Identifying a page?

[mighty bebop]

Hello all,

I happened across this forum thanks to an older thread where some folks were able to identify a specific issue from one small panel. Does anyone happen to know what this is from? It's the inside of the comic that was used as the "Tales from Space" prop from Back to the Future. I've talked with many fellow BttF fans on different forums, and no one has ever been able to figure out what it was. Any help at all would be appreciated, as this kind of "mystery" is endlessly fascinating to me.

Many thanks!

[dan bailey]

Isn't it more likely to have been created solely for the movie?

[prince hal]

From this distance I thought it might be a Gil Kane art job, but those pointy, elongated fingers in the third panel are telling me no.

The "WHOMP" sound effect and the layout more than suggest the late 60s. The balloons look like they've been pasted on the actual pages.

Maybe somebody swiped a Gil Kane layout for the movie?

And that second panel... the guy in blue's hat looks like a Steve Ditko fedora.

[dan bailey]

I saved the image to my desktop, but it starts pixelating pretty heavily when I enlarge it to any degree using Photoshop. I lightened the image up a bit:



The kid's face reminds me of Kurt Schaffenberger's work; the fingers prince hal mentions make me think of Infantino, as inked by Sid Greene.

[Scott Harris]

I saved the image to my desktop, but it starts pixelating pretty heavily when I enlarge it to any degree using Photoshop. I lightened the image up a bit:



The kid's face reminds me of Kurt Schaffenberger's work; the fingers prince hal mentions make me think of Infantino, as inked by Sid Greene.

I agree this looks like late 60's or maybe early-mid 70's. It also looks like DC to me. Some time after Infantino began his reign as art director in 1967 but probably before he left as editorial director in '76?

Something about the hair and clothes on the guy in the background looks more 70's to me.

[The Darknight Detective]

It's actually Weird Fantasy #7 with an altered cover take from that particular issue.

Two of the three artists whose work I'm very familiar with are Jack Kamen and Wally Wood (George Roussos is the third) - looks like Wally's work to me, but it's hard to really tell without magnification.

[dupont2005]

Isn't it more likely to have been created solely for the movie?

Most likely not. A prop comic would just be a commissioned cover slapped over a cheap old comic they found unless the inside of the comic were somehow linked to the plot.

[prince hal]

That's not an EC Comic interior.

[Brian Gravity]

It's actually Weird Fantasy #7 with an altered cover take from that particular issue.

Two of the three artists whose work I'm very familiar with are Jack Kamen and Wally Wood (George Roussos is the third) - looks like Wally's work to me, but it's hard to really tell without magnification.

Actually this is quite incorrect...and I'll tell ya why.

The actual cover to Tales of Space was created by Andrew Probert, who was the production illustrator and drew the storyboards for the first film. Fans of Star Trek might recognize his name, because he is best known for designing a few Enterprises. The only credit to the comic Probert has is the front/back covers.

Tales of Space cover:




Prop shops have used this image and produced replica copies of Tales of Space using Weird Fantasy #7, but that was not the actual interior comic used in the film.

Weird Fantasy #7 features the following stories: "7 Year Old Genius" drawn by Al Feldstein, "Come Into My Parlor" drawn by Jack Kamen, "Across the Sun!" drawn by George Roussos, and "Breakdown!" by Wally Wood. None of the art in these stories even comes close to matching the page that mighty bebop is looking for.

Artwork excerpts of each story here:

"7 Year Old Genius": http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/...-year-old.html

"Come Into My Parlor": http://eccomics.blogspot.com/2005/08...my-parlor.html

"Across the Sun!": http://comics.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleN...No=19026&ts=on

"Breakdown": http://www.icollector.com/Wally-Wood...-page_i7809727


So, with Weird Fantasy #7 safely out of the picture, the next speculation is that it could be a page drawn by Probert himself. This is not true either, as the artwork in his storyboards do not match. Storyboard sample:



Looking back to the panels of the page, the artwork is consistent with what we were reading off the comic racks in 1985. The biggest clue for me is the head/hands extending outside the panels, a common effect for the time period. It could be DC, it could be Marvel...Christ, it could be anything at this point. I do believe it is an actual comic someone from the set just grabbed off the racks, and not a special piece made for the movie.

I'll see what else I can dig up later!

[dan bailey]

Good to know I'm not quite as clueless as I thought I might be; the figures breaking the panel & the "WHOMP" definitely didn't seem like EC to me.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

It definitely doesn't look like old EC art or Gil Kane or Kurt Schaffenberger. Looks a lot like something from the 70s or 80s. Possibly from a DC mystery anthology--if the art wasn't specially commissioned for the movie. Wildly guessing I'd say someone like Ricardo Villagran, Luis Dominguez, E.R. Cruz, or the Redondo studios.

[Cei-U!]

Maybe I'm nuts (quiet, dan!) but something about the page layout and the individual panel compositions says early '80s Carmine Infantino to me, possibly a "Dial H for Hero" page. I'm off to my files to investigate.

EDIT: Hrrm. If it is Infantino, it isn't from "Dial H." I'm not going through his Flash run!

Cei-U!
I summon my deerstalker and meerschaum!

[Slam_Bradley]

It definitely doesn't look like old EC art or Gil Kane or Kurt Schaffenberger. Looks a lot like something from the 70s or 80s. Possibly from a DC mystery anthology--if the art wasn't specially commissioned for the movie. Wildly guessing I'd say someone like Ricardo Villagran, Luis Dominguez, E.R. Cruz, or the Redondo studios.

It's definitely not EC. I expanded it on my IPad and I agree with you Ear. It looks like a page from a DC mystery book during the Filipino era. My guess was E.R. Cruz, but I'm not super familiar with those guys.

[benday-dot]

The page is small as displayed here so its hard to get a good sense of it, but it does not look like Cruz at all to me.

[The Darknight Detective]

Well, that's what you get for relying on information from the Internet.