I was delighted to discover a high-grade copy of Iron Man #14 in a small collection I recently picked up. The cover of Iron Man #14 has long been a personal favorite. I always assumed it had been drawn by Daredevil and Tomb of Dracula artist, Gene Colan. The dramatic use of shadow, conveyed through copious amounts of black ink, certainly gave it a Gene Colan flair. And Gene Colan did illustrate the 1st issue of Iron Man, so maybe it was a natural assumption.
As I perused this new acquisition I discovered Iron Man #14 was in fact drawn by an artist I knew very little about named Johnny Craig. Early on, Craig worked on EC horror comics such as The Crypt of Terror and The Vault of Horror. His visual storytelling style dripped with the drama of a still captured from a midnight-movie, so I suppose comparisons to Gene Colan were natural.
Johnny Craig never made a full career out of illustrating comics. He was reputed to be a meticulous illustrator prone to missing deadlines. Editors at DC described his work as ‘too subdued’. Johnny Craig drew Iron Man issues #2, 3, 4, 14, 24 and 25, but most of his career was spent inking the pencils of other artists. Had he been given a few more opportunities, Craig might’ve been one of the greats. At any rate, the cover of Iron Man #14 remains iconic to me, and holds a special place in my personal collection.