GASPAR SALADINO in MAN-THING

From MAN-THING #1, Jan 1974

In addition to designing the logo, Gaspar Saladino lettered quite a few covers and one first story page for the series, which ran 22 issues in 1974-75. The circular blurb at bottom left here is clearly by him. Above the logo, he lettered only SWAMP-CREATURE, the rest is type. The character never achieved the same impact as DC’s Swamp Thing, despite good writing and fine art.

From MAN-THING #3, March 1974

Perhaps readers were less interested because the monster didn’t talk or seem to have human intelligence. Again, Gaspar lettered only SWAMP CREATURE in the top line, and did the bottom blurb with an interesting style choice for the open letters.

From MAN-THING #7, July 1974

MONSTER is typical Saladino scary lettering, and I like the energy of the balloon border.

From MAN-THING #8, Aug 1974

The open letter shapes on this blurb are again typical for Saladino.

From MAN-THING #11, Nov 1974

This one is a bit harder to identify, but the very square corners in the open letters of the first caption are more like Gaspar’s work than that of Danny Crespi, the other frequent cover letterer at this time. TO THE is type, perhaps press-down letters, something Gaspar used occasionally.

From MAN-THING #14, Feb 1975

Note the lower case THE in the bottom blurb, something Saladino often did. In the top line, SWAMP has been changed to SLIME. Not sure if Gaspar did that.

From MAN-THING #15, March 1975

I’m not sure about this one, it could be by Crespi, but the angular shapes in the open letters point toward Saladino.

From MAN-THING #16, April 1975

These two blurbs are firmly in Gaspar’s wheelhouse. The artful caption shapes with thin outlines are also typical of him, Crespi’s tended to be thicker.

From MAN-THING #18, June 1975

Another banner caption on this cover by Saladino.

From MAN-THING #19, July 1975

An unusual story title on Gaspar’s only inside lettering for the book.

From MAN-THING #2, Jan 1980

Marvel tried again with this new series, and Saladino lettered just this one cover for it. His fine logo was used again, which was not typical, often a new series got a new logo.

To sum up, I found Saladino lettering on these covers: first series 1, 3, 7-8, 11, 14-16, 18, second series 2. That’s ten in all, plus his single story page for issue 19 of the first series. More articles like this one are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.

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