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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Dan Spiegle, R.I.P.

Sad to hear of the passing of artist Dan Spiegle. His long-time friend and frequent collaborator Mark Evanier has a nice tribute here.

I probably saw some of Spiegle's work for Gold Key or other publishers in the 1970s, but I really noticed it when he started to do work for DC around 1980. I think the first bit I remember seeing was one of the "Tales of Gotham" shorts he did in DETECTIVE.  Then I really noticed the two-year stint he did on the "Nemesis" back-up feature with writer Cary Burkett in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, which combined with the Jim Aparo art on the lead in most issues made that one of my favourite books of that era. He did a lot of other memorable stuff for DC in that era, including some "Creature Commando" stories and some short stories for the mystery/sci-fi books.

Later on, after a few years away from buying comics, my memory of those stories from 1980-1982 got me digging through the back issue bins to get what became my favourites to his work, two of his collaborations with Mark Evanier in long runs of BLACKHAWK and CROSSFIRE. I've picked up a lot of his other stuff that I missed in the years since, although of course it's only a fraction of the work that he's done.

I'll try to update this with a few choice scans of his artwork in the next few days (I decided to give it its own post).  Until then, I'll repeat a strong recommendation for John Coates' book DAN SPIEGLE - A LIFE IN COMIC ART that I reviewed here.
Weblog by BobH [bobh1970 at gmail dot com]