Late Again!

A Self Portrait,

just so's you know.

On reflection, I take way too long to get my sorry butt in gear and add postings to this site.  I have a bad case of procrastination and I think it may be getting worse.

I just finished reading a very annoying book, The Glass Castle, written as an expose, of her own humble beginnings, by Jeannette Walls.  My wife, despite it's depiction of how badly some children are raised, found it fairly riveting but

I found it to be an inditement of people who won't make the hard choices and where that leads to.

There is one anecdote, about a moment in a classroom, in college, when a teacher challenges her about, "what would YOU know about depravation and hardship..." and Jeannette complete wimps out.  That was the moment to break out, for me and put the teacher in her place, while at the same time freeing Jeannette from the tyranny of her own fabricated past.

Oh, well.

I also 'scanned over' a book about the British cartoonist, illustrator and stage designer, Osbert Lancaster.

Entitled 'Cartoons & Coronets', it was a reasonably, in depth look at the man and his work.  I had no idea how talented, in an all around fashion, he had been and it made for some interesting reading but it bogged down in a few places; hence the scanning!

One other work, that I had always overlooked, perhaps because of it's, somewhat, amateur cover, was James Van Hise's 

How To Draw Art For Comic Books.

It is quite the volume, although to be fair, to some of the criticism aimed at it, since it was published in 1989, it deals a whole lot more with the cerebral process than with the manual labour of drawing a page.  I found it insightful and full of useful 'gems' of information.

The comic book world hasn't turned out anything much, of interest to me, in the last few weeks.  It isn't unusual for there to be a lull, at some point in the year but this is starting to feel more like a slump, than a lull!

I am looking forward, to the concluding issue of Terry Moore's Rachel Rising.  This is his third series, Strangers in Paradise, Echo and now Rachel, and while I have enjoyed his work over the years, I don't know if I will follow him again, should he start a new book.

It's not him, it's me.  I have steadily lost interest in the storylines, not just in the pages of the comic books but in movies and TV too.  It must be my age, I guess, but there are too many plots about people making bad decisions, or no decisions and then bellyaching about the life they end up with!

It's not the bad decisions, per se, it is the whining about a lack of divine intervention, or other intervention, to make the situation better.

Here's a secret truth,

IF YOU DON"T LIKE THE LIFE YOU ARE LIVING,

then CHANGE it!

Ah, but there is the problem, in order to effect a change, decisions have to be made and that is where a whole lot of people fail the test, because they will not make a decision and live with the consequences.

Anyone can do anything, as long as they are willing to face the consequences of their actions.

None of our lives are perfect but for the most part, hopefully, we can all live with the imperfections.

If the imperfections include, being beaten by a ranging drunk wife or husband, on a regular basis, then it is time to make a decision;  unless you enjoy that sort of thing!

Anyhow, that is my rant for today.

In closing, I would like to 'raise my hat', to the guy who runs the Blog, Saved From The Paper Drive,

for posting decent sized scans of the first 56 issues of the old British weekly comic book,

Countdown.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Go here:

http://savedfromthepaperdrive.blogspot.ca

Here's some art.

Dudley Fisher from 1939

A Frank Miller Layout Page from Daredevil #185 

Page 15

Art Tutorial on Drawing Eyes by Deviant Art's Artofpan

Sergio Pablos Handout Doppler Pose

John M Burns, one of Britain's graphic art treasures,

from the pages of the first issue of a weekly

comic book from 1971, called Countdown.

Catching Up...

Since my last posting, I am happy to report, I managed to get my hands on a copy of the new book about Alex Raymond 

and it was sufficiently impressive, that I bought it!

Alex Raymond: An Artistic Journey,

is well worth the money and anyone with an interest in seeing the artwork, at or near, the size it was actually drawn, will love this volume.

I didn't find the text, written by Ron Goulart, to be anywhere near as in depth, as the detailed life story in,

"Alex Raymond, His Life and Art"

by Tom Roberts.  Which I highly recommend.

But, then again, the intent of the books is slightly different too.

This week, we get to see, Comic Book Creator #11 and Illustration Magazine #51.  I have been buying both publications since they began and so far, they have both impressed me.

Comic Book Creator #11, from the TwoMorrows publishing empire, is a look back at the life and times of Gil Kane.  It should be an interesting read, since Gil was one of the workhorses of the industry and he had a lot of opinions about it too.  One of the earliest interviews with him, in my collection, is in Roy Thomas' Alter Ego #10, from 1969, which is still worth seeking out for any fan of the medium.

For those who would like to read the interview, I have just found this Link to it, on the Hooded Utilitarian Blog:

http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/07/the-interview-as-criticism-gil-kane/

Illustration Magazine, is a fine publication and their latest issue, #51, promises to dazzle us with a look at the, "spectacular art of John Gannam".  Gannam is a particular favourite of mine, one of many, I freely admit, but special none the less.

For some reason, perhaps because it is a whole lot more striking than the familial scene that they used, by John Gannam, during the planning stage, the published cover will be the one above.

It is by Ted Coconis, who was a spectacular movie poster artist, responsible for the iconic images of Hair, Dorian Gray and Labyrinth, among many others.

If anyone from the art book community is reading this, a volume, dedicated to the life and art of John Gannam, would be greatly appreciated!

One other item that has caught my attention, among the other 'coming attractions', is

Samantha Youseff's Movement & Form.

Art instruction books are my weakness and this one appears to be right up my alley.

 This is a photograph of the lovely Samantha and I love the animator's desk that she is sitting at.

I actually have an animator's disc,

it was given to me, many years ago, by a friend, who was passionately interested in animation.

One of these days, I will have to get off my ass and make a desk for it, not to mention some of the other bits that it is missing.

I am not an animator, but it would be an interesting lightbox if nothing else.

The Labyrinth, on Bloor Street West in Toronto, is a great place to shop for these kinds of books and I buy most of mine from them.  So if you are looking for somewhere that stocks unusual art books, I can recommend them wholeheartedly. 

A Rainy Day Posting

The winter, almost seems to have passed us by this year

and here we are, experiencing an end of March that feels

like the middle of May!

Until last week, I was unaware of a new book, about Alex Raymond, from Hermes Press.

It looks to be quite the object but I have reservations about 

Hermes Press and their publications.

I have passed over a couple of their earlier books because the production values were less than stellar.

This appears to be the cover, or at least, it is the image shown on the Hermes Press site, for it and it would seem to be a strange choice.

The only extensive preview available, is a Youtube video, by the publisher and it runs for over twenty minutes!

During that time, the publisher does his best, to convince his audience of the merits of the publication and shows many pages to the camera.

It looks like a well printed piece of work but I will still wait and see.  I hope that one of my local comic book outlets, will have an open copy and I will make a decision based on that.

At $75 USD, it will probably be have a $100 Canadian price sticker on it and it will have to prove to me, that it is worth it.

I ran across a link, to a website that allowed Japanese graphic artists, to post pictures of their studio set-ups.

It makes for interesting viewing because as north americans, we take having large homes with lots of space inside them, for granted and in Japan, space is at a premium; for the most part.

This is one example that really spoke to me and I love the home made modifications to the drawing board.

Notice the 'dog kennel' underneath, to raise the board up and then, the car jack under the drawing surface, presumably to adjust, either the height or the angle, of the board.

Ingenious and compact.

I also love the headphones, hanging off the board, connected to the music centre.  Obviously the artist likes to 'rock out'

while working.

Just a couple of cosplay girls and I am done.

I thought this young lady made one of the best Scarlet Witch costumes that I have seen and she looks lovely in it.

Jessica Nigri.

This is a fantastic image of a super heroine, that I have never really paid attention to, from the comic books.

Vampirella has been a staple of the comic book convention costume parade, since it's inception and some costumes have been better than others.  I thought that this one was pretty good.

Finally, there is this beautiful Russian Cosplayer, Hannuki.

This one, gives Malin Akerman, as Silk Spectre,  a run for her money.

A very late Christmas Card!

I happened to look back a few of my postings, here on the Blog and I discovered, that last christmas time, I had posted one of my hand drawn, christmas cartoons.

I forgot to it last year's end, so here is one, better late than never.

Please excuse the personalized dedication and I am sure that Mark and Annalee won't mind.

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

Bakka and Kevin Davies, a sign is painted!

Bakka was the hub of Science Fiction fandom, in Toronto, when I arrived in the city in 1980.

It was where Ron Van Leeuwen started out and when he moved his comic book selling operation, into it's own premises, he chose a site that was a stone's throw away from Bakka.

That made a short stretch, of Queen Street West, into Geek Heaven and it remained that way for many years.

There was a serious amount of cross-pollination in those early days and a lot of us genre fans spent a significant amount of time in both the Silver Snail and Bakka.

When I set out to find photographic evidence of the old storefronts, of both Bakka and the Snail, I could not find anything on the Web!

As shocking as it seems, with all of the information that can be found in a Google Search, photographs of the original Snail and those of Bakka, with the Kevin Davies painted sign, were missing.

To that end, I set about trying to find anyone with photographs, from those times, who would be willing to scan them and share them.  It took me a couple of years, to finally make contact with the old owner of Bakka, John Rose, but when I did, he generously agreed to share his personal photographs of the storefront.

On an earlier post, on this Blog, I showed my own photograph of the second home of the Silver Snail, at 323 Queen Street West and so far, I have not seen any others.

If anyone out there has any earlier shots, of the 321 Queen Street West location, I would love to see them.

However, this posting is about Bakka and the sign, painted by Kevin Davies, that was above it's doors.

Bakka 1991

Bakka in the Mid-1990's

Bakka 1998

So there you have it.

The quest to find images from my youth has come to a successful conclusion but it would not have been possible without the aid of several good people.

I would like to thank Lloyd Penney, for suggesting that I try again,

Kevin Davies, for being interested, and John Rose, for being so willing to give his time and effort to the cause.

Thank you all.

New Dean Cornwell Book & Stuff

It has been 38 years since the original, one and only, book about Dean Cornwell, was published.

Entitled "Dean Cornwell , Dean of Illustrators", it was a beautiful book.  Written by Patricia Janis Broder, it steadily increased in value, year by year, until it almost reached a price of $1000!

But all escalations in value come to an end and in the year 2000,

they reprinted the original book, with a different image on the cover.  They, in this case, being Collector's Press.

Today, The price varies widely, for either edition of the original book.

Just last week, a new book about Dean Cornwell came out, it's cover leads off this piece.  Published by The Illustrated Press,

it looks like another beautiful tribute to a great artist and I would love to own a copy.

I would have preordered it from the publisher, having dealt with them before, but I could not stomach the shipping cost.  The shipping would have cost me more than the book!

So, I will have to wait and see if I am fortunate enough to get one, through my favourite, spectacular and local, downtown store,

The Labyrinth, of Toronto.

Something that I ran across, the other day, was a portfolio of Marvel Comics Doctor Strange, from Sal Q Publications.  I have owned it, since it came out in 1983 and for a short while, I had the plates framed and hanging on my wall.

The artist is Michael Golden, who was great in 1983 and has only grown in stature and ability since then.

I present the envelope illustration and the plates, all six of them, although a couple of the images are a trifle small, for your edification.

Happy Valentine's Day

The image above was drawn by the young Robert Crumb

and despite his, often times, disparaging remarks about his earlier

drawing style, I find it to be charming.

There is no denying it's cute, cartoony appeal but underneath that, is a structure that shows that the young Mr. Crumb could really draw very well.

This is Mr. Crumb's valentine card from the following year and once again, he demonstrates his skill at cartooning and graphic design.  The drawing of the figure, is almost completely silhouette and reminds me of the "fade away" covers of Coles Phillips.

I know that it is a bit of a stretch but one must admit, that there is a certain similarity of approach.

I have been enamoured of cartoons and cartooning for almost as long as I can remember.  One of my earliest memories is of reading a comic book for children, Robin, published weekly, while lying on my bed.

These examples, pulled off the Internet, are from much later on and not long before the magazine was cancelled, in 1969.

It is only significant, because I am such an image oriented person and One does wonder where that fascination began.

It wasn't only a fascination with the images though, I remember hearing about 3D drawing, at about the age of seven and being mightily impressed that my father knew how to execute one.

The demonstration was a box, drawn in rudimentary perspective and I was completely deflated by how pedestrian it seemed... I was expecting fireworks and music!

It took me a long time to understand, that the "magic" of comic book drawing, takes a lot of time and patience, coupled with a comprehensive understanding of perspective drawing.

But, in comic books, the drawing is only one small part of creating magic on the page.  After many years of study and self education, I can finally "see" the sleight of hand, that a true craftsman in the comic book world is achieving and admire him for it.

In "sleight of hand" magic, the performer is concerned with misdirection, how to get an observer's eyes to to look away from where the hand containing an object is, allowing for a surreptitious disposal to be accomplished.

In drawing a comic book, the penciller must always be conscious of subtly directing the reader's eyes, directing them to see the information, within the panels, that will captivate their attention and aid in their "suspension of disbelief".

I love it.  I always have and I think I always will.

So, this is a small valentine, to my passion for cartooning and to anyone else who feels the same way.