Tagged: art

Queenie for a day

Queenie for a day

Del Rey has just announced the newest addition to its growing lineup of original graphic novels, as it has acquired the rights to publish comic book stories featuring Dean Koontz’ popular Odd Thomas character ("I see dead people. But then, by God, I do something about it.").

Wisely, Del Rey has enlisted the services of manga superstar-to-be Queenie Chan (that’s her self-portrait at right) to take on the writing and art chores for this project.  Chan is no stranger to supernatural mystery, the genre of her book The Dreaming (not to be confused with the Neil Gaiman work of the same name), of which two volumes have already come out with a third on the way this autumn.

The as-yet-unnamed graphic novel "will follow Odd’s race to solve the murder of a young boy whose killer appears to be stalking a second child. It is set in the time before Odd Thomas [Koontz’ first OT book in his series] and takes place in Pico Mundo."  It’s slated to come out in the summer of ’08.

Kool komputer komics from the 80s

Kool komputer komics from the 80s

Wil Wheaton found a bunch of comics that Radio Shack/Tandy put out two decades ago to teach kids about computers, written by Paul Kupperberg with art by Dick Ayers and Chic Stone.  Wil samples some of Kupperberg’s dialogue, which in hindsight seems very reminiscent of Bob Haney’s "so hip it’s instantly dated" flair.  (‘S okay, Paul, we still love ya!)

Here’s the whole lot of them, online.  Say, did you know you can use your computers to communicate with information services that will store old PSA comics?  It’s true!

Tom Artis’ Marvel Kids

Our friend Doug Rice passed this unpublished story along to me, and I wanted to share at least the splash panel with you ComicMixers out there. It lead off a 1993 project called “The Marvel Kids” – its intent is obvious from the art.

Doug wrote the job, and our late buddy Tom Artis was the penciller. Al Vey rounded it off with the inks. It’s a shame the project didn’t go anywhere, as the creative team had more wit and charm than a barrel of pie-throwing monkeys at a Cirque Du Soleil gig.

(Artwork copyright Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Marvel’s new Classics line

Marvel’s new Classics line

  • News
  • April 29, 2007

So I’m catching up on Previews magazine (more about which in my Wednesday column) and I notice this drop-dead gorgeous art in the Marvel Previews insert that caught my eye and made me stare at the page for like a minute and a half.  And I’m one of those "usually more into the words than the art" comics people.

It was either an interior page or Jo Chen’s cover art for Last of the Mohicans #1, adapted from the James Fennimore Cooper novel by veteran scribe Roy Thomas.  Okay, probably the cover, but the interior pages in that Marvel Previews issue were equally gorgeous, with rich, lush inks.  I wish I knew who did those inks.  The pencillers are listed as Steve Kurth and Denis Medri, and their scene-setting and composition is indeed wonderful from what I’ve seen, but geez Marvel, whom do I have to bribe to get inkers’ names into your PR?

In any case, particularly having just come from the Kids’ Comic Con, I find this news of Marvel doing Classics Illustrated-type stuff to be welcome indeed.  Last of the Mohicans is the second title in the nascent Marvel Illustrated line If you haven’t yet grabbed Jungle Book by Gil Kane, Jo Duffy and P. Craig Russell, get it now), to be followed by Treasure Island and the Man in the Iron Mask.  Hey, can a woman-written classic be far behind?  I know Frankenstein‘s been done to death, so to speak, but how about some Virginia Woolf or a Bronte or two?

Cup o’ Joe at Tribeca

Cup o’ Joe at Tribeca

  • News
  • April 24, 2007

Concurrent with the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival (at which Spider-Man 3 will have its U.S. premiere) will be a series of panels called Tribeca Talks, and right up there with all the other luminaries scheduled to talk is Marvel EIC Joe Quesada, appearing on a panel called "Heroes for Hire."  Presumably the panel will not just be a plug for Marvel’s title of the same name.

According to the program notes, "a genre of entertainment originally devised with children in mind, superhero movies have found real success among bigger babies — adults, to be specific. We unleash the power of some superhero creators to explore why the vulnerable, conflicted, reluctant, and more…well…human superhero is a sure-fire way to a colossal opening weekend. Featuring a sneak peek at original illustrations from the highly anticipated Amazing Spiderman: One More Day comic book storyline!’  That’s the one written by Joe Straczynski with art by Quesada himself.  Only hey, Tribeca folks, isn’t it "Spider-Man" with a hyphen and all…?

UPDATE: Jamie Bishop

UPDATE: Jamie Bishop

  • News
  • April 17, 2007

Often inspired by his artistic superheroes Dave McKean, Frank Miller, Diane Fenster, and the ever-groovy René Magritte, Jamie enjoyed creating digital art. Recent work includes book covers for his father Michael Bishop’s Brighten to Incandescence and A Reverie for Mister Ray as well as Mike Jasper’s now ironically-named short story collection Gunning for the Buddha.

Despite a penchant for art, Jamie received both his B.A. and M.A. in German at the University of Georgia. Between 1993 and 2000 he lived for four years in Germany where he spent most of his time, in his words, "learning the language, teaching English, drinking large quantities of wheat beer, and wooing a certain Fräulein," Dr. Stefanie Hoder, who would later become his wife.

Jamie’s art portfolio, along with a dated version of his biography, can be found at http://www.memory39.com/, which is also the name of the piece of art above. The Los Angeles Times has an article about Jamie here.

Sacco on Iraq

Sacco on Iraq

  • News
  • April 9, 2007

Via Jessa at Bookslut, the good news is that comic artist and journalist Joe Sacco has a 16-page piece in the latest Harper‘s entitled Down! Up! You’re in the Iraqi army now.  You can see the thumbnails (like the one at right) here. 

The bad news is, you can’t see the full-size art to actually read the piece unless you buy the issue. Joe’s worth it.

Comic Abstraction at the Museum of Modern Art

Comic Abstraction at the Museum of Modern Art

  • News
  • March 17, 2007

The good news is that a big name, first tier, grown-up institution, the Museum of Modern Art, is doing a show on comic art.

 

The bad news is that we’re still being nibbled to death by ducks; the show is a rather narrow view of the medium, a look at how 13 artists are using the visual conventions associated with comic art. Sometimes it’s one convention to a practitioner; sometimes they can handle as many as a half a dozen.

 

The Modern (www.moma.org) is spiffy enough to have an online exhibition, which can at least let you in on the main ideas. I don’t have to tell you the value of staring at a wall-sized painting vis a vis a reproduction on a screen, but in this case especially you can understand the ideas at work here. If you don’t buy the idea, then you can probably skip a trip to the show. It fits in one of their smaller temporary exhibition spaces, fewer than two-dozen pieces altogether in about four rooms, artfully arranged, like spaces in the primate habitat at the zoo to seem like a few more.

 

It took me a half hour to look at it closely, most people were in and out in less time than that.

 

The Museum feels the need to expand their scope to “slapstick, comic strips and films, caricature, cartoons, and animation.” This says, to me, that, they still need to add things to comic art to make a show. It also says they are still bedeviled by the use of “comic” to refer to both the medium and a point of view. They are in sight of the transcendent critical vision here: that comic art is a medium, not a genre.

 

But that’s their contribution to critical literature; the show makes a lot more sense looking at it than reading about it.

 

As usual, the artists are ahead of the museums. They know the comic artists have great powers, most of them have been reading comics all their lives, just like the rest of us, at least in the Sunday paper. They know a speedline from a thought balloon, clean line from brushwork. They have such respect for comic art technique that most of them don’t go near it, as such, exploring instead the equally wide seas of painting.

(more…)

Comics take on statutory rape

Comics take on statutory rape

  • News
  • March 12, 2007

To help combat a growing trend, the Virginia health department has commissioned a "fotonovela" – a comic book that uses photographs instead of art, also known as fumetti – to educate Spanish-speaking girls younger than 18 about how they can avoid being coerced into unwanted sex.

Citing cultural tradition, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention told CNN Latinas lead the nation in teen births with a birth rate more than double the national norm. Young mothers are extremely reticent to name the fathers of their children.

According Paz Ochs, the Richmond VA Hispanic liason who helped create the fotonovela, "We wanted something that would be appealing. There’s some people that might not realize that this is even against the law." Health care workers in Illinois, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Indiana and Florda have contacted the Virginia Department of Health for more information.

Because you demanded it, True Believer!

  • News
  • March 8, 2007

The fan mentality is often a wonder to behold. It’s a constant double-edged sword. On the one hand, you have a passion for the subject matter that often knows no bounds. On the other, you often find a complete disregard for the minds behind the creation of that subject matter.

Never is this more apparent than with comic book readers, and particularly those readers who decide to review the books. With other forms of entertainment, it’s all but impossible to ignore the performers. You couldn’t discuss Buffy without mentioning the actors or Joss Whedon. It’s difficult to review a Harry Potter book without acknowledging that it’s all from the mind of JK Rowling (or a Harry Potter movie that doesn’t talk about Daniel Radcliffe & co.). So why do so many comic book reviewers have no compunction whatsoever about going on at length about the storylines and characters while completely ignoring that these fictional entities have no independent existence outside of the writers and artists who create them?

(more…)

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