”I never expected to live past my teens, but if you’re going to die tomorrow, you can do anything because you have nothing to lose.” -- Jim Steranko

If there's one man who "can do anything"--at least in the creative fields of graphic art, writing and music--it is Jim Steranko, who turned eighty-five yesterday. Dos Equis truly dropped the ball when they passed on Steranko for their "World's Most Interesting Man" ad campaign.

Born in 1938, Jim is a proud son of Reading, Pennsylvania. His dad was a former stage magician who didn't think much of young Steranko drawing pictures. Jim didn't care. He kept right on drawing. Meanwhile, in the multitasking fashion that would be a hallmark of his life, Steranko studied his father's magician books while also teaching himself the esoteric skill of escape artistry, for which he became locally famous. Jim ended up touring with a couple of circuses in his teens. When he got back to Reading, he then used his talents in furtherance of some juvenile burglary and car theft. Since this was several years before Spider-Man #1 came out, Jim couldn't have known that with great power comes great responsibility.

Steranko's life might've gone several ways at that point. Luckily, he used his art skills to design flyers for local clubs and, at the same time, he started his own rock n' roll band. Jim rocked his Fender Jazzmaster all over Pennsylvania, sporting his trademark shades, since he suffered from/was blessed with nyctalopia from birth. As a result, he became buds with rock pioneers, Bill Haley and the Comets. It was during this period that he did some boxing and studied under a fencing master.

Jim eventually landed a job at a Reading ad agency. Jim kicked ass, of course, but drawing ads just didn't scratch his creative itch. He'd always loved comics and the industry was entering its glorious 'Silver Age'. Steranko made a trip to New York City in 1966, where all the action was.

After very brief dalliances with Harvey Comics and DC, Steranko landed at Marvel. This is how Roy Thomas, the main assistant editor under editor-in-chief, Stan Lee, remembers it:

"[Steranko] came up to the office ... and I was sent out by Sol [Brodsky] to look at his work and basically brush him off. Stan was busy and didn't want to be bothered that day. But when I saw Jim's work, ... on an impulse I took it in to Sol and said, 'I think Stan should see this'. Sol agreed, and took it in to Stan. Stan brought Steranko into his office, and Jim left with the 'S.H.I.E.L.D.' assignment. ... I think Jim's legacy to Marvel was demonstrating that there were ways in which the Kirby style could be mutated, and many artists went off increasingly in their own directions after that."

It was a hinge of fate and Roy was there to open the door. He and Jim would collaborate several times over the next decade. As Roy noted, Steranko was already doing an updated, 'mutated' version of Kirby's classic '60s style. Jim lead the way for other Kirby acolytes like Barry Windsor-Smith and Keith Giffen to blaze their own trails. Kirby ended up being a big fan of Steranko's work and--it is said--was inspired by Jim's colorful past to create the escape artist DC superhero, Mister Miracle.

Now is as good a time as any to look at Steranko's graphic art influences. Here's what he had to say in 1978:

"Early influences were Chester Gould's [comic strip] Dick Tracy (not particularly in my drawing style but in subject matter and an approach to drama), Hal Foster, and Frank Robbins' [comic strip] Johnny Hazard."

However, Steranko has said more than once that the biggest influences on his cinematic approach to comics—moreso than artists like Robbins and Kirby—were classic film directors like John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock.

Steranko fairly quickly took over the Nick Fury feature in Strange Tales. His writing and artwork were explosively innovative, turning Fury from a CIA-type in a suit to 'James Bond on acid...and steroids'. It was popular enough that Nick was given his own series, but Steranko quickly lost interest. He'd revolutionized comics with a mere twenty-nine issues scattered across various series. Now, he was tired of taking orders and, besides, he had bigger plans.

Here is how Steranko described his break with Stan Lee in 1969:

'The reason I had a little altercation with them is because they edited some of my work. They changed certain things that I didn't feel should be changed. And I insisted that we couldn't continue on that basis. ... For example, my horror story "At the Stroke of Midnight" had a line of dialogue added. The meek husband said, "I'm nervous because it's closer to midnight" or something like that; simply a gratuitous line. It wasn't my title and it didn't have that line in it. Stan originally wanted that story to be called "Let Them Eat Cake," which I didn't approve of. We had disagreements about the way I told stories. ... If you're a publisher and you want my work, you get it my way or you don't get it at all. ... Anyway, I have an agreement now, a working agreement with them, and everything's cool.'

This is what Jim said a decade later:

"I was getting the top pay at Marvel, along with Kirby and John Buscema, and I felt privileged to be considered in their class. Both of them were better comic artists. But working at Marvel was also a serious cut in pay compared to my advertising work. My life was hectic then. I worked as the art director for an ad agency in the afternoon, played in a rock band at night, and worked on my comic book pages early in the morning. It's a peculiar thing, but the more I learned about storytelling, the slower I became. Eventually I had to stop playing in the band; later I left the agency.
There were plenty of hassles with Stan Lee, of course. I felt that if I was good enough to work for them, then they should accept my work without a lot of maddening editorial changes. But now, I think I may have been wrong. After all, Marvel was paying the tab. Stan is a great editor. He stresses storytelling and really knows the comics business, probably better than anyone else."

Push definitely came to shove by 1970. Steranko was absolutely roiling with ideas that weren't necessarily suitable for mainstream comics. His "O'Ryann" sci-fi project and "Talon" sword-and-sorcery character both looked--and still look--extremely promising. Neither made it beyond the early stages, though both were influential nonetheless.

One artistic avenue that Steranko pursued was paperback covers. With his usual aplomb and abundant talent, Jim took one hour of instruction from a professional painter in NYC and turned that into a legendary side career, illustrating the likes of the Shadow and Leigh Brackett's 'Book of Skaith' novels. Over fifty covers in all. You can check out a fairly good list here.

Meanwhile, the endeavor that would occupy much of Jim's time for the next two decades--magazine publishing--was starting to lift off. Steranko had founded his own publishing company, Supergraphics, in 1969. In 1970 and 1972, he published the two volumes of The Steranko History of Comics. These were landmarks, basically creating the field of serious study of the history and cultural impact of comics.

In 1972, Steranko also launched Comixscene, “a publication for comics fans,” as he described it. Comixscene morphed a year later into Mediascene. Mediascene was a 'cool stuff' periodical with an emphasis on SF/fantasy. Jim did much of the art and interviews. He knew everybody and everybody loved him. Mediascene was at the forefront of breaking news on Star Wars and other cool SFF films of the 1970s. It also kept track of the best stuff in comics and the related art scene. All in all, one of the finest magazines of the '70s, bar none.

Mediascene turned into Prevue as of issue #41, August 1980. Prevue was a straight-up, slick newsstand magazine. It kept to the basic ethos of Mediascene, but with a much tighter focus on TV and movies. Its coverage of films like The Empire Strikes Back and Conan the Barbarian was ground-breaking and first-rate. When Jim shut Prevue down in 1994, he had a lot to be proud of.

All of those Hollywood contacts came in handy. George Lucas saw a Steranko illo of REH's El Borak in Lone Star Fictioneer and brought Jim on as a production artist for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ten years later, Francis Ford Coppola tapped Steranko to do pre-production art for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

From the 1980s-on, Jim kept his hand in the comics scene, almost exclusively in the realm of covers. Whenever Marvel, DC or some other comics company wanted to make an issue or project really special, they gave Steranko a call. This went on until, at least, 2012. That's six decades of utterly amazing comic covers.

Well, that wraps it up, despite barely scratching the surface of a truly titanic career. I've missed meeting Mr. Steranko at least twice in the last decade and must hold my fanhood cheap thereby. We'll see what the future holds. Apparently, he still eats just one meal a day and does 2 a.m. jogs with his pack of attack dogs. Jim might outlive us all.

There is also this sentiment expressed by one fan about ten years ago:

”People have been trying to prove for 50 years that he’s full of s**t, but no one’s been able to do it. There’s a small handful of [comic-book] guys that I can’t bring myself to speak to, and he’s one of them. Either he is as great as the stories or he isn’t. Either way, I don’t want to know.”

So, sword-brothers, raise a glass of something expensive in honor of Jim Steranko's time thus far on this mortal coil. He's already lived the lives of at least three average cool dudes. As Jim likes to say, ”Tomorrow is where we’ll all be spending the rest of our lives!”

I wrote a birthday post five years ago for Mr. Steranko. It has a small gallery of some of his best work and can be found here. Below you can find even more Steranko art, with zero duplicates from the previous blog entry.