Unsung Heroes - George Freeman

I first became aware of George Freeman's work as an inker over Paul Smith on Leave It To Chance. The fact is the majority of his work was from prior to that, throughout the 80s pencilling and inking and colouring. His inking is a forerunner of the Karl Story/Gaijin studio look, great smooth sharp brush strokes, striking areas of black. I don't think his cartooning is for everone, his lantern jaws and very stylised women, I love it! When he's inking himself where are few I like more.
His influences appear to be Golden Age comic art and I see a lot of Ditko in it too. Like Ditko inked by Frank Giacoia There are many short stories, odd inking and colour jobs since Leave it Chance but I just want to highlight the work which has spoken to me, of which there's enough.



His first comics work was on Richard Comely's Captain Canuck which I was given by a good friend. I don't know that the story stood the test of time but Freeman but you can see Freeman's foundation as a stylist clearly. He participated in most issues either finishing over layouts and colouring or drawing himself. Interesting but just the start.



His break in American comics came on a four issue Jack Of Hearts mini series with Bill Mantlo. Marvel around this time also published several George Freeman stories in Marvel Fanfare, home of recycled try out and inventory strips which are also nice! A servicable enough mini with a weird alien protagonist, I guess it's a very 80s Marvel series. Well worth a look though.



This was followed by a nice Batman/Catwoman Brave & The Bold working dominating Joe Staton (including a gag that slipped by editorial about a shoe shop called Pedo Phile)





Following a very nice strip with Peter Milligan (reprinted below), his next significant work was following P Craig Russell woking over Michael T Gilbert's layouts for Roy Thomas' scripts on Elric. The last leg of this work looks a little hurried but the examples above are from Weird Of The White Wolf #1 which is strikingly pretty!! That great First comics look that you also see on Nexus, great colours.





Batman Annual 11 contains a pitch PERFECT Batman story with Alan Moore. Similar to the best issues of the Batman Adventures. I was very happy to hear Moore also prefers this story to Killing Joke. Freeman's art gracefully leads you through a nutty Clayface's love for a shop manequin and jealousy of Batman's presence around the store.





A Secret Origin story of the Golden Age Green Lantern with Roy Thomas, complete with World Trade Fair and the prototypical "Lantern Jaw" is very well suited to his style.



Next up was a blackly comic anthology called Wasteland with comic Del Close, John Ostrander, Bill Messner Loebs, David Lloyd, Don Simpson. Freeman contributed half a dozen strips though only the one above from issue 4 managed to shine, neon lit. All the rest are very nice but kind of washed out. All round a series worth looking at if you come across it cheap or they ever finally collect it somewhere.

There was a Block Widow Marvel Graphic novel he did with Gerry Conway but artwise there are some shocking moments due to a cocktail of inkers. Not a highpoint but a curiousity.





His last significant work for the either of the two big US publishers was an 8 page strip over Stuart Immonen. He's been paired with some shockingly mediocre artist in order, I guess, to drag them up a notch but this pairing was beautiful, each page about a different Legionnaire in a different style. I would love to see more.

There are many more bits and pieces but Freeman, truth being there's probably some in everyone's collection in some shape or form; inking Tarzan, Star Wars, JLA, colouring Nexus, X-Files.

His last big body of work was a Mr Monster story of 48 pages of Mr Monster craziness. Fun enough but I want more!!!!!

Below is a stip with Peter Miligan from Pacific Comics' Vanguard 6. A classic feeling with Wally Wood and Steranko over and undertones. Enjoy.

More Chango

Been way too long since I posted anything so here I go. Gonna try for weekly.
Here's more Chango. If you like it, seek out the book. THe cover is torture with a photo of him stood in front of more than a hundred different pieces, covers and posters.
More books please!

Tony Salmons with check list added

In honour of this months "The Strange Adventures Of H P Lovecraft" from Image.


Around twenty years ago I bought the above G.I.Joe comic when it was seriealised in the the back of Transformers weekly. It was hands down the ugliest comic I'd seen at that point. Unbelieveable. Off model, ugly girls and a pretty good story which always makes bad art feel worse (imagine if it was drawn by Ron Randall!!?!?!?!).
I was also disappointed when Mignola drew X-Force 8. Were I a little older I probably would have hated Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants.
A few years later when I realised that people like Kevin Nowlan, Bret Blevins, Mike Mignola, Klaus Janson were great and had all kicked off their careers working at Marvel under Jim Shooter I ended up digging through titles like Marvel Fanfare, Marvel Premier etc which you could always find cheap.
I came across this great Hulk story in Marvel Fanfare. Kirby lines with Frazetta ballet, strange colours but really a lovely little strip.

He did a five issue mini called Dakota North which was fine but I came to realise that he'd done very little over the years.

James Robinson and Archie Goodwin until recently had managed to get the most work out of him between the almost four issues of the EXcellent Vigilante mini (with Mark Chiarello on colours, also recently collected by DC after more than a decade) and a stand-alone issue of Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight. He had worked on Bruce Timm's Batman Adventures so has been busy and when you follow his super fluid storytelling you understand why.

According to an article I read with/by Toby Cypress, Salmons has burnt a lot of bridges over the years and many won't work him which is a sin. Below are first a Thor/Iron image which shows what we might have had if his early Avengers series had come off. Following that is a story from Penthouse Comics (the only two I own, I hasten to add...). Ninteen pages in a smutty comic so I guess not too many have seen it. Enjoy and check out the Lovecraft book at 160 pages, first issue free here

In my opinion, the Tony Salmons books worth tracking down are:
Dakota North 1-5 though not a great read!
Doctor Strange 2nd Series 64
GI Joe 69
GI Joe Yearbook 3 from 1986 or thereabouts
Captain America Red White and Blue
Adventures Of Lovecraft
Vigilante Miniseries 1-4
Legends Of the Dark Knight 85
Batman Gotham Knights 4 (Batman B&W collected in Batman B&W Vol 2

There's also a characteristically unfinished website
http://www.tonysalmons.net/

All too Beautiful

Like Batman, Black Canary is a character for which Toth is famous for defining in very few pages. This two part 16 page story from Adventure Comics has Toth down as a definitive Black Canary artist.
For me he also manages to to completely nail Green Arrow in either one of the two panels below. He just brought some swashbuckling Errol Flynn love to it and there you go. I assume this is also what lent to Trevor Von Eeden's great version of the character in the 80s Green Arrow mini.


Also, how amazing is penultimate panel below...!?!?!?

And below, Photoshopped into black and white to highlight the amazing composition of the page...