Ladies and Gentlemen! This is the exact Curt Swan comic book page that made me gay.
From World’s Finest 167.
Swanderful : comics pages by Curt Swan
In brief: These are comics pages by Curt Swan that show why he's my favorite comic book artist.
My bio: I am Dale Lazarov, writer/editor of chic hardcovers of gay comics filth. I have a theory that everyone I collaborate with has a little Curt Swan in them...
At some further length: These are comics pages by Curt Swan that show why he's my favorite comic book artist. Swan’s homoerotics (for me, at least) are tied into how he’s able to represent or allude to both distinctive and relatable emotional states, vulnerability and power, often simultaneously, in facial expression, body language, framing/mise-en-scene and choice of moment. And this goes deeply into the core of how and why STICKY, MANLY, NIGHTLIFE, FANCY, etc, work so well for me and for readers as gay romantic porn comics. Rather than keeping my Curt Swan page samples, close readings of his narrative technique and gay-gazing of his handsome, bulgy dudes between me and my collaborators and comixfriends, I've decided to share my scholarship of and love for Curt Swan with the internets.
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD! I, Dale Lazarov, will be a Special Guest at Comikaze Expo 2012 in Los Angeles on September 15-16, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center!
My updated bio :)
Dale Lazarov is the writer/editor of NIGHTLIFE (buy at Amazon or The Book Depository, drawn by Bastian Jonsson), MANLY (buy at Amazon or The Book Depository, drawn by Amy Colburn), STICKY (out of print, drawn by Steve MacIsaac), and his latest, GOOD SPORTS (buy at Amazon or The Book Depository, drawn by Alessio Slonimsky), collections of gay erotic comics that Gay Vox, among others, have called “the best gay erotica comics ever”.
Dale’s collaboration with erotic artist Drubskin, “The Welcome Back Fuck”, was featured in BEST GAY EROTICA 2007 and BEST OF THE BEST GAY EROTICA 3 (Cleis Press). He’s currently collaborating on FANCY with Delic Van Loond, Sean Platter and Christophe Jannin, BULLDOGS with Chas Hunter & Si Arden, FAST FRIENDS with Laura “Zel” Carboni, CHUMS with Foxy Andy, NIGHTLIFE 2 with Bastian Jonsson, GRUFF with Kardyman and POWER POP BOYS with Mioki. Dale currently lives and works in Chicago.
“Dale Lazarov brings fun back to hot gay porn. He tells hot stories about hot guys who are as diverse as they are engaging – every hot story has depth, emotion and lots of hot joyful sex. And did I mention they’re hot?” – Lene Taylor, I Read Comics
***
I speak and write English and Spanish. :) / Hablo y escribo en inglés y español. :)
Bragging rights
Among other things, STICKY, MANLY and NIGHTLIFE have the distinction of being held in world-class special collections of comic art at university libraries. Take THAT, naysayers!
Curt Swan draws Santa Claus and Superman — together for the first time (as they used to say)! Inks by Murphy Anderson. From DC Comics Presents #67.
(Page scan from http://comiccoverage.typepad.com/comic_coverage/2008/12/the-perfection-checklist.html )
APE IN A CAPE: If You Are Openly LGBTQ And You Make Comics...
I am Dale Lazarov and I write and edit gay erotic comics :) My fourth book, GOOD SPORTS, drawn by Alessio Slonimsky, comes out in hardcover in April 2012 from Bruno Gmünder Verlag. I live in Chicago. :)
More details about my books and etc at http://www.dalelazarov.com/ :)
Or know someone great who is and does, I would appreciate hearing from you. Just a short bio on your work, and a link, if you have one, would be lovely.
It’s for something cool, but I don’t want to give away too much yet, while we are still in the very early stages. No one will be solicited or…
Curt Swan draws Brainiac 5 resisting brain rape! From Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes 202.
Ooh! The colored cover version of a Curt Swan Superman pin-up I posted a month or so ago! Nice to see it was reproduced from the pencils.
(Source: rainydayrecesstoo)
I don’t get to do this too often: print and original page 6, issue 16 of The Adventures of Superboy, May 1991. Art by Curt Swan and Kim DeMulder. I have the issue again!
This is the uncolored version of an Aquaman page I posted on Swanderful two years ago!
(Source: rainydayrecesstoo)
Curt Swan draws Superman…getting his ass kicked by a lightning super-villain!
Panel 1: One of my favorite old-timey comics clichés is the “Expositional Greek Chorus”. This panel sets up the dock workers on the left of the panel to deliver the “DC Super-Heroes Are Trusted, Admired and/or Loved Celebrities To The Populace” meme which, to my ears, was always a response to Marvel’s Expositional Greek Choruses that stated, by and large, “Marvel Super-Heroes Are, At Best, Ambivalent Figures To The Populace”. Moving rightwards, we see Lightning (who is in a supervillain duo with Thunder, natch) riding some (what else) lightning and destroying fragile S.T.A.R. Laboratories shipments with a shipping vessel and a customs house in the background. Superman emerges from the left, leaving plumes of Metropolis Bay sea water in the air behind him, looking really thick and powerful.
Panel 2: The combination of Superman’s alarmed expression, his elegant left hand which implies something other than violence, and the forearm and fist that are so powerful they’re drawn in exaggerated perspective and breaking through the frame of the panel, tell you that Supey is not doing this out of brutality or rage but out of a desire to protect. Meanwhile, Lightning’s pose is so elegant and insouciant it sells that the villain just does not give a fuck about destroying public property and endangering the public…and is confident that no harm will come to him…
Panel 3: …and it doesn’t. The villain’s lack of concern becomes a smug grin when Supey hurts himself trying to punch him in the chest. Supey’s face does look like he’s screaming in pain but not so much look he’s frightened. WOW, look at Supey’s body language in this panel: elegant, powerful and unbowed.
Panel 4: NOW Superman’s scared and bowed: look at those hands and those legs as he crashes on his ass. If this doesn’t make you want to flip the page to see what happens next…!
From Superman 303, inked by Bob Oskner and written by Gerry Conway. If I could post every page of this comic and analyze it for your edification and pleasure, I would, but that goes beyond Fair Use of copyrighted material. :-( (If anyone at DC Comics wants to contact me to give me permission to post the whole thing for scholarly purposes, I would be so delighted!)
Curt Swan’s exquisite figure work and architectural drawing totally gets early 90’s Batman, Nightwing, Robin and Gotham City in this pin-up. You can count on Swan doing realistic but expressive bodies and buildings.
Superman on Superman violence! Love the hammy arms, legs and upper bodies.
Curt Swan pin-up of Superman breaking chains with his chest!
Today in Swanderful: it’s the little details that tell the story in this page from Superman 376.
Panel 1: Notice Lois Lane walking away from the scene to the left of Clark Kent with Clark in the foreground and Perry White in the middle distance to the left of Clark with some other journalist in between them facing away from the “camera”. In dense, smaller panels, Curt Swan would choose to draw a few “props” to give the reader a sense of location (in this case, Clark’s computer) and focus on drawing human figures to give a sense of space and mood instead of using detailed backgrounds. Clark’s face sells his mild character more than his dialogue which comes off as a little too urgent thanks to the unnecessary exclamation mark in his second word balloon. (It’s in genre for the time to overuse exclamation marks.)
Panel 2: Clark’s expression and hand gesture just totally sell the moment. I love how their top shirt buttons are undone and Clark’s tie is a bit off. Clothes acting! I love how the smoke is visually choking Clark’s neck. Smoke acting! (Yes, I overuse exclamation marks, also. Sue me, it’s in genre for a comics writer/editor/mastermind/future legend like myself. Excelsior!)
Panel 3: Perry’s tie is really messy and the thinner end is longer than the wider. More clothes acting… I love their expressive hands, here, as well.
Panel 4: We now look over their shoulders at Perry opening his office safe. You would think that having the protagonists in very limited profile would work against storytelling but the point here is to focus our attention towards a secret: what’s inside Perry’s safe. I don’t know about you, but, for my generation, what my parents kept in their safe was something that was mysterious and wonderful and I wanted to know what was in it.
Panel 5: The mystery is revealed. Perry used to keep super-cigars in it — cigars that granted him (and, in this story, Superman) temporary super-powers — but they’ve run out. Perry White keeps illegal Cuban cigars in it now. The intrusive cloud of cigar smoke from the first three panels swirls into the frame…
Panel 6: Really, Clark’s expression is priceless and the detailing on his features is exquisite. Perry doesn’t need to be in the frame as his dialogue, hand and Zippo lighter stand for him.
Panel 7: Look at what sells Clark’s feigned fainting: his hair gets messed up, he grabs his chest with one hand, he waves the cigar away with the other, his glasses slide down his nose and and his tie flaps loosely. Perry amusingly doesn’t take Clark’s histrionics seriously and ponders on the cigar…
