Paul Gulacy -- Vixens, Spies, and Masters of Kung Fu!

[@gg92101]

I followed Gulacy at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh within a year; I was there from 1974-76. Even then he was legendary at the school. The cartooning teacher, Bob Sallows, told me about him when I first interviewed at AiP, and that he was working for Marvel. I remember getting his first issue of Morbius (Adv. into Fear 20) at the National Record Mart on Forbes Ave, just off Market Square. LAMP BLACK was a paint we used in Merchandising class, which was taught by an old pro named Tom Helwig. It was a little tube of dense black paint that you squeezed out onto a palette and mixed with water. We used it for wash tones on drawings of appliances or clothing ... anything you might see in a black and white newspaper ad for Kaufmann's or Horne's dept. stores. In the mid-70s, that's what the "Visual Communications" curriculum was like at AiP, all geared to becoming a commercial artist, NOT a comic book one. Lots of merchandising drawings and rubber cement paste-ups and specing type.That's why Gulacy was so rare. The twin comics artists Rick and Dave Hoover were also in my classes.

[@icepicklobotomy]

Lampblack is a form of carbon you get from burning lamp oil. It collects in the top parts of old lanterns. If you put a pan over burning oil/hydrocarbon, it collects there and you can scrape it off and use as pigment. They used to use it to darken the skin of special forces faces way back in the day. You can get it commercially now.

[@stevena488]

Paul Gulacy is one of those guys who's just another pillar. You can't compare him really to Steranko because it's like comparing Moebius to Jean-Claude Mézières. You can see they're both from the same neck of the woods, but their individuality stands out like a sore thumb so it's more you can have your favourites but in terms of techniques they're both in the same league.

[@cloudmover]

Cel Vinyl is an opaque, waterproof paint formulated for use on acetate. It is one coat opaque - like a waterproof gouache. I adored it. The company manufacturing it went out of business. IMHO Holbein Acryla Gouache and Jo Sonja Acrylic Gouache are the best alternatives.

[@anthonytimmons9328]

Paul Gulacy, Jim Steranko, Throw in Neal Adams and Gene Colan, and dare I say Mike Ploog, some of the best comic book artist ever.

[@Williestyle-RobotechxMacross-x]

7:33 many have commented about the "black lamp wash" ( backwards from " lamp black wash" ). It uses one of the oldest pigments in human history. It started as lamp scorch residue and is now commercially available. It is the mid-background in the panel shown. When the pigment is "washed" it can create that semi-dark dark granular and steaky effect.

[@warwolf6359]

Paul Gulacy and Doug Moench’s work on MOKF in the 70’s was incredible. When I first saw their work it happened to be the first issue where Gulacy did his own inking in the Crystal Connection. Completely obsessed me from the start! Still impressive today with his use of light and dark, the detail in the drawings and the sheer sense of kinetic energy in the movements of the figures. Doug Moench’s writing was never better. Absolutely one of the best comics of that period of Marvel!

[@ShaneMatlock]

Master of Kung Fu had so many great artists on it. Gulacy, then Mike Zeck inked by Gene Day, and then Gene Day on pencils until his death. I highly suggest everyone grab the omnibuses while they still can as Marvel likely won't be reprinting them again as they had to work out a deal for the Fu Manchu rights. I got the first couple Epic Collections of MOKF but switched to the omnis with vol 2 since Marvel never did more Epic Collections after volume 2.

[@demetriusdillard2863]

I agree. I have both of the Master Of Kung Fu Epic Collections Marvel has published (to date) downloaded on my Kindle. It's a low down dirty crying shame no further Epic Collections are on the schedule at this time, presumably due to Sax Rohmer's estate... I had hoped to see a third Master Of Kung Fu Epic Collection featuring the beginning of Mike Zeck's tenure. Sadly, the Master Of Kung Fu omnibuses are way out of my price range, so I'm content with what I do own.

[@BenjaminMarra]

The James Bond series Gulacy did is INCREDIBLE.

[@montagethemovie5947]

I met Gulacy at Heroes Con! Cool cat. He signed a Brubaker Catwoman for me and a hip hop album cover he drew for ill Bill

[@cinexploits]

Oh yeah: MASTER OF KUNG FU, TOMB OF DRACULA, DEATHLOK THE DESTROYER, CONAN, DOC SAVAGE (B&W magazine) -- all of these had their own identity, had their own rules, and pushed all the boundaries of what a comic could be.

[@skrimshander]

Moench/Gulacy’s Six from Sirius had great pastel colors . A wonder to see Gulacy’s B&W stuff

[@mattarado2333]

Jim is spot on about the Master of Kung Fu splash pages - they look like ads for the greatest grindhouse movies ever made! I bought the Gulacy issues about 10 years or so ago, and they're really great.

[@comicfan92]

I discovered him on Batman vs Predator 2. Great art in that book

[@demetriusdillard2863]

I enthusiastically concur! Batman vs. Predator II is where I first became fully aware of Gulacy!

[@asadkhan6971]

I met Paul at a con in London several years ago, really nice guy. He did however have difficulty recalling his Black Widow portfolio.

[@vincentimbesi3947]

I’m so glad to see Paul Gulacy get some recognition! He’s always been one of my favorite artists! ❤

[@thesonofbrianpeppers]

-Prey is a great read. Not his most amazing art but a satisfying story. -His art in the Batman two parter is cool, it's Batman in globetrotting James Bond mode, but the story is incomprehensible. -Slash Maraud is one of my favorite Gulacey works. Found it in some 50c bins last year. -That James Bond story looks awesome. I must have it.

[@ShaneMatlock]

It was the Prey story that made me a huge Gulacy fan. I've since gone back and gotten all his MOKF but Prey blew me away when I first read it.

[@vincentimbesi3947]

Prey is still one of the best Legends of the Dark Knight stories!!

[@thesonofbrianpeppers]

@@ShaneMatlock Same here.

[@steelbat54]

I heard you mention Black Lamp wash. I remember using this when I was at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh back in the 70’s in advertising class with Mr. Helwig, God rest his soul. It was in a tube and you obviously mixed it with water and you would apply it to cold press board and make a graded affect to give a softened appearance to furniture, clouds, etc.. it’s been decades but I do remember using it. I may still have my original tube of it..great video, guys. Loved Gulacy back in the day.. he always impressed.. 👍

[@reprintranch]

Image at 5:28 is probably taken from/based upon Chuck Norris photo on the cover of _Fighting Stars_ magazine April 1976 issue. Octopus at 18:13 -- hail Hydra, hail Frazetta and hail _Famous Funnies_ issue 215. Old woman at 19:07 -- well-known photo of Mother Theresa.

[@russworks2882]

Great catches there, sir!

[@matthewbustamonte9147]

Lamp Black is a pigment used in acrylic and oil paint; it sounds like he's doing paint washes rather than ink washes. Same with cel vinyl; just another paint application. Gulacy's a true artist's artist, flexing those techniques.

[@tedmiller1376]

Gulacy is saying that he used paint to make grayscale art. Lamp black is a color of paint, and washes are what watercolor painters do. Mix enough water to make the paint semi-transparent, and acrylic artists do it too. Diluted black becomes gray. I imagine he did something similar to colorize the same work when it was reprinted in Nightmares (unless my memory fails me; it's been known to happen). Excellent stuff. No, you would not see long runs of his work. The current trend in comics is to change creative teams every 2 years, so really it was more likely for an artist back then to do long runs, not less. I gather his art took time to make, but for whatever reason, Gulacy falls into that category of sought after artists who almost never stayed on one title for long once they were established as valuable talent. I'm sure the digital age wasn't too gentle on his methods. The man heavily referenced his best work, and a consequence of people being able to still frame directly to jpeg (and before that, to video tape) has been a legal crackdown on doing so without permission. Artists do it anyway. I do that, too. But I haven't reproduced it for money at all. I'm not a sought-after talent. Some of the downgrade in quality over the years is down to the inker. Gulacy was working with Palmiotti exclusively from Prey onwards, and Jimmy Palmiotti was far from being his finest inker. I'm convinced, though, that his long and frequent breaks from sequential art, combined with the discouragement against still frame referencing and plain old age, took a serious toll on the work. I could see even in his early stuff the odd proportional error where heads looked oversized. It was rare, but real. In his later years it became way too common. And when he inked himself, quality increased sharply, but those errors remained. Still pretty amazing how fantastic his art looked even when he had to stop the gratuitous referencing. When P. Craig Russell stopped, his art became cartoony and lost the vitality that was evident in his Elric graphic novels and his 2 issue title Night Music. Gulacy, on the other hand, hardly skipped a beat. Such tremendous talent. Will always be a top tier favorite of mine. As for the superior talent, I would have to give it to Gulacy. Steranko certainly gets props for innovation that pushed back the envelope on what could be done in comics. But once he was done with Fury, he was essentially done with comics aside from the rare example such as Outland. Gulacy, on the other hand, has a large body of work in comics that puts Steranko to shame. Those who claim it's not fair to compare the two, that's just absurd. It's like saying Buckler shouldn't be compared to Kirby. Of COURSE he should. Gulacy picked up where Steranko left off, with a superior eye for detail. And for better or worse, Steranko never picked up the gauntlet. So Gulacy's work remained an improvement on Steranko, never to be surpassed by anyone else. Which is not to say that no one else ever reached the same heights. Just that those cases very much WERE apples to oranges, and it really wouldn't be fair to compare them to Gulacy.

[@oldguy9051]

11:38 There's a typo in the caption: the city in Germany is called "Essen" and he was there on the 1999 Essen Game Fair. This photo is on his Wikipedia page -- in very good quality.

[@Jason-ql7wb]

Taking your own photo references with a grid pattern in the background is so smart.

[@michaelwagner7637]

Remember back when he was drawing Catwoman. I was working at a gas station and he came in to get gas and smokes. My friend/coworker was drawing in his art book and Paul Gulacy offered him an apprenticeship on the spot. Unfortunately my friend/coworker never followed up. So many years later and I regret my friends missed opportunity.

[@demetriusdillard2863]

I've always enjoyed and admired Paul Gulacy's artwork, especially his all-too-brief tenure on Master Of Kung Fu with Doug Moench way back in the seventies!

[@redbulletcomics9850]

I didn't follow MOKF as a kid. Once I saw Gulacy's art in back issues, I was blown away and went back to collect them. Just ordered the Gulacy book ! A true master artist.

[@jamesgildersleeve]

Wow! Gulacy is such a dynamic artist. Stunning work. The MASTER OF KUNG-FU stuff is so beautiful. This book looks like a must find!

[@ja_no]

7:40 That's something I know from the famous artist's course. When the talk about greytone-wash-drawings early on in the course, for some reason they don't mean diluted drawing ink, instead they use opaque paint from tubes- I'm guessing something like gouache? I tried it and it work's fine, but I don't see the advantage over ink wash. edit: I found the comments about lamp black- so it actually isn't a gouache. I'd like to try it, maybe it does have certain advantages.

[@Vicshade]

I wish they had made a movie based on this version

[@captaincolonelcollector8541]

Fabulous episode! I loved learning about Gulacy's work! I'll keep my eyes peeled for his books!

[@Williestyle-RobotechxMacross-x]

this should become a part of the "kayfabe effect". I am guilty of overlooking Paul Gulacy, even though I really liked his 'Batman' and 'Tales of the Dark Knight' art work. The art and discussion here has changed that and I will be looking for more Gulacy. Great video, thanks Ed and Jim!

[@shughes4113]

Love Gulacy’s stuff. That Master of Kung Fu is great !

[@jonanjello]

Incredible book. I've never before seen it. Thanks for sharing!

[@chrislutes2717]

Great video! Gulacy’s a little before my time so I’m trying to go back and revisit his work now. Lamp black is just a cool shade of black paint. Since it was advertising I imagine he was using gouache.

[@davecironelibrarykid]

I first discovered Gulacy with Six from Sirius -- then went back to check out his work on MOKF w/ Doug Moench.

[@ibuprofeno400pa]

WE NEED INMEDIATLY A GULACY INTERVIEW

[@ryanolaughlin2556]

Other comments seem to support this, but I think he was using a diluted wash of Lamp Black watercolor. I'm actually using this myself for black and white artwork. If the paper can absorb it, it's a quicker and easier analog tone gradient compared to screentones.

[@Pork_Hunt]

Have you seen his Rook series with Dark Horse from 2015? There's a shift away from Steranko and the work is clearly heavily influenced by Kevin O'Neill.

[@carlramos9445]

another banger

[@russworks2882]

One of the influences he's mentioned, other than JS, is Joe Kubert's Sgt. Rock. You can sometimes see it in the expressions, the eyes and the frowning mouths. I think he absorbed some of the kinetic Kubert storytelling along with the Steranko sense of design, which may make his stuff seem a little more grounded. He inked himself on those first two Batman books and it's definitely stronger than the other Batman work, well-inked by Terry Austin and others. He briefly did a stint as illustrator for Hustler magazine, and was offered the Honey Hooker gig, but I guess even the trashiest artists have their limits. (He did paint the cover of the collection, though.)

[@cowbelltv4865]

Galacy is to the 70s as Steranko is to the 60s. GREAT but not enough comics work for fans.

[@kenlawson3336]

I own this! I thought MOKF was awesome back in the day! However, I thought he was bored by his Batman work.

[@paulhardman2515]

Gulacy is a master for sure, but always a bit off too. His work is a mix of outlaw and otherworldly.

[@krishnadorney6543]

I feel like there's a lot of Gulacy influence in Quinn and Vigi's Faust. Like he was straddling the world of superhero comics and outlaw comics.

[@chochez2187]

So what I research I can find so far is that black lamp wash refers to a ink pigment that is the blackest black made, it is made from carbon and dates back to prehistoric times and was used by the Egyptians on their tomes ,it is light fast , oblique and permanent

[@Williestyle-RobotechxMacross-x]

It was literally collected from lamp generated scorching and soot, usually a surface above or around the lamp.

[@ericw8478]

The Moench/Gulacy combo was on a par equal or better than Lee/Kirby or Claremont/Byrne.

[@demetriusdillard2863]

I couldn't agree with you more. Moench and Gulacy were truly a match made in heaven on Master Of Kung Fu, and lightning would strike twice for Moench a few years later when he collaborated with Sienkiewicz on Moon Knight.

[@ericw8478]

Gulacy is another one of those once-in-a-lifetime "talents" (I know artists hate that word).