Serial Batman - 2

Macabrely Phantastic

A macabrely phantastic display of calligraphy, from the pen of Francesco Pisani of Genoa from the year 1640, when death was always near at hand.

Stunning

Thomas Blackshear II, a favorite artist of legions of fans, created this fabulous serigraph published by Greenwich Workshop. Just a stunning work of art.

Perelandra

Clive Staples Lewis, known to most of us as Narnia's creator C.S. Lewis, was an English man of letters who made theology entertaining. Besides the world of Narnia, he was famous for a little volume entitled The Screwtape Letters. Perhaps less famous, but most intriguing is his science fiction trilogy that is comprised of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength. Posted here is a vision of Perelandra, which is actually the planet Venus. And 'under its eternal mantle of clouds, he imagines it as a place of endless oceans, floating islands and diffused golden light. And the green woman his hero encounters there is not the Aphrodite of this watery world, but its Eve. A new Eve, confronted with temptation. In this exotically beautiful world of rippling, floating islands on vast warm seas, the forbidden act is to stay overnight on the fixed lands before an appointed time has come' — envisioned here, somewhat surrealistically in a painting by James Lewicki. As I say, most intriguing.

Neighborhood Watch

Just your average girl next door . . .

. . . by Chris Achilleos

Celebrity Crush

Stella Stevens was one of my earliest adolescent celebrity crushes. Even now I remember, way back in the 60s, walking through a snowstorm to the movies to watch her in The Silencers, one of those Dean Martin Matt Helm secret agent flicks. I was fickle though, I did the same thing to watch Jane Fonda as Cat Ballou.

Finding this photo in the morgue brings back fond memories of exotic boyhood fantasies.

Lessons

An example of early Hernandez Brothers fun stuff, this slightly water-damaged poster is a mild reminder to me of the hail damage my studio suffered in the 90s, destroying parts of my collection and my personal body of work. The skylight was replaced, but not water-fused paper.

I learned a lesson to not grow too attached to things that are just things, but also a lesson to digitize imagery while I have it, and archive it to the universe, or at least to cyberspace.

Ultimate Contract

I've signed a few of these contracts in my life.

Roz Chast— one of the consistently funniest panel cartoonists today

Woof

Funny how I identify with Barney here.

Le Mage

I'm in deadline mode the rest of the week, so here and there I'll just be posting miscellaneous pix from the morgue that are already scanned.

I'd pay to see this production. Look at that carnage back on the pyre.

Alfredo Edel—Le Mage—1891

A Dinner of Atheists

Found another Félicien Rops drawing hiding in the morgue. This is a colored pencil and graphite illustration for Les Diaboliques by Jules Bargey d'Aurevilly, from 1882, entitled A Dinner of Atheists.

Temptation

The body of work of this fellow Félicien Rops defies logical description, except to say it is a fever dream mixture of sex and death and religious satire. This work, The Temptation of Saint Anthony is from 1878, and interestingly the medium was colored pencils on paper, which to me seems rare for that time.

This image is again a find from the midst of searching my morgue for a project. Not sure where to refile it.

The Jazz Age

Going through the morgue, looking for reference for my current project, I've come across images I haven't seen for years.

This is a promotional illustration for a 1979 NPR series of eight one-hour radio programs, described as a combination of documentary and dramatized short stories, with Richard 'John Boy' Thomas as the voice of F. Scott Fitzgerald, telling Fitzgerald tales.

A 70s stylization of the jazz age

Griselidis

Another one of those odds or ends—a theatre poster of Griselidis, designed by Francois Flameng, with a really cool delineation of a demon.

Detail of the Demon below:

The Robots are Coming

I really am coming back to Fantasia soon. I'm just making some formatting decisions. In the meantime, I want to keep posting stuff, so I'll take this opportunity to again have a potpourri of odds 'n' ends, just to satisfy your hunger for images (as if you don't get enough from tumblr sites).

Here we have a true homage of the classic Forbidden Planet poster, by Kinuko Craft for a Playboy magazine article from some years ago, when it was actually a halfway decent periodical. That was actually a catty comment since I haven't even seen an issue for many years.

It's interesting to compare details, as Craft made changes here and there, but seemingly not on the girl. I know that's supposed to be Ann Francis in the poster, but eh, well, you know—artistic license prevails (NOT a dis to Ms. Francis!).

Pogofenokee

I'm cross-posting this image from Whirled of Kelly, cuz when all is said and done, this is one of my favorite images of all time.

Walt Kelly — Life Magazine — 1952

*INTERLUDE*

And now for something completely different . . . a George Herriman Krazy panel—a personal fivverit of mine:

Herculean Task

This would appear to be another view of Heracles/Hercules overcoming the nine-headed serpent, and maybe he's already disposed of them other serpent head thingies. But this is also ostensibly a graphic from Les Chansons de Bilitis. I dunno, don't care, it's another cool graphic by Georges Barbier.

But you can also see that Barbier's inspiration was probably some Greek tableau, such as the interpretation below taken from a 6th century B.C. vase. On this vase, Heracles (dressed in a more spartan manner) fights with those fierce women warriors known as Amazons.

Les Chansons de Bilitis — 8

This is an unused Barbier drawing that is of a distinctive period of his work, stylized signature and all. Orientalist and Deco and discretely erotic, a beautiful example of the era.

Les Chansons de Bilitis — 7