Blade Runner! Al Williamson's Marvel Comics Masterpiece?!

[@WolfPartyProductions]

A black and white version exists! It was printed in b&w in one of those pocketbook comics. It has the Sterenko cover. The panels are rearranged to fit the format, but I believe it’s all there. I like it in b&w. Adds to the noir feeling.

[@wojciechbem8661]

Ah it was published in Poland early nineties. I thought It’s incredible editing is private invention of polish editor. But not. It’s pure genius directly from brilliant mind of great Jim Steranko

[@lemelstudio]

yes, I can confirm this. it's digest-sized. I bought it off the stand (in the U.S.) in 1982 or 83, and It was a few years before I knew that the *color* versions even existed! It was the solid black ink art without color applied.

[@davepraetorius]

Crazy thing is, if I'm not mistaken, the collected edition on the Baxter paper was released first and then split into the 2 issue set on newsprint. So any colouring changes that happened were done to accommodate newsprint and not the other way around

[@TheTonyFigueroa]

Al Williamson is a prime example of how to properly use photo reference. He didn't merely trace his reference, he interpreted it. Williamson could draw beautifully without reference but his time working with John Prentice gave him an education on accurate art.

[@CannedFishFiles]

Brion James died in 1999 at 54, which was kind of a surprise to me. I was sure he'd just be a retired fella by now. One of my favorite movies is The Player, a softer role for him, the head of a movie studio.

[@willagnes8376]

The Bradbury is an actual building in downtown LA where they filmed some scenes in this movie. A lobby you've seen in numerous movies.

[@SeanWickett]

The one comic that blew my mind back in the day and the one that made the connection to the daily Star Wars strip. And I learned who Al Williamson was that day.

[@wandersonoliveira263]

This noir atmosphere just brings Sean Philips in my head, maybe you guys could take a look at some of his work with Brubaker

[@billyhaney5117]

Full props to Al Williamson and also to inker Carlos Garzón. He also worked with Williamson on Secret Agent Corrigan and Star wars. Al had time to put all that amazing detail into his work because he had an inker he could trust not to fuck it up with Garzón, who started in comics in the late 1960s in his native Columbia.

[@JorgeVelezMusic]

@@wtk6069 Garzon was wonderful on Williamson. Interesting, too, that they were both Colombian (Williamson on his mom's side, I think).

[@ghostknight1865]

I have those 2 issues, masterpieces. I'd love to see an oversized HC / Artist Edition of this.

[@dwaynemuth8775]

My first Al Williamson was Empire Strikes Back and I’ve been loving his stuff ever since! Frequent collaborator with Archie Goodwin and never ever disappointed! I was looking through my copy and I was lucky enough to get Al,Archie and Steranko autographs! Thanks again for a great blast through the past! Keep reading and making comix!

[@jimvalentine8952]

You guys done 36 yet, Sienkiewicz doing Dune is astonishingly though I remember living this as a kid

[@davidmacpherson770]

The bradbury is not a reference to Ray Bradbury but there is a Los Angeles landmark building called the bradbury And they filmed some of the movie they are in the building

[@srpyle]

The baxter paper version had two pages printed out of order, alas. It’s the pages where Roy kills Tyrell. I have it. I need to get the newsstand issues too.

[@jasonhofstedt8210]

As a Blade Runner fanatic, I have to say, the majority of what you see here is directly from the film, down to angles and textures - not to diminish the artists' own contributions, mind you. It's so close that I had to look up deleted scenes and figure out if they actually filmed that "Tannhauser Gate" scene with the exploding ship. The fact that they were able to adapt their film stills as references for the in-between shots so efficiently is impressive. I almost wonder if they were given a screener copy on VHS to study, but in 1981-1982, VCRs were still a somewhat rare thing to have, and there's enough extra material to make it seem unlikely.

[@monotech20.14]

Almost like it was supposed to be a direct adaptation of the movie.

[@Therealmrmeow]

My favorite film on my favorite youtube channel!

[@abh623]

Same! Thanks so much for featuring the comic adaptation guys!

[@alejandromacias8004]

I bought them recently because I couldnt find the Empire's Strikes Back Artist Edition... so, in a way, I defeated the Kayfabe Effect! 😎👊🏻

[@sithlordx2521]

Everytime I find these books, I buy them. A crazy impulse as it is my favorite comic and favorite movie. Glade you guys have finally reviewed this. Flash Gordon next please...

[@billstorie5161]

As great as my love for Al's art is I have to point out that he would quite liberally swipe from all over the place and in particular from UK comics. Case in point the pages at 13.20 where the lighting effects in panel 3 of the left page are borrowed from John M Burn's strip "Countdown" from the late 60's /early 70's and the spaceship sequence on the opposite page is swiped from Mike Noble's artwork on the Zero-X strip. There are loads more and to his credit, Al always admitted to it but because of the general overall excellence of his artwork we fans just let it slide and rolled with it. Seemed to happen a lot when hardware was involved so I wonder if Al preferred to concentrate on anatomy and just fill in the hardware with whatever he could find and swipe quickly because you have to admit that the sheer amount of detail in his art must have meant a 15 hour day minimum at the board.

[@edking9724]

Carlos did almost all the backgrounds and vehicles. He would sit at his board quietly all day drawing all those buildings and cars. (I did the lettering.)

[@andyscordellis7793]

Thanks for John M Burns and Mike Noble references - how refreshing, and well spotted. No sign of Frank Bellamy then? Before I got into American comics in the 60s, TV21 brought me Frank and Mike who I regarded then as the absolute best in comics - 60 years on, and for me they are still at the very top!

[@wdparrish]

I love Brion James! Would love to find a copy of that 'zine! SHOCKER is played by Mitch Pileggi (Director Walter Skinner from X-FILES), another of my fave character actors!

[@kittendiotima4212]

First of all, I agree that Blade Runner is a masterpiece, Al's work is incredible, the level of detail is astonishing. Goodwin and Williamson were just coming off their amazing run on the Agent Corrigan strip, which they did from 1967 to 1980. They not only did the type of secret agent, noir stories X-9 demanded, but they also did sf stories with aliens, space battles, and alien worlds with strange creatures. They did stories in the style of 30s pulp movies in exotic locales, like ancient ruins in an Arabian desert, & Mayan pyramids in Mexico. Corrigan is where Al really developed that high contrast lighting effect that's thruout the Blade Runner book. After leaving Corrigan, George Lucas hired them to take over the Star Wars newspaper strip for 3 years, which is both one the high mark and swan song of heroic adventure newspaper strips. Goodwin and Williamson also spent years producing horror stories for Warren, and did some of the King syndicate Flash Gordon comic book together (including an X-9 backup story that led to them being handed the newspaper strip). They were perfectly primed for a Blade Runner adaptation, they understood all the elements of the movie, noir, sf, horror, futuristic hardware & landscapes, and their working relationship was def humming on all cylinders. They understood what made Blade Runner a unique experience in heroic fantasy, a proto cyberpunk work which would inspire creators for years, that they were perfectly suited to adapt into comics. I'm surprised how little notice this comic gets from the illustration cognoscenti. Still, I believe among Al's several Marvel masterpieces, his Star Wars, his Flash Gordon comic and movie adaptation--done for magazine size so Al gets an incredible amount of detail in his pages. The Flesk book "Al Williamson's Flash Gordon: a Lifelong Vision of the Heroic" reprints every Flash Gordon comic & illustration Al ever did, much of it produced from original art including the movie adaptation, in its entirety. It also has, what I consider Al's greatest Marvel masterpiece, his two issue Flash Gordon mini series. In the Flesk book they print it in black and white from the original art, I also own the original 2 issues that are done in color, on baxter paper. So closer in look to the Blade Runner comic printed on white paper, but that bright color looks better with Flash Gordon than Blade Runner. Those two issues are his last Flash Gordon comics, and they are imo Al's greatest work, in or outside of Marvel. Al had been solely doing inking for Marvel for years by this point, bc he was so slow as a penciller he couldn't make enough money, but Marvel's EIC wanted to get some pencilling out of the old master, so he bought the rights to Flash Gordon. and told Al he had no deadline to write and draw a two issue mini. I can't remember how long it took, but it was months in the making, and the story telling is much better than in the Blade Runner comic. Al was still a teenager at EC, and the other sf artists raised the bar pretty high in the EC sf anthologies, so not only did he like working collaboratively with the Fleagles bc he was young and wanted to socialize, but also bc he was young, lacked confidence and just learning. I've read interviews with Al in James Van HIse's "Al Williamson" and "Al Williamson Hidden Lands," and when he was younger Al lacked confidence in his inking, which he acknowledged flipped as he got older, and became more comfy with inking than pencils. In the late 50s, after the Comic Code Authority fiasco sank EC, put many publishers out of work, chased many artists out of the business bc there wasn't much work, and of course page rates went down. So art got simpler, after all, the CCA, Congress, Wertham, and conservative cancel culture deemed comics to be for little kids, and to make money artists had to produce more pages more quickly. I think Al benefitted from that change to a less detailed style in sf comics, it gave him room to learn inking without having to ink intricate details in spaceships, landscapes, etc. Also, Al's friendships with Krenkel, Wood and the Fleagles gave him access to their knowledge of illustration techniques, including using photo reference. RGK in particular introduced Al to older artists, and taught him old techniques that were almost arcane knowledge, either passed down from older illustrators, or gleaned from meticulous studying and copying of prints or tear sheets. Al had learned to draw by copying Alex Raymond, but RGK introduced him to Franklin Booth, JC Cole, Edwin Austin Abbey, J Allen St John and other illustrators from the golden age of illustration. Al also worked as an assistant on several adventure comic strips in the early 60s, most significantly with John Prentice on the Raymond created "Rip Kirby" strip, but also with John Cullen Murphy on "Big Ben Bolt" and Don Sherwood on "Dan Flagg." So he was able to learn, and put into practice illustration techniques, gaining great confidence in his inking, plus was forced, as an assistant, to learn how to do effective backgrounds. And my word, did he learn how to create incredible alien cities and landscapes. I really enjoyed your analysis, and I agree that those artists who know how to do this type of illustration: like Mark Schultz, & Gary Gianni, are few a far between, we are in danger of losing the special knowledge needed to create this type of illustrative work. Al is one of my fave artists, I think he's the best illustrative comic artists ever, better imo than Wally Wood, whose work sometimes seems simplistic to me. I have nearly everything Al's done that's been reprinted, the books I mentioned above include many short stories Al did for anthology comics, the Pure Imagination books mostly featuring his 50s Atlas work, "Amazing Adventures" 90s creator owned work at tabloid size, all the Marvel tpb collections of his Star Wars work--including his comic adaptation of the newspaper strip, and the new Flesk book "Strange World Adventures" reprint pages & entire stories from original art from thruout his career, and the entire run of Agent Corrigan which is beautifully reproduced by The Library of American Comics & published in gorgi editions by IDW. The Corrigan strip is really a high point of Williamson's career, it's also been reprinted in many mags devoted to comic strip reprints, its totally worth reading if you can find it. I actually only recently learned of Williamson's "Blade Runner" adaptation with Goodwin, and I was surprised that with all I'd learned about Williamson, this work was pretty much unsung. It took me a while to find a reasonably priced copy of the issue with the Steranko cover, I chose to get the whole story in one book, bc many of Marvel's movie adaptations at that time, like Gray Morrow's "Sheena," were printed in full in magazine size, but in two parts in comic size. I was disappointed to find out "Blade Runner" I'd bought was in comic size, and the colors seemed too bright on the white paper. I didn't realize, til I saw your vid, that the 2-part newsprint comic book actually came out first. Watching your vid, hearing your commentary, I'm considering seeking out the comics.

[@josephwhite6472]

I think that a natural follow-up to this (if you haven't covered it already) is the adaptation of the first Alien movie, "Alien: The Illustrated Story" by Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson (I think this was originally published by Heavy Metal, but recently reprinted by Titan).

[@genro001]

Picked up the Marvel Super Special thus week. Good stuff.

[@richbuxo]

Awesome Video, My favorite film and wow! what an incredible adaptation. Williamson was a master, no question about it.

[@grendelpaul]

i would have to guess Williamson had the film to look at. 90% of the angles are identical to the film. i've watched the film over a hundred times and id have to guess he was able to get photo stills or even a copy of the film. there's a panel at 12:36 on the bottom of the left page, middle panel. its a shot of M. Emmitt Walsh as the police chief. that's an actual cut away shot in the film of the actor he's under very different and extreme lighting conditions. there's just no way Williamson would have happened to chooses similar changes in lighting unless he had a chance to see the film. he must have had access to the film is my guess. GREAT VIDEO

[@edking9724]

I went to see the film with Al and Carlos when it opened in New York, and I don't think Al saw it before that.

[@ddotandrews5610]

I bought a pocket-size paper back edition of this movie adaptation. I was 6 years old and every other day I would pick it up and read or just thumb through it. My version was in black and white so it added to the noire of the film. Thanks for the kick in the frontal lobe! Nice job guys. I just subscribed to yaw because of this. 😎✌️

[@smokydogy]

The Kayfabe effect in full swing, I need this lol

[@FrankGulp]

Rick Deckard. Frank will be his distant cousin. Maybe.

[@wojciechbem8661]

You should watch Polish pirate black and white version from early nineties . It’s genius. It have not been published in classical American form but as little book format in Quattro. It’s has usually one or two panels on page with big gaps between then. Lot of panels are split and shifted which gives that surreal “dolly tracking shoot” feeling. If I were Al I would be mad seeing that butchery. But I hope I would’ve been change in mind because result is extraordinary. Every panel looks like solo ex libris illustration . But original work of Al is astonishing anyway. Good Job Guys with channel. Cheers

[@wojciechbem8661]

I’ve read comments and realized I was in mistake. I thought It’s incredible editing is private invention of polish editor. But not. It’s pure genius directly from brilliant mind of great Jim Steranko

[@evanlindsey1100]

I bought the two individual issues years after they came out, but well before I managed to watched the movie in its entirety (which was a few years after I bought and read these). It's my understanding that this came out before Marvel stopped using deluxe versions of movie adaptations. When Indy and the Last Crusade came out in '89, it was released as a black and white magazine and the requisite color 4 issue mini. Mitch Pileggi (best known as his role of Director Skinner from the X Files) was the villain in Shocker.

[@rudak6718]

I wish there was a black & white version of this. Epic Illustrated ran a preview of this in B&W and it looks rad!

[@lemelstudio]

yes, I can confirm this. the black & white version is digest-sized. I bought it in 1982 or 83, and It was a few years before I knew that the *color* version existed!

[@noodlesbad]

I believe the building is actually called the Bradbury Building (no connection to Ray).

[@markschurer1874]

Yes the ppl at home can tell. 🙂

[@evanlindsey1100]

Al Williamson was great artist, but then you have to see who his contemporaries were. In the 50s, he became a member of a group of friends including Nick Meglin, Angelo Torres, Frank Frazetta (yes, that Frazetta), and Roy Krenkel. While most folks know about Frazetta the most, it was Krenkel you had to keep an eye on. Frazetta started painting paperback covers because Krenkel had found himself with more work than he knew what to do with. So Krenkel talked to Frazetta, and got him started in painting covers. The rest is history.

[@billstorie5161]

In this case I have to say I prefer the muted colours in the newsprint edition. Suits the tone of the movie better I feel.

[@michaeldorman]

The Bradbury is the name of the real building. The interior is famous. Check the Wikipedia article to see some pictures.

[@keithperkinsart]

The Bradbury is in the movie.

[@ivy3z]

has anyone else read locke and key? it seems right up the alley for kayfabe

[@Gootie29]

I'm not sure but I think there was another version of that adaptation that came in a different format. My memory is fuzzy but I think I got it from a school book fair

[@WolfPartyProductions]

There’s a pocketbook comic version. Same art with the panels shifted around and printed in b&w.

[@billstorie5161]

In the UK there was a hardcover edition which was basically the Super Special but with hard glossy cardboard covers. If I recall right it had a photo of Ford on the Bradbury stairs as the cover image.

[@toddevangelista]

If you haven't read the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick which the movie is based on, you should give it a try. It has a lot more detail than the movie, but it's also quite brutal.

[@neilsanzari9723]

A lot of those shots are obviously based on reference from the film. Those cop cars were designed by Syd Mead. Plus, the look of the opening scene where Leon’s undergoing the Voight comp test is straight out of the movie. The best part of that film is that if all the animals are extinct how did humanity survive? This means everyone is a replicant even Dekkard. This hidden concept is a carryover from the source material: PKD’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

[@neilsanzari9723]

The key scene is when Rachel asks Dekkard if the test has ever mistaken a human for a replicant.

[@neilsanzari9723]

I read Do Androids Dream almost 20 years after I had seen Blade Runner in the theater when it first came out. And I went into reading it skeptical thinking that it would be the same exact story told in the movie. Even though Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies ever, I wasn’t disappointed with the novel. It was so refreshing, and there was a laugh out loud moment I never expected with this character named Chickenhead who wasn’t in the film. Freaking hilarious. Do Androids Dream and Blade Runner are billed as serious concepts and to have the author stash that funny as hell scene in the novel was absolutely rewarding storywise as a fan and a reader.

[@paulryan653]

Do a James Hong fanzine.

[@burntendzcomics]

I’m curious if anyone knows what the first movie marvel ever adapted as a comic was?

[@billstorie5161]

Think it was the Wizard of Oz

[@blacktionjackson7133]

I hope you talk about the movie Nemesis in your Brion James 'zine. Not because it's a good movie. It isn't. But it has 2 good elements. One is Brion James, and the other is GUNS. And I'm not talking about slick John Woo kind of gunplay. I'm talking big, gratuitous weaponry. Just overwhelming damage through firearms.

[@tooruoikawa8985]

Can you guys please do Berserk or JoJos bizarre adventure Steel Ball Run or Stardust Crusaders! Please! So curious to hear your thoughts on Kentaro Miura or Hirohiko Araki. Thanks for the daily vids guys love the content ps loved the Fist of the Nortstar video and your Akira videos those are probably my favorite. Lol

[@burntendzcomics]

Agree! This channel is made for Berserk

[@purefoldnz3070]

still waiting on my flying car.

[@neilsanzari9723]

The Blade Runner film is by far the greatest depiction of the uncanny valley. Since the whole cast are replicants (because of the plague that made animals extinct), these androids are state of the art marionettes. Puppets. Imagine how creepy it is to look into the eye of one of these things. Talk about monstrous.

[@forcedadventure]

E X C E L L E N T V I D E O ! ! !

[@SGTDave]

I have the Rock N Rule Marvel Super Special. The really cheaped out by just pasting word balloons over screen shots of the film.

[@bozodeathgod]

Brion James riding the lightning and coming back "Freddy-fied" is from The Horror Show. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gKevimuoYsx7Y68

[@zoso73]

I prefer the copy on newsprint/pulp paper. It mutes the colors. That IS the Blade Runner ambiance. The copy on Baxter paper is too colorful; not my Blade Runner.