Thursday, February 10, 2011

Secret Dork Origins: The Danzig Skull

So I ain't been around the nerd farm much lately. My apologies. The research for our on-goin' history of the Comics Code has been takin' up so much of my time that I haven't been postin' at my usual pace. While it's great that I get to re-read the Spider-Man drug issues, I have missed flappin' my gums at you. So here's a quick little piece of Dork History to tide us both over til the next chapter's ready for public consumption...

Lots of dorks know this logo all too well:


That's the emblem (and first album cover) of the horror-rock band Danzig, named after lead singer Glenn Danzig (who also fronted the even-better horror-punk band the Misfits):

Comics fans will also be very familiar with Glenn's sideburns.

But did you know where Danzig got that bad-ass skull from? No, it's not original artwork. And no, it's not something from a heavy metal artist with a cool name like Pus-Head. It actually comes from here:


Look right here, at the bottom.

That's right! The Danzig skull is taken, pretty much exactly, from Michael Golden's illustration for the cover of Crystar the Crystal Warrior #8! An early-80s fantasy comic, Crystar was Marvel's attempt to sell a concept to a toy company (a reversal of their successful GI Joe, Micronauts, and ROM: Spaceknight series). I loved this book when I was a kid, and so, apparently, did Glenn.

3 comments:

  1. Something that only just occurred to me: the woman on the cover there (who was Crystar's girlfriend, if memory serves) looks kind of like DC's Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld character ... in a thong. Yikes.

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  2. Is the Crystar skull at the bottom of the cover that looks like Danzig's actually embodied from any sort of animal skull, or is it an original, thought up thing by Golden. I've always wondered what it came from, if anything besides imagination...

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  3. I doubt it. I see human-ish eye/forehead that is stylized. The mouth/nose is canine, no doubt, they eyes might just go with the rest of the face. And then, Ram's horns. Because.

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