CREATOR PROFILE: JIM STERANKO (Nov 5, 1938)
James F. Steranko burst onto the comic scene in 1966 in the pages of Harvey Comics SPYMAN series, the funny animal publisher was trying to cash in on the superhero craze of the 1960s and Steranko was tasked with creating a line for them. At the same time, he called on Stan Lee at Marvel Comics who was too busy to see him so he tried to brush him off via Sol Brodsky, but when Brodsky took one look at his work, he recognized Stan would want to see this and Steranko left the offices with his first Marvel assignment, STRANGE TALES #151 working over Jack Kirby’s layouts.
Steranko had come to comics from the lucrative advertising field where he felt creatively unfulfilled. He’d also performed magic on stage and was a member of several magician guilds, eventually evolving into work as an escape-artist. Meanwhile, he formed a band called THE LANCERS and performed in many venues before branching into comics full time.
It was in the pages of NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD that Steranko’s work really took off– setting the industry on fire and causing Marvel to realize that you could evolve the Kirby House style into something even more artistic.
Steranko introduced many elements of the growing pop art movement which was then the rage at art galleries all over the world and especially in the New York art circles. Bringing in elements of Salvador Dali and other psychedelia as well as techniques often seen in experimental films he created a movement that carried comics out of the doldrums of low brow entertainment.
Steranko sometimes butted heads with Marvel Editorial who would occasionally alter his work. His attitude was you get it my way or you don’t get it at all and failed to understand why the would make the changes. One example is his cover to INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL #1– a brilliantly designed layout with tremendous power and color but for some reason Marie Severin was tasked with re-drawing the Hulk’s face, only later learning that editors felt Steranko’s original face was “too brutal”.
Steranko was paid the top rate at Marvel Comics, putting him in the same league as Jack Kirby and John Buscema, but it was still a serious cut in pay from what he was making in advertising so he often found himself working in both worlds.
He was given the title of Editor when Marvel launched FOOM Magazine– the first time a company created it’s own Fan Club. Friends Of Ol’ Marvel was a hit and offered many insider looks at the comics industry in the 1970s which was popular with fandom.
A life long fan of pulp magazines, Steranko decided to take up painting when the opportunity to provide new covers to Shadow Reprints from Pyramid Books came up in the mid 1970s. He returned to Marvel when the chance to work on DOC SAVAGE was offered before starting his own publishing company a few years later. When DC Comics got the rights to THE SHADOW as a comic book series Steranko was the first choice but the assignment went to Mike Kaluta after they felt his samples weren’t quite right.
Steranko went on to do design and pre-production work for films including RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and Francis Ford Coppola’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA before moving on to the Warner Bros animated series JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED.
Steranko remains a force to be reckoned with, Jack Kirby credited him as being the inspiration for Mister Miracle and Steranko himself tells a story about his troubled upbringing which involved extensive bullying by local gangs which led to his studying boxing for a number of years. It might be that fighting spirit that has gotten him where he is today.
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