Top Tens: The "incredible" art of Herb Trimpe.

Sometimes an artist does a character so well that they make that version of the character their own; Jack Kirby and the Fantastic Four, Curt Swan and Superman, Neal Adam’s and Batman, Gene Colan and Daredevil, and the wonderful Herb Trimpe and the Incredible Hulk. “Happy Herb” as he was known to fans, began working for Marvel in the mid-'60s in the production department before finding comic book fame as the penciller of “The Incredible Hulk” in an almost unbroken string of issues from #106-193 between 1968 and 1975. My own personal favourite Herb Trimpe Hulk comics featured the inking of John Severin , however with or without John Severin there was no doubting Herbs talent as an amazing cover artist who regularly produced action packed covers. Some of my favourite Hulk covers to accompany "Incredible Hulk" issue 163 above, are shown below:

Incredible Hulk # 141 (July 1971) - I have always coveted this issue and finally received this as an unexpected Christmas present this year.

Incredible Hulk # 171 (January 1974).

Incredible Hulk # 151 (May 1972) - by Trimpe & John Severin. This is an excellent issue and has remained one of my all-time favourite comics since I first read it when it was reprinted in the UK "Mighty World of Marvel" comic

Incredible Hulk # 132 (October 1970) - by Trimpe & John Severin.

Incredible Hulk # 148 (February 1972) - by Trimpe & John Severin. Yet another classic Hulk tale by Archie Goodwin and Trimpe/Severin.

Marvel Super-Heroes #63 (1977) - Originally published in "Incredible Hulk #109 (November 1968) cover by Trimpe & John Severin. "Marvel Super-Heroes" featured classic Hulk reprints from #25 to #105.

Incredible Hulk #110 (December 1968) cover by Trimpe & John Severin. This is one of my earliest Marvel comics which I purchased only a few years ago. Another Hulk classic that I first read in the UK "Mighty World of Marvel" weekly.

Incredible Hulk # 142 (August 1971) - by Trimpe & John Severin.

Incredible Hulk # 137 (March 1971) - by Trimpe - I have prattled on before about my affection for this issue (and # 136) which were the first 2 issues of the US Hulk comic that I purchased.

"Mighty World of Marvel" #94 (July 1974) by Trimpe. This story was originally published in Incredible Hulk # 131 (September 1970) and is one of the few Hulk back issues I would still like to pick up.

Despite his amazing run on the Hulk, Herb is probably best known by todays comic book fans as the first artist to draw the Wolverine, a character who debuted in “Incredible Hulk” #180 as a villain and has since gone on to become one of the best-known and most annoyingly successful of Marvel’s character ( only beaten to that title for me by “Deadpool”) . Although Trimpe co-created almost all the Hulks supporting cast, including Jim Wilson (#131), Doc Sampson (#141) and the Hulk Busters military unit, he did not as is so often noted, co-create the Wolverine. That accolade goes to John Romita who designed his costume, and writers Len Wein (and Roy Thomas?). I never owned a copy of #180 (and I am unlikely to ever buy this at the prices being asked) but the excellent "True Believers" issue is a good alternative.

Trimpe’s work at Marvel was not just confined to the Hulk, he also created the World War I flying ace the Phantom Eagle (above) which allowed him to indulge his passion for classic planes. He also worked on numerous other Marvel titles including runs on Ant-Man in Marvel Feature , Ka-Zar, Iron-Man, Fantastic Four, Godzilla, Shogun Warrior, War of the Worlds, the Defenders, G.I Joe and many other books. Sadly, Herb passed away in 2015 while out jogging from a heart attack at the age of age 75. .

Marvelmania: Posters - Part 2 -Kirby, Trimpe, Romita, Steranko, Purcell

Of all the Marvelmania adverts perhaps the most iconic were the ads for their Superhero posters. These were large 2ft x 3ft posters featuring some of Marvels top characters of the time that were released in two sets. My personal favourite, set B (advert above) featured three classic Jack Kirby posters of the FF, Silver Surfer, and Thor along with the rather strange addition of a Black Knight poster which was credited to artist Howard Purcell.

The Black Knight poster seemed to be a strange addition to this set as the character wasn't particularly popular (and was totally unknown to myself) at the time. However, I do remember thinking it was an excellent poster. Howard Purcell is not an artist I am aware of but his style looks a bit like John Buscema to me.

Set A (advert above) was also pretty impressive and featured the art of Kirby, Sternanko,Romita and Herb Trimpe.

The Hulk poster was pencilled by Kirby and redrawn by (then current) Hulk artist Herb Trimpe.

John Romita's Spider-Man poster was also based on a Kirby original (see below - coloured version of Kirbys original pencils from "The Kirby Collector" magazine) .

Dr Doom by Kirby. At this time Dr Doom had his own strip in Astonsihing Tales and was of course arguably Marvels main bad guy, so a poster was a good choice. This is one of my all time favourite Kirby pieces of comic art.

Set A was rounded of by the above Steranko Captain Americ poster - another belter.

Above: Kirbys origial Spider-Man poster.

My Famous Firsts: Incredible Hulk issue 137

Although I had been aware of the Hulk through the pages of the UK weekly comic “Smash” where his stories had been reprinted since 1966, it wasn’t until 1971 when I saw and purchased my first US Hulk comic, the above issue 137 (cover by Trimpe and Marie Severin). At the time of his appearances in Smash! I wasn’t a fan of the character mostly because his strips seemed poorly produced with pages looking crammed (Smash would print 4 US Hulk pages into 3 UK pages etc) and of course I was only about 6 years old at this time and superhero stories weren’t of that much interest to me then. However, by mid-1971 my fascination with the superhero genre was starting to emerge and those elusive US Marvel comics (DC’s weren’t that hard to find) were starting to be a priority purchase for me.

My first memory of seeing the Hulk was on the cover of my brothers copy of Smash! Issue 17 which featured Jack Kirby’s cover for Incredible Hulk issue 1. Sadly the Hulk was printed in flesh tones as Marvel only supplied Odhams with black and white artwork forgetting to tell them that the Hulk was green (or even grey as he appeared on Kirby’s US cover). Cover from the Grand Comic Database.

It was on a trip to my local newsagent around July 1971 where I spied Incredible Hulk issue 137 which I immediately purchased. I held onto this copy of the Hulk (and issue 136 which I purhased a few weeks later) for decades until I I left a large box of comics containing these issues sometime in the early 1980's, when I moved house. It wasn’t until a holiday visit to Liverpool around 6 years ago that I saw a nice copy of issue 137 (and 136) for sale at the very reasonable price of £3 each.. As soon as I saw the cover of issue 137 my memory went back to the day I first purchased it and remembered (before I opened my copy) the above strange character from that story which must have made a strong impression on my then young mind.

Issue 137 was the final part of a two issue tale called “The Stars, Mine Enemy” that began in issue 136. The story lends heavily from Herman Melville’s novel “ Moby Dick” where the Hulk is forced aboard a ship of aliens who are hunting the alien creature Klaatu. There he meets the Abomination who is First Mate aboard the vessel where as expected the Hulk and Abomination begin fighting. The captain of the space ship Cybor, hires Xeron the Starslayer to help him hunt down and destroy Klaatu who was responsible for destroying half his body. As the hunt progresses Cybor harpoons Klaatu, but gets pulled into the sun killing him and seemingly destroying the monster as well (50 plus year spoiler : Klaatu returns) . As the Hulk and the Abomination continued their fight, their blows bring them closer to Earth's atmosphere where they are pulled in by the planet's gravity sending them into a free fall to the planet's surface. Some of my favourite pages from this issue are noted below:

The above cover (by Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema) to issue 136 was the first part of this tale called “Klatuu! The Behemoth from Beyond Space!” I first purchased this comic a couple of weeks after buying issue 137 in the same newsagents and found it "fun" that I found this and issue 137 together in a market stall in Liverpool some 50 years after I first bought them in Glasgow.