Asleep in the Deep

I jes' love seeing texture in an ink drawing, and very few are better at texture in ink drawings than Virgil Finlay was, in pulps and other venues, such as The American Weekly.

Virgil Finlay —Asleep in the Deep — 1940s

Love Affair

Roy Krenkel, bless his soul, always had a love affair with the ancient past, always attempting to bring it to life via his magical talents.

Roy Krenkel — Semiramus Babylon — 1951

Sorta Inspired

I don't know exactly what's going on here, but I'm sorta inspired to look into lepidoptery as a hobby one of these days.

from La Vie Parisienne — ca early 20th century

The Early Bird

Another scene from the world of the Tennie Weenies. Really, it was an honest mistake of the early bird.

William Donahey — The Teenie Weenies — ca 1940s

Jungle Quadathalon

Comic books are full of incredible feats of strength and timing. Swinging on vines through a jungle, like Tarzan, seems to me to be an arduous task, tantamount to the very limits of Olympic abilities.

In fact, perhaps that could be an Olympic event that elite athletes would be capable of—a timed quadathalon obstacle course — swinging, diving, swimming, and wrestling an alligator alá Johnny Weismuller. The garments would be animal skins (faux of course). The women's event might look somewhat like the images below.

Lullaby Land

Speaking of dreams and such, knowing how eclectic this blog can be, this is a sweet little image to go with the theme. The Disney version of life has its positives and negatives, but I can't find fault with this still from one of the early Silly Symphonies — Lullaby Land.

© Disney Productions

Rock Struggles

Here, Sgt. Rock is fever-dreaming/hallucinating/whatever and his visions are pretty cool. Joe Kubert's stuff was always great, but this full page gives a hint of what he might have done with a mythological/fantasy assignment. It's still hard to believe that Kubert has left the studio.

Joe Kubert — Our Army At War — 1969

Visual Poetry

In the field of dreams, an early work of visual poetry

by Michael Wm Kaluta:

© 1971 MW Kaluta

© 1971 MW Kaluta

The Angel Angle

Let's start wending our way back to life affirming art, still with the angel angle, but hiking through a field of dreams . . .

© Rebecca Guay — Angel of Dreams

Rebecca Guay is one of my top favorites of modern illustrators!

Angel of Death

Well, this painting is only slightly morbid, as the Victorian era/Art Nouveau artists could be.

Carlos Schwabe —The Angel of Death — 1900

Beauty of Words and Adornment

Think what you will about the profundity and validity of The Bible in the context of our society, but the beauty of words and adornment of pages in various editions is unmistakable.

Illuminated Page from the Gutenberg Bible

'The Gutenberg Bible, traditionally accepted as the first book printed from movable type, was issued at Mainz, Germany, about 1454. The page, above, shows page one of the Proverbs of Solomon. The pages are illuminated to give the effect of a hand-copied manuscript, as desired by the printers, who did not wish their invention discovered. The book was probably printed in 10 sections on 6 presses working simultaneously. Of nearly 300 copies, only 45 are known to be in existence today.'

Knowledge and Death

Another view of an interface with death, from an aspect of orthodox fatalism, brought about much by 'the church' equating knowledge with blasphemy. When Eve partakes of fruit from the tree of knowledge, she condemns us all to a life of misery, and only when we receive divine intervention can our souls be saved.

Not original sin as much as original superstition, wasting millennia of progressive thinking.

Jost Amman — Tree of Knowledge & Death — 1587

woodcut from De conceptu et generatione hominis

Love, Youth and Death

O bitter death, leave the young ones alone — will ya?

Garth Jones — Love, Youth & Death — 1899

Neat-o Promo Wood Pulp Illo

A neat-o promo poster from an old Wood pulp illustration.

© Wally Wood Estate

Cloud Ghosts

I was going to say I see a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.

—Charlie Brown

Richard Riemerschmid — Cloud Ghosts I — 1897

Aurora

The aurora personified from a 1930s viewpoint.

Henry Clive — Aurora — 1937

G-G-Gable

Sanjulian —Clark Gable — 1980s

G-G-Garbo

Greta Garbo

The Wind

Autumn winds are already kicking up around here.

Josef Engelhart —The Wind — 1897

pastels

Momentous Time

This Time magazine cover has been sitting on my desk for the last couple of months, waiting to be posted right on August 30. I've been so tied up with stuff that I overlooked it. But seeing as it's been sitting around in my image morgue for over 40 years, I'm not going to wait until next August 30 to pull it up.

1968 was a momentous time by any reckoning, with assassinations, the war in Viet Nam, the riotous conventions, world-wide protests, the capture of the 'Pueblo' by the North Koreans. And the cold war exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, as starkly and powerfully portrayed on the Time cover, from a time when Time's covers were powerful most every week.

Louis Glanzman — Time — August 30, 1968