POP PRIMER: JIM STERANKO
A Brief Overview of Jim Steranko's Comic Book Career.

by Tony Robertson

This month, PopImage is proud to begin a series of looks at the careers of top names in comics history, for the purpose of familiarizing newer readers with classic creators.

At the time Jim Steranko broke into the comics industry in 1966, you could buy the complete Marvel Comics monthly line for $1.20. Jack Kirby and Stan Lee dominated the line, with additional help from John Buscema, John Romita, Gene Colan, Roy Thomas and a handful of others.

Steranko, then in his late-twenties, got the assignment to ink Nick Fury, Agent of Shield in STRANGE TALES # 151 over Jack Kirby's layouts. Steranko was thrilled at the opportunity to work with Kirby, as Jack was one of Jim's comic-book creator heroes. The reality of the collaboration was less than awesome.Steranko's and Kirby's styles did not mix well.

"by then he was writing, pencilling, inking and colouring his 12 page Nick Fury stories"

After three unspectacular issues, JS was given the assignment to handle the art on his own. From the outset, something new and exciting began happening on the comic- book page. JS at this time wasn't yet a great artist,but the energy and graphic design sense was clearly evident. In the next issue (STRANGE TALES #155), he took over the writing chores as well, and comics have never been the same since. He assumed colouring the book in the next issue, so by then he was writing, pencilling, inking and colouring his 12 page Nick Fury stories.Nick Fury was battling Hydra, and with each subsequent issue Steranko's imagination, design, art, experimentation, innovation and story-telling improved.

He seemed to be on a single-handed mission to explode every comic-book rule that had come before, always with style and taste, and always to advance comics as a narrative medium. Each page was designed for maximum graphic impact. Steranko was conscious of where the advertisement pages would be placed within the book, and used those pages to pace his stories. He also designed each page with this in mind. For example, if a page was to be placed beside an ad page - the Steranko page would be designed to be viewed as a single page. On the other hand, if two Steranko pages were side by side, they would be designed as such, even if it was not a double-page spread! It will be interesting to see how Marvel handles this in the Strange Tales reprint book due out in April, 2000.

By the time Nick Fury, Agent of Shield broke away from Strange Tales into it's own 20 page a month title in 1968, Steranko was flying! All of a sudden, his comic-book covers became masterpieces of Comic Book Art - exploding off the comic book racks. The last fifteen covers he did for Marvel in this era have to be considered the best ever done in comics' history. His storytelling took a giant leap at this time, becoming compelling twenty page novellas - Fury mesmerized and perplexed by events. After four complete issues and three cover-only issues, he quit the strip.

"He seemed to be on a single-handed mission to explode every comic-book rule that had come before"

He did three issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA after doing some fill-in X-MEN covers and interiors and a HULK cover. His third and last Cap, issue #113, is considered by many CAPTAIN AMERICA fans as one of the best rendered Cap stories of all time! Steranko was not only a great graphic designer/storyteller, by this time (1969), he had also become a great artist as well.

His next story was the masterful AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT in TOWER OF SHADOWS #1. Steranko developed a totally new and different artistic style. In his last Marvel story, 'MY HEART BROKE IN HOLLYWOOD' in OUR LOVE STORY #5, he again morphed his style - pure Steranko, yet in another guise.

Jim Steranko basically quit comics at this time(1970), but would occasionally return with mind-blowing, ever more revolutionary projects. In 1976, he created the 120 page graphic novel RED TIDE (to be re-published by Dark Horse in March 2000, newly re-written, re-drawn, and re-coloured) for Byron Preiss. It represented Steranko's direction in graphic storytelling for many of his subsequent projects - basically graphics above text. It almost seemed like he was trying to atone for all his wild layouts done in the sixties (and almost always imitated for all the wrong reasons) by stressing order and beauty.

REPENT HARLEQUIN SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN was done in 1978 and appeared in The ILLUSTRATED HARLAN ELLISON. It is truly his best work- each 3D plate can stand on its own as a work of art; taken together with the story, it is emotionally gut wrenching.

His project for HEAVY METAL in 1981, an adaptation of the film OUTLAND, saw Steranko develop yet another totally different style.It wasn't a great movie, but in Sterankos's hands, it is a graphic tour-de-force. Jim re-appeared in comics in 1984 in SUPERMAN #400. His 'EXILE AT THE EDGE OF ETERNITY' was a symbolic, muralist narrative, beautifully illustrated with an EC-esque finale.

Jim's latest comics project came out in 1998. It was billed as the world's first docu-comic. The auto-biographic STERANKO-GRAPHIC PRINCE OF DARKNESS was a dark masterpiece of art and text.

Jim Steranko is currently digitally colouring RED TIDE. He also runs his own web-based mail-order firm at www.prevuemag.com. He's planning a new website at www.steranko.com. And like the rest of us, he's buying and selling on eBay like mad. For more information, be sure to check out Tony's Steranko site at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula
/8650/phinnweb.html

Tony Robertson is a contributor to PopImage.

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