Kane & The Atom

Another Gil Kane preliminary drawing, this time a bit more finished:

Final art:

Warm, Steamy Kitchen

A folksy J.C. Leyendecker ad from January, 1941, rescued from a crumbling magazine inherited from my dad. I can just imagine a warm, steamy kitchen deep in the winter of '40-'41.

Rima

Rima was a nice 7 issue run, notable for nice interior art, but also for Joe Kubert's fine covers. 

Rima

Kelly Fix

Another Kelly, Sunday Kelly. Meaning that 45 years ago today, this is what would have been your Kelly fix:

Summer Evening

In honor of a beautiful summer evening here, this is a painting entitled "Summer Evening" by Claude Joseph Vernet, created in 1773. 

Although I must say, based on this painting, summer evenings back then seem to be a lot more beautiful than I can claim.

Superb Illustrator

I'm not a big fan of westerns, and I'm not a big fan of John Wayne. But I love this poster of The Shootist, by Richard Amsel. Amsel was a su-perb illustrator.

Ages of Man

The New Yorker has always proven that cartoon humor doesn't have to be ha-ha-funny to be really good. More like, HA-funny.

The One We Love

And Mort Drucker's take on the Michael Jackson we love:

Losing People

It's certainly sad, losing people who otherewise should have long vibrant years ahead of them.

By coincidence I just came across this photo by John Zimmerman and I thought that it looked familiar, and sure enough it was one of the source photos for Mort Drucker back in 1977. 

RIP FF

More Ford

More H.J. Ford.

Classic

Henry Justice Ford is seemingly underrated as a classic fairy tale illustrator. Here are a few more examples of why he shouldn't be.

What a Lot of Work

Wow, what a lot of work to sell some gum and candy. This is a pretty cool ad from 1928.

I'm really tied up with deadlines over the next week or so. So my posts will be brief and random (I know, how much more random can I get?). But I've got a lot of very cool old stuff coming up, as I get time to scan, so please keep checking back.

Phantasmagoria

Cartooning at its finest is on display at Pogo in Pandemonia, as Walt Kelly  takes us deeper into his prehistoric fairy tale, a sort of 'there and back again' phantasmagoria.  

I just looked up that word to make sure I was using it correctly, and 'phantasmagoria' is defined as, "a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined." And, well, the image below ought to be next to the definition in the dictionary.

Beautiful to Behold

Here is a page of original art, by Joe Kubert, that I have for the Firehair story below. It's fascinating and educational to see the pen lines in full crisp fidelity.  Kubert's work is always beautiful to behold.

Original page above, printed page below

detail

detail

The Comics Code Authority stamp on the back, just to prove the approval.

Firehair

A Firehair story by Joe Kubert, from one of those Son of Tomahawk issues:

Firehair

Socially Conscious

This is a small selection of Tomahawk (renamed 'son of') covers by Joe Kubert from the socially conscious and painfully moralistic early 70s. Frank Thorne did some interior work, but also there were some nice (short) Firehair stories by Kubert.

Sunday, Kelly Sunday

Now as if you don't get enough Pogo over on Pogo in Pandemonia, we have this thing here on this blog where every Sunday is Kelly Sunday and we show, in order, Sunday strips from exactly 45 years ago from this date, cuz, like, well, y'know, that year had the same dates on the same days as this year.

Well anyway, don't get em confused with the Pandemonia strips. These are from 1964, Those Pandemonia strips are from 1966 (our favorite year, eh Steven?) Are y'all gettin' sick of Kelly stuff? Am I wasting everyone's time here with this 1964 stuff? Let me know. Cuz if no one's paying attention. . .

Grand Art Lesson from a Master

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I had the good fortune to spend some time with Gil Kane back in the early 80s. Kane is/was an undisputed comics grand master of the Silver Age. He had a style that was instantly recognizable, full of energy and confidence. And for good reason. He worked very hard at his craft.

When I met with him, I was old enough and experienced enough in illustration to have a pretty good portfolio which, when I showed it to him, he seemed to like enough that we 'talked shop', while I bought him lunch. It was a dreary rainy day, but it was dazzling for me, as Kane was showing me drawings of his that he was willing to sell. I bought a number of them, but I was intrigued by a sheaf of drawings in his case that he wasn't showing me. When I asked about them, he said, 'oh you wouldn't be interested in those, they're just my finger exercises.'

Even more intrigued, I asked to see them, and they were sheet after sheet of anatomical drawings, done as practice to 'stay in shape', as he put it. Drawn from the imagination, they were human figures drawn from all angles, using a classic constructive method, visualizing joints and such. 

When I told him how much I admired them, he seemed pleased and started to hand me one to keep. But then he kept it back and set it in front of him on the table. We were done eating by then, and there was no one around as we quietly chatted about art and comics. Well, darn it if he didn't turn that page over and start doing more finger exercises right then and there as we were talking. He had a selection of pencils, pens and markers with him and for these he used a red ballpoint pen directly on the comic book page bristol board.

The page, and details, that you see below with the faces were the exercises he did while talking with me. He explained somewhat as he drew, so it was a grand art lesson from a master! When he was done he started to hand it to me, saying 'here, this is for you'. I had to ask him to sign it, so then he pulled out one of the markers he used for more finished drawings to do that. 

I was able to commission him to do several character drawings over a period of time, one of which I've already posted (Dejah Thoris and John Carter). I will post the others somewhere down the line.