Addendum to Last Post

I cannot beLIEVE that it's been just about a quarter of a century since Mazzucchelli drew Batman Year One. I remember buying half a dozen copies of this issue, just because of the cover. Well, the inside was pretty good too.

And below is the cover from last post the way it should be seen—pure and iconic.

The Batman Persona

The Batman persona as designed similarly, yet distinctively different by 3 of his great delineators.

Neal Adams

David Mazzucchelli

Jim Aparo

Minus Five

Well, OK. Popular demand (well, two of you—good enough for me) asks for the image of the young lady be posted, minus 5. Thanks a bunch to you guys who helped me figure out my little 5 problem. Um, here she is.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film is only the latest of many many many pictorial adaptations of the amazingly resilient Lewis Carroll fever dream of a book.

Next to the Bible, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been cited as the most widely translated, quoted, and admired book in the world. Over the years, dozens and dozens of artists, each in their own way, have illustrated the bizarre and wondrous story.

I'd like to show, in installments, some of these illustrators' results—mixed together, but in sequence of the story, chapter by chapter, twelve in all.

As I say, in installments, with posts of other subjects interspersed, so that none of us get overwhelmed (or bored) with too much Alice. But I think it will be fun to see all these styles come together. I'm going to caption the artists, but not put them in the labels. The only label will be the title, so that ultimately all the chapters will be compiled together.

Arthur Rackham—1907

Gwynedd Hudson—1922

Above, this is SO my philosophy.

Mabel Lucie Attwell—1910

Bessie Pease Guttman—1907

Margaret Tarrant—1916

Millicent Sowerby—1907

Thomas Haller Buchanan—1993

No one ever said Alice HAD to be blonde

Disney Studio—1951

John Tenniell—1865

Millicent Sowerby—1907

Disney Studio—1951

Mabel Lucie Attwell—1910

BIG Question

I've got a question that I know SOMEbody can answer for me:

HOW can I post more than 5 images at a time for each post? When I post images, the blog will not accept a 6th or more image. I see other blogs that post 50, 60, 70 at a time. Five limits me from doing a whole post. Five keeps me from showing you the best parts . . .

Somebody please advise me, cuz I've got some nice posts coming that I don't want to break up into little pieces.

Hey, thanks!

Fairest Company of Ladies

More of the ever lovely Warwick Goble illustrations for Chaucer's Poetical Works.

'The fairest company of ladies that ever man had seen'

'Do as you list, I will be ever known your thrall'

The Parliament of Birds

The Greek Fleet

The First Meeting

Ulysses

We're going to jump around here a bit, catching up with some of the ongoing favorite artists before heading over to some lengthy themes (I'm still coming back to some cool Fantasia stuff, but there's still some more work to do on that).

In the meantime, we come back to Herbert Draper, a favorite of many of you. This is one of his more famous paintings, Ulysses and the Sirens. I always thought those sirens were calling from way over on the rocks, not climbing right up on deck. No wonder the big guy had to be bound to the mast.

And below, studies for the painting:

Star Watcher

This is a well-known work by Moebius. It's one of my favorites of his, so I would be remiss to not include it here.

Much of Moebius' characterization is androgynous in nature, so I'm not sure if this subject is male or female, but I'm really hoping she's female. I like the storyline that this image sets up, but then lets us take it where we want in our imagination.

Be sure to notice that tiny little person down by the feet.

Double Escape

In the last post, there was a comment from Li-An that said...

Where is a one page story where a guy escapes flying from a sort of box.

Well, like I said, Moebius art has lots of examples of defying gravity, or escaping it. I was just showing a sampling of it. But whether this 2 page piece I scanned is the one Li-An refers to or not, it's a beautiful example of loosening the bonds of gravity as a symbol of hope.

Gravity Defying

Like Robert McCall, much of Moebius' work also defies gravity.

I interpret the concept as a symbol of hope.

Idyllic Future

McCall envisioned the future of technology and space exploration as idyllic, and in doing so created iconic images of breaking free of gravity, perhaps the iconic concept of the transcendence of humanity.

Robert McCall has seen the future, and not only does it work, it soars.

Space Ship Designer - 1

McCall documented the contemporary space program, but he also was called on as a visionary of future technology for various projects. When the Buck Rogers TV series was being developed, decades ago, they asked McCall for some space ship designs specifically for 25th century needs. He put some real thought into the designs, but I think for the most part they were ignored by the producers.

When I met with McCall, I asked him if, when he designed the look of spacecraft, he made schematic blue-printish sort of drawings to lay out the various functions of the vehicle. He laughed and said no way, he would just improvise the painting as he went. But some of these drawings show that he leaned that way for certain projects.

Some of these spacecraft seem entirely believable. As humanity moves into the future of space travel, I hope engineers might look back to some of McCall's concepts and think, 'hmm, with a little work, this just might work.'

Space Ship Designer - 2

Space Odyssey

Robert McCall was probably most famous to the general public (whether they knew his name or not) as the artist who painted the poster art for Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. He actually painted a group of images. This is one that is not seen quite as often as the others: