What a joy it is when we can meet our childhood heroes. I had such an experience back on March 24 when I got to speak briefly with Joe Staton at the C2E2 convention in Chicago. I was fortunate to get in on the Justice Society of America revival in the pages of All-Star Comics in the mid-1970s. Just a handful of issues into the run, the art team shifted and Joe Staton came aboard. I thought his style was just perfect for a team of Golden Age heroes and their villains, and I reveled in these depictions. Joe was co-creator of the Huntress, daughter of the Earth-2 Batman and Catwoman, and I also felt great knowing I was in on the ground floor of her "career". Shortly after this all commenced, I followed Staton's work on Green Lantern. He also seemed perfect for drawing the various characters that populated that book.
So today, it's just another opportunity to say "Thanks!" to Joe for enriching my comics-reading life. Oh, and did you also know that he's the current penciler on the Dick Tracy newspaper strip? Yes he is!
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| This is a B&W version of a color print I purchased from Joe Staton at C2E2 on March 24 2019 |
Oh, yeah - always nice to see Staton get some appreciation. As I noted in your convention post, he's one of my favorites. I also remember liking his work on the JSA in All Star and then Adventure; you're right that his art is well-suited to Golden Age characters (to say nothing of stories set in the 1940s/50s), but he was also good at 'space-age' stuff as well. At around the same time he was for a time the regular penciler in Superboy and the Legion of Super-heroes as well, and you already mentioned his long run on Green Lantern, which I also loved.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, great post, Doug - and thanks for posting the extra images.
Some beautiful illo's there, Doug. Always loved his run on The Huntress, but My fave Staton is the work he did with Nic Cuti at Charlton - E-Man obviously, which feels like long hot summer holidays in comic form, but also the mystery stories he did for books like Haunted & Ghostly Haunts - well worth seeking out!
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