Pulp Ink

Babyheads Before Christmas!

2011-12-20T07:05:00.006-05:00

Happy Holidays! Just in case you haven't been following things over at Lookoutmonsters.com;

It's Babyheads Tuesday! The first of two pre-Christmas Babyheads cartoons! What a way to celebrate the holidays! Another Babyheads is coming on Thursday!

What d'ya say to that, fellas?

That Day is Done

2011-11-09T13:31:00.005-05:00

That Day is Done , a new post with some news at lookoutmonsters.com-and for your enjoyment, the Paul McCartney/Elvis Costello song:

Plastic Baby Heads, coming after you!

2011-11-02T10:21:00.005-04:00

Plastic Baby Heads from Outer Space have arrived!!!!-over at lookoutmonsters.com!

& they're coming for you!

Don't Wait! Go to lookoutmonsters.com-for your dose of Babyheads-Tuesdays and Thursdays!

plastic babyheads in your pumpkin

2011-10-26T21:11:00.000-04:00

NEXT TUESDAY! at lookoutmonsters.com! Aha! Yes-after much ado about great fanfare for common men everywhere-the much anticipated-Plastic Baby Heads from Outer Space will finally land upon your browser’s shores! Imagine –Thrills!Spills! Chills! EVERY Tuesday and Thursday! Well-at least for as long as I can keep up with that, with UFOOLU and all the other shit I’m putting out there.”Plastic Ono Bands from Outerspace” will begin and befoolu NEXT TUESDAY! at lookoutmonsters.com
So— be prepared!
*(having a bit of trouble with wordpress missing scheduled posts–so if it’s not up in the A.M. you know why!)
I’m pretty excited about this–and I’ll tell you why. (Hah! no one asked you why you idiot! hah-what do I care? I’m a college professor, I’m used to talking with nobody listening!) Cause it’s so much damn fun, that’s why! I know, I know–after “Monsters”and “fandancer”–what is this webcomic thing all about? Well-it sure ain’t about the money! And it sure ain’t about the fame! C’mon! It is about the work—and looking at things from my middle aged vantage point–*ahemahem*—I can say that the work will lead you places, for what reason–well, you may not know right away. But if it’s happening–just follow it, don’t hold it back. –it may be leading you somewhere that is boffo! And worthwhile stuff will happen along the way-you betcha!
And “Plastic Baby Heads from Outer Space” is a helluva lotta fun. It really is. and when you start it, you think you know where it’s going–but LEMME TELL YOU–YOU DON”T! and the only way you’re going to find out where it’s going is to follow along! Yowza!
I’m psyched–hope you’re psyched–gotta get back to coloring a page! See you at http://lookoutmonsters.com for a new“ Look Out! Monsters” page on Monday–and then, Plastic Baby Heads from Outer Space–beginning NEXT TUESDAY!
The day after Halloween! Yaay! SOOOOO---pick your head up out of that plastic pumpkin and surf on over to Lookoutmonsters.com! & if you haven't yet checked it out at lookoutmonsters.com then here's the first installment for your Halloween pleasure-already up at the pbhfos page right now! Trick or Treat!

Dwight Twilley's "Soundtrack"

2011-10-06T15:30:00.000-04:00

Dwight Twilley is haunted.
On his excellent and moving new album, "Soundtrack",Dwight Twilley reveals himself to be a man hounded by ghosts; particularly thepoignant memories of his departed partners, Phil Seymour and Bill Pitcock IV,and perhaps even more so by the bittersweet taste of youthful dreams not quiterealized.
To those who are fans, the ups and downs of the Twilley saga are well-known.In the mid-seventies, Dwight Twilley was the young rocker who seemed to have itall; the tunes, the talent, the look, the rave reviews in “Crawdaddy” and a Top20 hit right out of the gate with 1975's shimmering pop-rocker "I'm onFire". But the release of his 1st album was delayed, and once“Sincerely” was out, somehow its brilliant evocation of early-Beatles era poprock didn't quite connect with radio dj's enamored of "Saturday NightFever" & FM radio playlists saturated with endless rotations of“Stairway to Heaven”.* But “Sincerely” was stuffed withenough impossibly innocent tunes like “You Were So Warm” and “LosingYou”, great Byrds-like guitar from Bill Pitcock IV, exquisite harmoniesfrom Dwight and Phil and impeccably smart arrangements replete with handclaps,tambourines and the organ of the great Leon Russell, to become an instantpower-pop classic; a dream record with far-reaching influence, touching everyindie rocker of the era from Tom Petty to R.E.M. and beyond.

Somehow though, the timing was off-and while Twilley concocted one great poprecord after another,(“Looking for the Magic”, “Tryin’ to Find My Baby,”“Twilley Don’t Mind”, “Chance to Get Away”) the follow-up hit that shoulda'been never happened. By 1980, partner Phil Seymour had gone out on hisown. Subsequently, Phil had a great big hit record; "Precious to Me",which itself could've been an out-take from the "Twilley Don't Mind"sessions.

Phil's solo success must've been a bittersweet pill for Dwight; surely hewas happy for his former partner, but he must've felt a little twinge in theback of his throat; it had been the “DwightTwilley” band after all. Still, Dwight Twilley's eponymous third record(and first solo album) was his best effort yet--a full, mature sound; songsriddled with introspection as well as riffs--and the depth of its quality onlyserved to highlight the lightweight nature of Phil's top 40 hit.


"Twilley"'s first 5 songs are among the best power-pop tunes ever &"Alone in My Room" is a masterpiece"

It wouldn't belong though, before Dwight answered Phil's hit with his own. Nearly ten yearsafter "I'm on Fire", Dwight Twilley was back on the chartswith the hook-laden "Girls", abetted by Tom Petty on backingvocals. (Petty, friend and one time stable-mate at Shelter records, had gone onto have his own huge success-and while many have noticed the similarity inTwilley's sound and that of the Heartbreakers, it was Twilley's soundfirst.)

After "Girls" though, it was all over for Dwight Twilley.There wasn't a follow-up, but there was an improbable string of bad luck andbefore long, Twilley was without a label. And in the meantime, Phil Seymour wasdiagnosed with lymphoma, became ill and passed away in 1993. Twilley's recordingcareer seemingly at a dead end, he returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma, hishometown; the place where he and Phil met and developed their classic sound; torecoup, to live life, to move onto the next phase.
Not an easy thing-- to surrender the dream your life’s work has been builtupon, to face up to the limitations imposed upon you by fate, by circumstance,by fortune-good or bad. Twilley had been the embodiment of one kind 1960’s-70’steen-pop rock dream; very much like Eric Carmen and The Raspberries, or AlexChilton of Big Star; and his own star succumbed to the death of thatdream. He wasn’t going to be Elvis. Or even Ricky Nelson.

That "surrender" is all over “Soundtrack”, mentioned in any number of songs.

"....ran away from Tulsa Town--just to be a circus clown, the golden ring waslost and found..."--Tulsa Town

Theblunt acknowledgement of a perceivedfailure to live up to one’s promise and the inability to overcome the obstacleslife has stacked before your dream; imbues the album with an overwhelming senseof sadness and resignation.
("....God didn't kill your record career, God didn't make your famedisappear..." God Didn't Do It)

But "Soundtrack" never succumbs to self-pity, and Twilley doesn'tlook for scapegoats. Twilley's triumph on "Soundtrack" is that at thealbum’s core he reaches self-acceptance, and perseveres.
(....God didn't do it....we did it to each other....)

How do you go on when you wake to the fallacy of the dream you’d built yourlife upon? You live life.
You get up every day, hug your wife- and make another record.

("....We've all been down the drain, it's only stupid fame...." Out in the Rain)

The wonderful irony is that Dwight Twilley has not only survived--butthrived. After a period out in the wilderness, he's recording perhaps the bestwork of his career; indeed, “Soundtrack” may be his most accomplishedcollection of songs to date. “Soundtrack” is classic Dwight Twilley; melodicpop-rock filled with ringing guitars, Beatlesque flourishes and John-Paul-Georgestyle harmonies amidst the lush Spector-like wall of sound that’s dominated hisrecords since his third album.
The albumopens with a string of four killer tracks in a row, tunes that set the tone ofautobiography, but resist an easy chronology. “Soundtrack” isn’t a Broadwaymusical. “You Close Your Eyes” and “Skeleton Man” are both “Petty inByrds-mode” rockers that confront the shadow of death with eyes wide open, ifyou will, while “Bus Ticket” and “Tulsa Town” are more directlyautobiographical; the former is a classic Twilley rockabilly number, the lattera harmonica and piano driven mid-tempo tune that calls to mind similar foraysby both John Cougar Mellencamp and Springsteen without ever sounding derivative.

There are no dogs here, every cut is prime Twilley; the power and anger of“God Didn’t Do It”, the bittersweet “Out in the Rain”, the jubilantMemphis/Stax-Volt sound of “Cards Will Fall” and the grand pop sweep of “TheLonely One” which so smartly quotes Ringo’s hit “Photograph” in its openingchords (“‘all I’ve got is a photograph and I know you won't be coming backanymore…”Ringo Starr/George Harrison)

“stories yes I've got a few, but no one's there to tell them too-thejester's left to learn the blues--I am the Lonely One…."

For me, the centerpiece of the album is the ballad for Phil Seymour,"Good Things Come Hard". For anyone who was a fan of the gorgeousrecords Twilley and Seymour made together in the mid-seventies and the youthfulhope and innocence those records embodied, this song, built upon a gorgeousmelody and poignant harmonies recalling Twilley & Seymour at their"Sincerely" best, will break your heart with its tale of "twolittle boys… with little guitars… went for a walk that went around the world…”
"Good Things Come Hard" describes the arc of Twilley'scareer, and while he sings of "littleantiques…. left to themselves" and "leavingthe stage", he also reveals that the pain of his past hasn't left himentirely without optimism or hope.
"...the ghost of a dream still hides in your heart, good things comehard..."
For those of us who revere the memory of those early Twilley albums and thepromise of youth, our own as much as Twilley’s, the last verse is a moment ofabsolute crushing directness…
"two little boys, they went theirown ways, one's still around and one's in the grave…."

What’s to say after that? Twilley could’ve ended it there and no onewould’ve blamed him, or he could have sentimentalized the sense of lossfurther—but the tenderness of his music belies an underlying tough-mindedness thatrears itself in the last cut; “The Last Time Around”, a tough rocker driven bychunky- power chords and the electro-shock keyboards of Talyor Hanson.

“when the hero's found with a broken crown-- it's a shame--you better get itright-cause it might be the last time around-
You better get it right….You betterget it right…because it may be the last time around…”

On “Soundtrack”, Twilley gets it right.
This album is better every time Iplay it—and just as I recognized my teenage self and the ups and downs of myfirst high school romance in “Sincerely” so long ago; I recognize myself in “Soundtrack”today. It’s Twilley’s life, but he’s telling our story.

The world is so mean…

Postscript:
Success is how you define it. Some measure it by money, some by power, some by fame.
The machinery of the pop world is pretty narrow in its definition, but even so, Twilley had more success in his time than most. But still, that doesn't do justice to the level of his continuing achievement as a musician and an artist. When he could've simply disappeared into a quiet life in Tulsa town, Dwight Twilley decided to keep going, to keep making great records. With "Soundtrack", Dwight Twilley delivers.

*(seventies power pop, for all of its influence on later generations ofDIY bands, never sold all that well. The Raspberries, Big Star, even Badfinger,weren’t as big as their sound suggested they should be--but that's anotherstory)

It's Alive! It's Alive!

2011-09-26T00:32:00.002-04:00

okay--I've been quiet of late. but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I've got a number of things going on that I'm excited about! Like a complete overhaul of my website; lookoutmonsters.com!
Welcome to the all new lookoutmonsters.com!
This is the beginning of something new for me. With this post, lookoutmonsters.com becomes a webcomic site, featuring the serialization of my comics; some old, some new. Old or new, lookoutmonsters.com will no longer be a staid, static site, featuring "information" about books you can buy; but an active and dynamic site-featuring loads of stuff to read or look at, for free--and then, just to help feed the cats, maybe a few things you can buy as well!
I'll be starting off with weekly serialization of Look Out!Monsters --my 2007 xeric winning art-comic extravaganza-- on Mondays beginning in October! -and when LoM runs its course, I'll follow up with Fandancer, my collage comic from 2010-which very few people have actually seen! Both books will be made available for digital download as well! (In fact--the pdf of LoM is available now! Both at my site and at Drivethrucomics.com. Fandancer will be available buy the end of the week!)

I'll also be re-formatting my 1990's b & w indie "superhero", Dr. Speck, the guy who combines quantum physics, Tibetan Buddhism and dated vacuum cleaner technology in one colorful rubber suit--and, beginning soon after LoM starts in October, running the entire series at lookoutmonsters.com on Wednesdays, ! While the entire Speck story never made it into print(the run ended with the fourth issue), I did did indeed carry the series forward in a series of "ash-cans" as we used to call them--and eventually saw the story through to its conclusion in a big stack of pages meant for its initial run on the web, back at the end of the 20th century. I'm excited to introduce Dr.Speck to a new audience, it's remained a consistent seller even after all these years, so I'm optimistic it will continue to strike a chord today.

Last but not least, I've got two new projects I am really excited about bringing to lookoutmonsters.com. Both of these projects will be serialized there--beginning very soon--and I'll tell you more about them as I get closer to actually posting 'em! (the image atop this post--and the image below, give you a hint) They're very different from one another, but I'm so excited about each of them that I can't bear not to work on both--so, sooner rather than later, I'll be introducing those two new comics over at lookoutmonsters!
Check back soon--there's lots happening--and you don't want to miss it!
all the best,
geoff

Oh! And of course--pood no.4 hits the shops in late September--Look for it!
hah! --and then follow PBHfOS on the new lookoutmonsters.com! hah! So there!

best comics

2011-09-07T13:15:00.002-04:00

By now you've seen the top 10 comics of all-time list over at The Hooded Utilitarian. If not--check it out if you're in need of something to do on a rainy fall afternoon.

My list has to be considered a "favorites" simply because my reading is nowhere near comprehensive enough to warrant a legitimate "best of".

The works that made my top ten-twenty are all works that I have read many, many times. And that's one of the criteria I used for choosing the works of my top ten- I've read and enjoyed each of these works many times throughout my life; they've never failed to capture me, and my enjoyment of them now is just as fervent as it was when I first encountered them. And I continue to read them once every year or two.

More importantly, because I'm an artist --and decidedly not a critic(something I learned on The Next Issue blog)--each of the works listed here has fueled my creativity, over and over again. Each of these works has inspired, pushed,challenged,driven me --and I'm sure countless others--to make something. Each of these works has spurred innumerable new ideas, innumerable new comics, drawings, paintings, etc.etc. And to me--as an artist--that's the measure of a great work of art--it's the fuel for someone else's creativity, because art is a dialogue. It's not a solo flight. So here we go:

1.Peanuts by Charles Schulz

How many times have I read Peanuts? Impossible to say. Peanuts was one of the first things I learned to read--and I have collections in my library that I've carried with me since I was 5-6 years old. Bet you do too. I've learned more about what it means to be human, all the while laughing myself silly, from Charles Schulz's marvelous creation than from any other single source that I can think of. These simple, humble drawings; the modest phraseology. There was some strange alchemy at work in the sixties; an unsettled cultural milieu that somehow allowed for the best possible results from the most unlikely of ingredients. Using the simplest of means, Schulz created a fully realized, resonant world of subtle intonations and wry humor, entirely unique, but recognizable to us all.

2. Prince Valiant by Harold Foster

The premier adventure strip of the Golden Age of adventure strips, a romantic tale of "knights in the days of King Arthur" told with all of the joy and good humor of the best Errol Flynn movies, brought to life in lush illustrations as yet unmatched for their naturalness, their grandeur, their sheer beauty. A rich, intricate tale that unfolds leisurely over decades, seamlessly interweaving myth and history, tragedy and comedy, themes large and small, told through the trials, tribulations, loves and losses of its main character. It set the bar high, a standard Foster sustained for over thirty years. There are few in comics history who've had the opportunity and the stamina to match his achievement.

3.Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy" by Roy Crane

the first great adventure strip of that aforementioned "golden age", that time when Caniff, Foster, Raymond, and others dominated the Sunday comics with stories of grand heroes and their feats of daring-do. They all owe a debt to Roy Crane, whose broad humor and rollicking yarns propelled Wash Tubbs and Cap'n Easy to legendary status. Not to mention, one of the greatest of landscape artists ever to pick up a brush and zip-a-tone and commit to newsprint!

4. Krazy Kat by George Herriman

5. Little Nemo by Winsor McCay

Between the two of them, the greatest visual use of the Sunday Comics page ever; not only in terms of design, but in terms of conception. McCay's late 19th-century Victorian dreamscapes and Herriman's surrealistic desert vistas are as crucial to the strip as the names on those mastheads.

6. Maximum F.F. by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; edited by Walter Mosley
The best art-comic ever. Bar none. Every art-comic should work with a canvas this large, this ambitious. Pop Art Panels of eye-popping color in foldout pages like comics the way you dreamed they could be! And if it was still 12 cents and on newsprint, what an achievement that would be!

7.Fantastic Four issues #1-100 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

100 issues of sheer unadulterated joy and genius. Very near Foster's achievement in terms of sustained greatness--this is the ultimate comic book when comic books were still comic books.
8. The Fourth World Omnibus vol.#1-3 by Jack Kirby
Kirby Unleashed! At last! And for a few great years, unencumbered by the shadow of Stan Lee and his over-bearing need for attention, Jack Kirby let loose with every idea he could muster in a series of books that re-invented what a comic book-or a comic book company--could be in tales passionate and strange, timely(no pun intended) and timeless.

9. The Complete Robert Crumb vol #4-17.

Some of the bravest comics ever made. Robert Crumb broke every taboo in sight.
Funny stuff, creepy stuff, ghastly stuff, and all of it percolating just underneath the veneer of mid-20th century suburbia. Yikes! And great drawings to boot!

10. Warlock (Strange Tales #178-181, Warlock #9-11) by Jim Starlin & many others
The comic of my teenage years. When Jack seemed un-moored by the loss of the Fourth World, Neal Adams was busy in advertising, and a good deal else was just mediocre, Jim Starlin carried the freak flag high for super-hero comics, in grand cosmic space-opera that drew inspiration from Kirby and Ditko's wildest imaginings, and juggled the concepts of god, identity and existence like some kind of Emmett Kelly on acid. Populated by a neurotic golden hero, a hot assassin chick and an impish troll. What more could a fifteen-year old want in a comic?

11. Mad Magazine; the Kurtzman issues.

This would have been in my top ten, but I got the impression that anthologies weren't being considered. C'est la vie-I'm including it now. When I first saw the early Wally Wood, John Severin, Jack Davis issues I must have been 8 or 9, and they were in paperback reprint form; you'd find them along with the contemporary Mad paperbacks in somebody's big brothers bedroom or something. While the "Don Martin, Dave Berg, Mort Drucker "Mad" collections were great, the early parodies of Archie, Superman, Tarzan etc., were a revelation to me-unbridled wise-ass humor, gorgeously illustrated--and those were the ones I sought whenever we were searching my buddy's brother's room for cool teenage stuff. Whenever they're reprinted,I buy them all over again.

12. Thimble Theater(Popeye) by E.C. Segar

Are there any characters in comics quite as original as the one-eyed sailor, his freeloading buddy and stick-skinny girlfriend?

12. Dick Tracy by Chester Gould

weird, dark nasty shit. You don't want to live in this world.
13. Love and Rockets vol 1 &; 2 by Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez
Remember I asked, among comics greats, who'd had the stamina to sustain greatness(in one long form work) for as long as Hal Foster? These guys--between Gilbert and Jaimie, the greatest comics work of their generation. Maybe the greatest contemporary comic book---alone among serialized comics of the late twentieth century, it rivals Kirby and Lee's FF-and maybe, just maybe, it surpasses it. Breathtaking.
14. Pogo by Walt Kelly
15.Terry and the Pirates by Milton Caniff

Two great strips, both beautifully visualized. One skewers the politics of the period in brilliant satire worthy of Swift or Orwell; the other embraces the cultural zeitgeist whole, bringing the experiences of WWII fighting men and women to the folks back home, every day in scenarios both heartstopping and heartbreaking.

16. Dennis the Menace by Al Wiseman and Fred Toole.

Dennis' genius is fully fleshed out in these wacked-out tales of mid-20th century suburbia. The well ordered, idealized American utopia of the late 50's-early 60's completely and utterly undermined by a four year old whirling dervish. Pity Henry Mitchell.

17. Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson
Like "Warlock", this is one of those fond memories of my youth. It was a thrill to witness this story unfold in the pages of Detective Comics; to see Archie Goodwin at the top of his game, to see Walt Simonson grow more and more confident with each passing page. Together they reinvented a long forgotten also-ran from Simon and Kirby's backlog and invested him with new life, borrowing liberally from apocalyptic sci-fi and "the Day of the Jackal" .

18. From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
the most fully realized graphic novel(that was conceived as a novel from the get-go)I've yet read and the only one I've read that I feel attains as much nuance and depth as a great prose novel. As time has gone on I've become slightly skeptical about the graphic novel, preferring my comics in the strip form of the newspapers--but this one took my heart and mind, turned it in on itself and broke me into little pieces .Eddie Campbell's drawings are extraordinary. Evocative, emotive. One of the most powerfully frightening books I've ever read, in any medium, from any period. A brutal masterpiece. Just thinking about it gives me chills.

19. Dr. Strange by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

weird scenes from the gold mine. Steve Ditko created a lexicon of signs for inter-dimensional, other-worldy realities that has impacted nearly every comics creator who has followed him over the boundary between the empirical and the dreamed.
20. This last entry was going to be Acme Novelty Library by Chris Ware, but that's more because Ware's work is of significance and should be recognized on a list like this, more than because the work is a favorite of mine-or grist for my creativity. It's not. I admire Ware's work, and at times I'm just plain blown away by his capabilities--there's nobody else like him, no doubt. But He's not one of my favorites. Strange ,isn't it?
So then, for number 20-a few of my faves-in no particular order:
Batman in Detective Comics by Frank Robbins

Clara by Jordi Bernet, Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Maicas

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century by Phil Nowlan, Russell Keaton
Notes for a War Story by Gipi -(& anything else by Gipi)
George Sprott & Wimbledon Green by Seth

Captain America by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Captain America(#182-192) by Frank Robbins, Steve Englehart & various writers

Captain America by Jim Steranko
Richard Stark's Parker by Darwyn Cooke
Little Annie Fanny by Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder & various

B.C. by Johnny Hart

Angry Youth Comix by Johnny Ryan

Ganges by Kevin Huizenga

To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisner

The Shadow by Mike Kaluta and Denny O'Neil

Neal Adams covers for DC comics in the late 1960's

Blueberry by Jean Giraud and Jean-Michel Charlier

Boys Ranch by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and many others.

If you're not reading "The Moon Prince"...

2011-08-02T20:55:00.000-04:00

You say that now print is dead, and DC is driving the nail in the coffin--you're diving into the whole wild and crazy world of webcomics head first, like some kind of -of--dope fiend!? Some kind of addict who needs a fix so bad you're willing to betray anyone, your best friend--YOUR DOG?
Well-if you're jonezin' for a damn satisfying webcomics buzz-check it out- start reading "The Moon Prince" by my buddy, Kevin Mutch--and do it now!
"The Moon Prince" is pure, classic comics--and in another era it would have been a weekly page in the Sunday Funnies--revered today for its blend of fantasy, sci-fi, and good old fashioned adventure in the manner of "Treasure island", "Kidnapped" "Huck Finn" and "Harry Potter".
Everything about "Moon Prince" is top notch--from the terrific characters, Molly and Max, Mr. Billy, Cedric Murray and Kitiko the chesire cat-- to the seemingly effortless way Kevin drives his story forward week after week, leaving you wanting more with every page; finally to the gorgeous art in the grand tradition of Hal Foster, Howard Pyle, the Fleischer Studios( think "Gulliver's Travels") Maxfield Parish and even Paul Chadwick--steeped in history but a style his own and that is completely contemporary.
"The Moon Prince" is the real deal--a classic for the webcomic era. Do yourself a favor--begin reading it today!

Rugg's Rampage!

2011-07-26T15:12:00.004-04:00

OK--if this in-progress photo of Jim Rugg's knock-out double-page centerfold spread for the upcoming pood no.4 doesn't knock your socks off then call a doctor! Get somebody to check your pulse--because, brother you must be gone, GONE from this world! I say-Cold! cold as a stone!
Pood no.4 in July Previews! JUL110903 F POOD #4(MR).) Featuring Jim Rugg's 2-page centerfold MASTERPIECE--"RAMPAGE"! CALL YOUR RETAILER! ORDER TODAY--before they're all gone!

Goodbye Xeric

2011-07-21T10:10:00.001-04:00

By now it's common knowledge that the Xeric grants for self-publishing comics will be ended soon.( here's the press release).

As a former recipient, I thank the Xeric foundation, its board members, and especially Peter Laird, for their support of my work and the opportunities afforded me as a result. The Xeric grant has been one of the seminal moments in my endeavors in comics, and one of my most gratifying experiences as an artist.
The support the foundation has offered to comics creators is singular, unique--and since its inception it has certainly had an incalculable effect on the medium. The list of Xeric winners is a compendium of some of the best cartoonists working today, and its influence is clear at SPX, MoCCA and anywhere there are comics. It would be a very different comics environment without the Xeric. The gifts the Xeric brought to comics are an achievement to be celebrated--and maybe at SPX or somewhere, someone should throw a party to do just that.
For better or worse though, I think the arguments for the ending of the Xerics miss one of the salient points of the grant in the first place-i.e. that of getting comics into print. Print, with all of its qualities, capabilities, and restrictions. Print as medium, material, and object.
That the web can serve the same objective as the Xeric--i.e. the dissemination of a creator's work to the public--is certainly true as far as it goes. But it fails to consider that the grants afforded the thinking artist the opportunity to explore the aesthetics of print, and the nature of the object and the medium, i.e. the comic book. The web offers a platform for creators, no doubt. But creatively speaking, it's a different medium than the comic book(cartooning and comic books are not necessarily synonymous; i.e., comic books need not be cartoons)--and while much of traditional cartooning, i.e. contour line drawing augmented by color or gray tonalities, is well-served on the computer screen--there are ideas and approaches to the medium that are not--such as my own "Look Out!Monsters" or "fandancer"( which I'm assuming, if you're reading this you've read or seen--if not shame on you! Buy them now!)

There isn't a publisher active today who would touch "Look Out!Monsters" (or for that matter, "fandancer") with a ten-foot pole. There are many reasons for that--not necessarily having to do with issues of quality(!)-but having to do with cost, audience and "standards of taste" that define conventional views of the medium. The opportunity to experiment with the comic book as a form; its size and shape, the paper; the exploration of interplay between pages; the choices of imagery and the interaction between source image and printing process--those experiments are not something a publisher is likely to try out with an unknown artist. It simply costs too much. But grants like the Xeric are immune to the demands of the marketplace and allow for the "noble experiment". They allow for failure. (don't confuse "Kickstarter" with a grant program. Its successes will more or less be dependent upon the availability of an existing audience, whereas innovation/experimentation is not necessarily going to have such an audience. ).
The Xerics did more than simply provide funds for printing. They also offered support without asking for anything in return. When I ran into some legal difficulties with "Look Out!Monsters", the Xeric foundation was there with advice and moral support that helped me through a difficult period.
The web certainly offers the imaginative creator a wide array of choices and possibilities--this is not to argue against webcomics-as they are or as they will become. Not at all. This is simply to say the Xeric afforded a certain kind of opportunity that was distinct, the opportunity to explore form--a singular form--the comic book--one that is unique in our history and experience.
That the Xerics are now a part of history is another indication that the form is on the precipice of fundamental change.

But--- I can't end this on that note. No,no, no!--because the Xeric foundation grant was such an unequivocally positive force in my life--and a positive force for change in this world we call comics, I lift my cup of morning tea, and doff my baseball cap to say " Thank You! Thanks, Mr. Laird! Thanks, Xeric board members! Thanks to everyone at the Xeric foundation! Thanks for all those great comics! You will be missed--but you've left us all so much better off than we were!"

Goddbye, Xeric!

Joe Staton in Pood no.4!

2011-06-19T22:16:00.000-04:00

This morning I absent-mindedly picked up one of the loose comics laying in piles around my studio--some for using in collage, some for reading. Avengers no.134; April, 1974; "the Origin of the Vision", Steve Englehart, author.
The art, early -seventies-era Sal Buscema-- is unmistakable. But there's something more to Buscema's work on this ish---an energy, a dynamism, there's color in the ink work, variation in the lines, light and dark--chiaroscuro-& more--there's something of the cartoon in there. This is good stuff!
For better or worse, Sal Buscema was probably the only penciller whose work didn't suffer for being inked by Vince Colletta. No matter who inked him, he still looked like Sal Buscema--i.e., Big Brother John in a hurry. But not on Avengers 134. Not when inked by Joe Staton. In these pages, Sal Buscema looks complete.

If you've read my post over at the "pood" blog announcing JOE STATON as the newest contributor to the upcoming issue no.4, then you know I am indeed well chuffed.
(And if you haven't read the announcement yet--?!?-- check it out here-then come back!)

I'm sure that for Joe, issue no. 134 of the Avengers is long forgotten-- but almost forty years later, I've still got it, still cherish it, for no other reason than for those yummy inks.
Both Kevin and I have been big fans of Joe Staton's work since picking up the original Charlton run of E-Man back when we were teenagers. E-Man's blend of traditional super-heroics and light comedy were unique in the early '70's(a time of increasing "realism" in super-hero comics), reminiscent of the kind of comedy-adventure that had its origins a generation earlier, in Roy Crane's "Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy", E.C. Segar's "Popeye", C.C. Beck's "Captain Marvel", Carl Barks' "Donald Duck", and Will Eisner's "The Spirit".

As a teenager interested in making comics, I discovered that the style of E-Man suited my own burgeoning tastes, a predilection best illustrated in my own 1990's-era Dr.Speck, itself heavily indebted to Joe Staton and Nick Cuti's creation.

It was no small thing to chance comedy in a super-hero book--not in those days. Nor was it commonplace to introduce an overtly cartoon-y style back into superhero comics--not when the demand was more and more for grand illustration--in the style of Neal Adams, or Alfredo Alcala over John Buscema. (Grand stuff indeed!)
But E-Man -and Joe Staton-(along with a few others, most notably Frank Robbins-himself a Sunday Adventure strip vet)-did it, and did it well, helping to open the door for later artists such as Bruce Timm, and the altogether broader, more pluralistic aesthetic environment that exists in super-hero comics today.

If it seems an odd combination--an upstart, supposedly art-comics-y anthology and a venerable mainstream comics creator, consider this: the overriding impetus behind "pood" was my love of the Sunday Funnies and a desire to see that format renewed somehow(something I felt was begun with DC's "Wednesday's Comics", but that didn't go far enough). With the addition of Joe Staton in issue no. 4, pood has the chance to bring that wish full-circle, joining with a great mainstream comics creator deeply invested in that tradition--and now working on one of the mediums most iconic vehicles, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy!

pood no. 4 is in July's "Previews"!
Order Code: JUL110903 F POOD#4(MR).

Find it on page 246 under the BIG IF COMICS imprint!

The July Previews goes on sale June 29th!

The Summer $1. Sale-EXTENDED!

2011-06-09T18:08:00.000-04:00

EXTRA EXTRA! The LOOK OUT!MONSTERS SUMMER DOLLAR DAYS SALE IS EXTENDED UNTIL SUNDAY, JUNE 12th!
Here are the great comics you can buy--for just a buck(+ shipping and handling!)

Pood #1: $1.00
pood #2: $1.00
fandancer: $1.00
lookout!Monsters$1.00

Spend money! Coff up the cash!Do it! Do it Now! This is the once -in-a-lifetime- Sale that can't be beat!
(You can read my previous post for more info!)

Lookie Here!The Look Out! Monsters $1 Summer Blow Out Sale!

2011-06-01T21:39:00.001-04:00

Hey there all you comics fans, art fans, art-comics fans--have I got a deal for you!
ONE DOLLAR COMICS!
yep--you heard right--ONE DOLLAR COMICS!!!
and these aren't just any old smelly comics--these are BIG, FRGIGGIN' COMICS!
with LOTSA PAGES!
& LOTSA COLOR!
LOTSA PRETTY STUFF GOIN' ON!
Not to mention, pain, sorrow, loss and love--and--yes, even a few YUCKS tossed in for good measure!

Here's the details--
For 3 days--beginning at 12:01 AM on Monday, June 6th 2011--and ending at midnight, Wednesday, June 8th, 2011--you can purchase the following comics for ONE BUCK-A-ROO each (+ shipping and handling--hey, I'll give the stuff away, but I can't go broke doin' it!):

POOD #1! (Jim Rugg, Sara Edward Corbett, Hans Rickheit, Joe Infurnari, Andres Vera Martinez and many more!)
POOD #2! (Same crazy cast of lunatics!)
FANDANCER by me, GG! 36 pages! Full color! Artsy type stuff-and deep profound thoughts about big breasted super-heroines, plus! a nasty, scary villain, a few laffs and adventurous derring do!
LOOK OUT! Monsters! -the original, xeric winning big collage comic that got lotsa nice compliments from my friends and family!

How do you purchase these goodies?
Simply go to www.lookoutmonsters.com--
--and click on the appropriate thumbnail to travel to the publication of your choice!

While the purchase prices will read as usual
($10. for fandancer, $5. for Look Out! Monsters!, etc.) --you will only be charged $1. for each of the above comics when you click the paypal button! & of course, via Paypal we(meaning "I") accept all those credit cards and paypal methods of payment!

This offer lasts for 3 days and 3 days only-first come, first serve, as long as supplies last-so if you've ever wanted to get a hold of POOD--or you're crazy enough to want to check out fandancer-
-NOWZ the TIME!
I'm dying to get these goodies outta my house and into your hands--soz I can fill up my house with all the NEW COMICS I wanna make!
And--I mean this sincerely-- just cause I lovezya! AHCHACHACHACHA!

Fandancer: sketches and texture

2011-05-19T10:22:00.000-04:00

A comment in my post "Comics Not Comics" about texture (Hi Vollsticks!) -and asking to see some examples of some of the pastel work done in my comic "fandancer" offer a good opportunity to compare some sketches--done in markers---and the finals, done in pastel--to illustrate the difference texture brings to tone and mood, certainly in fandancer-and in comics in general.

Texture was something that was built into my "vision" for FD right from the start--I knew I wanted color, I knew I wanted color built into the image creation rather than layered on top of line drawings--and I knew I wanted to evoke ben day textures(the texture of print) without resorting to photoshop and without arousing the aura of nostalgia that faux-ben day often brings with it. And so--pastel was my medium of choice.

I prefer not to blend or smudge--but lay color down one layer at a time, add fixative, add another layer-more fix, another layer, etc.-to build depth into the color, to allow the surface of the paper to work on the image, and to keep process front and center. Process is as important to me as the image is.

I don't think those qualities are very apparent in these lo-res digital images, but I think they are very clear in the book itself.

and of course, here's a couple of "nautical" examples from one of my favorite cartoonists-Roy Crane.

The first, in pen and ink, from his classic "Wash Tubbs & Cap'n Easy"-and the second from "Buz Sawyer", highlighting Sawyer's absolute mastery of the now lost art of zip-a-tone.
(& correct me if I'm wrong--I believe Sawyer used "Craftint" paper-wherein the gray tonalities were actually built into the paper and revealed as the artist applied a developer to the area he or she wanted to shade.)

Sawyer's use of gray tones was an ingenious response to the technology of his day, his textures worked in terms of representation--describing space, light and shade, volume, mood, etc--while subtly cluing the audience into process-and the nature of the medium in print-as well.

& just in case you weren't aware--there are some wonderful collections of Roy Crane's

work out now--Fantagraphics is reprinting the "Cap'n Easy"Sundays, and as well as Buz Sawyer .

Hellboy Fan

2011-05-03T21:05:00.005-04:00

What can I say? I'm a Hellboy fan. And proud of it. Hellboy is the only mainstream comic I follow with any regularity. And I've read and re-read his collections many times. They never fail to captivate and entertain.

You don't need me to tell you what's great about Mike Mignola or Hellboy-but I will tell you I dig Mignola's story-telling, his deliberate pacing, the inter-cutting of static images steeped in atmosphere and his ability to convey a palpable sense of the "invisible plane" supporting the visible world. Hellboy is rich in mythology, theology, folklore, spirituality, demonology; you name it-whatever ghoul or goblin is your particular cup of tea, Mignola makes them live in the pages of his comics.
I particularly dig Mignola's intelligent sense of design--the compelling graphic quality of his images, the simplicity of his forms and his ability to convey a sense of place, atmosphere and environment, in images stripped of excess and unnecessary information. Mignola's respect for 2-dimensions and modernist pictorial space, his stark use of black.
Among Mignola's contemporaries, perhaps only Frank Miller in Sin City works so well in the language of graphic modernism derived from Alex Toth.

So here's some fan art from a real admirer-- my first attempts at drawing Mike Mignola's Hellboy.

* this one started as a copy of a Mignola panel.

Comics, not Comics?

2011-04-19T18:57:00.000-04:00

(There are times when one finds oneself looking in the mirror and asking:"well..how did I get here?" This is one of those times.)

"korumbu! confesses" by geoff grogan; from pood #3.

My wife often tells me that I don't make comics. "You do something else-but it isn't comics" She'll point to some book or another on my shelves-more likely than not something by Jack Kirby or Gilbert Hernandez or Seth or Chester Gould or,or, or.... -and very confidently state: "This is comics. Look at what you do. You don't do that."
Then she'll say-that "...if you want to make comics you should just make comics..."---implying that I should stop screwing around with this other stuff and get back to telling a story with boxes and word balloons. "A comics audience won't be interested in this work because its not comics. Its something else--like painting."

"secret romance" by geoff grogan; from pood #2.

I admit--in my most recent pages for pood--I'm not trying to construct a sequential narrative, so much as undermine sequence and narrative--and still make comics. I do want these pages to hit you all at once-like a painting--but utilize something of the sequential imperative of comics via discrete "stops" (or stoppages--to borrow a term from Duchamp).
These "stops" in the composition--should move the reader around the page--but not necessarily in a defined-a to b to c -style sequence, but like painting---in more random fashion, determined by the viewer's eye- so that there's no real beginning-and no real end.
This isn't to imply the piece lacks "meaning"-but rather that meaning is elicited via the methods of visual art, suggestion and association, rather than in the more direct fashion of traditional narrative structures.

"See what I mean? not comics!" she says. "and you're not drawing either. What's with the collage?"

"fandancer" by geoff grogan; page 26

sigh. well, yeah. I'm doing comics with collage. Old photos, old comics, even old word balloons, cut and pasted rather than drawn. I've done the traditional method, of course--but while working on fandancer, I made a conscious decision to work with the actual material of comics-so as to make explicit my interest in the language of the media, the conventions of genre and their workings as both sign and symbol.
Collage introduces a level of conceptual distance and unpredictability--and works to undermine traditional narrative - opening the story up to a wide array of suggestions and ideas-many of which I never would have conceived of had I been writing in a traditional
way. In fandancer, the "narrative" actually percolates beneath the surface incongruities and absurdities, providing subliminal continuity but allowing myriad interpretations and associations that move the piece in multiple directions at once.
Obviously, I'm not a big believer in rock-solid "do's and don'ts"-- in comics --or in art, for that matter. There are many roads to the destination--and even then, not everyone is interested in going to the same place.

"fandancer" by geoff grogan; page 27

"fandancer" by geoff grogan; page 28

Comics? Not comics? It only matters in so far as it means someone will (or won't) pick up the book and take it home.

*(and despite periodically playing devil's advocate, my wife deb is actually the biggest, best supporter anyone could have--and the most likely to say"stick to your guns! you've gotta do what you've gotta do-otherwise, what's the point?" hell, she's only stuck it out for 25 years! thanks, love!)

Transformative Use

2011-03-31T11:15:00.001-04:00

I'm not a Richard Prince fan. I lost patience with his dry appropriations of the Marlboro Man and other advertising images long ago. Argue what you will about these works; I find many of them obvious & banal at best, and an egregious display of PT Barnum style hucksterism at worst . Much of Prince's work reeks of privilege, indifference, entitlement and elitism --all of the worst cliches about contemporary artists and their milieu which tend to piss off those not mired in artspeak.

I'm sympathetic to Patrick Cariou, the photographer who sued Prince and his gallery for using his original images without permission. I'd have done the same thing if it had been 41 of my photos Prince had appropriated and then sold for $10 million a pop or whatever it was. Shit, yeah--where's the money, pal?

But.... I'm a collage artist, appropriation is built into my post-modern bones, and while I sympathize with Mr. Cariou and his cause, I'm also somewhat troubled by the outcome of this case, and the possibility that the thinking behind the decision may not be as nuanced as one in my field would hope it might be. Because among artists, there is appropriation--and then there is appropriation (other wise known as: how I learned the art of the steal for fun and profit.)

Not disputing that Cariou had the weight of rightness and morality on his side--I can only think that Prince's lawyers mounted a fairly shoddy defense, for there are myriad examples of appropriation as a venerable artistic strategy available in Modern Art History textbooks. From Duchamp to Warhol, Lichtenstein and Levine, artists have been lifting images from artists and using them as raw material for at least a century or so--and not only getting away with it, but establishing tradition, selling paintings of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Superman for zillions of dollars and filling museums all across the country. To dismiss such activity on the basis of Prince's output would be overly zealous and simplistic, not to mention insensitive(...or downright oblivious...) to the cultural conditions of the world we inhabit. One might go so far as to say such blanket rejection might even be proof of a kind of paranoid schizophrenic personality, given this culture's rapturous embrace and celebration of Pop Art, Andy Warhol and anything remotely associated with his work and the like. *

But .....it's not for nothing that our appreciation of Pop and Warhol, Lichtenstein, et al. is quite different than Prince's rude reception and final rejection. While Lichtenstein's appropriation of comics imagery may appear to be from the same kettle of fish as Prince's now infamous "Rasta" series, it's quite different. In Lichtenstein, the original material is transformed not only physically; comic book to canvas, print to paint, one part of a larger sequence to single image; but conceptually. And it is in the nature of the conceptual change we find the most significance.

Warhol & Lichtenstein lifted images from "low" art-( at a time when such distinctions were thought to be crucial)-brought them into a different context, the context of high art --thus "elevating" the low & debunking the pretensions of the "high" -bringing street into the rarified world of the gallery and museum--and establishing a kind of parity between them. The gesture, an arrow aimed in the direction of high culture, had political implications--about class, social status, about capitalism-about consumption, art and commerce.
Warhol took Clement Greenberg's ideas about kitsch as a tool of oppression and stood them on their head ("....What’s great about this country... You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too...." )

Prince argued that Cariou's work was genre photography-and thus by implication, anonymous "low" art -as comic books and other articles of mass production were assumed to be in the 50's and '60's-- and therefore fair game for elevation to "high" art status. But in the 21st century such distinctions are dubious at best-- and with Cariou, who is a well known photographer whose work is already accorded "art" status, Prince's appropriation was devoid of the sly, subversive quality of a Warhol or Duchamp.
( although-to point out the art-world's continued perpetuation of class stratification, Cariou's work is accorded a lower class of "art" status-i.e. that of the coffee-table book with a kind of "boutique-art" glow-- something Prince's series overcomes via sheer audacity--and the power and context of the Gagosian gallery. Never-mind that Prince's own work is probably a Taschen coffee table book by now. But-- you know--it's of a different order of coffee table book.-- and on and on and on it goes.... yawn. One lesson--if there is even the slightest hint of an opportunity in which to manifest and perpetuate hierarchy, inequality and class distinction--we will find it and market it. And that's how you sell a reprint of Marlboro ad for 10 million bucks. aura, baby, aura. )

Rather than subversive --Prince's act was a kind of cultural imperialism, an example of the powerful and mighty appropriating resources from those they perceive as lower on the evolutionary scale(so to speak)-- because they can, and because the machine that is the source of their power demands it. From the sound of it, Prince and Gagosian (his dealer) displayed incredulity at the suggestion that the photographer was an artist in his own right.

That the judge in this case perceived the distinctions in intent, or is in sympathy with Warhol, Lichtenstein and Duchamp's subversions, I'm in doubt. According to the report I read, the decision hinged on the word "transformative"-as stipulated in the fair use clause of the copyright act of 1976. Accordingly, the judge determined that Prince's appropriations were not "transformative"and so failed the test of "fair use".

But what then, is "transformative"? Does it
depend upon a quantitative distinction? Was there not "enough" transformation in Prince's appropriations? Did he need to add more paint? Some text? Cut and paste? Must transformation be physical? Or is the judge making a blanket statement against all forms of appropriation? Or just really bad appropriations? Or was it that, in using 41 images from one single source(!) Prince's appropriation was so blatant? These questions are left unanswered.

There's no one better than Duchamp and Warhol to illuminate the ambiguities of this matter.
Both the Warhol "Electric Chair" and the Duchamp "L.H.O.O.Q." are appropriations of pre-existing imagery. Neither one is visually or physically modified much more than Prince's "Rasta" works.
But...there are absolutely crucial differences in intent-(some of which I've outlined above)
and the resulting conceptual transformations have proven to be exceedingly potent in their ability to challenge--our ideas about art, about media, about history, context, originality, creativity, on and on and on. As one critic once said--"they're little thought-bombs"---and their power to initiate lies in the gesture, more than in the physical.
And the power of collage, mixed-media, and much of contemporary art --to challenge entrenched patterns of thought,--to "wake us up to the lives we are leading"-- lies in its abilities to reconfigure knowns and unknowns, to bring a thing from one place into another, so that we might see it--and ourselves--afresh. Its a transformation of ideas.

* By the way, I bristle every time I see a Curt Swan "Superman" attributed to Andy Warhol. Intellectually I understand and sympathize with the methodology, but dammit--it'll always be Curt Swan to me. Yes, I admit to being conflicted.

***my info & understanding of the Prince case comes from this article.

Pood no.3 video preview

2011-03-14T20:00:00.000-04:00

As I told ya' last week, we've been working hard on the new issue of pood--coming out in April, just in time for MoCCA--and I've been working all day on the Pood no.3 video to give everyone a taste of what's in store for you when you cough up your $4.50 at the local comic shop! It's a treat, I'm tellin' ya! I think it's our best issue yet--so don't miss it! Order yours from your local comics retailer today. Just call 'em up and give em the order code--
FEB110807--and they can put you down for your copy of pood no.3!

the cafe Oop Zoo

2011-03-09T07:44:00.000-05:00

SINCE- Kevin Mutch, Alex Rader and I are in the throes of putting the new issue of pood--the BIGGEST newspaper comics anthology in existence!--together--, I thought I'd post my strip from pood #1 for those who hadn't seen it--and which, as far as I know--has never been available online before. So--it's almost like NEW COMICS! Oh BOY!
This little ditty is inspired and derived from a wee little segment of Modern Art history---the birth of the Dada movement at Hugo Ball's Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916. It's long been known that Vladimir Lenin was hiding out in Zurich at the same time as Hugo Ball's little project was getting off the ground, and according to some reports, Lenin lived just down the block and may have hung out at the Cabaret once or twice.
#$%&!!!!!!!!!! $%&^!!!!! Holy Red Menace, Batman!

If Vladimir Lenin watching Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara spout nonsense verse onstage doesn't sound like potential for great comedy to you, then either I'm no astronaut or your not into grilled cheese. Cause it sure sounds ridiculous to me. So--the idea of turning Lenin and Trotsky into the Katzenjammer Kids was just too appealing. (and no, Trotsky wasn't there--but who could resist drawing that head of hair? and--before anyone goes there-- don't get on me about historical accuracy, for gosh sakes!--are you kidding? this is the Cafe OopZoo!)
My intention was to go for straight-ahead cartooning--which, if you know my work--is relatively rare for me. It was a helluva a lotta fun.(and some anguish--I spilled gallons of Dr. Martin's dyes all over the piece at several different steps in the process!!!)- I've been thinking about playing around with the characters again sometime--who knows? Lenin and Trotsky as Hans and Fritz ? Well--watch for it here!
(But don't expect to see them in pood #3--I've got other things in store for that one.) speaking of which:
News Flash: POOD #3 will be in stores in April --and should be(we hope!!!) together in time for MOCCA! So-look for the Blurred Vision table!

Here are some of the preliminary sketches for the Cafe OopZoo, from my sketchbook, Enjoy!

28 covers, 28 days

2011-03-01T07:43:00.000-05:00

Today-a recap! A sample of some of my favorite cover versions included in the past month's marathon. All freehand, no pencil and using prismacolor markers, both color and the premier line of black pens. ( early on I used a Uniroyal ball point--which encouraged a much looser approach---the "Kamandi" was done with that one.)
This project has been a lot of fun, a great exercise, like going back to school in a way. Originally I'd wanted to a mindless endeavor, as I was bogged down at work, but once I was into it, mindless it was not! As time went on, some of them I interpreted more freely than others, some of them I felt a need to be more faithful to. (Well--when you're putting yourself up against Neal Adams I think the challenge is just in trying to stay in the ring for the first couple of rounds!) So look 'em over---and if you're enjoying them check out the full cover versions album !
(or if you're on facebook you can check it out this album)

IF you'd like to see the entire run of 28 covers--check out the cover versions album !
(or if you're on facebook check it out this album)

February Finale! The wedding of Reed & Sue!

2011-02-27T23:51:00.001-05:00

28 days! 28 covers! Wow! Never thought I'd actually get to this point--but here it is and I just made it--just barely, that is! Up till the last minute I was coloring away with my prismacolors, oblivious to just about everything else going on in the house (or the world)--snow, rain, ice-for me, the weekend was all about "imperial violet" or "parma violet"? "rose pink" or "process red"? What? You said there's a glacier on the roof about to cause a cave in? I'll get to it in a minute, dear-- after I finish coloring in Dr. Doom.
So--- how to wind up my month-long blog-a-thon ? I wanted something special to mark the occasion--and well, what's better than a wedding? And what wedding--in all of history--in all the known and unknown galaxies-- could compare to that of Reed and Sue?
We all know the answer to that one true believers!
And what a cover it is! Practically every known super-goodie or super-baddie in the Marvel universe circa 1965 shows up for the happy couple's big day! Kirby went to town on this sucker and delivered the goods baby! It's just a damn shame Stan Lee put Jack's interior pages in the hands of Vince Colletta. It looks like Colletta used just one tiny size rapidograph for the entire issue. Practically ruins the entire event. But not that cover, boy! No sirree! I'm guessing Joe Sinnott inked the cover for FF King Size #3!--and the difference shows.

Drawing this one was a much about mapping as drawing, really. Talk about an exercise in frustration! Because the proportions between my sketchbook and the original comic are different--there's a good deal of futzing that goes on in the attempt to replicate that space and all those characters.
The attraction of the original is in part owing to the color choice--the simplicity of the white ground against the myriad of colored do-gooders and do-baddies, coupled with the deep purple and bright red logo, makes for a compelling package. I thought it'd be silly to recreate that color-it'd just be filling in the figures, really. So, why not go somewhere else with it? And so I made the ground more active--and simplified the figures. Defeats the purpose, really--given that the guest stars are the selling point--and you want to emphasize them--not suppress them. But--I'm not selling anything, so what the hell?
Anyway-while we've reached the conclusion of this project, the endeavor goes on--so I'll be back with something new soon. What might that be, exactly? I have no idea. There are a lot of comic book covers out there--and a bunch of my own I didn't get to--so maybe I'll be back with one or two every now and again. Or maybe something entirely different. Check back and see!

culture shock: MAD

2011-02-27T00:08:00.003-05:00

I'm ten years too young for the original Mad, but these comics were still around, in one form or another, throughout my childhood in the 1960's. I think my first exposure to the original Mad was via those great paperback collections somebody's older brother had. They got passed around the neighborhood

--the way most comics did in those days. Somebody had a comic book, it was community property. Passing comics around was a way in which we educated each other--and developed a shared sensibility. We didn't want to keep them to ourselves.
Matter of fact, I think my first exposure to a lot of Mad--and other comics too; Peanuts, B.C., Fantastic Four and a lot of other Marvel stuff- was in those b&w paperback collections floating around the neighborhood. I know for a fact that's where I first learned who Jack Kirby was--and then who Chic Stone was.(I could've cared less about Stan Lee.--but Chic Stone was tops!)

Even in the '60's, when Mad magazine was in its heyday, -and my friends and I sat on each others stoops going over every single gag in every single issue--these original Mads were special. They seemed like relics from a different, somehow more subversive, era--a little less predictable than the Mad we knew; wilder, not quite as formulaic. They had super-heroes! "Super-duper Man" and "Melvin of the Apes". And the art was just great, stuffed to the brim with little jokes and funny goings-on in the background. We'd look at them for hours because we kept finding some new joke in there that we hadn't seen before. Astounding images--drawn by some guy named "Wood"--and boy did he draw great looking women("Lois -Hah!-Pain!") and great shadows and great everything! And man--they were so funny, funnier than Mad magazine, funnier than anything we knew. A kind of manic funny--wise-ass in a way the magazine of the '60's was not. Reading those original Mads, you got the feeling the people behind those comics had spent a lot of time in after-school detention, they shot spit-wads in Sunday school and had absolutely no use for authority figures, and as adults they were probably just this far from giving some bureaucrat at the DMV a hotfoot.

*This one was a good deal trickier to draw than it looks!

The Future Past: Adam Strange and Carmine Infantino

2011-02-26T00:10:00.000-05:00

I loved what Paul Pope did for Adam Strange in the pages
of Wednesday Comics a couple of summers ago. Interestingly enough though, Pope's "Strange" was more like the best Flash Gordon strip in years, rather than a traditional Adam Strange story. For me, Adam Strange is locked into a specific era, the late fifties-early sixties, the Friendship 7-Mercury rocket era U.S.-- and a specific look--the clean, idealistic work of Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. Infantino's visualizations reek of the idealized urban future, and looking at his work from this period on "Strange" or for that matter, "The Flash", you feel as though you have a telescope into the mind's eye of a culture, and hold their imagined future in your hands. As such, there's an embedded sense of nostalgia--and loss- in Infantino's work, loss of a particularly domesticated view of tomorrow, and with it, the loss of a sense of possibility.
This looks like an Infantino cover to me, although I'm not at all sure--and were I to guess, I'd say Joe Giella inks rather than the usual Murphy Anderson( although Anderson drew the heads framing the blurb.)

Friday Frankenstein: MoF no.1

2011-02-25T08:43:00.000-05:00

Afraid I'm something of a traditionalist when it comes to Frankie--a Universal Studios'
Frankenstein-style traditionalist, that is. I've read the Shelley, of course--and seen the various versions, from the Branagh to the Hammer--but it's the monster of Boris Karloff and James Whale that haunts my memory. So, back in '72, while I was thrilled to have Marvel's Monster of Frankenstein , I was also a little disappointed it wasn't the image of Karloff on the cover of MoF no.1, that the scene wasn't in a gothic castle and Frankie was gray, not green! (Where did that green come from, anyway? The movies were b & W! Ah, yes--the green came from the original movie posters!)
Well-Marvel had The Hulk, of course, and probably didn't want to confuse readers with another green-skinned monster, --and there'd probably be some copyright issue with Universal if the monster on MoF no.1 was chartreuse--so, gray monster. Still, I would've made him purple--or something.
So--I tweaked Mike Ploog's manic cover a bit--(isn't it wonderfully manic? -the compressed space gives it a bit of that chaotic feeling of '40's Timely covers), moved the scene from the laboratory to the castle, and ---colored the big guy green! (have I been doing that all along?--I think I have, upon reflection.)
So, for my last Frankenstein of February, here's Mike Ploog's Monster of Frankenstein no.1, with a little Karloff/Whale for good measure!

Absolutely Final Starlin*: Mar-Vell no.33

2011-02-24T07:03:00.000-05:00

(* well, for this month, anyway. )Once again--this is from the very beginnings of this project, before I knew I was doing anything, and I drew this quickly one morning at work before the day began-so it's really loose. It was fun to do. Coloring came later--and this was the first page I colored, so I was merely trying to replicate at this point. Rather than use black for the night sky, I layered ultramarine over a red-making for a richer night sky and saving my black markers! Drawing Thanos in action was the attraction--for my money, (all 25 cents of it in 1973) this is one of Starlin's best depictions of him. What a great image! What a malevolent creature!

Swamp Thing no.10

2011-02-23T07:24:00.000-05:00

Couldn't just do one Wrightson cover--had to do another, and here 'tis: Swamp Thing no.10.

Swamp Thing no.9: Berni Wrightson

2011-02-22T00:11:00.000-05:00

Before Alan Moore, before Steve Bissette, there was Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. While Moore and Bissette discovered depths to the character no one previously imagined, no matter how old I become, when I think of the character, Berni Wrightson's cover for Swamp Thing no.9 will be the image that comes to mind.
I worried about this piece a good deal before coloring it. How do you improve on something so beautifully attuned to the mood of the image as the coloring for Wrightson's magnificent drawing? The answer--you don't. So---I had two choices--copy it as closely as possible--or do something entirely different. I decided for the latter, and here's the result. Hope you enjoy it.

Laugh out Loud: Dennis by Al Wiseman

2011-02-21T07:46:00.000-05:00

As a kid, Dennis the Menace was one of my absolute favorite comic books--and I loved it far more than the TV show or the daily newspaper panel, although I loved that too. But the comics accomplished something very few funny comics(other then Mad) actually did-they made me howl with laughter. Dennis was a holy terror-fully deserving of the title, and in the comic books, the storytellers( Fred Toole,writer and Al Wiseman, artist) had the opportunity to fully flesh out his irresistible destructiveness. Dennis could take a simple night out in a Chinese restaurant and turn it into a full-fledged disaster movie--his frustrated parents unable to do anything but stand back and watch in amazement as their little whirlwind wreaked havoc upon an unwitting society. I loved every beautifully wrought, fine line of it!
And the art was indeed something to marvel at. Modeled upon Hank Ketcham's exquisite designs, Al Wiseman had a style all his own; clean, crisp, sharp, minimal but wonderfully expressive. You never saw lawns so neatly manicured, suits so crisply tailored, towns so ordered and picturesque --a picture-perfect suburbia circa 1960, just made for a tiny little tornado to pummel to the earth and leave in rubble. Order reduced to chaos in a matter of seconds at the hands of a three year old boy!
Do yourself a favor--search out some of these wonderful comics(that somebody, somewhere really ought to reprint!)sit back, and have a laugh!

& check out this link for more info on: Dennis --in the comic books.

* This one is for my mom, my first set of inks and crowquill pen(from "Colliers"house paint store in Binghamton--the only paint(& art supply) store in town) and the Dennis the Menace cartoon I drew with them(with only a few ink splots) that she framed and hung proudly on the wall! thanks, mom!

Sunday Movie Matinee: Jerry Lewis

2011-02-20T00:50:00.000-05:00

Jerry Lewis comic books? What the $#*%!? Who's idea was this? I have no idea what the equivalent comic would be today-Jimmy Fallon comics? Will Ferrell? Somehow-the idea was more appealing than the comics--and well, that's not saying much.
Will Ferrell comics? ( some comics publisher somewhere is rushing off to license that property, I'm just sure of it!)
But still, it held on for nearly 20 years! From 1952-1971, DC published a comic book starring Jerry Lewis, first as "The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis" and then, after the comedy team broke up in the mid- fifties, known simply as "The Adventures of Jerry Lewis".
The comics could be amusing-but never quite LOL funny as they should have been. But--JL did have the good fortune to be drawn by the late, great Bob Oksner, whom I believe drew this cover-and had a capacity for caricature and a talent for drawing rather fetching women, as you can see in this example. Over the course of his long but reatively unsung career, Oksner drew many a romance comic, a whole lot of Bob Hope, Shazam!, Supergirl and any book that needed attractive women and recognizable celebrities. He had a rich line, and a spare, clean style that never felt restrained or minimal-sort of like a cross between C.C. Beck, Curt Swan and Dick Giordano. Coming across his work in a comic was a treat, because you knew you were in for an attractive, consistent package, if not an innovative one.
I enjoyed these comics in their day, mostly for their out and out silliness. They are a reminder of a period when celebrities were somehow simpler cultural constructions and mainstream comic books on the spinner racks at the drugstore included humor and an array of genres amidst the super-heroes.

Saturday Starlin!

2011-02-19T00:45:00.002-05:00

It's Saturday Starlin time! When all is said and done, Starlin covers will make up more of these recreations than those by any other artist.
Not a conscious decision. In the beginning of the marathon, I was just rifling through my collection and pulling out any book that I had a fondness for and that had a cover that looked like it might be fun to draw. That I picked up a bunch of Starlin books is an indication of just how much his seventies work meant to my teenage self and how large those books loom in my adult consciousness.
Starlin's been a challenge, largely because I don't draw at all like Starlin, his figures are really idiosyncratic, with extreme postures and musculature that I would never conceive of on my own. Michelangelo, Burne Hogarth, Steve Ditko, Aubrey Beardsley, Jack Kirby--they're all in the mix of Starlin's genius, making for some of the most eccentric yet dynamic inter-galactic super-hero space opera ever. I'd never thought of Starlin as an action guy so much, until I copied his drawings.
I didn't change a lot on this drawing--Warlock is a little bit more upright in my version, and I modified the color a bit here and there, making the piece less about gray against green, and more about a green/purple/pink contrast. Those little changes probably seem like nothing to a casual observer, but I spent hours(?) agonizing over what color to use in the circle indica on the upper lefthand corner. In the end, green was the perfect choice for the cover's background color, and although I spent a good deal of time playing around with alternatives, I never found anything that worked as well. (But you'll notice I moved away from a yellow-green toward a bluer green.)

Friday Frankenstein!

2011-02-18T00:15:00.001-05:00

So..I admit it. I've done a lot of Ploog!(How many times do you hear that in rehab?) There will be at least one more of these, so I hope you like Mike Ploog--and Monster of Frankenstein as much as I do.
And of all the Ploogs I've done, this and the one that kicked off this month-long blogging bonanza, were my favorites to do. This one in particular because of the drama of the sea, the boat in flames, and that elliptical space of Ploog's that I mentioned in the last one. That space is really apparent in this image--and it works wonderfully with the rollicking, burning boat being tossed upon the ocean waves.
Oh-and the beautiful girl tied to the mast didn't hurt.

The Shadow no.3, my Kaluta no.2

2011-02-17T01:06:00.000-05:00

The Shadow no.3-Another great Kaluta cover from the early seventies. This one looks like it's pen and ink in the foreground and watercolor with an ink wash in the background--but hell if I know. Mine's all markers. Anyway-great ominous atmosphere in that original! Thanks, Mike!

Our Love Story: John Romita

2011-02-16T07:17:00.000-05:00

Everybody knows the Spiderman of Lee and Romita was essentially a love story. (as distinguished from the Spiderman of Lee and Ditko) Maybe it still is, I don't know I haven't read it in 30 years. Nevertheless--the girl on the cover of Our Love Story no.1 is a classic Romita beauty-so why shouldn't she be Mary Jane Watson?

Young Romance

2011-02-15T07:41:00.000-05:00

Romance is in the air! And in honor of Valentine's day, I'm offering three covers from classic Romance Comics, yesterday's valentine- Confessions of Love, today's Young Romance, and then tomorrow, Our Love Story .
Afraid there's not much I can tell you about these covers. If I were to take a guess, I'd say this might be a John Romita( tomorrow's definitely is), but there's something about the face of the disappointed young lady in the foreground that suggests in might be Frank Giacoia. I don't have any idea who drew "Confessions of Love"-suffice to say that I like that one for its passion, but also for the fact that the woman is far from passive in that kiss.
I've included the b& w drawings. I color the originals directly in the sketchbook, so it's nice to have a record of how they looked before I went to town with the prismacolors!

Confessions of Love: A Valentine

2011-02-14T00:21:00.000-05:00

To my wife; you are the fire that warms my life, the nourishment that fills my soul, the center of my world. You are all that I hold dear.You have made our home a place of such contentment, such abiding warmth, that I never want to leave, and when finally I must, I think only of the minutes until I can be back with you. I'd travel thousands of miles for just the promise of your smile. You are my partner, my best friend, my joy, my love. I love you deeply, more deeply than I could imagine possible when I was young-my heart feels like a wide open sky, a rolling, endless landscape when I'm with you.
I can only hope that I can bring you the same warmth, joy and contentment that I feel. I will do my best to make it so, for to disappoint you would be the sorrow of my life.
For all of these years, for now and forever more- I love you.

Strange Tales Indeed

2011-02-13T00:30:00.002-05:00

Strange Tales no. 181-Starlin's Ditko homage! "1000 Clowns" is Starlin at his most completely wacked. There's the clowns, of course, Gamora(wow!) and Pip the Troll, but if that's not enough there's pie throwing--and it sure looks like Roy Thomas getting the pie in the face--and Warlock in full clown drag, including the red rubber nose, which was a really good look for him, believe it or not. At the end of this ish, having faced the Madness Monster within himself, Adam Warlock admits to being insane, which is always a good finish for a superhero comic. All in all, a classic, and as I look back on it, a formative influence on me. (Just check out my book "fandancer" to see what I'm talking about.)

For such a cosmic guy, Starlin loved to draw earthy, taught bodies with lots of rippling musculature. You'd imagine something more ethereal for cosmic space opera, but Starlin's stylizations were and are perfect for these explorations of outer and inner space--they somehow endow these cosmic psycho-dramas with the necessary weight and terra-firma, so that they seem tangible, when it'd be all too easy for them to float off like the fluff of dreams.
Strange Tales no.181 is another of JS's fallen figure compositions, and the first Warlock cover I drew for this little project. I drew it quickly-- basically, I just wanted to see if I could draw Warlock upside down--and colored it just as quickly. Another of the Uniroyal ball point pen drawings--that pen encouraged a real loose, gestural approach. It was never meant to be more than a sketch, a momentary diversion while waiting for ol' Saint Nick and watching the snowfall. (Saint Nick has come and gone, but that snow doesn't know when to stop!)

Jimmy Olsen no.115 by Neal Adams

2011-02-12T09:23:00.000-05:00

This is one of those covers, like so many Neal Adams did for DC in the late sixties, that far surpasses the contents of the package. The story inside has none of the drama this image promises, nor anything approximating the bold flavor of Neal Adams' artwork. Still, the cover alone is well worth the 12 cents. It's one of my favorites from Neal Adams' sixties work, primarily, I think because of the rich coloring, which he may or may not have had anything to do with. The image itself, simple,clean and spare, allows for the bold color to do its thing--and it was indeed, a seductive object-commanding my attention amidst all the competition on the spinner rack back in 1968.
In many ways, it encapsulates that which attracts me to comics, to art-to this day--the joyous flat color, the simplicity of its spare but powerful arrangement of forms and figures. It speaks to the power of color in comics-and color rarely gets its due, it seems to me, when talking about comics art. Perhaps that originates in the secondary role colorists were given in the assembly line production of comic books, but it belies the primacy of color in art.
Nevertheless, Adams' fluid line, his inky blacks, dynamic figures and boundless space, --all attest to his craft and imagination-and suggest that Superman, Aquaman, and Jimmy Olsen live on in a world much closer to us than we ever thought possible.

*I was using the Uniroyal ball point pen and I think this was the first of these I decided to color. And the first Neal Adams piece I'd copied since I was about 14. It was a challenge then--& it still is!

The Ultimate Comic; Warlock

2011-02-11T01:18:00.002-05:00

Warlock was the comic for me when I was 14-15. In Jim Starlin's hands it was a masterpiece of cosmic space-opera, replete with cigar-smoking trolls, beautiful women (more likely to kill you than kiss you) and galactic revolution against an evil empire(before Star Wars!), all topped off with a mystic quest to come to terms with identity, fate and the meaning of existence! And all of it masterfully orchestrated in the hands of the most interesting and innovative comics creator of his generation. Wow. Can't top that! And for a period of about a year and a half--Warlock was the best book on the comics racks.
The fallen figure positioned at the bottom of the page was a favorite motif of Starlin's during these years--he uses it at least two or three times during his Warlock run, and at least once on Captain Marvel; nevertheless, it's always effective. And it contributes to a sense of monumentality(-those fallen heroes seem enormous-)-appropriate to the stories he was telling.

I chose to play around with the color scheme on this one. I'm a sucker for that blue in the sky that dominates the original--but I wanted to try a warmer palette--and see its impact on the emotional character of the piece. apologies for the wonky logo!

Klik-Klak,Kamandi & Kirby

2011-02-10T01:30:00.000-05:00

This was the first issue I bought of Kamandi back in '73. I'd held off in part because it wasn't a traditional super-hero book, (no colorful costumes!) and because it had been abruptly inserted into the DC lineup in place of the New Gods( or was it The Forever People?)
I found this cover irresistible--still do. The image of an enormous insect on a leash, leaping from the page, was too exciting, too intriguing to ignore, and so I plunked down my 20 cents and walked out of the drugstore with Kamandi no.12.

Suffice to say, I was hooked right away and bought every issue thereafter until Jack left the series. And while Kamandi's origins lie in DC publisher Carmine Infantino's hope to capitalize on the "Planet of the Apes" craze, Jack made it his own, so much so that from a contemporary vantage point, I think Kamandi holds up much better than the "Apes" movies themselves--or at least the sequels. And while it's often dismissed as an "Apes" rip-off, Kamandi is filled with imaginative characters that by all rights should have found their way into those movies. Characters such as Klik-Klak, the giant grasshopper who adorns this cover and its follow-up, and who was as good a friend as Kamandi ever came across and who was lost to Kamandi, and to us, all too soon. Despite only a few appearances, Klik Klak made a strong enough impression that he's remembered fondly 40 years after the fact. Jack could do that, create incidental characters that were unforgettable.

Ploog in Space: MoF no.3

2011-02-09T07:40:00.000-05:00

More Ploog! As I mentioned in the first post, I wanted to do a number of these Ploog covers from his early run on "The Monster of Frankenstein"--before Marvel changed the logo. If I were to take a guess, I'd say this logo was an invention of Mike Ploog himself--so well attuned to his sensibility it seems to be. I loved drawing this logo, it really has that movie monster vibe.
I've talked a little about pictorial space, in Kirby and Kane. In some of these early covers, Ploog defines a space all his own-very different from either K & K -and a unique response to the division between upper and lower tiers seen in early seventies Marvel covers. In this piece and in a few others, there's an almost elliptical sense of space. His figures seem to be scooped up within a curvilinear embrace that holds them within the boundaries of the page, but allows for breathing room in and around them. Not only does Ploog subvert the editorial restriction, but he uses this innovation to expressive effect as well, the elliptical space imbuing a sense of volatility and unease appropriate to his subject.

Gil Kane: The Atom, no.32

2011-02-08T07:43:00.002-05:00

As a little guy I get a kick out of the Atom as a colossus. Great cover by Gil Kane in period when he did a lot of great covers for DC, on the Atom and Green Lantern in particular. The covers he did for DC are very different in their use of pictorial space from those he did for Marvel in the Seventies. The Marvel covers are -for the most part--divided between upper and lower tiers, compressing the area in which Kane placed his figures. In contrast, the DC covers from the sixties allow for more vertical freedom, and so we see a good deal more flexibility and freedom in Kane's compositions. I'm guessing this was an editorial directive, because a good many Marvel covers of the seventies are composed accordingly, the artists might have been told that the action takes place within such and such an area below the logo. At the point in the sixties when "The Atom" cover was done, there doesn't seem to have been such a directive at DC, and so their covers, by Kane, Infantino, Kubert and especially Adams-are unique in the freedom with which they play around with space. So this is one of Kane's best, I think--and it's wonderful for the way he pulls the viewer up and into the space, making the 6" x 9" picture area seem vast and The Atom himself as monumental as--oh--Mount Rushmore.

If Burne Hogarth is the Mickey L of Comics, then Frazetta is...?

2011-02-07T00:39:00.007-05:00

Rubens' love of women. Goya's sense of the macabre. But without Rubens' sense of hedonistic joy, or Goya's taste for satire. mix in that uniquely American love of pulp-y trash.

Frazetta. Need I say more? For the conclusion of my first week I thought I'd put up something special--& this cover is one of my absolute faves. Working on these covers you learn some things about the techniques & approaches of the masters that you don't get simply by looking. For instance, while sketching out this scenario, I definitely picked up the vibe that Frazetta was making this one up as he went along; very little -if any--preliminary drawing. The Iron bar tracery on the gates is irregular--way too irregular for just a ruin. & The architecture in general is pretty vague. But the big clue is that, well--the Werewolf... in his attempt to conquer the Count--is sitting on Dracula. Who arranges a fight scene like that? Somebody who can make it all up directly from their imagination, that's who. It's not likely you'd hire models to hold this pose for any length of time!

Of course, prismacolor markers aren't oil paint, and so I had to make some alterations to Frazetta's color. I was quite happy to do so-what artist in their right mind wants to be compared with the maestro?

The Generator

2011-02-06T09:31:00.000-05:00

Dig that Gargoyle leapin' out of the page! Feel the heart pounding rush of the crowd chasing after him! That "Demon" thing is coming for you, pal-so you'd either better turn tail and run straight out of the drugstore--or --buy the sucker and take it home!
That's why Kirby was the guy Stan Lee told John Buscema to copy-before he gave him The Avengers or Thor or the FF.
"...This is the guy...this is the look...Action--that's what we want, that's what the kids go for, that's what it's about...."
And this cover is a textbook example of Kirby dynamism at work. The composition alone establishes a pictorial tension that absolutely pulses with energy---The Demon, stretched taught across the two-dimensional horizontal plane, like the skin of a drum-is simultaneously pushing, pushing against the membrane of the picture plane and out into the space of the spectator! Talk about tension--talk about pent up energy---Kirby could have been his own electric company! He was his own power supply!
Kirby's drawing never relaxes into illustrative illusionism. That kind of naturalistic, illusionistic space would loosen the hold of the forms on the surface, relax the abstract, pictorial tension he's created and drain away the pictorial force. His goal was action, energy, to sell comics--and so he never succumbed to the temptation of creating more traditional evocations of pictorial beauty. He knew instinctively that those qualities were at odds with the kinds of abstract dynamics he was interested in. ( that's not to say Kirby didn't create beautiful images--but that's another subject!)
And it's hard to combine Kirby style with naturalism. In many of those works that make the attempt, the artist may evoke Kirby's surface qualities-the faces, the fingers, the Kirby crackle---but in bringing more traditional approaches to form into the mix(most likely because the artist's personal style is naturalistic)- the abstract power of Kirby's vision and forms is undermined. The result is-more often than not-- a kind of nostalgic evocation. *
(*there are some great ones who've aped Kirby outright in the beginning of their careers and then made the work their own. you know who they are.)

anyway--that's the lesson I learned drawing this cover. The last one I did before the Uniroyal ball point pen ran out. That pen encouraged a swift execution--it was a thick tip and it flowed like ice skates across a pond on the page. I'm particularly happy with that blue sky. I wasn't sure I could get it with the markers I had--but a little overlapping here and there and it turned out nice. Those Prismacolors have a surprising amount of depth!

The Most Cosmic Cartoonist of All

2011-02-05T00:53:00.001-05:00

I remember--well, barely-a movie theater in Philadelphia at the end of the seventies, -watching "Altered States" and thinking I'd seen God. Seriously.
Now, I might've had a little help with that perception---but nevertheless, I believed I'd had some kind of revelation.
Looking back, I suppose the amazing thing is that-- in the 60's and 70's-- we thought you could see a movie--like "Altered States"--or "2001"--and if one was in the proper ...frame of mind... it might--just might--- change your life. If you were open to it.
The products of popular culture-- movies, music, comics--were more than mere commodities, more than mere entertainments. They were vehicles to an end--and the end was...? the progressive evolution of humankind...? utopia? transcendence? oneness with the cosmic mysteries? Who knew? We were certain someone did--specially endowed guides to the mysteries of existence-- shamans, musicians, artists, comic book artists.
Jim Starlin was like--one of those dudes clued in to the cosmic mysteries--like the Beatles or Dylan or Floyd--he was one of those guys with "The Answer". By the time he was working on ""Captain Marvel", (and particularly CM #29)-Starlin was the full fledged Cosmic Comics Guru--and I was absolutely certain that by the end of the Thanos story-arc in CM--that we'd all have achieved "cosmic awareness" along with Cap.
Did we ever get there?
Look around. What do you think?

But every time I pick up one of Jim Starlin's books from the seventies --whether it's Captain Marvel or Warlock-or even Shang-Chi---I'm willing to believe it's possible. And these days, that's no small thing, is it?

* my cover was done with the Uniroyal ball point pen, drawn quickly--30-40 minutes or so--and with no intention of adding color until much later.
there'll be plenty of Starlin to see--in various degrees of finish--
before the month is over!
Enjoy! And think Cosmic!

The Champ

2011-02-04T00:10:00.000-05:00

It pisses me off when people diss Neal Adams.
PISSES ME OFF! Punks not worthy of sharpening the man's pencils out there bad-mouthin' the Champ. Not worthy of sharpening the man's pencils! I'd like to see 'em go half a round with Neal Adams-I'd like to see 'em dare to step in the ring with the dude! Step in the ring! (& I'm talkin' about a ring in the same hemisphere, man!)
For all Neal Adams has done for comics, for comics fans and comics creators, for every great cover , for Green Lantern/Green Arrow, for Batman! & Talia & Ra's al Ghul--for each and every book he ever worked on -- I'd consider it an honor to sharpen this guy's pencils! Better'n the friggin' Nobel Prize, man!

It's one thing to talk bad about the Champ, --but just imagine stepping in the ring with Muhammad Ali. Just Imagine! That's big time dude! And Neal Adams--he's the Ali of comics, "Da Heavyweight Champeen of da woild!" Or maybe he's the Jimmy Page of comics, churning out one amazing riff after another all through the sixties and seventies.
Whatever--Neal Adams is in a league by himself, without peer. It took me three tries on this sucker to get something I wasn't embarassed by. Three tries! He probably drew this while he was taking the first piss of the morning! So--you got somethin' bad to say about the man? Keep it to yourself, bub. Or step in the ring.

Mike Kaluta knows The Shadow!

2011-02-03T00:09:00.000-05:00

Was there ever a better version of the Shadow, in print or on radio, than O'Neil and Kaluta's?
When these came out I was 13, and the local radio station had just started to play recordings of old time radio shows from the 30's on Saturday nights. A perfect storm of Depression era atmosphere, I lay transfixed on the living room floor listening to Orson Welles maniacal laugh( you should hear the commercials: "You will skid out of control--without Goodyear Tires! HAHAHAHA The Shadow knows!" ) while looking at Mike Kaluta's pulp-y images of a wraithlike Shadow creeping in and out of the darkness. Ruthless, elusive, without remorse, The Shadow killed people for just thinking about bootlegging! And whenever did you ever see a superhero with a schnoz like Kaluta's Shadow? The perfect proboscis for sniffing out rum-runners and the like.
These are still some of my favorite comics, and I'm sure I re-read them at least once every year or so.
What makes a great comic, a comic you return to year after year? In the end, I think it's kismet, magic, undefinable alchemy-the perfect meeting of subject and creator. As much as I am a teacher and a student of all that goes into "Art" and its making, I trust more in that which you can't control, can't circumscribe by definition or analysis. Analysis-no matter how insightful(& necessary)-always comes up short in the end. I'm not sure anyone knew that Mike Kaluta was born to draw the Shadow-I don't think any of the work he'd done prior gave the impression that he was the artist for it.
But boy was he! And these first few covers, apparently a combination of watercolor and
pen and ink-are still among some of the most iconic and evocative images of the character I know.

So when I first started this little project, these early "Shadow" covers were the first I chose. And initially, I was just going to sketch them out in b & w. I was well into it before I found I wanted to add color. The image above was my second shot at "The Shadow no.4"
Below was my first try-took about half an hour-45 minutes at my office desk, after working hours and when I wanted to wind down some from a busy day.
And yeah--I spent the rest of that evening re-reading this wonderful, classic comic book and drinking in the wonderfully inky images of Mike Kaluta.

Curt Swan; ultimate Superman

2011-02-02T07:42:00.000-05:00

What can I say about Curt Swan that hasn't been said? For those of us of a certain age(YEEESH! I hate that phrase--but what am I gonna do? )there's only only one Superman-- and of course-that Superman is the vision of Curt Swan. More so than anyone before him--( with all due respect to Joe Shuster and Wayne Boring) Curt Swan defined the iconic look of mid-20th century Superman. And not only did Swan embody 20th century Superman, but 30th century Superman as well -as you can see from today's cover: Superman no. 181, Nov. 1965.

I suppose each generation has their Superman-and there's no doubt that Frank Quitely's visualization has made an indelible impression on the mythos-but for me, Swan's Superman embodies those characteristics that seem essential to the character--
not the least of which is that Swan's Superman is a man--not a boy--as contemporary versions of the character tend to be. Today Superman looks maybe--mid-20's-- at the most--whereas the 20th century guy is definitely in his mid-30's.(the last Superman movie--what was that?--that guy was Superboy...maybe. He was no Superman. Give me George Reeves in the series first two years any day.)
The real Superman ( you know--the one "up in the sky!") is no wet-behind the ears whippersnapper, he's a man--he's got some gravitas dude! & Superman needs gravitas--I mean--if he's really gonna kick some inter-galactic butt he does. Swan's Superman/Clark Kent is indeed an embodiment of mid-20th century masculinity; he's built, but in an era before hormone growth treatments. He's every kid's imaginary Dad, stoic, upright, moral, dependable, always there when the train is just about to run off the rails or the Sun spin out of its orbit. Swan's Superman was an everyman-but an everyman you could count on, month in and month out. Just like Curt Swan's pencils.

Of course, by the late 70's, DC's conception of Superman had settled into a rut of conventionalism, the "new era" Superman of '71-'72 remained only a dim memory, its promise left unfulfilled. And Curt Swan was left to illustrate one uninspired story after another--until Alan Moore came along and gave him the tale of a lifetime--to which he responded with perhaps the best work of his career.

This cover long haunted my imagination, the image of the future technopolis and the new, modern Superman (sporting his fashion-conscious forward-combed Beatle cut circa 1965, no less!) fueled my utopian dreams long after I had lost the actual book. As an adult I searched many dealer's boxes for a good long while, convinced it was some figment of my imagination. I was overjoyed when I finally found it--it was like reclaiming a dimly remembered dream. And yes-we really did imagine a future floating amidst stainless steel woks and pepper mills in the sky.
I'm guessing the inker is George Klein. It's got those kind of spare, clean lines that suited Swan's pencils so well.

As if you needed any more proof of my love, and this image's profound influence on me: Superman no.181 has now been the inspiration for at least two works--this cover recreation and the newspaper collage below, which is titled, appropriately enough: "Tomorrow's Kitchen's Today!"---In part because so much of this future architecture seems to have been inspired by 60's Kitchenware.

Tomorrow: The Shadow Knows!

Copying from the Masters

2011-01-31T20:48:00.000-05:00

Hey Hey Hey! I know, I know! I don't write, I never call! Sorry, Mom! I'll be better , I promise.
Well, yeh--- I've been away from "Pulp Ink" for way, way too long -(a year and a half!)-and so--- as a special event/re-introduction, for the entire month of February I'll be making this space my own personal "covered" blog! My first example is to the right-- "the Monster of Frankenstein no. 2" drawn by the great Mike Ploog, and covered by Grogan. The original cover by Mr. Ploog is below.
Every weekday in February, Monday through Friday, (maybe Sat & Sunday too--we'll see), I'll be posting my versions of some of my favorite comics covers by some of my favorite artists from the '60's and '70's. Almost all of the comics are from my personal collection---comics I grew up with and loved, and then which I sought out specifically as an adult to replace comics from my original collection, a collection lost to me back in the early 1980's. So these are comics and artists I revere.

Almost all of these have been done in the last month or so,
for no other reason than to have fun, to reacquaint myself with some of the impulses that engaged me as a kid, to stay artistically active in a period when other commitments have kept me from the studio. And just to draw, draw, draw!!!!!
Initially I was using a Uniroyal bal point pen--and sketching loosely--doing a drawing in about a half hour or so. (You'll know those drawings when you see 'em!) The pen ran out-- and then I started in with Prismacolor "Premier" pens for the line work and and Prismacolor color markers for painting. My one restriction was to work freehand--without any preliminary sketching, no pencil work, no tracing or gridding for transfer. I tried to stay true to the originals as much as I could, but I tended to play around with color. So--the best ones are the most recent, and the time I spend on them is anywhere from a couple of hours up to 4-6 hours when I include the color.

These sketches are meant as sincere tributes to artists who had a formative influence on me, artists whom I repsect, admire and yeh, love. My childhood would have been sorely lacking without their presence.

I'm starting with "Frankenstein" and Mike Ploog because Old Frankie and I go way back, and because I love Mike Ploog's stuff from this period. I've done four Ploogs from his run on "Frankenstein" so far. This particular cover is notable for a couple reasons. I'm struck at how different the original's color is from the feeling of Mike Ploog's drawing. I'm guessing someone in editorial felt Ploog's image was too static to jump off the comics racks, and so they went with the most acidic, garish colors they could find to in order to animate it. Ploog's wonderful drawing is filled with pathos and loss-- not Marvel's stock in trade in those days. There's none of the Marvel "action" prevalent on almost every cover of the period (remember this?--"This is IT! The greatest Action Ish of All", etc. , etc.)
Nor does the image exactly live up to the promise of the bubble: "the most soul-shearing shocker of all!"(stuck on the cover well after the fact, I'm sure) But Ploog does bring a subtle sense of life to his figure grouping through the movement in the Bride's bandages, and the forlorn gaze of the creature. Guess that wasn't enough for whomever was looking over the covers in those days.
Mike Ploog did a lot of terrific work for Marvel in the early seventies, on Frankie and his buddy in horror, "Werewolf of the Night", following up John Severin on "Kull the Conqueror" and last but not least, "Planet of the Apes". A cartoonist's cartoonist, Ploog brought a terrific sense of brooding, Eisner-esque atmosphere to all of those projects. No wonder he was the illustrator credited on the Spielberg production of "Young Sherlock Holmes". (coincidence? just days after I began these homages to Ploog, my wife and I were watching "YSH" on Netflix --and there--at the end-- was "Mike Ploog" in the credits!)

I'll be bringing more of Mike Ploog's "Frankenstein" your way in the next couple of weeks!

Tomorrow(Wed.Feb.2): Curt Swan!

SPX , LoM news and simply shameless self-promotion!

2009-09-19T08:49:00.017-04:00

Hey Monster Fan! Ever since Kevin Mutch of Blurred Books and I started
pissing people off with our new blog of comics criticism , Next Issue! this past summer, I've been remiss in posting here on the personal side. My apologies! I got so caught up in Next Issue! - my own interests have sort of taken a back seat. But I'm back--with some news and updates--so without further ado:

ITEM! I will be appearing at SPX-still the original, premier small press comics convention on the East Coast-- Saturday, September 26 from 11AM to 7PM and Sunday, Sunday September 27 noon-6PM at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

I'm excited because this year we've got a full table--and we'll be displaying a lot of wonderful stuff--and more importantly--we'll be running a big, big SALE on Look Out! Monsters- and all of our books! How big is big? How does this sound-"Look Out!Monsters"-$5.00! Nice Work--$5.00! Buy all four issues of Dr. Speck"-$5.00! Posters-$5.00!!!! So don't walk -- run for table-E11--It should be to the left as you walk in.

ITEM! I'm also hoping to draw some at the show-(If I've got enough maneuvering room) -and some of those drawings will feature the lead figure of my upcoming follow-up to "Look Out!Monsters" Hint: it ain't a monster book!

the drawings are likely to be in the manner of some of the material for the book--charcoal and pastel--large(18" x 24") and between $25.- $50. a pop. If you're looking for some original art-at an affordable price--look no further!

If you're looking for some originals at an unaffordable price-I should have some collages and masks with me too-if I can get together this make-shift display unit this weekend. But I make no promises!

ITEM! I have short piece in Andrei Molotiu's beautiful new book, ABSTRACT COMICS: the Anthology from Fantagraphics. This is the ground-breaking book that's creating so much buzz--and for good reason-there's a wealth of thought-provoking material between its covers.

ITEM! in addition to Abstract Comics, I also have a piece in the Silent Pictures exhibition organized around Art Spiegelman's collection of wordless comics, at the James Gallery at the CUNY Grad Center, 365 fifth avenue, NY. Curated by Andrei and Linda Norden, the show is up until October 11th.

Whew! shameless self-promotion is exhausting! How has the Man done it all these years?

The Barn: Studio #10

2009-06-24T19:21:00.003-04:00

Last weekend was it-my wife Deb & I moved the last of my work out of my studio in Brooklyn and to our place in upstate NY. "We're getting too old for this" we said over and over as we carried load after load onto the passenger elevator, sweat staining our shirts. And as if to prove the point, as we were moving out a younger generation was moving in. As far as the art world goes, New York belongs to the young-with dreams still fresh and lives yet to be determined. The trials and tribulations of city life lie less heavily upon shoulders buoyed by enthusiasm and unburdened by disappointment.
So this is it--The Barn. Studio #10, by our count, in this vocation of mine.
And it feels great. Man it fits like a glove. Behind the house and next to the garden, the cow bell rings when she wants me to come in--or she just walks up the ramp to visit. I got the tunes cookin' and I play 'em loud--and there's no one to answer to, no one to complain. It feels like I've always been here-or that I've finally found the place I've been looking for. Age does have some benefits.
Before I moved in-I put up a wall-gotta have a working wall. And this is the initial configuration:
I'm going to add another piece of sheetrock on the right side-so the working wall will be twelve feet in length-which should be sufficient. And eventually I'll put up shelves and when I get the courage up I'll clean the batshit out of the loft.

and these are the first sketches--a few warm-ups, just to get a groove going, get the feel of the place. Pastel and charcoal-nothing too heavy--just for fun:

I did them on crumpled up newsprint that was used as packing material in a box UPS brought us. I love working on garbage.

Well we don't drink anymore, I've even given up carbonation! So we'll break a bottle of Aquafina or something on the bow, and christen thee "The Barn". Here's to hard work and lost time. Here's to inspiration and life yet lived. Here's to seeing her in the garden just below my window on a hot summer's day. Here's to the cow bell and barbecues and sunsets. Here's to Studio #10. Long may she reign.

Goodbye, Brooklyn.

George Sprott

2009-06-18T13:55:00.025-04:00

I have been an intermittent reader of the Sunday funnies as printed in the NYTimes magazine, but not much of a fan. Leave it to the Times to take all of the lower east side ruff -n-tumble out of the comics and dress'em up and slick back their hair for presentation to society-folk uptown.

The Funnies weren't good enough for the Times, they had to wait until comics had been officially declared "Art" by the rest of the world before presenting them to mother. (And not on newsprint either-might soil your hands.)

That being said, of the many excellent cartoonists given audience in those pages in the last few years, none has fared better within the weekly format than Seth, whose contribution, "George Sprott", has just been collected in a beautiful package by Drawn & Quarterly.

I had been eagerly anticipating a "Sprott" collection, and somehow thinking it was to take the humble format of "Wimbeldon Green" , I was not prepared for the oversize book I finally held in my hands. To cut to the chase( for those who have lives), this is a terrific book, gorgeous to behold and far surpassing my expectations. It very well may be Seth's best work yet, it is certainly my favorite. Go buy it now.

Seth is one of those few cartoonists whose visual style is so perfectly suited to his literary pre-occupations you might have thought he worked it up as some graduate thesis in post-modern aesthetics. But rather than some distant academic pursuit, total immersion in "style" is an absolute necessity of life for Seth, a compulsion thoroughly examined in "It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken", his first book.

That pre-occupation has something to do with style-not as fuel for nostalgic reverie, but as signifier of a futile quest-to come to terms with life's passing, and to grasp something solid from the sand that slips through the hourglass. There is no stopping time, but in the post-modern era, style is all that is left to us. Movie set designers have made careers out of reconstructing the look of the past in exacting detail-masterfully manipulating the cultural signifiers of memory and loss( was the world ever sepia-tone? Or black and white?) and we accept that manipulation as not only pre-requisite for a journey to an historical period , but as some kind of proof of authenticity-as if the "authentic past" were something tangible, something verifiable in experience.

In "George Sprott" , as well as in "Wimbeldon Green" , Seth's visual style presents as an apparent pastiche of some undefinable past manner of the cartoon-whether from the back pages or side bars of magazines from the '40's or '50's, or the gag cartoons of "The New Yorker" -we're never exactly sure. While at the same time, that style, both in surface and substance, is absolutely contemporary, impossible to conceive of in any other era. In Seth's visualizations the past is fuzzy and indistinct, yet it is right there- forever present and out-of reach.

And what is wonderful in "George Sprott"-and I think a grand achievement amidst Seth's body of work, is the application of this approach- with all of its contradictions- in the service of portraiture. For Sprott too, is right there; given to us in fits and starts, in broad, sweeping strokes-as detailed a portrait as any of us is ever likely to receive-and yet Sprott remains unknowable, an unresolved tangle of reminiscences.

Television has become one the major repositories of cultural memory, we judge entire eras by their television "look"-(as if all of the Sixties really looked like "The Mamas and the Papas" on the Ed Sullivan show, and the Seventies like "the Brady Bunch" and "Charlie's Angels") and Seth's lead character is aptly enough, a television personality of the 1960's. Fittingly, all of the tapes for his shows have been lost, and so, that particular past, which would necessarily dominate all other pasts competing to define George Sprott, is left to be filled in by the voices of the interviewees; the friends, colleagues and relatives who tell his story. What are we missing without these video tapes? The suggestion is-- that while the TV shows are a tantalizing missing piece of the puzzle --not much. The essence of a life, lies beyond television's capabilities-and well beyond that of any single memory. We think we know Ed Sullivan, Robert Young, George Reeves. But what do we know? An image, a phantom, splayed out upon a screen in endless repetition.

How many times have we watched dvds of some obscure television show from our childhood, in the vain, unspoken hope that via the flickering images on the screen we might touch, feel, smell -something of that we have lost? Like the character in Jack Finney's "Time and Again" we

think by laying out the artifacts of a period past we might construct a time machine--as if time were merely some intellectual construct, rather than biological necessity.

The narrator of Seth's masterwork speaks simply and eloquently of time, and in so doing sums up the cartoonist's ambition and achievement: "...Maybe it's like these funnies..."

Look Out! Monsters News

2009-06-16T10:26:00.013-04:00

Item!

In February of this year I received a University grant to help me publish a follow-up to Look Out! Monsters - and by this time next year that book should be in available to the public. ( And that means MoCCA -- if it remains a June show). I don't want to say too much just yet--but I can tell you this: I'm a little guy, but I like a big sandbox to play in-so LoM #2 ( and that's only the working title)will again be a large format collage-comic. It will involve newsprint and it will be tactile! It will be artsy-farty! It will be inscrutable. You will again pick it up and ask yourself-" what the f#*k?"

The other details I'll keep close to the vest for now-except to say that certain movie monsters don't seem to be lurking about it's pages.

News will be delivered as it suits me! so check back!

excessive heat

2009-03-26T10:11:00.025-04:00

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I'm afraid I just don't get all the fuss about Cold Heat, Frank Santoro and Ben Jones' trippy political thriller .I don't have the newest 48-page double issue which everyone is raving about, but I have read the the first four issues online-and well... ok. The story, which centers around a teenage girl named Castle and the near simultaneous deaths of a 90's rock icon and a politician's son, is entertaining enough, to be sure- in a Quentin Tarentino "I love trashy B-movies" kind of way. But Tarentino's manic-obsessive involvement with the mechanics of genre movie-making is what makes his best films so compelling, and from what I've read so far-Cold Heat doesn't rise to that level.

Yes -Cold Heat offers an array of neo-geo Paper Rad-style psychedelia all mixed up with a Nancy Drew-on-acid thriller--and that's amusing and entertaining as far as it goes. But too often the art (at least in the issues offered on-line) just doesn't live up to its ambition--or hype. After some scrutiny it seems clear that the artists have apparently developed some kind of algebraic equation, i.e.-the lack of detail and/or precision in execution in any given scenario is in inverse proportion to the amount of passion felt by the artist and thereby communicated to the reader, wherein passion = truth and truth = self-expression, or pi, or whatever. Thus detail is an obstacle to passion, proportion and volume are impediments to veracity, control is a barrier to expression.
I might be swayed by the argument if the art practiced what it preached with any kind of consistency--but Santoro's art is wildly erratic, and not in a way that always serves the story. Though there are occassional images of imagination and expressive power, the linework offers little variation, a sameness that lies flat on the surface. And then there are moments when one feels Santoro has a situation he simply does not have the patience or skills to address adequately. (He speaks to matters of temperament and sensibility in a revealing interview at Inkstuds)

In his best moments Santoro applies a delicate, lyrical, almost impressionistic approach to landscape-and after looking at his grand-opus "Storeyville" and "Cold Heat" one imagines that he may actually be quite a fine landscape painter. But these are qualities that are utterly lacking from his figurative work. And what passes for figurative work is just so inconsistent from one page to the next that it is impossible not to be "thrown out" of the story and into critical mode. (early on in the series, the characters are so difficult to recognize from panel to panel that the letterer has resorted to giving them identifying labels.)

The overlay of psychedelia may provide the narrative with a visual key to Castle's drug induced perceptions, but there's no escaping the nagging suspicion that the obsessive patterning is covering up for shortfalls in the illustrations.And I'm not advocating any sort of DC/Marvel mainstream photo-referenced approach to drawing in comics. I'm not into that. But I am questioning the apparent equivalence drawn between a particular manner of execution and its expressive capability, prevalent in a growing body of "art-comics" these days.

One of those professor's statements from art-school that has remained with me over the years : "don't think that just because you're feeling something that it translates into good painting."

He went on to say that over-the-top passion, the kind that young art-students tend to equate with some kind of truth, rarely results in great art( more often than not it makes for a big mess). Good painting, drawing, comics, is the result of a deliberative process, and some kind of balance between vision, temperament and skill. Pollock, De Kooning, Kline; Van Gogh, Matisse, Munch; Redon, Picasso, Schiele; Kirby, Herriman, Segar, Wilson, -all of these artists are expressionists of one kind or another-and all were disciplined and skilled in their approach to painting and drawing. Spontaneity and improvisation were hard-won attributes, skills developed over years of study-and it's evident in the quality of their work. Take a look at the most casual of Matisse's drawings or collages and you will see linework that is rich and full, that sounds a whole host of notes, not simply one key of the piano repeated over and over.

One of the best texts on drawing I know, The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting reveals that the most fleeting and spontaneous of Chinese Bamboo drawings, is the result of deliberation, patience and skill. The spirit of "chih" is arrived at through the artist's immersion in these qualities, revealed in the moment they place brush to paper. And brush is not placed to paper until the artist has achieved a moment of quiet, allowing for mind and body to act in unison. It's a text that offers good lessons-lessons that quickly dispell any romantic notions one might have about the relationship of passion to execution.

How much is the quality of a comic determined by its visualization?
There's no denying that Santoro's work offers an argument for a particular approach to visualizing comics. (listen to him discuss Chris Ware's work in the Inkstuds interview and you'll see what I mean ). He obviously believes in what he's doing, and to a number of folks he's made a compelling case.
His work displays a connection to 19th-century romantic-expressionist belief systems, and shows a strong connection the prints of Edvard Munch.

But the power of Munch's vision is his alone, and Munch's formal attributes are altogether more finely honed than those Santoro displays in Cold Heat. And I have yet to be swayed that a gestural approach to graphics in the tradition of the late 19th-early 20th century makes for better comics, unless, of course, one is in fact a late 19th- early 20thc. master. (or Sue Coe. or David Sandlin. or Eddie Campbell. or...)

Santoro speaks to this in the aforementioned Inkstuds interview when he mentions Chris Ware's conception of the symbol in comics--and it's a discussion well worth engaging. At this point I think Ware's approach is aesthetically more tenable.

I find the story of Cold Heat entertaining although not mind-blowing. But its visualizations more or less ruin it for me. Others disagree--but for me, I think it starts with the art --and if I don't dig it, then I don't buy it. And at $20. a pop, I'm not engaged enough to find out if Cold Heat 5-6 is more to my liking.

"The Making of Look Out! Monsters at Comicmonsters.com

2009-02-22T12:22:00.003-05:00

If you're one of the millions, billions who've purchased "Look Out!Monsters" only to ask-"what the?"--then fret no more! "The Making of Look Out! Monsters" is now a feature article at THE premier Horror Comics site-Comicmonsters.com! So what are you waiting for--

hit the link and resolve all those questions that have kept you awake so many, many nights!

The Making of Look Out!Monsters!

Nice Work updates on Fridays!

2009-02-20T08:22:00.005-05:00

1961! Kennedy! the Mob! Castro! in The Wild, Wild West with Johnny Cat, Sinatra-stand-in supreme! Every Friday at Modern Tales and Webcomicsnation! Here's a taste:

Frank Robbins saves the NYC Comic-Con

2009-02-17T11:25:00.016-05:00

Lissen, I didn't have a great NYC Comic-Con. Sales were slow, and I was wearing some kind of invisibility cloak or something-I don't know. How do you make the best out of a bad at a comic con? Buy some original comic strip art! So dig it-I picked up a daily "Johnny Hazard" by one of my all-time favorite cartoonists-Frank Robbins.

My first introduction to Robbins' work was as a writer for a variety of Batman comics at DC in the early '70's. I knew nothing of "Johnny Hazard"-the daily comic strip he'd been doing since the forties. I didn't know he was an artist. He was a solid, interesting and relatively dark writer--and he would have been utterly out-of-place in the pages of Batman at any time earlier. But Robbins not only wrote Batman--he drew as well--and so I finally saw the complete package in the pages of "Detective" in 71 or 72. In those days-Neal Adams was the man and his super-cool, beautifully polished brand of realism was THE style Batman fans drooled over. And if it couldn't be Adams, then it had to be the suave, sophisticated Jim Aparo. Robbins--with all of his brushy inkiness, his hyper-kinetic figures, his jittery line, his animated pages--was a rude shock to the system in those days.

Needless to say, those very qualities that put me off back when I was a kid are exactly the ones I cherish in Robbins' art today. His pages are so alive--and utterly without pretense. Without resorting to splashy layouts or graphic gimmickry, Robbins invests every single line, every figure, every object, every page-- with animation. These pages live, man! You can feel the sweat off of his characters--and its not because Robbins felt he had to draw the beads of perspiration dripping down a forehead.

Despite his success as a respected cartoonist in the hallowed land of the daily adventure strip, amidst the likes of Caniff and Gould, Frank Robbins had the bad luck to follow fan favorite artists on at least two titles in the Seventies: The Shadow--which he picked up after what has become a legendary run by Mike Kaluta on the first issues of that title--and then stalwart Sal Buscema on Captain America. The outcry was intense-particularly after Robbins took on C.A.--which, in the hands of Steve Englehart and Buscema had developed a particularly compelling storyline and a devoted audience. Buscema had left his mark via a rather bland but dependable application of Marvel's 1970's house style--and Robbins, whose work was nothing if not highly individualized--was like a smack in the eye to readers who'd grown accustomed to Buscema's non-offensive conventionality. Initially I was among those who was irate at Buscema's replacement--and for a moment I wavered in my support of the title. But this was the "Nomad" storyline--and Englehart kept me coming back for more. Somewhere through my second reading of CA #182-I was hooked. Robbins characters were so passionate, his figures so contorted, twisted and alive. Nomad's travels across city-rooftops were imbued with animation and danger-- Robbins' figures in space could just as easily fall to their deaths as traverse the alleys between buildings.

Robbins stayed with Cap for another year or so--and then with Roy Thomas he originated "The Invaders" --and left his mark on one of the first truly post-modern adventure groups in the Marvel canon He continued to produce "Johnny Hazard" until 1977. How he did comic books and comic strips simultaneously is beyond me. I lost track of his career--I've read he retired, quite happily, to Mexico after "Hazard". He certainly didn't need to hang around and take all of the crap heaved at him by irate fanboys calling for his head after Buscema left C.A. But I cherish those issues of Captain America, those dark and inky Batmans. I keep that work accessible to me in my studio-right along my copies of Kirby and Canniff and Eisner. I refer to it frequently---hoping a little of the life in his drawing seeps into mine.

But Frank Robbins was inimitable---and the qualities that make him great are those of personality and sensibility, they come around once and once only.

*"Batman" copyright DC Comics. images from Detective#426. Oct 1971. "Captain America" & "Nomad" copyright Marvel Comics. Images from CA. # 182 and #183, Feb. March 1974-75. apologies for the bad scans!

Look Out!Monsters at Comicmonsters.com

2009-02-16T15:58:00.006-05:00

One of the nicer moments at NYC Comic-con was being introduced to
Rob Caprilozzi and his wife and their website: http://www.comicmonsters.com/ , where you will find everything you ever wanted to know about monster comics new and old. It's a terrific site, chock-a-block full of interesting material--particularly the "Making of..." feature--which highlights the creative process of just about everyone working in the genre of "Monster Comics" today. I've been asked to contribute a piece as well-and I'll be putting that together in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile---The Big Bad Wolf asked me some questions about "Look Out!Monsters!"-
and that interview is right here:
http://www.comicmonsters.com/features-988-Geoff_Grogan_talks_LOOK_OUT___MONSTERS.html

So check it out!

Life after Previews

2009-02-04T09:32:00.008-05:00

Leave it to me to start a publishing company during an economic avalanche and at the same time that print is sounding its death knell. Not to mention that the largest single comics distributor is effectively eliminating the small press from its catalogue( a development that seems to be welcome to everyone but small press publishers).
Yet is strikes me that Rahm Emanuel has it right when he says that every crisis offers an opportunity (or something to that effect) and for those well positioned, now would seem to be the time for the establishment of a serious and distinct small press/alt-comics distributor.
What would that look like? For starters, I imagine an online only catalogue;-a fully functioning, well maintained and attractive website that presents its vendors well and is user-friendly for retailers and potential customers. In order to draw customers to the site it would have to offer at least a few big independent publishers and a number of well-known independent creators. There'd have to be a big promotional push, advertisements and interviews, signings and events.
I'm not a distributor, nor do I know the intricacies of coordinating hundreds of publishers with thousands of retailers. It takes organization, a good chunk of money and decent technology. It takes more than one person in the office. But there are people out there doing this already-it would seem that now is the time to step up the effort and while it sounds crazy, put some money into the enterprise. It might require small press publishers to pay some kind of annual fee-$100. or so-as in a co-op. Obviously this wouldn't cover expenses for the distributor-but it might fund the website. and that's a start.
Easier said than done, no doubt. But as the mainstream has its single source in Diamond, perhaps if there was a single source for alt-comics, interested retailers, art galleries and bookstores would be able to locate and order our work easily.

Freedom from the mainstream might also encourage the cultivation of a broader array of retailers. Jettisoned from comics shops, alt-comics might begin to find a place in galleries, bookstores, coffee shops and other venues. The model exists, undergrounds sold out of head shops-why shouldn't alt-comics sell out of bookstores and art galleries?

My feeling about Ka-Boom ( the POD printer that has recently announced a direct-market distribution service) is that there are too many limitations. Distribution with Ka-Boom requires printing with Ka-Boom and while that works for some things, I couldn't have done "Look Out!Monsters" or "Nice Work" under those circumstances. No, I don't think tying POD to distribution is appropriate to a movement that seeks to break with the norms in all manners of packaging and content.
These are random thoughts, not fully thought out, admittedly--but the important point is that there exists an opportunity in the fallout from this economic wreck. What form it will take-that has yet to be determined. More web-comics? you bet. An "Image"-style publishing house for art-comics? Hey-that's a whole 'nother post. But ideas are flying now--and its time to contribute to the discussion.
While the dust continues to settle-I'll be in Artist's Alley at the NY Comic-Con this week--with the entire line of L.o.M. books--"Look Out!Monsters (made it onto another "best of 08" list! check out Adam McGovern at Comiccritique.com ), Nice Workand Dr. Speck, the all ages alt-comics "super" hero (well-- his head inflates, what kind of power is that?)--and I'm introducing some brand new posters. In these dour times, I'm looking to have some fun--and what better place to find it than at the Javits Center this weekend?

Patrick McGoohan

2009-01-16T08:17:00.005-05:00

There was nothing like "The Prisoner" on television in 1968. There is still very little that compares to it today--in its deliberate quirkiness, its refusal to follow the established formula of the 6o-minute teleplay. Imagine the staid audiences of 1968-trained on "Gunsmoke", "The Andy Griffith Show", "F Troop", even the "Man from U.N.C.L.E." and --tuning in to "The Prisoner". More than one viewer probably called their station to complain--or maybe called the TV repairman to get their "regular TV back on the screen".

I was 8 years old in 1968, left alone during summer Saturday evenings--and "The Prisoner" fascinated me. Man it was weird-soooweird. And creepy. What the hell was that big latex ball? Gave me nightmares-still does.
And that concept--falling asleep, waking up in your own apartment--but transported to an entirely different place--how cool was that? I remember looking out my bedroom window wondering if I really was where I thought I was.
'Good question.
McGoohan gave no quarter in that series, he never succumbed to the conventional demand for closure-revelling instead in the ambiguities raised by his premise, and engaging the philosophical complexities of the post WWII cold-war society we were creating. And if you shared his dark sense of humor-"the Prisoner" was funny -like a knife.And colorful--love those umbrellas. The 'ending" to the series is no ending at all--a maze within a puzzle within a riddle--it answers nothing and yet confirms our worst expectations. Did Six escape? Is there an escape?
It's the narrative possibilities that stay with me today. The questions the series raises-about individuality, about the social collective, mind control-media control; the symbols McGoohan utilized to engage difficult ideas in an entertaining way.
I'm not hopeful for the new series--"The Prisoner" was the result of one man's vision. And like any work of art, there's no recreating it--why bother? It's like trying to repaint Matisse.
So I imagine they should have a parade to celebrate Six in Portmerion. Bring out those rainbow umbrellas, march in unison throughout the square-chanting"SixSixSixSix".
Patrick McGoohan would've hated that. and that's as it should be.

Be seeing you.

Ditko's World

2009-01-12T11:26:00.022-05:00

Whew! I just finished Blake Bell's Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko--and not soon enough. Not for any fault of Blake Bell's-who has produced an attractive, detailed and insightful tome on Ditko's 50 -odd year professional career. Rather, I'm relieved to be free of Ditko's oppressive worldview, so thoroughly conveyed via Bell's comprehensive research and analysis.There are points-particularly late in the book-where I wanted to scream-- at Ditko's intransigence, obstinance, --his complicity in his own martyrdom.
The artist who emerges within this text is difficult, self-destructive and self-aggrandizing- with an apparent disdain for his audience, fans, and the early career creations for which he is justly revered. His sense of his own righteousness and the perceived failure of his readers, co-workers, collaborators--oh, just about anyone within striking distance-- to live up to his(and Ayn Rand's) moral code is suffocating, effectively ensuring the artist's isolation and long artistic decline-- and perhaps that's the point. Was there something in his make-up that made these circumstances an inevitability?
There is plenty of room for analysis of the personality within these pages, but alas, if Mr. Bell has entertained any ideas in this regard, the reader is not privy to them. Aside from the descriptions of Ditko's early life in Pennsylvania, there is scant biographical information presented here.While Bell has covered Diko's public and professional life in detail, charting creative differences, office interactions, editorial discussions and the like across every phase of the artist's career, the man outside of the office remains remote.

Has Ditko ever formed any romantic attachments? Has he been heartbroken? Cared for elderly parents? Does he have kids? What about relatives? Relations with his siblings, nieces, nephews? Does he like cats? dogs? Is there anyone who can speak well of the man? Has he ever been known for acts of kindness, of generosity--of any kind? What kind of deprivations has his isolation imposed on his life? What was it in his life that made him so susceptible to Rand's stark philosophy--and to super-heroes? Is there more to him than the bleak and unforgiving Rand-acolyte described in this book?

These are not questions asked out of prurient interest. They fulfill the basic requirements of biography-to help the reader understand the motivations and choices of an important artist. Even if Ditko's personal life has been uneventful---that observation would merit inclusion here.

That said--Bell has given us an interesting and detailed overview of the artist's professional life and his half-century career-all in a very attractive package. Bell reveals Ditko's early influences and examines Ditko's artistic development, pointing out both the highlights and the low points of Ditko's long career with a critical eye and leaving the reader with a good understanding of Ditko's continued importance and the reasons for his decline.
And Ditko's best work shines--those Warren pages alone are worth the price of admission--and examples from each phase of Ditko's career are represented here and given quality reproduction on big, big pages. Much of it is a joy to look at. Much of it is a reminder of lost potential. As one scans images of Shade or Stalker, Bell's descriptions of the many fruitless editorial discussions between Ditko and those who hoped to hire him late in his career become palpable; the frustrations real.

This is a book I will look at again and again, and refer to for insight into Ditko's work - that is for certain. But questions remain. Towards the end of the book Bell describes a striking scene in the artist's studio wherein Ditko stands over a cutting board apparently cutting up original artwork from the 1950's, valued in the thousands of dollars, rather than trust it to the vagaries of the open market or to exchange with a colleague.

Who does that? Who is this guy?

Btwn the Lns 2: questions and answers;Hopper and Rockwell

2009-01-02T09:23:00.019-05:00

In interviews over the years Neal Adams has voiced his admiration for the work of Norman Rockwell, describing him as a consummate story-teller. On that score you get no argument from me-- or those zillions of other calendar/poster purchasing consumers. Rockwell's continued popularity resides in the clarity of his narrative, the familiarity of his characters and the innocent humor with which he presents depression-era America.

Every aspect of a Rockwell image contributes to the story he is telling--from the obvious details-- such as the facial expressions of his characters, their postures, the clothes they wear--to those that are more subtle;-- the time, the place, the details of the setting. In Rockwell's world- all of the elements are explicit--so that there is no mistaking where, when or what. This explicitness extends to the manner by which he handles his materials as well, reigning in any expressive capabilities of his brush and paint, lest they clutter the canvas and distract from the narrative.

The painter Edward Hopper also mines the terrain of that period-and while he is certainly admired, it would seem odd to say he was popular. He too tells a story, and depicts an America that is familiar --and while one could repeat many of the same words used above to describe Hopper's use of detail- the end result is something quite different. And that difference resides in Hopper's inclination to be circumspect, to imply rather than explain.

It would be a mistake to say that Hopper simply plays with ambiguity for its own sake. His images are filled with questions, questions that arise not only because of his discreetness but also because of his interest in the ineffable, his deep feeling for light--and time. He uses paint to encapsulate the mystery of light upon a door , not to paint the door.

Rockwell's narratives-as pleasing and comforting as they are--conform to well-known archetypes, to an idea of a mythic America that is well-known. Every thing he depicts is complete, defined-- according to the needs of his narrative -and his audiences'expectations. He uses paint to satisfy expectation-- to define his objects, settings and people so well that questions are resolved apriori .

It is not only this-but the character of the questions Rockwell addresses: "what does an archetypal awkward teenager(of the depression-era) wear on a prom or first date? Where would they go? Who would be there? What would they say? How would they interact? What kind of soda would they drink?" -- that are both the source of his success as an illustrator--and the limitation of his art.

With Hopper we are left to wonder. The place and time are familiar to us-we recognize the light of morning, the brownstone rooftops. But the light-- seems not to define setting so much as to penetrate the inner life of the figure, to illuminate the relationship between the figure and the ineffable; inquiry and contemplation, the known and the unknowable.

Btwn the Lns:Illustration, Comics and "A"rt; Part 1

2008-12-24T09:09:00.023-05:00

In so far as comics are an imagistic art, there remains a relationship to illustration that is worth examining-not so much for the historical ties( which are well-documented) but for conceptualizations of both practice and appreciation that resonate witihin the artform and its industry yet today. Comics are not illustration, but the methods of the latter have often been used in the service of the former. Just the same, there is also an important distinction between illustration and art(with the capital "A")-having nothing whatsoever to do with commerce--that has had a tremendous impact upon the development of comics as an artform, in both perception and practice.

First -it must be granted that illustration, as a practice and artform in its own right, differs in its premise from that of "fine" art. This distinction resides not in illustration's tradition as commercial practice, nor in the disingenuous notion of art-for-art's sake that disguises the big-business that is the artworld. Rather-the distinction can be seen in the way the artist approaches their task in both conception and in the use of materials.

This was made clear to me recently during a semester -ending critique of a student's work in the Art dept. at the University where I am fortunate enough to teach. A good student, a substantial amount of good work which the faculty all enjoyed viewing. Yet the chair of our department observed that the work was least effective when bound by its illustrative qualities. The student naturally asked "what is the difference between illustration and art?"

What is self-evident visually is not always so clear verbally, but after some consideration-and not at all sure of myself I offered this: that illustration concerns itself with answering the questions raised by the narrative, art raises questions of its own.

Illustration is circumscribed by narrative, art is not. Illustration is concerned with events, art with something else.

Keep in mind-this in no way precludes a work of illustration from being art. But the nature of its discourse makes this exceedingly rare, for it requires the illustrator's knowing repudiation of his craft's very reason for being.

This is why then, one can point to a Duchamp ready-made and confidently say it is art, and view a beautifully rendered J.C. Leyendecker Arrow shirt advertisement and say it is not.

Part II: Norman Rockwell and Edward Hopper

Comic Book Ghosts of Christmas Past Give up the Ghost to Comics of Christmas Present(s)

2008-12-20T13:48:00.024-05:00

maybe this is a lame way to kick off this blog--aging boomer, waxing nostalgic about comics of past Christmases-(Jeez! isn't that enough to make you wretch? or at least yawn...).
Unfortunately or otherwise-I do indeed cherish those twenty-cent wonders I bought on the last day of school before Christmas vacation lo' those many winters past, but very few of them are actually worth re-visiting or re-reading--nevermind writing about 35 years later. I mean-who's gonna get all hot and bothered discussing an issue of DC's "Strange Sports Stories" ?
Still-the excitement of those days when I could run to the corner drugstore and pick up 10-15 new comics for $2-3.00 bucks --money that I'd hoarded from unspent lunch money--and choosing the books with great care-knowing this was the stash to last me the entire vacation---then finally settling down to look the pile over when I got home from school -- this was an incomparable joy.

I admit then that one of my guilty middle-aged pleasures is attempting to relive that experience at this time of year, by indulging in my semi-annual comics buying spree-(yep, still hoarding the lunch money). Compiling a comparable stash these days would break my bank--or at least empty my wallet--and given that most of my expendable(ha!) funds are tied up in publishing through "Look Out!Monsters"--I have to pick and choose among a glut of great books, none of which cost twenty cents.

So what might a discerning reader with $100. limit go for? Do I buy one book? or go for five-- or six ?

AAAGGGHH!

Agony defined.

Why is it that $100. today seems so much less than $2 or 3.00 from 1973?Therein lies the secret of the problem with our economy.
Well-I've got to pick up Beto's "Speak of the Devil", no question. I buy everything Los. bros. do-and it's still not enough. So- fourteen bucks- ok. $86. big ones left.
The big question for me is always how much to spend on new work by contemporary artists and how much to spend on collections of previously published material. I've been reading IDW's reprints of classic comic strips-Caniff's "Terry and the Pirates" and Gould's "Dick Tracy"-( you don't need me to tell you that both live up to their well-deserved status as classics)-and I'm afraid I'm hooked. They both read like master classes in comic strip storytelling--and the IDW editions are exceptional, certainly the "Terry" series is definitive(I so wish the Tracy set included color-and was printed on different stock-but those caveats don't in anyway diminish Gould's electric narratives.) . So let's go for "Terry" volume 4--and Tracy volume 5--at Amazon that totals $54.00. Still $32.00 left!

Well-here's where the difficulties set in. I've got to have "Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko" from Fantagraphics--that's $26.00. But Mark Evanier's "Kirby:King of Comics" is also $26.00. Alrightalright--I'll put off that decision for as long as I can. Nah-the hell with it-gotta have 'em both.

But what about Eddie Cambell's "the Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard"? ($12.00 )And I've heard good things about "Abandoned Cars" by Tim Lane--($16.00) and Nate Powell's "Swallow Me Whole "($14.00). Jason Lutes has volume 2 of Berlin out ($14.00) and then there's Yoshihiro Tatsumi's "Goodbye" ($14.00) Alison Bechdel's "Essential Dykes to Watch Out For"($16.00) Is there anything by Gipi I'm missing? No-oh wait--I haven't picked up "Garage Band" ($12.00)-and Tezuka's "Ode to Kirihito" ($16.50) So--How much is all that?

Crap.

like I said-3 bucks seemed to go so much farther in 1973.

Now where was I--Ok, Beto's "Speak of the Devil"...