Picture Break! Clea and the Doctor
Below are illustrations from DR STRANGE comics from 1974, issues 20 and 22, when Rudy Nebres, more famous for his work on CONAN and the black and white version of IRON FIST, did some guest art work for this magazine.
These images were my first ever view of Dr. Strange, or of any comic, and this version formed my mental picture of Clea, the silver-haired sorceress from the Dark Dimension, ruled by the tyrannous Dormammu, and of Dr. Strange himself.
Years later I would come upon the original drawings by Steve Ditko: while these, technically, form the canonical appearance of the character, in my heart Dr. Strange appears as he does here.
Note the crazy non-rectilinear boxes, the feathering, the shade work, the sheer Homeric beauty of male and female forms.
If you have no idea what is happening in these pictures, but vaguely think it is something mystical, dread and (if I may) strange, then you see what my young eyes saw opening the first comic book I ever bought or read.
I have been a lifelong fan of Dr. Strange since then, thanks to Rudy Nebres.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
