![]() Shortly afterward, he 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. Breaking into comicsĪfter 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 was “trying to create a line of super heroes within a publishing company that had specialized in anthropomorphic animals.”For Simon and Harvey Comics, Steranko created (or helped create) and wrote the characters Spyman, Magicmaster and the Gladiator for the company’s short-lived superhero line, Harvey Thriller. 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”. 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 same local venues, sometimes on the same bill, and became friendly with Haley guitarist Frank Beecher, who became a musical influence.ĭuring the day, Steranko made his living as an artist for a printing company in his hometown of Reading, designing and drawing pamphlets and flyers for local dance clubs and the like. Steranko, whose first band, in 1956, was cal led 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. 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. At 17, Steranko and another teenage boy were arrested for a string of burglaries and car thefts in Pennsylvania. At s chool, 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. He learned stage magic using paraphernalia from his father’s stage magician act, and in his teens spent several summers working with circuses and carnivals, working his way up to sideshow performer as a fire-eater and in acts involving a bed of nails and sleight-of-hand. JIM STERANKO AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT MOVIERadio programs, Saturday movie matinées and serials, and other popular culture of the time also influenced him. 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. 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. Steranko began drawing while very young, opening and flattening envelopes from the mail to use as sketch paper. Steranko’s father and five uncles showed musical inclination, performing in a band that played on Reading radio in the 1930s, Steranko has said. He slept on a couch in the nominal living room until he was more than 10 years old. Steranko’s early childhood, during the American Great Depression, was spent in a three-room house with a tar-paper roof and outhouse toilet facilities. Steranko’s father, one of nine siblings, began working in the mines at age 10, and as an adult became a tinsmith. 1966)Īccording to his authorized biography, Jim Steranko’s grandparents emigrated from the Ukraine to settle in the anthracite coal-mining region of eastern Pennsylvania. Steranko's first published comic-book art: Inset of George Tuska cover, Harvey Comics' Spyman #1 (Sept. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |