Alan Weiss (born March 7, 1948)[1] is an American comics artist and writer known for his work for DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
Alan Weiss began his professional comics career at Warren Publishing by drawing the story "Gunsmoke Charly!" in Creepy #35 (Sept. 1970).[2] The following year, he began working for Marvel Comics as well where he drew The Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, and The Amazing Spider-Man.[2][3]
Weiss recalled in a 2006 interview there was a "lost" Adam Warlock story, which if completed would have been reminiscent of the Jonathan Swift novel Gulliver's Travels.[4] Portions of it were printed in the second volume of Marvel Masterworks: Warlock. The remainder of the artwork was lost in a New York City taxicab in 1976.[5]
In 1977, Weiss was one of the artists on the first issue of Marvel Comics Super Special which featured the rock band Kiss in a 40-page fictional adventure written by Steve Gerber.[6][7] Kiss reappeared in an occult adventure in issue #5 (1978) which was co-written by Weiss. In April 1978, Weiss and writer E. Nelson Bridwell revamped the Captain Marvel character for DC with Weiss providing more realistic art for the series.[8] Dennis O'Neil and Weiss created the character Calypso in The Amazing Spider-Man #209 (Oct. 1980).[9]
Weiss created the Steelgrip Starkey and the All-Purpose Power Tool limited series for Marvel Comics' Epic Comics comics line in 1986 and War Dancer for Defiant Comics in 1994. Weiss has worked on DC Comics' alternate universe series Elseworlds, co-writing and pencilling the Batman graphic novel The Blue, the Grey and the Bat as well as Paradox Press' The Big Book Of series, doing many pages on a variety of historical topics. From 2002 to 2005, he contributed work to Tom Strong's Terrific Tales published by America's Best Comics.[2]
His work has appeared in the comic books The Human Drama, Big Apple Comix, The Twilight Zone, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, and Our Love Story; in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazines Creepy and Eerie; and the satirical magazines National Lampoon and Blast.[2]
Inker Joe Rubinstein called Weiss "the most difficult guy in the business to ink, without exception." He added that this also made him one of his favorite artists to ink, because Weiss's work was so intricate that he couldn't tell what the final art would look like until he had finished inking it.[10]
