Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Adventurous Book

Willy Pogany had a style that seemed to oscillate between each adventurous book that he illustrated —the same basic style, but on slightly different frequencies — always with classical composition and graphic impact. So many of his books were wonders to behold.

The book below has a number of pen & ink illustrations, but here are the color plates.

Willy Pogany
The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy — 1918

The Judgement of Paris


The Fair Helen

Achilles Victorious

The Princess Threw the Ball

The Sorrowing Odysseus

Circe

The Sirens

Penelope Unravelling the Web

Monday, August 13, 2012

Cosmic Voyager

While we're in Neptune's domain, let's brave the swells of the briny deep and gaze in wonder at this cosmic voyager.

Ferdynand Ruszczyc — Nec Mergitur — 1905

Last Dime

If I was a kid in 1932, walking past the movie house and this poster was displayed, I'd spend my last dime to see the cartoon . . . and maybe stay for the Cagney gangster film afterwards, though I'd have nightmares that night fer sure, and I might even still be alive now, somewhere around 90, and I'd still give my last dime to see it again.
And the Cagney film.

Disney Studio — Silly Symphony/King Neptune — 1932

Storybook Dream

Even advertising used to be like a storybook dream . . .

Gustaf Tenggren —Dromedary Dates — 1929

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Joe Kubert
1926-2012

Joe Kubert

I am horribly sad to learn of the passing of the legendary Joe Kubert, a man who seemed like a rock and would last forever.

Deepest condolences to his family, friends, fans and students.

I'm at a loss for further words.


Sweetheart

What a sweetheart of a cover!

Henry Clive — Picture-Play Magazine — January 1923

Cats, Dogs, Goldfish & Other Dingbats

This is one of those amazing cartoon birds-eye views I was talking about in the last post. What a great display of cartooning, with a penman's salute to Krazy Kat's George Herriman.

Johnny Gruelle — Yahoo CenterLife Magazine — 1927

Saturday, August 11, 2012

The River

Wow, this is one of those birds-eye view forced-perspective drawings where all the elements dwindle only slightly in size as they recede. You see this sort of thing in some old cartoons, where it's amazing enough, but to work somewhat realistically is really astounding. Where does an artist begin on such a piece as this?

TC Derrick — The River — 1909

Seductive

I am mesmerized by this 'simple' pencil drawing with its seductive selective lines, beckoning us to come ever closer.

Gustav Klimt — pencil drawing

Friday, August 10, 2012

Spider Woman

Susan Seddon Boulet — Spider Woman — 1986

Pogany Study

Willy Pogany — figure and drapery study

Troubles

You and me pal, we think WE got troubles . . .

Lancelot Speed — from The Red Fairy Book

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Exotic Locales

Carl Barks took us on so many adventures with Uncle Scrooge and the boys. The exotic locales were always my favorite, yours too?

Carl Barks — Adventure in Old Persia
(Rug Riders Last Flight)

The Auditorial Arts

Eclectic is a term you can apply liberally to descriptions of this blog. From one subject and genre to another in a heartbeat, and now showcasing one of the Auditorial Arts: character voices. The best in the history of the art, in my opinion, is Mel Blanc. We're very used to hearing him voice most of the Looney Tunes cartoon characters, but here is a rare example of Mr. Blanc voicing Walter Lantz' Woody Woodpecker, usually voiced I believe by Mr. Lantz himself. This characterization sounds like a young Porky Pig without the stutter, but is such a delight.

I don't have the sound file on this blog, you'll have to click here to link over to a really cool web site that you'll want to explore and listen to. There are other Mel Blanc recordings, as well as a great assortment of other rarities, such as Walt Kelly, Boris Karloff, Shirley Temple, on and on.

While you're at it, look in at Whirled of Kelly for a visual treat.

Thank you Samuel for the lead.

What a great place the internet community is!


Elegant

When magazine covers were elegant . . .

Erté — Harper's Bazar — August, 1922

Ariel's Song

This Shakespeare guy has inspired one or two artists over the centuries, even reaching into the world of pulp magazines.

Virgil Finlay — September 1942

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Film Magic

Who doesn't admire Ray Harryhausen's film magic, bringing creatures and skeletons and what-not to life in spooky fashion? The non-limited, but autographed, print below is a production drawing of one of his most famous sequences —The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.

Ray Harryhausen — The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad — production drawing

Oddly Sweet

An oddly sweet little rendering used as a filler in Weird Tales by Hugh Rankin, one of the more interesting early cover artists for that pulp.

Hugh Rankin — Weird Tales — 1935

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

The Mermaid Song

Oh, I wish I was literate in the language of music that I might hum the tune to this old song. Those who can, let me know if it's catchy, will ya?

decoration: Walter Crane — The Mermaid — 1883

The Whip

I don't remember what story this is from, but Donn Crane made this illustration enjoyable enough that it could be an inspiration for a dozen different writers to go a dozen different directions with stories. I love the demon with the whip. Oh, I love it all. What a great composition with that whip traversing the panel.

Donn P. Crane — M'lady's Carriage (not the official title)
1930s

Whenever I use the word 'whip', I think of Stewie Griffin.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Take the Day Off

Georges Barbier — Sous l'arbre — 1928

Autocratic Intellectuals

SO, will Mars be master of men, or men master of Mars?

And hmm, I sorta side with the autocratic intellectuals, though I'm willing to listen to reasoned arguments, but leave the libraries alone!

Joe Doolin — Mars — Planet Comics — 1940s

Tantalizing

BTW, you know that I was JK yesterday about Mars civilizations and Bradbury rovers and such, right? We'll be lucky if we ever stumble across a 10 million year old microbial fossil. And the Curiosity team has been careful to say that it's mission is not to look for life or signs of life, but rather to see if conditions are good for past or future life on Mars.

So landing at the base of an alluvial fan is a great place to start that mission. Signs of water in the past are key to this expedition for Curiosity. Just look at the tantalizing geographic features in the image below, color coded for elevation, red highest, blue lowest. It sure looks like a river feature emptying into a shallow ocean basin.

We want to know more! Why? Because we have CURIOSITY!

altimeter map of the south margins of the northern plains of Mars

Sunday, August 5, 2012

YOW

WE'RE ON MARS AGAIN!!!

CONGRATULATIONS NASA and JPL and CURIOSITY!!!

First Thumbnail Photo from Curiosity

Curiosity

Let's take a quick group tour with Mind-Travel to visit Mars right now, before the Curiosity Rover makes a landing late tonight.

It's possible that the civilization on Mars is a quantum dimensional shift from our current frequency of vibration, several micro-oscillations out of sync so that we don't have direct evidence of it. When we finally can launch the Bradbury Rover, it will have a detector on board that will view in various frequencies, and THEN we'll REALly see something.

Ron Miller — Martian City — digital art

In the meantime, wishing the very best of fortune to the Curiosity and it's Earth team during it's seven minutes of terror. I'll be watching and hopefully you will too— on NASA TV.

Accountability

Beware of disreputable Mind-Travel Agents that have dismal accountability, liable to leave you stranded in some corner of the universe with no return ticket. Such has happened, such as below, travelers that received a confirmation for pick-up that just indicated "tomorrow, midnight" — but didn't leave a clue as to a date or coordinates. These unfortunate fellows traversed the Kingston III planetoid multiple times hoping to intersect their transport home.

No they never returned, and their fate is still unlearned.

Frank Frazetta — Tomorrow Midnight

LLK

Never let it be said as a Mind-Travel Agent, that I don't search far and wide to accommodate custom excursions for my preferred clientele.

In a Land Where None Are Known to Neatly Knot the Gnu, a deluxe excursion to the mind of Walt Kelly, where the Okefenokee is alive with the sound of ink flowing through the swamp, delineating a cast of thousands, well, dozens in all their frippery foolishness.

Hun, can I book a ticket for you, LLK class?

Walt Kelly — Songs of the Pogo — endpapers

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Outside the Cube

Perhaps your ideal idea of pleasure is partaking of the pastimes of an amusement park. Avoid the masses of humanity that inhabit the obvious choices.

Think outside the cube. Think about alighting in EscherLand™ — a place of relativity where E does NOT equal emcee squared.

If you're in a hurry to relax and don't have much time, this is perfect for you. You can check out and leave the day before you arrive.

MC Escher — Double Planetoid — 1949

MC Escher — Belvedere — 1958

Hedonist's Delight

Right then, a request for a get-away spot in the British countryside.

Similar to an edifice in France, this authentic Egyptian pyramid has been relocated to the British countryside, brick by brick, in the 1700s. Unlike the one in France it is the entrance to a subterranean wonderland that stretches for kilometers.

A hedonist's delight, for adults only, the activities and wonders are truly hedonistic and full of debauchery, equalled only in the outer rings of Hades. You have an option of a week or a month to indulge yourself in luxurious sin.

The only catch is that when you leave you are given a full round of medication that completely eradicates any memory of what took place, and substitutes pleasant memories of the equivalent time at Brighton Beach.

Remember, a true Hedonist enjoys pleasure just for the moment.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Relax and Dream

One more view of the other side of the castle, just to give you an idea of how tucked away the campus is, with many places to explore and have a rendezvous if you so choose. It gets quite dark in late afternoon, due to the forest canopy, so you would need to bring an electric torch. Some parties have been forced to stay out all night, but seemed none the worse for the experience except they apparently had delusions of seeing Faerie Folk. If you chose to stay for awhile you would have plenty of opportunity to relax and dream and perhaps be inspired to write a sonnet or two. In fact, Mr. Shakespeare has been recorded as spending a summer here.

Still, perhaps not your cup of tea?

Charles Robinson — 1911

Mind-Travel Agent

Have you been here?

It's really a lovely haven to escape to when the need arises. Don't expect an awful lot of sunshine — in fact much of the time fog is heavy and lingers long into the day. There's a slight chill in the air, but balmy enough to skinny dip now and then. The castle itself is full of good fellowship and good food and the BEST German ale to be found. The library, oh, don't get me started on the library. Suffice to say one can be ensconced in there for days (and the hired help bring you a hefty sammich and some of that ale that you can sip in the lounge with your select volumes of lore). Exploration is encouraged and majestic, sometimes dangerous, but there is also an excellent medical facility—though the doctors may need to be rounded up, as they too are enjoying the splendors of the area.

If you're not interested here, I've got other places you might like.

Not Half Bad

Hey, this Jim Lee guy isn't half bad. I'm thinking he should maybe consider getting a job in the comic book field.

© Jim Lee/Scott Williams — Divine Right — 'Exotica' character

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Dread Summons

From an old pulp story called Dread Summons, this pictorial study of suspense is cinematic — the sort of story that should be read under the covers with a flashlight.

"The door moved a little against his hand,
moved slightly, eerily . . ."

Virgil Finlay — Weird Tales — November, 1937

Classic Tableau

I don't know what the story is for this classic tableau, but it certainly looks interesting. Nice sword and scabbard, I must say.

Bruce Jones — circa 1984

Mooncalf

This image is another from my image morgue that has no data attached. I could make several guesses about the artist — Robert Bell, Walter Crane, John Batten, etc—but they're only guesses.

I further guess that this subject may be Caliban, from Shakespeare's Tempest, half-man, half-beast. Referred to as a mooncalf, he is forced into servitude to Prospero.

In Act 3, Scene 2, Caliban intones these words:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.

A lovely speech by Caliban, but considering the context within the play, it was an odd choice for Kenneth Branagh to deliver within his context of the Olympic opening ceremony in London, with "absolutely no relationship" to Shakespeare or the Tempest.

As James Shapiro, a Columbia University English professor and expert on Shakespeare was quoted, "The lines are quite beautiful, and I guess they wanted to rip them out of context and talk about how magical a place the British Isles are . . . Why give him the lines Shakespeare wrote for a half-man, half-beast about to try to kill off an imperial innovator who took away his island? I don't know. You would probably have to ask the people who designed the opening Games ceremony what their thinking was."

Among other things, sez I.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Amphitrite, the Sea Goddess

Maré Nostrum ("Our Sea"— the ancient Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea) was a silent film of wartime romance, espionage and retribution, released in February of 1926.

The image below was the advance promotional advertisement that, like so many of the sort, only vaguely hinted at the actual story of German spies and U-boat attacks, choosing instead to showcase Amphitrite, the Sea Goddess (also appearing in the film).

Maré Nostrum — 1925 promotional broadsheet

Union of Artists

I love the aesthetic of this poster.

Jan Preisler — Prague poster — 1902
5th Exhibition of the Mánes Union of Artists, French Modern Art

Yuh Yuh!

Today is the fictional birthday of one of the most infamous fictional anarchists of our times, which I won't be celebrating.

DC Calendar page—
don't set appointments by it, it's all off from this year, it's from the 1970s

In fact, I might celebrate August the 19th—National Aviation Day, according to the DC calendar above, portraying Wonder Woman's private robot plane . . . her private glass robot plane . . . her private transPARent glass robot plane.

Elder/Kurtzman — Woman Wonder — Mad magazine