News has just surfaced that dynamite Don Perlin passed away a few weeks back at the age of 94, and THOIA honors his comic book greatness with a precode double feature from his astounding days at Atlas. "Death, Where is Thy Sting?" is from the December 1953 issue of Astonishing #28, and "The Dinner Guest" can be found in the October 1954 issue of Astonishing #35. And after the posts, find out more about Don Perlin by CLICKING HERE!
Let's talk about Don.
ReplyDeleteHe was a favorite of mine. He drew the books I absolutely adored as a kid: My favorite book of all time, Werewolf by Night, my favorite team book, the original run on Defenders, and a great run on Ghost Rider.
I probably saw more Perlin art as a kid than any other artist, because those were the books I collected.
He didn't follow directly, but WWbN had both Ploog at the beginning and Perlin at the end. Different artists with wildly different styles, but two of the great artistic runs in Marvel, IMHO.
RIP, Don, and thank you.
Also: I have no idea if Stan wrote the second story but boy that seems like him!
When I was looking around the web at examples of Perlin's illustration after reading the news earlier today, I was really impressed by the width and breadth of work he created that was still somehow very recognizably his. I too really appreciated his contributions to Werewolf by Night in the seventies, and silly as seems, I really dig his Transformers art in the eighties. I'm glad you posted examples of his stuff from the fifties here. The look of his work changed a lot over the years as he matured, and also because he worked with so many different inkers. I don't know if he inked the examples here or not--they certainly look like they might have been finished by different people. But the Don Perlin basics come right through in both: There's this really canny use of detail going on, enough to flesh out an image for sure, but stopping well shy of busyness or confusion. I love all the wood grain and silhouetted flora in these (and those radiating light lines in the first panel, page three of the second story), just as I loved the cascades of werewolf hair and flapping tatters of clothing two decades later.
ReplyDeleteThanks and rest in peace, Don Perlin.
Yes, Stan Lee and his countless Red Scare monster stories. I see a lot of friendly kidding about that in places like "Bare Bones E-Zine."
ReplyDeletePeople say that "gut-munching zombies" (as opposed to other kinds) practically started with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, or at least that that movie put them on the map, so it's interesting to see one in this story.
First its Roger Corman and now Don Perlin gone from the world of horror, this is the worst month of May ever.
ReplyDeleteRest in peace Corman and Perlin, may your legacies live on forever.