Remembering Artist Earl Norem

Remembering artist Earl Norem on his birthday (April 17, 1924 - June 19, 2015) with a couple of his high kicking painted covers for the Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu (# 9, February 1975 and #33, February, 1977) featuring Shang-Chi.  

Happy Birthday Paul Gulacy

Happiest of birthdays to artist Paul Gulacy (August 15, 1953).

Known for his action style of art, especially on a run of Master of Kung Fu in the 1970s....yet, he only did four covers of that run featuring Shang-Chi!

Master Of Kung Fu #51 and #55 (April and August, 1977)

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Master Of Kung Fu #64 and #67 (May and August, 1978)

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This was at least changed when he did all the covers for Shang-Chi's recent 6 issue mini-series from 2002/2003, collected in this one trade!

Deadly Hands Of Nick Cardy

Nick Cardy was an artist known mostly for his work on Teen Titans, Aquaman, and Bat Lash, as well as all over DC Comics covers of the 1970s.

But, did you know he did a few covers for Marvel back in those days?

Here are the two painted covers he did featuring Shang-Chi for Marvel's Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu magazine!

Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu 15

As a "Super Annual Issue", this Summer of 1975 magazine issue featured reprints of Shang-Chi's second and fifth appearances (from Special Marvel Edition #16 and Master Of Kung Fu #19), Iron Fist's second appearance (Marvel Premiere #16), and a feature on Bruce Lee's life...

...but no team up of the characters as the cover suggests.

Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu 18

This November 1975 issue had two stories, with the first featuring Shang-Chi fighting the Shadow-Thief (no relation to the DC character), and ending his Golden Dragon Saga by Doug Moench and Rudy Nebres...

...while the second story, by Bill Mantlo, Pat Broderick and Terry Austin, featured a team up of Iron Fist and the Sons of the Tiger, fighting a villain called Snake-Eyes (no relation to the G.I. Joe character....), as well as a little feature on the Yakusa.

Makes you wish DC had jumped into the magazine market to get some painted covers of DC characters from Nick Cardy!

He also did a few other covers for Marvel, one for Marvel Movie Premiere #1 (September, 1975) featuring an adaptation of The Land That Time Forgot, and Marvel Premiere #28 (February, 1976), featuring Marvel's horror based characters, including the Man-Thing, Ghost Rider, Morbius and the Werewolf by Night!