Don Newton Portfolio

f ever there was a strange tale of comic fandom and Don Newton, the tale of Titan Comics might be it. Next to The RBCC (Rocket's Blast Comic Collector), Titan Comics published the earliest Don Newton strip of any fanzine. I know what your thinking, "I've never heard of Titan Comics. If they're so important, how come I never heard of them?" That's a very good question and it begs and even better one, "How the heck did Titan Comics land Don Newton, the #1 comic fanzine artist of the time?"

On the face of it, Titan had nothing much going for them, except enthusiasm. Titan Publishing was the brainchild of Dave Williams of Richardson Texas. Dave hoped to start a full line of fanzines, but as far as I know, Titan Comics was the only title to ever see print. Issue #1 did not bode well for the fledgling enterprise. The zine was 44 pages long, a collection of mimeographed and offset pages featuring four fan-drawn strips and a couple of articles. One of the pages was even some strange color mimeograph, something I didn't even know existed. None of the strips deserve much mention, they were all, universally, bad. But, everyone working on them appeared to be having fun, and in some strange way, that almost made up for the fact that not much talent was in evidence. But that all changed with issue #2.

Well, not ALL that changed. The printing was still abominable and most of the strips were frighteningly bad, but not all the strips. much.

As you can see by the note on the cover, the Newton Portfolio comes to us from the private collection of Howard Seigel.


The inside front cover is a wonderfully moody Solomon Grundy, done mainly in brush and zip-a-tone. Years later Don would draw Solomon Grundy again in the pages of Infinity Inc.	Lovecraft's the Dweller is done in what I think of as Don's classic black and white style, mainly penwork and lots of detailed hatching.


A classic Don Newton black and white Flash Gordon piece. Don really captures the feel of Alex Raymond or Al Williamson here while still retaining his own unique style.	Don really was a fan of the entire Marvel Family as this Marvel Bunny painting illustrates.


The Fighting Yank is a very nice painting by Don. Don would return to the "flag in the background" theme years later on his classic cover of the Phantom of 1776 for Charlton.	One of my all-time favorite Newton pieces. I can't say enough good things about Don's powerful Hawkman rendition. It's as powerful today as it was in 1971.


Don's rendition of Airboy seems to be more pen and opaque wash than painting, but without knowing if its in color or not I can't be sure.	Now this Conan painting really got around. This is at least the third place G.B. Love used this one and none of them were in color.

A beautiful center-spread of Thor done in Don's classic black and white style. It's interesting to compare this piece to the artwork in the Avengers Annual #9.

It's hard to tell if this Spy Smasher piece is a painting or not, but regardless, it's a very nice illustration.

Captain Nazi and Freddy Freeman (Captain Marvel Jr.) in a wonderful pen and wash piece by Don. This is one of my favorites.


Don's love of jungle settings is apparent in this rendition of Ka-Zar and Zabu.	Don's classic black and white style adds a realism to this Captain Marvel illustration that his work at DC never had.


I believe this painting of Namor was the first piece of fan art that Don ever had published.	I've always been a big fan of this Black Terror piece by Don.


The classic Newton black and white style is in evidence on this Green Hornet and Kato illustration.	Don's love of the golden age characters shines through in this wonderful piece, the inside back cover, done in a more simplistic style than normal.

The Newton Portfolio ends with this great rendition of the Hangman in classic Newton style.