2020 Christmas Cards

January 12, 2021

Traditionally I send out a handful of Christmas cards every year, and I usually do some kind of drawing inside. This past Christmas, I decided to do a series of homage drawings. I scoured the internet—or my comics—for some classic comic book covers or individual poses that may have been used by Marvel and DC for merchandise or licensing. Some of the poses I chose to draw go all the way back to the early 1970s. As it turns out—the earliest is the Spider-Man drawing which goes back even further to the late 1960s. At first, I thought the earliest one would be Captain America by Sal Buscema and Frank Giacoia from Captain America and the Falcon #154 published in October, 1972 followed closely by Superman by Neal Adams which is from Action Comics #419 published in December, 1972. However, after I had mailed the cards out, I discovered that I wrongly attributed the Spider-Man drawing to John Romita. I couldn’t recall if it was drawn in a comic book or was done for Marvel merchandise. The drawing was actually penciled by John Buscema and inked by Jim Mooney for the fantastic splash page in Amazing Spider-Man #78, November, 1969—shame on me for not knowing.

Believe it or not—that drawing is still being used for Marvel Comics merchandise today! As the saying goes—”The proof is in the pudding!” In this case, the proof is on the package; as you can see by the photographs below.

To the left is the splash page from Amazing Spider-Man #78. The only difference I can see between this original and the merchandise version is that the head in the merchandise version has been rotated to appear to face forward rather than to the side. This drawing of Spider-Man has been used numerous times over the decades since it was originally created. Artists work for comic book companies on a work for hire basis. The company isn’t required to compensate the artist further than the original payment agreed upon for the comic book assignment. The company owns all rights to the reproduction of the imagery created by the artists. Unless something special was written in the contract, like a royalty agreement, the artist isn’t entitled to any further payment for future use of the imagery they created—a whole other subject.

Following is the gallery of cards. All are reproductions of poses by some of my favorite artist heroes, except for Krypto. I’m sure I was looking at reference drawings of him, but I made that one my own. You’ll notice there are quite a few by José Luis García López which is no error—he’s one of my all-time favorites! All of them are drawn freehand while I was looking at the original drawing on my phone; then inked with brush and India ink. I was surprised at how well the cards accepted the ink.

Christmas 2021 is right around the corner. We shall see how many I come up with this time.

*Spider-Man penciled by John Buscema, inked by Jim Mooney—wrongly attributed to John Romita.