One of the many things I love about comics is the art. Yeah the story plays a very important role, the colors and the lettering but to me I have always been a fan of the artwork that an artist creates. The artist is the one who brings the story from the writer to life, he adds a certain something to bring each panel, each page to life. A great artist knows how to translate a page of words and details into a detailed page of art. I guess that's why I love comics so much and I guess that's why I still collect and read comics to this day.
Welcome to the 62nd Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast: Drawing Board. I introduced the Drawing Board on my broadcast as a way of talking about artists I like. The last time I talked about Travis Charest and posted some of his artwork. This time around I wanted to talk about Mr. Michael J. Zeck or just simply Mike Zeck.
Mike Zeck was born in Greenville, Pennsylvania. He attended the Ringling School of art in 1967. He began his career in comics in 1974 doing illustration assignments for the text stories in some animated comics for Charlton Comics. Charlton Comics was a comic company that was in business from 1945 to 1986. Zeck also did their line of horror comics as well. In 1977, Zeck started working for Marvel Comics. It was this time that he started working with a writer named Doug Moench on a Marvel Comic called The Hands Of Shang Chi. Master Of Kung Fu.
I have to admit I never had a chance to read this comic. I think I would have liked it. The character of Shang Chi was created by writer Steve Engelhart and artist Jim Starlin, Shang Chi has no special superpowers, but he exhibits extraordinary skills in Martial Arts. Here's a little history behind Shang Chi, he was conceived in late 1972 when Marvel wished to acquire the rights to adapt the TV Series Kung Fu (remember that series?) but they couldn't get the permission from Time Warner, owner of DC Comics. The publisher acquired the comic book rights to pulp fiction novel Sax Rohmer's Fu ManChu. And thus Shang Chi was born, a master of kung fu, who was introduced as the previously unheard of son of Fu Manchu.
As I mentioned earlier, I never had the chance to read this comic but from what I saw of it, the series was packed with Martial Arts action, antrigue and deadly villains but most of all, some really great artwork from Mike Zeck as evidenced in this page below.
In 2010, Comics Bulletin ranked Doug Moench and Mike Zeck's work on Shang Chi, Master Of Kung Fu as Number 6 on their list of the "Top 10 1970s Marvels" and I personally think it was well deserved. After Master of Kung Fu, Mike Zeck would move on to another Marvel title, one which chronicled the adventures of Steve Rogers, Captain America. It was when he started drawing Captain America that I first came across his work and I was hooked, I've been a fan ever since.
I could be wrong so please correct me if I'm mistaken but I do believe this was Mike Zeck's first cover and first time he drew Captain America, this is the cover to Captain America # 224 by Zeck and Bob McLeod. This issue was written by Peter Gilis, Zeck's pencils were inked by
Mike Esposito and John Tartaglione. Now here's the strange thing I found out, after this issue Mike Zeck didn't draw Captain America until Issue # 258. Yeah, it was strange to me that after Issue # 224, we had to wait for quite a while for Mike Zeck to work on Captain America again.
This issue was written by Chris Claremont who wrote the plot and scripted pages 1-12 while David Michelinie did the script from pages 13-22. Mike Zeck did both pencils and inks for this issue where Steve's date with Bernie Rosenthal is interrupted by a super-powered arsonist. This was the first time I saw his artwork and I loved it immediately. I went on to try and find more of his work.
These were the issues I found and I loved the artwork by Mike Zeck. Issue # 262 and 263 was written by J. M. DeMatteis, Mike Zeck's pencils were inked by Frank McLaughlin, but he was acknowledged as Quickdraw Studios. In issue # 262, as Cap is participating in publicity
appearances for the upcoming movie about his life, he is constantly
plagued by the Nihilist Front and "saved" by the mysterious Nomad;
During a Captain America Day parade, Cap is attacked by the Nihilist
Front and the giant Ameridroid who kills Nomad and captures Cap; When
Cap awakens, he discovers that he is going to be starring in a very
different movie...The Death of Captain America courtesy of the Red
Skull. The story continues in # 263 where Cap tries very hard NOT to star in a movie
Red Skull is trying to make about his death; He is able to break
Ameridorids programming and escape before the final curtain; The
recently deceased Nomad is revealed to the public as a phony; A movie
exec pulls the plug on the Captain America movie; Cap takes on the
Nihilist Order and battles the Red Skull and gets a little timely help
from the dying Ameridroid. Great story which was made better with the art of Mike Zeck.
I tried my best to keep up with this title but it was hard those days as shipments were erratic and the comics were not a priority for the book stores. I lost track of a lot of Captain America issues drawn by Mike Zeck. Something else I regretted. A few years later I found out that Zeck left the title at issue # 290. It was then that I saw a trade paper back containing a three part issue drawn by Mike Zeck. I was kicking myself for missing out on those three issues but I did get the trade paper back. What a great story that was. You may remember it, here's the cover.
In this storyline which ran from # 286 to # 289, a clone of Luther Manning comes back in time
from 1991 (this changes to 1993 in issue #288) to find the Deathlok
cyborg. Steve is supposed to be spending a weekend at Bernie's (get it?) when they almost run down Manning. Cap follows him into
an abandoned Brand Corp. building where they come up against Brand
soldiers and Deathlok himself.
Zeck also did a number of great covers for other titles as well, in particular for a comic called G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero and G.I. Joe Special Missions. Here are a few of my favorites.
One cover in particular was a favorite of mine from G.I. Joe, it was the cover to issue # 43. The cover itself did not feature a single G.I. Joe character, here have a look.
The cover featured The Grim Reaper shooting an M60 machine gun. I remember I tweeted this as being one of the most memorable covers by Mike Zeck. I was surprised to hear from Mike Zeck himself, he tweeted back that he came up with the concept of this cover devoid of all the Joe characters, from Cobra and just featured the Grim Reaper on the cover. The message was in war, no one wins, only death wins.
In 1984, Mike Zeck illustrated a limited series called Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. I was so excited and I wanted to get this limited series but as luck would have it, I never saw a single copy of Secret Wars until some years later, I was finally able to buy the series years after it had come out. Zeck drew the lion's share of the 12 part limited series and I loved his artwork on Secret Wars.
Issue # 8 of Secret Wars sported Spider Man's new costume which was designed by Mike Zeck. Over the years a lot of people have tried to take credit for the black and white Spidey costume but it's been proven that Mike Zeck was the guy who created the costume that would be a Spider Man Villain Venom. Secret Wars for me was an unforgettable comic book, I loved each issue, I read almost each issue almost a hundred times in particular issue # 12 which was my first look at Secret Wars.
In 1986, Mike Zeck illustrated quite possible my all time favorite comic book. It was a four part limited series, well it was first supposed to be a four parter but an extra issue was added on. Zeck drew the first four issue while Mike Vosburg did Issue # 5. Zeck collaborated with writer Steven Grant for this limited series which would be collected as The Punisher: Circle of Blood.
Punisher: Circle Of Blood became my all time favorite Mike Zeck comic, in fact to this day it's my unattainable prize, my holy grail if you will. I am still looking for this comic book.
Have a look at these covers.
Beautiful aren't they? I love the way Mike Zeck drew the covers and how Phil Zimelman enhanced an already beautiful set of covers and made them look so beautiful. After the success of this mini series, Zeck would collaborate with Steven Grant on another Punisher project. This one I actually have in my collection. I made sure I bought it, Punisher: Return To Big Nothing, a hard cover graphic novel.
Again apart from Steven Grant, Mike Zeck collaborated with Phil Zimelman to create another great cover. Just beautiful. In 1987, Zeck illustrated what would be referred to as one of the quintessential stories in Spider-Man's history, as well as the definitive Kraven The Hunter stories. Kraven's Last Hunt was a part storyline that ran through all the Spider Man Titles.
Mike Zeck once again collaborated with his former Captain America writer J.M.
DeMatties for this storyline. DeMatteis remarked, "Because Mike nailed the plot elements so perfectly
in his pencils—every action, every emotion, was there, clear as a bell—I
didn’t have to worry about belaboring those elements in the captions or
dialogue. I was free to do those interior monologues that were so
important to the story. If any other artist had drawn “Kraven’s Last
Hunt” ... it wouldn’t have been the same story. I agree. His art was spot on and it was just magical what Zeck did. It's no wonder that Zeck and DeMatties worked so well together.
Apart from his work at Marvel, Zeck has worked for DC Comics, IDW and a few other companies as well. Zeck did the covers for DC Comics' Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast, a storyline that ran from Issue # 417 to # 420 in 1988 among various others.
Zeck also drew a few covers for various DC Comics Titles as well, one of my favorites in this one for Deathstroke The Terminator. Here's a look at the covers he drew.
Mike Zeck, one of the truly talented artists in comics. His artwork has been in comics published by Charlton Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, to Dark House, Devil's Due, First Comics, Image, Homage, Malibu, Topps and just so many more. For this edition of the broadcast, I'm just showing you some of my favorites, some I have in my collection, some I hope one day will be in my collection. These days you can meet Mike Zeck in person as he makes appearances in various comic cons, I hope to one day be able to meet him at a con, fingers crossed.
If you'd like to know more about Mike Zeck's body of work, the titles he's worked on, then you can visit his website
www.mikezeck.com and find out more about this talented artist. Myself, I created a pinterest account to showcase his artwork, you can go to
pinterest.com and look for "Mike Zeck Artwork".
I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Drawing Board on the Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast. I hope you've enjoyed looking at The Art Of Mike Zeck. I know sharing all his art with you has brought back a lot of great memories of reading comics and discovering his art work.
Drop by again for another edition of The Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast and as always, take care!
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