Underappreciated Artist Spotlight: Dan Spiegle

[Lone Ranger]

I haven't started one of the threads in ages, so I figured another one was long overdue, and the artist in question is long overdue.

Dan Spiegle rarely gets mentioned among the funnybook greats, but over recent years I've noticed a real trend towards a greater appreciation of what he brought to the 4 Color world.

My first exposure to Spiegle work was likely Gold Key's Space Family Robinson #42, but I really started to notice him as an arist (not knowing his name, just style) with the Nemesis back-ups in Brave and the Bold. Let me get this out of the way - I was not a fan. I thought it was all very ugly and amateurish. I was young, what can I say?

Over time, I really grew to enjoy his work. He manages to infuses the page with a lot of life and is a master storyteller. His characters all seem real, and he draws the best thugs in the game. What surprised me most while trying to compile art for this thread was how incredible he was at background scenery and landscapes.

His 80s Blackhawk run is my favourite - although I love every Korak story I see.

Here are some examples of his art.

This is a worldless page from Crossfire. It is beautifully constructed. I'd love to see ME's script for that page (paging Mr. Evanier.... Mr. Mark Evanier)



This Black Hood page could almost be wordless, as the story moves along beauifully and the emotions etched on the faces tell the story. It is downright Tothian.



A Star Spangled War Stories double page spread - with a nice shot of Paris.



Finally, this two page sequence from the Black Hole treasury, shows that Spiegle could portray action on a large scale as well as he could a back alley fight.




Now for the standard questions:

1. What do you think of Dan Spiegle's work
2. What is your favourite comic by Dan Spiegle?
3. What title or character would you like to have seen him work on?

[Cei-U!]

Great choice! Dan Spiegle is an unbelievably versatile cartoonist and draws the most expressive faces in comics, bar none. Space Family Robinson, Korak, "Nemesis" and Crossfire are all favorites of mine and, like LR, I consider his and Evanier's run on Blackhawk definitive (sorry, Crandall fans). Heck, even my non-comics-reading sister owns a Spiegle comic (Dell's adaptation of The Parent Trap)!

Cei-U!
I summon the creme de la creme!

[Mark Evanier]

Dan Spiegle...lovely man, amazing talent. I've been very fortunate to have had so many of my scripts drawn by him. It's like writing for the best actor in the world.

By the way: Dan drew tons of great KORAK comics but the page you have above is from a story I wrote that was drawn by Doug Wildey. He was good, too.

[Bill Angus]

Wonderful choice, Scott. I've been a fan for years. To be honest, when I first heard that Darwyn Cooke was leaving the Spirit, Dan was my first thought for who should take over the art chores (not that I'm complaining about Mike Ploog's or Paul Smith's takes, of course)...

[Lone Ranger]

By the way: Dan drew tons of great KORAK comics but the page you have above is from a story I wrote that was drawn by Doug Wildey. He was good, too.

I knew it!

It was listed as Spiegle by a 'reputable' auction house. Now that I take a closer look (especially at the other pages), it is obviously Wildey.

I was just looking for some Korak art and that was the first thing I saw. Since parenthood, I've had a lot less time with my scanner - so rely on 'borrowing' from the net too much.

I've amended the above.

[MWGallaher]

Dan's one of my top 5 favorite comics artists, but like LR, I was slow in coming to appreciate his work. My eyes were opened when I decided to catch up in the middle of his run on BLACKHAWK, which was earning well-deserved critical acclaim.
I was bowled over by his art this time, and since then, I've bought his work almost every time I've seen it on the stands (the only thing I remember passing up was BOYS' LIFE magazine, which used to run some short Spiegle strips in its comics pages). I've managed to obtain one page of original art, a DC Star Trek page.
So obviously, I think very highly of his work now. He's one of the relatively rare comics artists whose already substantial skills improved with age. I find his artwork incredibly rich. He has few (if any) equals in the American comics field when it comes to rendering his "sets": they are detailed, authentic, convincing, full of depth, and fully thought-out. He has few peers at depicting "character actors": the society matrons, the balding slobs, the awkward geeks, the slimy businessmen...compare the cast of characters in a Spiegle comic with the parade of nearly identical face/body types in a typical "hot" artists comic and Spiegle's work is dazzlingly diverse.
My favorite Spiegle work is CROSSFIRE, which is also one of my all-time favorite comics all around. I'm also very fond of his two SGT. ROCK ANNUALS, in which he illustrated a couple of Kanigher's best scripts ever.
What would I have liked Dan Spiegle to draw? I've long fantasized about seeing him draw a Wildcat series for Vertigo, set in the professional boxing world of the late 40's, with corrupt fight runners, well-dressed mafia dons, crooked cops, sleazy political figures, dark and dingy back alley gyms...can't you just see a Spiegle rendition of bloodied boxers spotlighted in the ring, surrounded by an audience of Spieglesque fight fans, with grizzled managers and a pudgy ref and a sexy girl holding up the cards showing the round number?

[Aaron Kashtan]

I love Dan Spiegle's artwork. My introduction to him was his Secret Six strip in Action Comics Weekly, which was amazing because of Spiegle's uncanny ability to somehow make everything look realistic and plausible, even though his style was very cartoonish. It turns out that that was only the tip of the iceberg. His work on Crossfire reveals that he's also an extremely gifted storyteller.

I imagine he must be a pleasure to work with. It's also impressive that he's still actively working at an age when most people have long since retired.

[MDG]

My first exposure to Spiegle work was likely Gold Key's Space Family Robinson #42, but I really started to notice him as an arist (not knowing his name, just style) with the Nemesis back-ups in Brave and the Bold. Let me get this out of the way - I was not a fan.

I thought that too. I'd probabaly seen Spiegle's work before, but uncredited in a Gold Key comic, so it didn't register. In a DC book, he didn't seem "slick" enough, but I warmed to him on Tales of Gotham City, where the stories were more "regular people." By the time of Blackhawk, I was a fan.

What I like best from Spiegle is his knack for creating characters with real personality. This worked great for Crossfire.

I've long fantasized about seeing him draw a Wildcat series for Vertigo, set in the professional boxing world of the late 40's, with corrupt fight runners, well-dressed mafia dons, crooked cops, sleazy political figures, dark and dingy back alley gyms...

That's a really neat idea.

[benday-dot]

1. What do you think of Dan Spiegle's work
2. What is your favourite comic by Dan Spiegle?
3. What title or character would you like to have seen him work on?

Couldn't reintroduce this thread with a more apt choice LR.

Question 1: I'm certainly on board with his greatness. Man I'd forgotten about that Black Hole stuff. Just terrific! I'd never seen that Paris scene form SSWS. Now that's the sort of pic that makes me want to jump with a gusto into the art collecting game. I havn't the pockets for it, but green with envy Scott... those are pencils I'd love to savour up close. There is just a whole lot of warmth and character to a Spiegle story. I've said before his take on the comic book world reminds me a little of Toth.

Question 2: Must be Crossfire. I wasn't there when this first came out, but that Howard Hughes issue (#15) is one of my favourite comics I own.

Question #3: Tough one. How about Rocketeer?

[Red Oak Kid]

According to another poster here, the first Dan Spiegle art I ever saw was the Johnny Shiloh story in Walt Disney Presents in 1963.

The next Spiegle art that I am aware of seeing was in some issues of Crossfire that I got around 2003. I would have never guessed that the same artist drew both.

For whatever reason, I wasn't aware of his name or his art in the early 70s which was the high water mark of my comic book collecting.

The pages that LR posted look like they were done by different artists and if you threw in a page from Johnny Shiloh it would look different from the others as well. This is unusual for a comic book artist. The varied faces of the background people is also unusual for comic books. Gray Morrow was one of the few other comics artists who did this.

Spiegle seems to let the type of story he is illustrating dictate the style he uses. The Shiloh story looks like it was drawn by a Civil War fanatic because everything is very authentic looking. I'd love to see the original art because I'm sure an incredible amount of detail is obscured by the bad reproduction.

[TVComicsFan]

Being a "baby-boomer," I grew up with Dan Spiegle's many movie and TV
adaptations for Dell and Gold Key (esp. the Disney comics) and later admired
his work on Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo, written by Mark Evanier. One
of my favorite comic book artists of all time.

[Lone Ranger]

What would I have liked Dan Spiegle to draw? I've long fantasized about seeing him draw a Wildcat series for Vertigo, set in the professional boxing world of the late 40's, with corrupt fight runners, well-dressed mafia dons, crooked cops, sleazy political figures, dark and dingy back alley gyms...

Sign me up - that sounds awesome.

His work on Crossfire reveals that he's also an extremely gifted storyteller.

I hadn't read Crossfire until last year. I bought the full series including Rainbow mini from a local used book store for maybe $20. Kat and Logan were out of town one weekend while I painted our basement. I had my evening to myself for the first time in ages, so I sat down and read the whole thing over two nights. It was simply amazing.

I'd never seen that Paris scene form SSWS. Now that's the sort of pic that makes me want to jump with a gusto into the art collecting game. I havn't the pockets for it, but green with envy Scott...

Oh, I don't own any of that stuff - it's just from various online sources. My original art collection has been shrinking as I've sold a lot lately. If and when I get back into the market - a nice Spiegle page would be at the top of my list.

Spiegle seems to let the type of story he is illustrating dictate the style he uses.

That an excellent way of describing his talent.

[Kan-Man]

Forgive my ignorance, but what's Crossfire? I've seen it mentioned quite a bit over the past couple of weeks but I've never heard of it.

[Lone Ranger]

Forgive my ignorance, but what's Crossfire? I've seen it mentioned quite a bit over the past couple of weeks but I've never heard of it.

It's an awesome 80s series set in Hollywood. Here's the wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_(Eclipse_comics)

It was recently collected in 2 volumes.

http://www.amazon.com/Crossfire-1-Ho.../dp/0975395815

[MDG]

[Never mind]