Curt Swan

I'm trying to think of ...

I, I mean, certainly in the '50s you had Wayne Boring and Kurt Swan.

Yeah.

And Swan obviously continued through the mid-'80s even, you know?

Let's start with a massive shift that happened in 1971, a storyline called Kryptonite Nevermore.

This was written by Denny O'Neil with art by the legendary Curt Swan.

Curt Swan, by the way, was the definitive Superman artist for decades.

He gave him that classic barrel-chested reassuring look.

Iconic.

Wow, really?

Yeah.

It was written by Edmond Hamilton with art by Curt Swan, and it is glorious, unadulterated Silver Age camp.

If you ever read one Superman comic book, read, um, For the Man Who Has Everything, um, written by Alan Moore.

Um, it's an, uh, and I can't remember the artist, Curt Swan maybe.

Um, but it is about a, like, this plant that basically gives Superman the life he always wanted, which is the, like, he grows up on Krypton and has a family and all this stuff, but it's all fake.

And it takes him realizing that it's fake because he knows he doesn't have that to escape it.

Uh, this one, by the way, uh, just as a note again, written by Otto Binder.

Curt Swan, who's kind of the classic Superman artist, was on art.

Stan Kaye is inker.

We don't really know who the letterer is.

Uh, we witness the origin and the first appearance of Supergirl in a story called The Supergirl from Krypton.

Kara Zor-El, Superman's long lost cousin, arrives on Earth and adopts a secret identity to adate, to aid Superman in the ongoing fight for truth and justice.

So Henry Boltinoff on script, Curt Swan again on pencils, Al Plastino was inking him, Schnapp or Saladino probably on letters, and Mort Weisinger again is gonna be, 'cause we are still in, uh, still in on the, uh, the Superman side of the house.

So, strongest...

Art by Bob Oxner.

and world's finest comics number 166 cover date may 1967 cover price 12 cents cover artists kurt swan and george klein edited by mort weisinger featuring the danger of the deadly duo written by jim shooter art by kurt swan and george klein are you ready are you with it then away we go go

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let me open up my comic again.

Okay, go ahead.

Why does every villain Kurt Swan draws have to be so darn handsome? What do you want us to do? Root for him instead of Superman and Batman? And that's not all.

In the duel of the super duo, Jemphis, the rat fink who is out to destroy Superman... has a costume that any self-respecting superhero would give his eye teeth for.

It's a 12-pager written by Otto Bender.

And the art is by Kurt Swan with inks by George Klein.

Right.

And as soon as I saw George Klein's name, interesting thing, I conflated his name with George Rosos, who was an inker artist.

Chris Wan was still the penciler, but Superman looks a little beefier.

And stiffer.

Yeah, it's just not as smooth as... kurt swan i mean although you definitely see him kurt swan like the face yeah at the top of page seven for example you got a close-up of superman's face that's totally a kurt swan face right but even this one he looks a little beefier like it's

a lot of detail too and when you get into the later kurt swan the panels and everything's much simpler uh there's not nearly as much background and on the splash page of this there's like 30 or 40 or 100 bugs you know there and they wouldn't probably do that many in the 70s for kurt swan so at any rate i thought it's kind of funny when clark asked lois an innocent question are you having a good time all right and right off the bat she says oh i wish superman was here instead of you and i'm thinking this guy can't get a break

It was the coolest thing.

He was Kurt Swan, Murphy Anderson, Superman.

It was just, that was perfect.

I love that.