MCC98 & FUSM Sketchagraph Gallery
Last Updated: March 22, 2021 ...
- Pages 19 - 27: Removed some sketches from these pages of various "unstamped" MCC sketches, and condensed into 4 new pages
When MCC first came out in 1998, I was never really very interested in those sketches, mainly because I was not aware of who any of the "current day" artists were, esp. since I basically had not read comics since the Silver-Age days. Now there was a lot of great artwork in MCC, but "early-on", when I was mainly interested in collecting MSA, I couldn't find a theme or character set, to rationalize doing yet another sketch card set. But as you can see from my Marvel Silver Age Gallery 2,
I really like Czop's art and style, so I limited myself to collecting MCC sketches from Czop. In fact, 12 of the 15 MCC pages are ALL Czop's !! 
For this web site, I have found it better to scan the entire 9-pocket (a.k.a. page), rather than to put each sketch up as an individual scan. Besides for those of you who know me, I am very obsessive about how my pages are arranged .
Currently I have 22 "full" pages of MCC98 & FUSM sketchagraphs. Below, I give a brief summary of what is in each page, just to the right of the thumbnail for that page.
Note: Click the thumbnail to open a new window to see a larger-size view of the page.
Table 3a: MCC98 & FUSM Sketchagraph cards
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Page 1: MCC98 inked Czop's. I consider most of these as SA characters, so I got them; though I don't consider Wolverine a SA character, and the Ant-Man has the "modern" version headgear. I believe all of these are considered "fairly common" inked MCC98 sketches. |
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Page 2: More MCC98 inked Czop's. This is a continuation of the previous page. I believe these are all "uncommon or rare" inked sketches, esp. the Trapster (slot 4), Skin (slot 6), Skrulls slot 9), and of course, the colored Fixer (slot 5). |
At first I thought Czop's inked sketches were all I wanted, but later I discovered Czop's penciled MCC stuff was even "neater" than some of the inked stuff because of the added details and use of shading. So I had to get "a few" of those too ! As you can see below ... I got carried away ? | |
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Page 3: On this page are penciled MCC Czop's. This page is Avengers themed. I start with the "original" five Avengers, which Jack Kirby first drew in Avengers #1 - #8. The Iron Man (slot 1) sketch is of him in his original bulky suit, as he appeared in Avengers #1 - 3. Many fans probably don't realize that Kirby first drew Antman and the Wasp, in a separate comic book titled, 'Tales to Astonish'. The Antman (slot 2) is an MCC sketch, so his helmet has a more "modern-look". I added a very retro-SA Wasp (slot 3) as a companion piece to the Antman sketch. Thor (slot 4) and the colored Hulk (slot 5) rounds out my original Avengers. Kirby drew the first five issues of 'The Incredible Hulk' (in 1962). In slot 6 is another Kirby character ... Captain America. Cap was introduced to the team in Avengers #4, and took over as leader in issue #16, when the other original members left, and Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver joined the team. This was the start of the ever-changing roster over the years. This changing roster is evinced by the fact that Antman became Yellow Jacket (slot 8) and rejoined the team as that new character. The upgraded red-gold Iron Man is shown in slot 7. The Swordsman (slot 9) was a SA foe, first appearing in Avengers #19, and later, even briefly ... albeit for duplicitous reasons ... joined the team too. |
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Page 4: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page is Fantastic Four themed. In row 1 are the Fab Four themselves. I added She-Hulk (slot 5) who was at one time a member of the FF, temporarily replacing one of the members. You can see that she has her FF outfit on in this sketch. The next one is a "somewhat obscure" SA villain ... Annihilus (slot 7), whom is from the Negative Zone (FF Annual #6). The last row is of Cosmic characters. The Watcher (slot 7) and Galactus (slot 8), first appeared in FF #49 as part of the 'Coming of Galactus' storyline. Terrax (slot 9) is a post-SA character, who took over as the Herald of Galactus in FF #221, (the Silver Surfer being the first Herald of Galactus). |
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Page 5: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page is Spider-Man themed. In row 1 are the two variations of of Spidey himself, in both regular costume (slot 1), and the short-lived Black (symbiote) costume (slot 2). The row is completed with the second wearer of the symbiote, Venom (slot 3). The rest of the page shows a Rogue's Gallery of Spidey villains. Row 2 has SA villains, Doc Ock (slot 4), Scorpion (slot 5), though in a non-SA outfit, and The Beetle (slot 6). Row 3 has non-SA villains Hobgoblin (slot 7); Rose (slot 8); and Tarantula (slot 9). |
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Page 6: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page is X-Men themed. Though I only have Czop sketches of two of the original 6 X-Men, and since I had many other "minor" characters from the X-Men Universe, I decided to make three X-Men pages of Czop's. I wanted this first page to be a SA-themed page but I couldn't find nine Czop's that were "strictly SA". In slot 1 is a SA-style Cyclops. In slot 2 is the original SA Marvel Girl, and including slots 3 - 5, these four sketches show an "evolution" of Jean Grey The Scarlet Witch (slot 6), first appeared in X-Men #4, as a villain, and original member of 'The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants', teamed with her brother Quicksilver, and headed by their father, Magneto. In row 3 are three SA villains, The Blob (X-Men #3), Banshee (X-Men #28), and the Sentinels (X-Men #14). |
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Page 7: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page is X-Men (post-SA) themed. Row 1 starts with popular X-Men, Rogue, Cable and Bishop. The rest of the page has five characters that I am not really familiar with, whom are either members of the X-Men at one time, or are a part of the numerous teams affiliated with the X-Men: Cannonball, Madrox (the Multiple Man), Chamber, Wolfesbane, and Feral. |
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Page 8: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page is X-Men(post-SA) foes themed. Callisto (slot 1) is the leader of the Morlocks. Mr. Sinister (slot 2) and Sauron (slot 3) are popular post-SA villains, although Sauron actually first appeared in the SA in X-Men #59/60. Four sketches are associated with the Imperial Guard (slot 5) of the Shi'ar Empire. Row 3 has three members of the Imperial Guard, Tempest, Oracle and the leader of the group, Gladiator. To complete the page, in slot 6 is Corsair. In one of those "only in comic books" scenarios, Corsair was revealed to be Cyclops' (and Havok's) supposedly-dead father !! Corsair is often at odds with the Shi'ar Empire. |
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Page 9: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page is Miscellaneous Babes themed. With a lot of the sketch card artists, it seems as though their females "all look alike". Czop seems to have a knack for drawing female face's, and for the most part, he seems to capture a character's particular likeness, such that his females don't look like "generic" females. So on this page are babe sketches that have either no themed page that it can go into, or in some cases, they have been pushed-off of other themed pages, such as the Spidey or an X-Men page. I just thought it would be cool to do an estrogen-laden Czop page !! |
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Page 10: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page has Miscellaneous characters. The theme for this page is "Heroes". Row 1 has three minor/major heroes in the Marvel Universe: Falcon, Nick Fury, Captain Britain. Slot 4 has the Invaders, an important team in comicdom, being the equivalent of the Avengers during WWII, consisting of Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and the original (Android) Human Torch. They fought the Nazi's during WWII. An action shot of Iron man is in slot 5, followed by his protege, War Machine in slot 6. Row 3 has Cyclops, Gargoyle (from the Defenders), and Dr. Strange. |
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Page 11: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page has more Miscellaneous characters. The theme for this page is "SA-era Villains". Ares (slot 1), the Olympian God of War first appeared in Thor #129. |
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Page 12: On this page are more penciled MCC Czop's. This page has more Miscellaneous characters. I consider these "minor" characters or villains in the Marvel Universe. |
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Page 13: On this page are Miscellaneous commissioned Czop sketches. Over the years, I have commissioned Czop to draw me sketches on either MCC or MSA blanks. Since I have replaced some of them with actual pack-pulled ones, I was going to sell or trade these away, but I have decided to put them together into a page The first row are three penciled ones. Slot 1 is a Golden Iron Man he drew at the Philly Non-sports Show in 2001. In slot 2 is a commissioned FF sketch, done with a more "modern" look, unlike the Kirby look that Czop did with the MSA one. In slot 3, is the sketch I commissioned Czop to draw for me as a companion piece to go with the "lonely" Antman, so he drew me the Wasp in "retro" SA outfit !! Looks just like Ms Van Dyne ? At one time, since I had so many dupes of his more common inked MCC sketches (see page 1 of the MCC Gallery), that I decided to have Czop colorize four of these for me, because he does such a beautiful job with both his choice of colors and his technique(s). In 2000, I commissioned Czop to draw me the Thor I & II (slots 8 & 9), and when I asked he said that he already had in mind the exact same concept and characters that I asked him for |
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Page 14: This page contains sketches of MCC Miscellaneous SA villains, six of whom are Jack Kirby's creations. As of 2004, except for those from Czop, I did NOT collect any MCC sketchagraphs. But over time, I found some of these MCC ones had a SA "look" to them that appealed to me. So I started colleting some of these into a page The first one is Loki,Thor's arch-enemy almost from the beginning, first appearing in Journey into Mystery #85. Blastaar (slot 2) came from the Negative Zone in FF#63. Rama-Tut (slot 3) whom first appeared in FF#19, was later revealed to possibly(?) be Dr. Doom from the future ! The Leader (slot 4) is actually a Steve Ditko character (Tales to Astonish #62), whom tormented the Hulk for much of the SA. Ulik (slot 5) is an Asgardian Troll who fought Thor many times, beginning with Thor #137. Attuma is an Atlantean Warlord who wanted Namor's crown for himself, first appeared in FF#33. The Mandarin (slot 7) is the classic Iron Man foe, as first drawn by Don Heck in Tales of Suspense #50. This Jim Steranko verison of the Yellow Claw (slot 8), first appeared in 'Strange Tales' #160. 'Strange Tales' was split into Dr. Strange stories and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD stories. The "original" Yellow Claw was created by Jack Kirby in 1956. The Ringmaster is a Steve Ditko creation, first appearing in 'The Incredible Hulk' #3. |
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Page 15: MCC Darren Auck page. I had not intended to make a page of Auck's sketches, but since I had so many of them, I decided to collect them into a page For MCC, Auck, as with Czop and Martineck, seemed to draw every character in the Marvel Universe. Darren used both pen and pencil for his sketches. I am only familiar with the six characters that were created in the SA. I'll let you figure out who those six are |
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Page 16: This page contains various MCC Spider-Man sketchagraphs. In late 2005, I acquired a small lot of MCC sketches with the intent of using them to trade for MSA sketches from other collectors. However, for various reasons, and esp. since many of them appealed to me artistically, I decided to make a page out of them !! In row 1 is a John Czop Spider-Man with tingling Spider-sense , Morrell Mary Jane, and one of the nicer Arlem's I have seen with the "modern studly" Peter Parker carrying his camera. The next row was my Conkling "mini-set" of Scarlet Spider, Venom and Tarantula. However, in December 2007, I replaced the Venom with this McDaniel Venom, where you can just see Spidey reflected in his eye. The last row is miscellaneous ...
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Page 17: Fleer Ultra Spider-Man '97 page. Well, I can't resist a "good deal" on sketchagraphs, so "early on", I picked-up some of the FUSM sketchagraphs too ! Row 1 has a Joe Bennett sketch (slot 2) which to me, is just a way cool conceptual sketch of Peter "the nerd" Row 2 has two people in Peter's life, his pain-in-the-butt "boss", Jonah Jameson (slot 4), and his lovely-but-somtimes-demanding girl-friend Mary Jane (slot 5), which is probably making Peter look so sad in the Luke Ross sketch (slot 6). Row 3 has villains ...
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Page 18: Uncuts of two versions of Marvel Girl (later known as Jean Grey). I had picked up the Castrillo uncut of the classic MG early in 2002. So to fill the hole in the 2-pocket, I later commissioned George Tuska to draw me MG as he inked for X-Men #39. That was the issue in which the X-men's costumes were changed from the classic yellow-blue scheme, to "mod" individually colored costumes for each X-Man ... a sign of the times in the late 60's. Oh, see if you can note why I call Tuska a "dirty old man" for how "sexy" he drew MG |
Table 3b: Unstamped MCC98 Sketchagraph cards
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Back in August 2014, someone emailed me via this web site's Contact Page, offering me a "collection" of MCC sketches. As I mentioned at the top of this page, aside from Czop's I was never that interested in MCC sketches. But I was intrigued since his collection incuded Martineck's, Coutinho's, Lim's, etc. Oddly enough he had no Prado's, O'Clair's, etc. I was thinking of maybe only buying a few Martineck's, since those can get "pricey". Unfortunately, at one point during the process I realized that all of the sketches he was offering to me were unstamped. To me, unstamped means that when Fleer/Skybox received the sketch from the artist, they didn't bother to manually stamp it because they didn't need that sketch to be put into the packs. They produced 10,000 boxes so I bet they got back hundreds, if not thousands of sketches more than they needed; so why bother to stamp those that weren't needed for the packs. Somehow, these unstamped sketches found their way into the marketplace; which could be a long discussion for another time. To some collectors, without the stamp, they don't consider unstamped sketches to be "as valuable" because they were not "pack-pulled". I can understand that point of view, but to me, these are still legitimate MCC sketches. It's obvious from the artwork that these were actually drawn by the artist who signed them. So partially because I liked the bulk of the sketches, but also because I didn't want these being sold on eBay as stamped, and collectors being upset when they found them to be unstamped, I made the seller a "discounted" offer for the whole collection, which he accepted. I organized them into the 9 pages below. Notes: When I received them I realized that a lot of them were "badly damaged" (creases, ding marks, slight discoloration, etc.). This collection was obviously not well cared for March 2021: I feel as though I have sold-off enough of these unstamped sketch cards, and plan to keep the remainder. | |
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Page 19: Unstamped MCC Martineck Page. There were 17 Warren Martineck sketches in the lot.
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Page 20: Unstamped MCC Schaefer and Mitchell Page . There were 14 Dan Schaefer sketches in the lot. There are 6 left.
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Page 21: Unstamped MCC Watson and Lim Page. Also in the collection were sketches from an MCC artist I have never heard of, Jeff Watson. I show his sketches as a Ghost Rider, a pair of Wolverines, and a Captain America. He does seem to have a unique style ?
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Page 22: Unstamped MCC Steve Bunche Page. There were 5 Steve Bunche sketches in the lot as shown below.
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!! I have noted in the text for each page, which ones have damage. I did so since I am willing to trade or sell some of these sketches, preferably in groups of 8 - 9 so I don't have pages with a lot of holes in them