Staff Picks (October): The Art Of Ploog

In the seventies when you were looking for horror comics there was Warren Magazines, DC’s House of Mystery and House of Secrets, and Marvel titles like Chamber of Chills. While we still saw legends like Alex Toth, Gene Colan, and Steve Ditko working on those titles we also saw newcomers like Frank Brunner, Bernie Wrightson, and Mike Ploog.

Marvel found a formula of horror themes and continuing characters, and Ploog became the go-to artist for many of the 70s greatest horror based series, from Werewolf by Night and the Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider to The Monster of Frankenstein. 

The years Mike worked under Will Eisner on PS magazine prior to his work at Warren and Marvel gave him a strong base in creating moody pieces of art, and a strong sense of graphic storytelling as well.

While many of Mike’s stories have been reprinted over the years FPG’s The Art of Ploog provides us the most comprehensive retrospective of his art. In an oversized 9" x 12" format and over 300 pages we see Mike’s work from Leatherneck to Marvel (Ghost Rider, Monster of Frankenstein, Man-Thing, Planet of the Apes, Kull, and Werewolf by Night), Crossgen, and Image to film work which included Wizards and Shrek.

This being FPG we get to see much of the original fantasy art he created for the trading card series he did with them in the 90s as well as art he did for collectible card games all  reproduced much larger than the size of the trading cards they were printed.

The Art of Ploog features commentary by Ploog along with those he worked with in comics and film like Ralph Bakshi, John Carpenter, Frank Oz, and Roy Thomas and comes in a standard edition as well as a signed edition limited to 250 total copies.

Mike Ploog is one of the true legends of the Bronze Age of comics though everything he does is pure gold.

—Steve Leaf

Publisher: FPG Item Code: OCT151878 Release Date: 12/16/15 SRP: $49.00