales #151 (Dec. 1966), just as many fellow new Marvel artists did at the time. A.M. Viturtia suggests that this played a part in the decision that "with the next issue, Stan Lee decided to change the artist [to Steranko]". Steranko also began drawing the every-other-issue "Nick Fury" cover art two issues later, and, in a rarity for comics artists, took over the series' writing with #155, after Lee was initially replaced by Roy Thomas
. In another break with custom, he himself, rather than a Marvel staff artist, had become the series' uncredited colorist
by as early as issue #155 (April 1967).
"Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." soon became one of the creative zeniths of the Silver Age, and one of comics' most groundbreaking, innovative and acclaimed features. Steranko "combined the figurative dynamism of Jack Kirby with modern design concepts", wrote Larry Hama
. He recostumed Fury from suits and ties to "a form-fitting bodysuit with numerous zippers and pockets, like a Wally Wood
spacesuit revamped by Pierre Cardin
. The women were clad in form-fitting black leather a la Emma Peel
in the Avengers
TV show. The graphic influences
of Peter Max
, Op Art and Andy Warhol
were embedded into the design of the pages — and the pages were designed as a whole, not just as a series of panels. All this, executed in a crisp, hard-edged style, seething with drama and anatomical tension." Ron Goulart
, in his Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, wrote, "[E]ven the dullest of readers could sense that something new was happening. ... With each passing issue Steranko's efforts became more and more innovative. Entire pages would be devoted to photocollages of drawings [that] ignored panel boundaries and instead worked together on planes of depth. The first pages ... became incredible production numbers similar in design to the San Francisco rock concert
poster
of the period".
Steranko introduced or popularized in comics such art movements of the day as psychedelia and op art
, drawing specifically on the "aesthetic of Dali
," with inspiration from Richard Powers
, ultimately synthesizing a style he termed "Zap Art." Viturtia notes that Steranko drew on the James Bond
novels, and claims that the influence went both ways: "Although Steranko was primarily influenced by spy movies, after Nick Fury came on the comics scene, the directors of those same movies began to borrow heavily from Steranko himself!" He absorbed, adapted and built upon the groundbreaking work of Jack Kirby, both in the use of photomontage
(particularly for cityscapes), and in the use of full- and double-page-spreads. Indeed, in Strange Tales #167 (Jan. 1968), Steranko created comics' first four-page spread, upon which panorama he or editor Lee bombastically noted, "to get the full effect, of course, requires a second ish [copy of the issue] placed side-by-side, but we think you'll find it to be well worth the price to have the wildest action scene ever in the history of comics!" All the while, Steranko spun outlandishly action-filled plots of intrigue, barely sublimated sensuality, and a cool-jazz hi-fi hipness.
Writer Steven Ringgenberg assessed that
She and Steranko's other skintight leather-clad version of Bond girls pushed what was allowable under the Comics Code at the time. One example is a silent, one-page seduction sequence with the Countess in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2, described by Robin Green in Rolling Stone
:
When reprinted in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Who Is Scorpio? (Marvel Enterprises, 2001; ISBN 0-7851-0766-5), however, Steranko's original final panel was reinserted. In a black-and-white long shot with screentone
shading, the couple is beginning to embrace, with Fury standing and the Countess on one knee, getting up.
Fury's adventures continued in his own series, for which Steranko contributed four much-reprinted 20-page stories: "Who is Scorpio
?" (issue #1); "So Shall Ye Reap...Death" (#2), inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest
; "Dark Moon Rise, Hell Hound Kill" (#3), a Hound of the Baskervilles
homage, replete with a Peter Cushing
manqué
; and the spy-fi sequel "What Ever Happened to Scorpio?" (#5). Yet after deadline pressures forced a fill-in "origin" story by another team in issue #4, Steranko produced merely a handful of additional covers, then dropped the book. Decades afterward, however, their images are among comics' best known, and homages to his art have abounded — from updates of classic covers with different heroes in place of Fury, to recreations of famous pages and layouts.
Steranko also had short runs on X-Men
(#50-51, Nov.-Dec. 1968), for which he designed a new cover logo, and Captain America
(#110-111, 113, Feb.-March, May 1969), missing a deadline that required Kirby to draw issue #112 over a weekend. With no new work immediately forthcoming, a "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins" fan page in spring 1969 announced that, "In case you've been wondering what happened to Jaunty Jim Steranko, ... [he] is working on a brand-new feature, which will shortly be spotlighted in Marvel Super-Heroes. And talk about a secret — he hasn't even told us what it is!" The referred-to project never appeared.
Steranko went on to write and draw a horror
story that precipitated a breakup with Marvel. Though that seven-page tale, "At the Stroke of Midnight", published in Tower of Shadows
#1 (Sept. 1969), would go on to win a 1969 Alley Award
, editor Lee, who had already rejected Steranko's cover for that issue, clashed with Steranko over panel design, dialog, and the story title, initially "The Lurking Fear at Shadow House". According to Steranko at a 2006 panel and elsewhere, Lee disliked or did not understand the homage to horror author H. P. Lovecraft
, and devised his own title for the story. After much conflict, Steranko either quit or was fired. Lee phoned him about a month later, after the two had cooled down. Steranko returned briefly to Marvel, contributing a romance
story ("My Heart Broke in Hollywood", Our Love Story #5, Feb. 1970) and becoming the cover artist for 15 comics beginning with Doc Savage
#2-3, Shanna the She-Devil
#1-2, and Supernatural Thrillers
#1-2 (each successively cover-dated Dec. 1972 and Feb. 1973), and ending with the reprint comic Nick Fury and his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 (April 1973).
In 1973, Steranko became founding editor of Marvel's official fan magazine, FOOM
, which superseded the two previous official fan clubs, the Merry Marvel Marching Society
and Marvelmania. Steranko served as editor and also produced the covers for the magazine's inaugural four issues before being succeeded editorially by Tony Isabella
. He had previously been associated with Marvelmania, producing two of the club's 12 posters.
Steranko gradually withdrew from comic books during this time, turning more and more to his own publishing efforts and to commercial illustration.
rather than oils
, for the sake of speed. From these inauspicious beginnings, he compiled a portfolio of half a dozen paintings ("two Westerns
, two pin-up girl
s, two gothic horror
and one sword-and-sorcery
") and met with Lancer Books
' art director
Howard Winters, to whom he immediately sold his fantasy
piece. This led to a career illustrating dozens of paperback covers, popularly including those of Pyramid Books
' reissues of the 1930s pulp novel
s of The Shadow
.
Steranko also formed his own publishing company, Supergraphics, in 1969, and the following year worked with writer-entrepreneur
Byron Preiss
on an anti-drug comic book, The Block
, distributed to elementary schools nationwide. In 1970 and 1972, Supergraphics published two tabloid-sized volumes entitled The Steranko History of Comics, a planned six-volume history of the American comics industry, though no subsequent volumes have appeared. Written by Steranko, with hundreds of black-and-white cover reproductions as well as a complete reprint of one The Spirit
story by Will Eisner
, it included some of the first and in some cases only interviews with numerous creators from the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books
.
Supergraphics projects included the proposed Talon the Timeless, illustrations of which appeared in a portfolio
published in witzend
magazine #5, and a pinup girl calendar, "The Supergirls", consisting of 12 illustrations of sexy superheroines in costumes recalling such superheroes as Captain America
and Green Lantern
. Through Supergraphics he also published the magazine
Comixscene, which premiered with a December 1972 cover date as a folded-tabloid periodical on stiff, non-glossy paper, reporting on the comics field. It evolved in stages into Mediascene (beginning with issue #7, Dec. 1973) and ultimately into Prevue (beginning with #41, Aug. 1980), a general-interest, standard format, popular culture
magazine
, running through 1994. In its later years, it was criticized for doing double duty as a catalog for Steranko's retailing business, particularly its erotica
.
Steranko wrote, drew, and produced the illustrated novel Chandler: Red Tide
in 1976, for Byron Preiss Visual Publications
/Pyramid Books. Aside from occasional covers and pinup illustrations, Steranko has rarely worked in comics since, although he did illustrate a serialized comics adaptation of the Peter Hyams
1981 sci-fi thriller Outland
, for Heavy Metal magazine. A 1997 attempt to negotiate Steranko's return to S.H.I.E.L.D. did not bear fruit. Since 2007, he has worked with Radical Comics
, doing covers, character and logo designs for its Hercules title and Ryder on the Storm.
's Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981), doing production designs for the film and designing the character of Indiana Jones
. He also served in a similar capacity as "project conceptualist" on Francis Ford Coppola
's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and wrote the episode "The Ties That Bind" of the DC Comics
animated TV series Justice League Unlimited
.
In 2003, Steranko worked with the History Channel to create a documentary titled Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked.
He has "amassed an enormous portfolio of more than sixty projects (which he called the 'Theater of Concepts') designed to be seen in multimedia form".
and Diamond Comic Distributors, Vanguard Productions in 2002 sponsored Steranko's "The Spirit of America" benefit print, created to fund an art scholarship "for victims of anti-American terrorism".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
graphic artist, comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
-artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
-historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, magician, publisher and film production illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
.
His most famous comic book work was with the 1960s superspy feature
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
"Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Nick Fury
Colonel Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Fury is a fictional World War II army hero and present-day super-spy in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee, Fury first appeared in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 , a World War II combat series that portrayed the...
" in Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' Strange Tales
Strange Tales
Strange Tales is the name of several comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics. It introduced the features "Doctor Strange" and "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and was a showcase for the science fiction/suspense stories of artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and for the...
and in the subsequent eponymous series. Steranko earned lasting acclaim for his innovations in sequential art
Sequential art
Sequential art refers to the art form of using a train of images deployed in sequence to graphic storytelling or convey information. The best-known example of sequential art is comics, which are a printed arrangement of art and balloons, especially comic books and comic strips.The term is rarely...
during the Silver Age of comic books
Silver Age of Comic Books
The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those in the superhero genre. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an interregnum in the early to mid-1950s, the Silver Age is considered to cover the...
, particularly his infusion of surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, op art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
, and graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
into the medium. His work has been published in many countries and his influence on the field has remained strong since his comics heyday. He went on to create book covers, become a comics historian who published a pioneering two-volume history of the birth and early years of comic books, and to create conceptual art and character designs for films including Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...
and Bram Stoker's Dracula
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Dracula is a 1992 American Gothic horror-romance film directed and co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker...
.
He was inducted into the comic-book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
Early life
According to his authorized biography, Jim Steranko's grandparents emigrated from the UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
to settle in the anthracite coal-mining region of eastern Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. Steranko's father, one of nine siblings, began working in the mines at age 10, and as an adult became a tinsmith
Tinsmith
A tinsmith, or tinner or tinker or tinplate worker, is a person who makes and repairs things made of light-coloured metal, particularly tinware...
. Steranko later said his father and uncles "would bootleg coal — they would go up into a mountain and open up a shaft." One of three children, all boys, Steranko spent his early childhood during the American Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, living in a three-room house with a tar-paper roof and outhouse
Outhouse
An outhouse is a small structure separate from a main building which often contained a simple toilet and may possibly also be used for housing animals and storage.- Terminology :...
toilet facilities. He slept on a couch in the nominal living room until he was more than 10 years old. Steranko's father and five uncles showed musical inclination, performing in a band that played on Reading radio in the 1930s, Steranko has said.
Steranko recalled beginning school at age 4. Later, "Because my father had tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
(and I tested positive), I began third grade at what was called an 'open-window' school, a facility across the city that had a healthy program for kids with special problems. I was bused to school for four years, then dropped into standard junior high." There, being smaller and younger than his classmates, he found himself a target for bullies and young gang-members until he studied boxing and self-defense at the local YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
and began to successfully fight back. His youngest brother was born when Steranko was 14, "severing even the minimal interaction between me and my parents."
Steranko had begun drawing while very young, opening and flattening envelopes from the mail to use as sketch paper. Despite his father's denigration of Steranko's artistic talent, and the boy's ambition to become an architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, Steranko paid for his art supplies by collecting discarded soda
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...
bottles for the bottle deposit and bundled old newspapers to sell to scrap-paper dealers. He studied the Sunday comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
art of Milton Caniff
Milton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...
, Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond
Alexander Gillespie "Alex" Raymond was an American cartoonist, best known for creating Flash Gordon for King Features in 1934...
, Hal Foster, and Chester Gould, as well as the characters of Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
and Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
, provided in "boxes of comics" brought to him by an uncle. Radio programs, Saturday movie matinées and serials
Serial (film)
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...
, and other popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
also influenced him.
Steranko in 1978 described some influences and their impact on his creative philosophy:
Illusionist and musician
By his account, he learned stage magic using paraphernalia from his father's stage magicianMagic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
act, and in his teens spent several summers working with circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
es and carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
s, working his way up to sideshow
Sideshow
In America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair or other such attraction.- Types of attractions :There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions:...
performer as a fire-eater
Fire-Eater
Fire-Eater may refer to:* Fire eater, a performer who places flaming objects into their mouth and extinguishes them.* Fire-Eaters pro-slavery politicians who pushed for secession from the United States of America* An episode of the Dragon Ball anime....
and in acts involving a bed of nails
Bed of nails
A bed of nails is an oblong piece of wood the size of a bed with nails pointing upwards out of it. It appears to the spectator that anyone lying on this "bed" would be injured by the nails, but this is not so...
and sleight-of-hand. At school, he competed on the gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
team, on the rings
Rings (gymnastics)
The rings, also known as still rings , is an artistic gymnastics apparatus and the event that uses it. It is traditionally used only by male gymnasts, due to its extreme upper-body strength requirements...
and parallel bars, and later took up boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
and, under swordmaster
Swordsmanship
Swordsmanship refers to the skills of a swordsman, a person versed in the art of the sword. The term is modern, and as such was mainly used to refer to smallsword fencing, but by extension it can also be applied to any martial art involving the use of a sword...
Dan Phillips in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, fencing. At 17, Steranko and another teenage boy were arrested for a string of burglaries and car thefts in Pennsylvania.
Escapology
For the Jessica Mauboy song, see Inescapable.Escapology is the practice of escaping from restraints or other traps. Escapologists escape from handcuffs, straitjackets, cages, coffins, steel boxes, barrels, bags, burning buildings, fish-tanks and other perils, often in combination.-History:The art...
, close-up magician in nightclubs, and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, having played in drum and bugle corps
Drum and bugle corps (modern)
A drum and bugle corps, also known as a drum corps, is a musical marching unit consisting of brass instruments, percussion instruments, and color guard. Typically operating as independent non-profit organizations, drum corps perform in competitions, parades, festivals, and other civic functions...
in his teens before forming his own bands during the early days of rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. Steranko, whose first band, in 1956, was called The Lancers, did not perform under his own name, claiming he used pseudonyms to help protect himself from enemies. He also claims to have put the first go-go girls
Go-Go dancing
Go-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at a discotheque. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s when women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City began to get up on tables and dance the twist...
onstage. The seminal rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
group Bill Haley and his Comets was based in nearby Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, and Steranko, who played a Jazzmaster guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, often performed in the same local venues, sometimes on the same bill, and became friendly with Haley guitarist Frank Beecher, who became a musical influence. By the late 1960s, he was a member of a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
magicians' group, the Witchdoctor's Club.
Comics historian Mark Evanier
Mark Evanier
Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...
notes that the influential comic-book creator Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
, who "based some of his characters ... on people in his life or in the news", was "inspired" to create the escape artist character Mister Miracle
Mister Miracle
Mister Miracle is a fictional superhero published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Mister Miracle #1 and was created by Jack Kirby.-Publication history:...
"by an earlier career of writer-artist Jim Steranko".
Early art career
During the day, Steranko made his living as an artist for a printing company in his hometown of Reading, designing and drawing pamphlets and flyersFlyer (pamphlet)
__notoc__A flyer or flier, also called a circular, handbill or leaflet, is a form of paper advertisement intended for wide distribution and typically posted or distributed in public place....
for local dance clubs and the like. He moved on after five years to join an advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
, where he designed ads and drew products ranging from "baby carriages to beer cans". Interested in writing and drawing for comic books, he visited DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
as a fan and was treated to a tour of the office by editor Julius Schwartz
Julius Schwartz
Julius "Julie" Schwartz was a comic book and pulp magazine editor, and a science fiction agent and prominent fan. He was born in the Bronx, New York...
, who gave Steranko a copy of a script featuring the science-fiction adventurer Adam Strange
Adam Strange
Adam Strange is a fictional superhero published by DC Comics. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Mike Sekowsky, he first appeared in Showcase #17 .In May 2011, Adam Strange placed 97th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time....
. Steranko recalled in 2003, "It was the first full script I'd ever seen, complete with panel descriptions and dialogue. I learned a lot from it and eventually went on to create a few comics of my own."
After first attempting to find work at Marvel Comics in 1965, Steranko instead entered the comics industry with Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers Robert B...
, landing assignments under editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
Joe Simon
Joe Simon
Joseph Henry "Joe" Simon is an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.With his...
, who as one writer described was "trying to create a line of super heroes within a publishing company that had specialized in anthropomorphic animals
Funny animal
Funny animal is a cartooning term for the genre of comics and animated cartoons in which the main characters are humanoid or talking animals, with anthropomorphic personality traits. The characters themselves may also be called funny animals...
." Here Steranko created (or helped create) and wrote the characters Spyman
Spyman
Spyman was a short-lived comic book superhero published by Harvey Comics's Harvey Thriller line in the late 1960s. Three issues were published, from September, 1966 to February, 1967....
, Magicmaster and the Gladiator for the company's short-lived superhero line, Harvey Thriller
Harvey Thriller
Harvey Thriller was a comic book imprint used by Harvey Comics for their brief foray into publishing super heroes and other non-'kiddie' comics in the mid 1960s....
. His first published comics art came in Spyman #1 (Sept. 1966), for which he wrote the 20-page story "The Birth of a Hero" and penciled the first page, which included a diagram of a robotic hand that was reprinted as an inset on artist George Tuska
George Tuska
George Tuska , who early in his career used a variety of pen names including Carl Larson, was an American comic book and newspaper comic strip artist best known for his 1940s work on various Captain Marvel titles and the crime fiction series Crime Does Not Pay, for and his 1960s work illustrating...
's cover.
Shortly afterward, Steranko showed his "Secret Agent X" proposal to Paramount Television
Paramount Television
Paramount Television was an American television production/distribution company that was active from January 1, 1968 to August 27, 2006.Its successor is CBS Television Studios, formerly CBS Paramount Television...
's animation unit in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
(nothing became of it), and met with Marvel editor Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
. Steranko inked a two-page Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
sample of typical "Nick Fury" scenes (first published in 1970 by Supergraphics in the extremely limited edition "Steranko Portfolio One", and then again thirty years later in slightly altered form in the 2000 trade-paperback collection Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.), leading to Lee's assigning him the "Nick Fury" feature in Strange Tales
Strange Tales
Strange Tales is the name of several comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics. It introduced the features "Doctor Strange" and "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and was a showcase for the science fiction/suspense stories of artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and for the...
, a "split book" shared each issue with another feature.
Future Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...
, then a staff writer, recalled Steranko's arrival at Marvel:
Silver Age Steranko
The 12-page "Fury" feature was initially by Lee and Jack KirbyJack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
, with the latter supplying such inventive and enduring gadgets and hardware as the Helicarrier
Helicarrier
The Helicarrier is a fictional flying aircraft carrier specifically designed to be capable of independent powered flight in addition to the conventional functions of aircraft carriers...
— an airborne aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
— as well as LMDs (Life Model Decoy
Life Model Decoy
A Life Model Decoy is fictional android appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. It is designed to function as an exact body double for VIPs...
s) and even automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
airbags. Marvel's all-purpose terrorist organization HYDRA
HYDRA
HYDRA is a fictional terrorist organization in the Marvel Universe.Despite the name's capitalization per Marvel's official spelling, the name is not an acronym but rather a reference to the mythical Lernaean Hydra...
was introduced here as well.
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
"finishes" over Kirby layouts in Strange Tales #151 (Dec. 1966), just as many fellow new Marvel artists did at the time. A.M. Viturtia suggests that this played a part in the decision that "with the next issue, Stan Lee decided to change the artist [to Steranko]". Steranko also began drawing the every-other-issue "Nick Fury" cover art two issues later, and, in a rarity for comics artists, took over the series' writing with #155, after Lee was initially replaced by Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...
. In another break with custom, he himself, rather than a Marvel staff artist, had become the series' uncredited colorist
Colorist
In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates...
by as early as issue #155 (April 1967).
"Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." soon became one of the creative zeniths of the Silver Age, and one of comics' most groundbreaking, innovative and acclaimed features. Steranko "combined the figurative dynamism of Jack Kirby with modern design concepts", wrote Larry Hama
Larry Hama
Larry Hama is an American comic book writer, artist, actor and musician who has worked in the fields of entertainment and publishing since the 1960s....
. He recostumed Fury from suits and ties to "a form-fitting bodysuit with numerous zippers and pockets, like a Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
spacesuit revamped by Pierre Cardin
Pierre Cardin
Pierre Cardin Cardin was known for his avant-garde style and his Space Age designs. He prefers geometric shapes and motifs, often ignoring the female form. He advanced into unisex fashions, sometimes experimental, and not always practical...
. The women were clad in form-fitting black leather a la Emma Peel
Emma Peel
Emma Peel was a fictional spy played by Diana Rigg in the British 1960s adventure television series The Avengers. She was born Emma Knight, the daughter of an industrialist, Sir John Knight.-Casting:...
in the Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
TV show. The graphic influences
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
of Peter Max
Peter Max
Peter Max is a German-born Jewish American artist. At first, works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms all across America. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise...
, Op Art and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
were embedded into the design of the pages — and the pages were designed as a whole, not just as a series of panels. All this, executed in a crisp, hard-edged style, seething with drama and anatomical tension." Ron Goulart
Ron Goulart
Ron Goulart is an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.The prolific Goulart wrote many novelizations and other routine work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson , Con Steffanson , Chad Calhoun, R.T...
, in his Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, wrote, "[E]ven the dullest of readers could sense that something new was happening. ... With each passing issue Steranko's efforts became more and more innovative. Entire pages would be devoted to photocollages of drawings [that] ignored panel boundaries and instead worked together on planes of depth. The first pages ... became incredible production numbers similar in design to the San Francisco rock concert
Rock concert
The term rock concert refers to a musical performance in the style of any one of many genres inspired by "rock and roll" music. While a variety of vocal and instrumental styles can constitute a rock concert, this phenomenon is typically characterized by bands playing at least one electric guitar,...
poster
Poster
A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...
of the period".
Steranko introduced or popularized in comics such art movements of the day as psychedelia and op art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
, drawing specifically on the "aesthetic of Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
," with inspiration from Richard Powers
Richard Powers
Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology.- Life and work :...
, ultimately synthesizing a style he termed "Zap Art." Viturtia notes that Steranko drew on the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
novels, and claims that the influence went both ways: "Although Steranko was primarily influenced by spy movies, after Nick Fury came on the comics scene, the directors of those same movies began to borrow heavily from Steranko himself!" He absorbed, adapted and built upon the groundbreaking work of Jack Kirby, both in the use of photomontage
Photomontage
Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not...
(particularly for cityscapes), and in the use of full- and double-page-spreads. Indeed, in Strange Tales #167 (Jan. 1968), Steranko created comics' first four-page spread, upon which panorama he or editor Lee bombastically noted, "to get the full effect, of course, requires a second ish [copy of the issue] placed side-by-side, but we think you'll find it to be well worth the price to have the wildest action scene ever in the history of comics!" All the while, Steranko spun outlandishly action-filled plots of intrigue, barely sublimated sensuality, and a cool-jazz hi-fi hipness.
Writer Steven Ringgenberg assessed that
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
:
When reprinted in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Who Is Scorpio? (Marvel Enterprises, 2001; ISBN 0-7851-0766-5), however, Steranko's original final panel was reinserted. In a black-and-white long shot with screentone
Screentone
Screentone is a technique for applying textures and shades to drawings, used as an alternative to hatching. In the conventional process, patterns are transferred to paper from preprinted sheets, but the technique is also simulated in computer graphics...
shading, the couple is beginning to embrace, with Fury standing and the Countess on one knee, getting up.
Fury's adventures continued in his own series, for which Steranko contributed four much-reprinted 20-page stories: "Who is Scorpio
Scorpio (comics)
Scorpio is the name of several fictional characters in the Marvel Comics universe. Most of the men to use the Scorpio identity have been supervillains who have been affiliated with the Zodiac criminal cartel, and in this context were enemies of the Avengers and other superheroes.-Publication...
?" (issue #1); "So Shall Ye Reap...Death" (#2), inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
; "Dark Moon Rise, Hell Hound Kill" (#3), a Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...
homage, replete with a Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
manqué
Manqué
Manqué is a term used in reference to a person who has failed to live up to a specific expectation or ambition. It is usually used in combination with a profession: for example, a career civil servant with political prowess who nonetheless never attained political office might be described as a...
; and the spy-fi sequel "What Ever Happened to Scorpio?" (#5). Yet after deadline pressures forced a fill-in "origin" story by another team in issue #4, Steranko produced merely a handful of additional covers, then dropped the book. Decades afterward, however, their images are among comics' best known, and homages to his art have abounded — from updates of classic covers with different heroes in place of Fury, to recreations of famous pages and layouts.
Steranko also had short runs on X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
(#50-51, Nov.-Dec. 1968), for which he designed a new cover logo, and Captain America
Captain America
Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...
(#110-111, 113, Feb.-March, May 1969), missing a deadline that required Kirby to draw issue #112 over a weekend. With no new work immediately forthcoming, a "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins" fan page in spring 1969 announced that, "In case you've been wondering what happened to Jaunty Jim Steranko, ... [he] is working on a brand-new feature, which will shortly be spotlighted in Marvel Super-Heroes. And talk about a secret — he hasn't even told us what it is!" The referred-to project never appeared.
Steranko went on to write and draw a horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
story that precipitated a breakup with Marvel. Though that seven-page tale, "At the Stroke of Midnight", published in Tower of Shadows
Tower of Shadows
Tower of Shadows was a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published by Marvel Comics under this and a subsequent name from 1969-1975. It featured work by such notable creators as writer-artists Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Johnny Craig, and Wally Wood, writer-editor Stan Lee, and artists including...
#1 (Sept. 1969), would go on to win a 1969 Alley Award
Alley Award
The Alley Award was an American series of comic book fan awards, first presented in 1962 for comics published in 1961. Officially organized under the aegis of the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences, under executive secretary Jerry Bails, and later Paul Gambaccini and David Kaler, the award...
, editor Lee, who had already rejected Steranko's cover for that issue, clashed with Steranko over panel design, dialog, and the story title, initially "The Lurking Fear at Shadow House". According to Steranko at a 2006 panel and elsewhere, Lee disliked or did not understand the homage to horror author H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
, and devised his own title for the story. After much conflict, Steranko either quit or was fired. Lee phoned him about a month later, after the two had cooled down. Steranko returned briefly to Marvel, contributing a romance
Romance comics
Romance comics is a comics genre depicting romantic love and its attendant complications such as jealousy, marriage, divorce, betrayal, and heartache. The term is generally associated with an American comic books genre published through the first three decades of the Cold War...
story ("My Heart Broke in Hollywood", Our Love Story #5, Feb. 1970) and becoming the cover artist for 15 comics beginning with Doc Savage
Doc Savage
Doc Savage is a fictional character originally published in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. He was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L...
#2-3, Shanna the She-Devil
Shanna the She-Devil
Shanna the She-Devil is a fictional jungle adventuress in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Carole Seuling and penciler George Tuska, she made her first appearance in Shanna the She-Devil #1 Shanna the She-Devil is a fictional jungle adventuress in comic books published by...
#1-2, and Supernatural Thrillers
Supernatural Thrillers
Supernatural Thrillers was a horror fiction comic book published by Marvel Comics in the 1970s that adapted classic stories of that genre, including works by Robert Louis Stevenson and H.G. Wells, before becoming a vehicle for a supernatural action series starring an original character, The Living...
#1-2 (each successively cover-dated Dec. 1972 and Feb. 1973), and ending with the reprint comic Nick Fury and his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 (April 1973).
In 1973, Steranko became founding editor of Marvel's official fan magazine, FOOM
FOOM
FOOM was Marvel Comics' self-produced fan magazine of the mid-1970s, following the canceled Marvelmania and preceding Marvel Age. Running 22 quarterly issues FOOM (also written as F.O.O.M.) was Marvel Comics' self-produced fan magazine of the mid-1970s, following the canceled Marvelmania and...
, which superseded the two previous official fan clubs, the Merry Marvel Marching Society
Merry Marvel Marching Society
Merry Marvel Marching Society was a fan club for Marvel Comics started by Marvel editor Stan Lee and/or Marvel publisher Martin Goodman in 1964.-History:...
and Marvelmania. Steranko served as editor and also produced the covers for the magazine's inaugural four issues before being succeeded editorially by Tony Isabella
Tony Isabella
Tony Isabella is an American comic book writer, editor, artist and critic, known as the creator and writer of Marvel Comics' Black Goliath, DC Comics' first major African American superhero, Black Lightning, and as a columnist and critic for the Comics Buyer's Guide.-Marvel Comics:Before he joined...
. He had previously been associated with Marvelmania, producing two of the club's 12 posters.
Steranko gradually withdrew from comic books during this time, turning more and more to his own publishing efforts and to commercial illustration.
Publisher and paperback artist
Steranko branched into other areas of publishing, including most notably book-cover illustration. Lacking any experience as a painter, his decision to effectively quit comics in 1969 led him to "an artist friend who earned his living as a painter", from whom Steranko obtained an "hour-long lecture", and the suggestion that he work in acrylicsAcrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...
rather than oils
Oil paint
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the...
, for the sake of speed. From these inauspicious beginnings, he compiled a portfolio of half a dozen paintings ("two Westerns
Western fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century...
, two pin-up girl
Pin-up girl
A pin-up girl, also known as a pin-up model, is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display, e.g. meant to be "pinned-up" on a wall...
s, two gothic horror
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
and one sword-and-sorcery
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...
") and met with Lancer Books
Lancer Books
Lancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
Howard Winters, to whom he immediately sold his fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
piece. This led to a career illustrating dozens of paperback covers, popularly including those of Pyramid Books
Harcourt Trade Publishers
Harcourt was a United States publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. The company was based in San Diego, California, with an Editorial / Sales / Marketing / Rights offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida.In 2007, the U.S...
' reissues of the 1930s pulp novel
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
s of The Shadow
The Shadow
The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crime-fighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town"...
.
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
Byron Preiss
Byron Preiss
Byron Preiss was an American writer, editor, and publisher. He founded and served as president of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, and later of iBooks.-Early life and career:...
on an anti-drug comic book, The Block
The Block
-Places:231 North Vandeventer Saint Louis MO, 63108.Australia* The Block , the first Aboriginal land handbackUnited States* The Block at Orange, an open-air shopping and entertainment mall located in Southern California...
, distributed to elementary schools nationwide. In 1970 and 1972, Supergraphics published two tabloid-sized volumes entitled The Steranko History of Comics, a planned six-volume history of the American comics industry, though no subsequent volumes have appeared. Written by Steranko, with hundreds of black-and-white cover reproductions as well as a complete reprint of one The Spirit
The Spirit
The Spirit is a crime-fighting fictional character created by writer-artist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940 in "The Spirit Section", the colloquial name given to a 16-page Sunday supplement, distributed to 20 newspapers by the Register and Tribune Syndicate and reaching five million...
story by Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
, it included some of the first and in some cases only interviews with numerous creators from the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
.
Supergraphics projects included the proposed Talon the Timeless, illustrations of which appeared in a portfolio
Career portfolio
Career portfolios are used to plan, organize and document education, work samples and skills. People use career portfolios to apply to jobs, apply to college or training programs, get a higher salary, show transferable skills, and to track personal development. They are more in-depth than a resume,...
published in witzend
Witzend
witzend, published on an irregular schedule spanning decades, was an underground comic showcasing contributions by comic book professionals, leading illustrators and new artists. witzend was launched in 1966 by the writer-artist Wallace Wood, who handed the reins to Bill Pearson from 1968–1985...
magazine #5, and a pinup girl calendar, "The Supergirls", consisting of 12 illustrations of sexy superheroines in costumes recalling such superheroes as Captain America
Captain America
Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...
and Green Lantern
Green Lantern
The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...
. Through Supergraphics he also published the magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
Comixscene, which premiered with a December 1972 cover date as a folded-tabloid periodical on stiff, non-glossy paper, reporting on the comics field. It evolved in stages into Mediascene (beginning with issue #7, Dec. 1973) and ultimately into Prevue (beginning with #41, Aug. 1980), a general-interest, standard format, popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
, running through 1994. In its later years, it was criticized for doing double duty as a catalog for Steranko's retailing business, particularly its erotica
Erotica
Erotica are works of art, including literature, photography, film, sculpture and painting, that deal substantively with erotically stimulating or sexually arousing descriptions...
.
Steranko wrote, drew, and produced the illustrated novel Chandler: Red Tide
Chandler: Red Tide
Chandler: Red Tide is a 1976 illustrated novel, an early form of graphic novel, by writer-artist Jim Steranko.The digest-sized book combines typeset text with two same-sized illustrations per page, utilizing no word balloons or other traditional comics text conventions...
in 1976, for Byron Preiss Visual Publications
Byron Preiss
Byron Preiss was an American writer, editor, and publisher. He founded and served as president of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, and later of iBooks.-Early life and career:...
/Pyramid Books. Aside from occasional covers and pinup illustrations, Steranko has rarely worked in comics since, although he did illustrate a serialized comics adaptation of the Peter Hyams
Peter Hyams
Peter Hyams is an American screenwriter, director and cinematographer, probably best known for directing the 1984 science fiction adventure 2010 , Capricorn One, the comic book adaptation Timecop and the Arnold Schwarzenegger horror/action film End of Days.-Family:Hyams was born in New York...
1981 sci-fi thriller Outland
Outland
Outland may refer to:* Outland , a 1981 film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Sean Connery* Outland , a 1987 album by Spear of Destiny* Outland , a 1991 album by Gary Numan...
, for Heavy Metal magazine. A 1997 attempt to negotiate Steranko's return to S.H.I.E.L.D. did not bear fruit. Since 2007, he has worked with Radical Comics
Radical Comics
Radical Comics is an American comic book and graphic novel publisher and developer of related media with offices in Los Angeles and London.- History :...
, doing covers, character and logo designs for its Hercules title and Ryder on the Storm.
Film and television work
For the movie industry, Steranko has produced a number of posters for various films, and was a conceptual artist on Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...
(1981), doing production designs for the film and designing the character of Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
. He also served in a similar capacity as "project conceptualist" on Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and wrote the episode "The Ties That Bind" of the DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
animated TV series Justice League Unlimited
Justice League Unlimited
Justice League Unlimited is an American animated television series that was produced by Warner Bros. Animation and aired on Cartoon Network. Featuring a wide array of superheroes from the DC Comics universe, and specifically based on the Justice League superhero team, it is a direct sequel to the...
.
In 2003, Steranko worked with the History Channel to create a documentary titled Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked.
He has "amassed an enormous portfolio of more than sixty projects (which he called the 'Theater of Concepts') designed to be seen in multimedia form".
Philanthropy
In a joint venture with Marvel ComicsMarvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
and Diamond Comic Distributors, Vanguard Productions in 2002 sponsored Steranko's "The Spirit of America" benefit print, created to fund an art scholarship "for victims of anti-American terrorism".
Awards and recognition
Steranko has won awards in fields as varied as magic, comics and graphic design. A partial list includes:- In addition to himself being inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006, Steranko's series Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. can refer to:*Nick Fury, the character*Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., four Marvel comic book series, featuring the eponymous character, that started in 1968, 1983, 1989 and 2000*Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D...
was inducted into comic fandom's Alley AwardAlley AwardThe Alley Award was an American series of comic book fan awards, first presented in 1962 for comics published in 1961. Officially organized under the aegis of the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences, under executive secretary Jerry Bails, and later Paul Gambaccini and David Kaler, the award...
Hall of Fame in 1969. - That same ceremony, Steranko took three 1968 Alley Awards, for Best Pencil Artist, Best Feature Story ("Today Earth Died", Strange TalesStrange TalesStrange Tales is the name of several comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics. It introduced the features "Doctor Strange" and "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and was a showcase for the science fiction/suspense stories of artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and for the...
#168; first page depicted above), and Best Cover (Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #6). - The following year, he won 1969 Alley Awards for Best Feature Story ("At the Stroke of Midnight", Tower of ShadowsTower of ShadowsTower of Shadows was a horror/fantasy anthology comic book published by Marvel Comics under this and a subsequent name from 1969-1975. It featured work by such notable creators as writer-artists Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Johnny Craig, and Wally Wood, writer-editor Stan Lee, and artists including...
#1) and Best Cover (Captain AmericaCaptain AmericaCaptain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...
#113). - 1970 Shazam Award: Outstanding Achievement by an Individual: Jim Steranko (for The Steranko History of Comics)
- The DragonCon's Julie Award (2003)
Exhibitions
Steranko's work has been exhibited internationally in more than 160 shows. Among others, his work has been shown in the following locations:- The Louvre MuseumLouvreThe Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(1967) - The Winnipeg Art GalleryWinnipeg Art GalleryThe Winnipeg Art Gallery is a public art gallery that was founded in 1912. It is Western Canada's oldest civic gallery and the 6th largest in the country...
, WinnipegWinnipegWinnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, ManitobaManitobaManitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
(1978) - The Sydney Opera HouseSydney Opera HouseThe Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
, New South WalesNew South WalesNew South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
(January 1986)
External links
- Steranko.com (placeholder page only) Accessed October 14, 2009
- Koening, Bill. "Bill Koenig Remembers: 'Don't Yield, Back S.H.I.E.L.D.'", Her Majesty's Secret Servant (fan site), 2000. WebCitation archive.
- Meyer, Ken Jr. "1970 Jim Steranko Portfolio", "Ink Stains" 25 (column), ComicAttack,net, December 1, 2010. WebCitation archive.
- "Jim Steranko Interview", Comic Book ResourcesComic Book ResourcesComic Book Resources, also known as CBR is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book-related news and discussion.-History:Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1996 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland had created to discuss DC...
, October 10, 2001. WebCitation archive (requires scrolldown).