Mike Grell - Starslayer

2017.04.29 East Coast Comic Con, Secaucus, NJ

Mike Grell is a writer and artist, recognized for his contributions to the characters The Warlord and Green Arrow. Grill also created the character Shaman's Tears for Image Comics. Breaking into comics in 1973, Grell first worked on the DC titles Superbly and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Grill also provided art for the daily Tarzan comic strips from 1981-1983.

Grill developed the creator-owned characters John Sable Freelance, for First Comics, and Starslayer, published by Pacific Comics in 1982. The cover claims Starslayer to be a Celtic Barbarian in the Far Flung future..  Tori McQuillen is a Celtic warrior, who is pulled into the future while fighting Roman invaders. He joins the crew of the spaceship the Jolly roger, whose crew are fighting the oppression of Earth by it's rulers...

I chose to ask Grell for a sketch of Starslayer, since I did not have a Green Arrow first day cover. I also owned a copy of Starslayer #1, so I felt it was a good choice. By Mike Grell's standards this is considered a quick sketch. Of note is that Grell offers his own Certificate of Authentication. Although it is not something I get involved with, since I am not making purchases for the purpose of re-sale, I thought it made good sense to take the option. Since the authentication comes from Grell himself, and most collectors would know this, it truly authenticates the sketch.. Besides the fact that he only charges an additional $2 for the service...

Mars Attacks!!!

1962 Mars Attacks - and every kid welcomed them. Their parents may not have been so open minded.

I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, with both parents and several uncles working in the same factory in the Bush Terminal section off 3rd Ave. As a kid my main interest in their work was that they were located in the same building as the Topps printing facility. My brother and I would receive shoe boxes full of assorted cards, baseball, civil war, Mars Attacks, UK soccer. Once my dad brought home an uncut sheet of 1966 baseball cards. Unfortunately the only cards I still have from this horde are the UK soccer cards, which my Uncle John picked up in 1977.

The original idea for the card was developed by Len Brown,  and the story was written by Brown and Woody Gelman. The art work was done by Wally Wood, Bob Powell and Norm Saunders. Due to complaints several of the cards were re-painted to reduce the gore, but production of the cards was eventually stopped, making this a rare set of cards. The popularity of the cards has endured, with re-printed sets, movie adaptations and comic books.

The 50th Anniversary Heritage set features several cards painted by Jason Edmiston, based on the storyboard sketches from the original series that did not appear in the original set as well as 15 new cards from comic book artist John McCrea, illustrator of IDW's Mars Attacks comic series. (McCrea card above.)

When Topps announced they were issuing a Heritage set for the 50th anniversary, I became interested. I was fully drawn in when I saw some of the sketch cards being done. Magnificent. I was inspired to start collecting the set and picking up some of the sketch cards...

A Don Perlin pencil sketch. Perlin worked for Marvel on the Werewolf by Night title and is co-creator of the character Moon Knight. He also worked on The Defenders, Ghost Rider and Valiant Comics' Solar, Man of the Atom and Bloodshot. Perlin won the 1997 National Cartoonist Society Comic Book Award...

The second sketch is from Jeff Zapata, who previously worked for Valiant and Crusade comics before moving to the Topps company where is work can be found on Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages and Hollywood Zombie cards...

Jason Hughes - Has provided sketch cards for Breygent Vampirella, Versicolor Betty Page, Breygent Classic Movies, Breygent Woodstock, Topps Indiana Jones, 5Finity King Kong, Breygent Golden Age of Comics, Halo, Heroes 2, Star Wars....

Lin Workman - Creator fo the webcomic/geek travel blog "Have Geek Will Travel", Webcomic "Scared Silly" and co-creator of the self-published comicbook "Bushi Tales".
He has provided sketch cards for The Empire Strikes Back 3D,

I decided to obtain my own series of Mars Attacks sketches on space related first day covers (1962 Project Mercury - John Glenn first American to orbit the Earth, Robert H. Goddard - credited with building the first liquid fueled rocket and  Edwin Hubble honored by 5 stamps showing the Eagle Nebula, Egg Nebula, Ring Nebula, Lagoon Nebula and Galaxy Nebula not used on this project). The Barnabas SuperHeroes for Hospice show in Monmouth Mall, Sept 22 was the perfect opportunity to start. I threw Ed Coutts a bit of a curve, since I was asking him to draw out of his comfort zone (beautiful women), but he nailed it perfectly and managed to feature a beautiful woman! The others also    approached the project with delight and provided great sketches:

Ed Coutts (Fem Force)

 Joe Endres (the Colossians)

Dave Ryan (War of the Independents)

 Nick Mockoviack

Javier Cruz Winnick

Ack, Ack, Ack!!!!

Jacob Chabot - updated 2015.06.06