Lovely work by Brooklyn-based artist Ulises Farinas
Comics
If you pay even the remotest attention to the comics world then you’ll know that Sept 2011 is the month that DC reboot their entire line back to Issue 1, sweeping away all continuity, history and character development from years gone by. Jon Morris started a spin off site called DC Fifty-TOO! and asked artists to provide their own interpretations of DC titles they’d like to see redone. Unfortunately we’ll probably never be able to read some of these treats, I picked some favourites but there are loads on the site, complete with artist commentaries.
Just finished this and I waited until I had all 3 issues before reading any. Absolutely amazing, the sense that England is being destroyed in an end-of-the-world scenario is very well done by artist Duncan Fregredo. I’ve been scooping up all the Hellboy books this year and reading one a month to play catch up as I stopped buying it years back, well worth it.
Even more exciting is the news that series creator and original artist Mike Mignola is going to be back drawing the comic again after years on just writing duties, also that the book he’ll draw will be called ‘Hellboy in Hell’.
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Here we have what I hope to be the first in a series of limited edition signed prints of the work by Henry Flint that’s adorned my record sleeves over the last 2 years. The first one is ‘Life Cycle of a Machine’ that featured on my ‘The Shape of Things That Hum’ EP in late 2009 and was originally a B&W line drawing that Henry did which I have digitally coloured.
The giclee print is 64 x 47cm on 300gsm Somerset Photo paper which is 100% cotton and I can attest that the print is very high quality indeed. All will be signed by Henry and myself and will be available from Scraffer.com, sent rolled in a study cardboard tube. If these sell well there are plans for a further three prints featuring artwork from the album and EPs in the same format.
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Comics fans will be familiar with the cover to Fantastic Four #1 whether they read the book or not, Jack Kirby‘s classic image of the Mole Man’s monster emerging from the ground, reaching out to grab Sue Richards whilst the rest scatter around him.
It’s been revived and parodied several times. both within the FF universe and by other titles, the latest being X-Men‘s Marvel 50th anniversary issue (I think, I don’t read these kind of comics).
A quick search, after seeing the Monster substituted for Galactus, revealed quite a few variations on the original, most cribbed from an existing article here on Comic Coverage. Thanks to Megatrip for pointing out extra homages too.
Today’s comic pick up in Forbidden Planet: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – 1969, Hellboy – The Fury 2, Tank Girl – Bad Wind Rising 4, Lady Mechanika 2.
Love this Red Skull cover, don’t know who it’s by it’s by David Aja (thanks JB) – check his blog here for more. Here are a few more things from him in a similar vein. Nice to see comics quietly catching up on the graphic design side of things. I just found it whilst looking for something else, hmmm, 3 skulls in the last five posts.
7 pages of Jack Kirby magic from his adaptation of the film 2001. This is the ‘trip’ sequence and is taken from the Spanish version of the comic.
For no reason other than I just saw it and these pages are great, can’t beat a bit of Kirby. I think this was one of the last things he did for Marvel in the late 70’s. Gotta love that title; ‘Battle on a very busy street’.
For all you 2000ad fans out there, the legend that is Mike McMahon now has a blog. Featuring all sorts of unseen artwork from over the years including unpublished ABC Warriors pages from 2001!
From Mighty Fine via Megatrip
Via Megatrip via Geek Art – this popped up on the web but it’s not by Mike Mignola. Thanks to pAUL for the comment, it was Scott Watanabe.
An old Eclipse comic I found last summer, the Warlock bares a striking resemblance to a certain wizard by Vaughn Bodé.
‘Alternity’ comic issue No. 1, finished copy of the aborted UK comic from the makers of 2000ad, 1992. Includes stories and artwork by Dave Gibbons, Carlos Ezquerra, Colin MacNeil, Brett Ewins, Jamie Hewlett, John Wagner, Mark Millar, Pat Mills and Clint Langley.
Never officially published, this is a revised version of the ‘Earthside 8’ comic with one new story, most were pulped.
Until recently I knew very little of Brian Lewis’ work, but the handful of pages I did know are etched in my brain as some of my first ever sci-fi comic experiences.
In 1978 I was in a newsagents and spied a comic called 2000ad, it was into its second year and the issue was no. 61. On the cover was their most popular character, Judge Dredd, roaring towards you on his bike, guns blazing. Lucky for me I’d stumbled upon the very issue that the comic decided to begin the first ever ‘epic’ in Dredd’s world – ‘The Cursed Earth’ – now, quite rightly, considered a classic. Opening the cover however, the first strip I was confronted with was an updated take on the old Eagle character Dan Dare. More so than the front cover, the page set fireworks off in my eight year old brain as a spaceship happened upon a huge space monster, the likes of which I’d never seen before. The detail was incredible, every tiny pore of the beast and panel of the ship was rendered meticulously. I’d only read ‘humour’ comics and some of the UK Star Wars weeklies up until then and I couldn’t believe this kind of art existed in a kids comic. I was sold and asked my mum if she could buy it, showing her how amazing it was (to me – I doubt she liked it very much). I loved this comic so much, I even took it to school and showed everyone who would listen how amazing I thought it was, it was ragged and ripped in a very short time but I still have it in a box somewhere.
Around the same time, issue No.1 of Starburst magazine arrived, a new monthly title concentrating on sci-fi in the movies, heavily capitalising on the previous year’s Star Wars fever and sporting an eye-catching wrapround cover of said film. Being mad on SW I picked it up, inside it was very text heavy, which, for an eight year old, was a bit of a no-no but the cover was so beautiful I had to have it. This time I pestered my dad (who was a much harder sell than my mum) and finally got a copy after a number of attempts. On the inside cover was a weird little one page strip where an astronaut is wandering about outside his ship in space, he hears a rumble and flees back inside, desperate to make it as quick as possible. The last panel sees him hooked up to a toilet in his suit, relieved to be relieving himself. Juvenile, sure, but beautifully drawn (and written) – by Brian Lewis.
A recent urge to revisit this issue (long since binned or given away) had me hunting around on eBay and a few days later it popped through the letter box. Most of the magazine was as fresh in my mind as when I’d read it years before, the cover still as great, Darth looking a little tired and droopy-mouthed in this rendition. Then I noticed the signature on it, L E W I S, my god, he did the front cover as well! You’d never know this from comparing the two, one being black and white line work, the other being fully painted colour using photos as reference. Doing some research online I found that he was one of the old school and had been in his prime in the 60’s and 70’s drawing Gerry Anderson comics and later Hammer House of Horror strips and covers for Dez Skinn. He’d also contributed a couple of covers to 2000ad as well as a three part Dan Dare story – you guessed it – the one I saw when I first opened the first issue I bought! How I’d never linked this with the Starburst one-pager I’ll never know but the similarities are obvious now.
Sadly, at the same time I was experiencing these revelations, Brian’s time was almost up and this was some of the last work he did, he passed away in 1979. There are a few pockets of information on him around the net but he’s not remembered as widely as the younger artists who were just starting out when 2000ad was the new comic on the block. He was very much the old school passing over the baton to the new, fresh-faced upstarts like Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons. To me his style is very British, very considered, not overly flash but hyper detailed. Even though I only know a few pieces of his work I’m sure they will stay with me forever.
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This has been going on for a while now over on Warren Ellis’ sprawling Whitechapel forum. The idea is that you get a few scraps of info about what has now become a classic comic or series, and have to imagine you’ve never seen or read the comic before but were given the job of illustrating the front cover of that issue or book.
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The Fantastic Four, Spiderman (via Amazing Adult Fantasy), 2000ad, Superman, Zap Comix and more have all come in for a re-imagining over the last year and I’ve rounded up my favourites in the gallery below.
More can be seen here and there’s also a Remake/Remodel series where you’re asked to redesign obscure characters from the past.
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The Moebius exhibition in Paris ends this weekend at the Foundation Cartier. I sadly didn’t make it back there but hope it will come to the UK some day. Here are a selection of the films featured on the exhibition site.
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As subtle as a brick, no one’s pretending they don’t know what the ‘M’ stands for, debuts April.
Jim Mahfood and Ziggy Marley with writer, Joe Casey.
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‘Earthside 8’ comic issue No. 1, finished copy of an aborted UK comic from the makers of 2000ad, 1992. Includes stories and artwork by Dave Gibbons, Carlos Ezquerra, Colin MacNeil, Jamie Hewlett, John Wagner, Pat Mills and Clint Langley. Never officially published, most were pulped.
Looking forward to this in April:
CHAPTER TWO takes place almost sixty years later in the psychedelic daze of Swinging London during 1968, a place where Tadukic Acid Diethylamide 26 is the drug of choice, and where different underworlds are starting to overlap dangerously to an accompaniment of sit-ins and sitars. The vicious gangster bosses of London’s East End find themselves brought into contact with a counter-culture underground of mystical and medicated flower-children, or amoral pop-stars on the edge of psychological disintegration and developing a taste for Satanism. Alerted to a threat concerning the same magic order that she and her colleagues were investigating during 1910, a thoroughly modern Mina Murray and her dwindling league of comrades attempt to navigate the perilous rapids of London’s hippy and criminal subculture, as well as the twilight world of its occultists. Starting to buckle from the pressures of the twentieth century and the weight of their own endless lives, Mina and her companions must nevertheless prevent the making of a Moonchild that might well turn out to be the antichrist.