This title ran 31 issues from 1987 to 1989, building on Roy Thomas’s work in ALL-STAR SQUADRON. Gaspar Saladino lettered a few of the covers, but no inside pages. I’ll show all his covers here, as there aren’t many. The blocky slanted open lettering on this one is part of a pair…
…completed on the next cover. Clever work by Thomas and Saladino, and the use of ellipses in comics was never illustrated better.
Gaspar’s talent for cover lettering and design is obvious here. The contrast between the last line and the first two makes it interesting, and the treatment of MESOZOIC is full of rough character and texture, perfect for that word, evoking the dinosaur age.
Again, look at the variety of styles, sizes and shapes in this blurb, all working together for an interesting result.
There was just one Annual for this book, Saladino did the bottom blurb. Notice how some parts of some letters extend beyond the others to add interest, as does the double outline of the largest word.
Gaspar’s final work on the book was these appealing blurbs. Think how dull this text would have been as type. Saladino’s creativity and talent add so much.
To sum up, these covers have Saladino lettering: 10-11, 14-15, 27, Annual 1. That’s six in all. Other articles in this series and more you might enjoy are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.
As a follow up, this series was a major step down from All-Star Squadron. Terrible artwork, sloppy storytelling and changes wrought by Crisis on Infinite Earth’s that knocked the punch out of this books predecessor. All ridiculously unnecessary, but it was what it was!