Ted McKeever and The Fifty

With all this talk about the need to Feed The Fifty, I figured another member should stand revealed.

Ted McKeever commission - Dr. Doom vs Dr. Strange in Hell

My comic book habit has always been a relatively solitary pursuit. I read comics in high school (that one year working at 7-11 was helpful, read the whole Marvel and DC lines then) but stopped around the time I quit Sev. But freshman year at college I became friends with some older guys and a big part of their routine was comics. We would go on Thursday evenings to the mall and hassle the toy store owner to open his box. That was back when new comic book day was a Friday. Woodbridge Mall in Edison, twenty minutes from Rutgers but these guys had scoped it out and found the place to go. They also got comics from a guy in his dorm room who had a Heroes account. Those were different times. The dorm guy would spread all the new comics out on the floor and we would choose what we wanted. No Previews. CBG was around but haphazard.

So when I graduated but kept reading comics I tended to go my own way. I used to wonder why I was never an appreciated customer despite spending twenty bucks every week and it was because I read stuff no one else liked, stuff with low discounts because even 5 copies might not sell in the store. Cerebus. Mister X. Black Kiss. Later on it would be Scene of the Crime. Coventry. Cerebus.

And Superman's Metropolis and Batman : Nosferatu by Ted McKeever and JM and Randy Lofficier. I loved the beautiful art of guys like Moebius the most, but I also developed tastes for guys like Ted McKeever. It is amazing how certain artists imbue india ink with personality and characteristics unlike that created by any other person. Ted McKeever does this. Ted McKeever's art cannot be drawn by someone else. You look at it and it has an energy all its' own. It cannot have been made by someone else. Great inkers have this quality; they are great draftsman, creators of not only content but form and execution. The art produced by Ted McKeever is fecund and infected. The ink retains its' physical characteristics but it has been changed, tainted and fouled by the wielder in his search for something more, something other. And the above work is proof that sometimes he finds it.


The Fifty
1  BWS Storyteller Young Gods page 4
2  Tony Harris / Ray Snyder Dr. Strange WIRED Magazine cover
3  Gene Colan / Tom Palmer Tomb of Dracula 44 page 1 splash

4  Simon Bisley Dr. Strange vs The Mindless Ones
5  Ted McKeever Dr. Strange vs Dr.Doom in Hell
6  Dan Green Dr. Strange: Into Shamballa splash
7  Bill Sienkiewicz Superman 400 pinup recreation

8  JHW3 Milestone Forever pinup

9  Darwyn Cooke Wonder Woman

10  Dan Adkins Dr Strange 170 page 11

11 JH Williams 3rd / Mick Gray Promethea 24 double page spread

12  Rudy Nebres - Dr. Strange, Dracula & The Scarlet Witch
13  Anna Merli Clea
14  Mitchell Bretweiser
15  Jae Lee Dr. Strange

on re-reading this it is rushed and really tries to do two things quickly and therefore does both poorly. But I am hungry so I am letting it fly