Spooky

Spooky stuff from Fabian.

 Stephen Fabian — scratchboard

Stephen Fabian — In Dracula's Crypt

Tales from the Crypt

This image is rather morbid, considering his passing, but Frazetta had to have known that his paintings would outlive him.

Frank Frazetta —Tales From the Crypt — 1964

 Frank Frazetta — original painting — 1964

Keep 'Em Flying!

WHEEEEeeee hee hee. I think we're up and flyin' again!

George Petty

Testing Testing — one two three

Starting to come back on line, but have a few bugs. 

Com check. Com check. Do you read me?

Ken Laager — 1993

Loyal to Apple

Well, this just takes the cake. I haven't been this long without a computer since I got my first Amiga during the first Gulf War (anybody remember 'scuds'?). I was going to fill this lull with an essay I've been yearning to write, but it's so overwhelming typing the words letter by letter, hunt and peck style, as I need to on this iPad.

When I do finally get my beloved Mac back, I'll be scurrying to get back to the deadlines that I've somehow put in stasis, thanks to the gracious good will of my clients.

I miss having y'all popping in! I truly will try to make up for my absence.

Even though my machine went awry, and is so long in returning to me, I'm still loyal to Apple products, and always will be.

Cheers

This is an image I have floating on my iPad and so can post it so as to give you SOMEthing to look at. This kind of early graphics cheers me up, just looking at it. It sort of seems to have been an influence on people like Bobby London. Maybe not.

Anyway, please keep coming back. Sooner or later I'll be back to business as usual.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Hi! My computer machine thingie is still on some adventure somewhere over the rainbow, waiting for The Wizard to give it a hard drive and graphics card, and I'm stuck on auntie Em's farm, so to speak.

My iPad is my only connection to the world right now and for the next few days. I think I have a new image on here that I can post. I'll try that soon.

Technology: love/hate

Having major troubles with computer

It's Been a Hard Day's Drive, I Should be Sleeping Like a Log

Ouch. Three to five days until I get the magic machine back from the witch doc.

It's the hard drive that was going into failure and will need to be replaced. When he asked if I was under warrantee, I said 'no', feeling like I'd bought the thing ever so long ago. But when he looked it up, I still had 25 days to go on the extended warrantee that I bought when I bought my workhorse machine. So it gets replaced free, but deadlines are blown.

It's kinda like when ya get the flu. You do what you gotta do to get well and deadlines just-have-to-wait. Now's my chance to clean up the studio and organize it.

I've got tons and tons of cool images for you, but they're all sitting in this cute little black box known as an external hard drive—waiting to be plugged back in and shot into the cyber-ether. 

I hope to be able to post up an essay sort of thing in the next day or two, minus pix, cuz some of you appreciate words as well as images.

And if it's only the images that keep you coming back . . . 
well, gee . . . okay, come back in a few days.

Loco

Ay yi yi, my computing machine is loco. I'll take it to the witch doctor's hut tomorrow and hope for the best. I may have to bury something nasty at the foot of my bed, or whatever it takes. 

Hey Jeffy, I don't know yet how ya did in the 24 hour comic book thingie. I'll look in on it on my iPad, but I don't think it's gonna let me leave a comment. 

The rest of you guys, and by that I mean gals too, I luv ya, stay like u always r, and as the ex CA guv sez, aisle bee Bach.

My Friend the Witch Doctor Told Me What to Do

Well, it's gone and happened—my lovely main computer has malfunctioned, crashing several times today and is down for the count. I'm told that it's probably correctable, but will probably be out of commission for a couple of days. I'm posting now with my nifty iPad, and fortunately my most important files are backed up, but I won't be able to post images until the witch doctor shakes a rattle at it. Ooh ee, ooh ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang . . .

Until then, please stand by.

Mea Pulpa

It didn't use to be cool for a person to admit to liking comic books. For a while in the '40s, it wasn't such a bad thing, as soldiers, sailors and fly-boys read them for quick and cheap entertainment. But in the '50s, it was pretty shameful for an adult to be caught reading comic books (the exception being Walt Kelly's Pogo—that was a hip trip). In the '60s it was cool to read Zap and Fat Freddy's Cat and anything by Crumb or Jaxon. Then the '80s started the trend toward adults frequenting comic shops and finally the industry pretty much relies on adult obsession with pulp adventures. Mea Pulpa.

I'm an old guy, and I've always loved the funnies in whatever format they came, some of them not so funny. Although, I haven't always wanted anyone to know that. They're certainly not my only interest, as I love the whole spectrum of printed matter and I'm a social type person as well. But here's a confession that some of you might understand: when I'm feeling blue and overwhelmed and frustrated with life, I retreat to a cozy spot and pull out the OLD comics to revel in their primary colors, bold drawing styles, and esPECIALLY to bury my nose in the pages and smell that old musty pulp smell that the comics used to have even when they were new and in 'mint' condition. I close my eyes, take a deep whiff and all my troubles melt away.

I LUV COMIC BOOKS (the old ones).

A.C. Holly — Inspector Roc — from Famous Crimes Comics — 1948

In these days when comic book stories drag on for issue after issue after issue, it's enlightening to know that in the old days a mystery could be told in ONE page, and even have you share in trapping the killer.

Rarity

A rarity! On this day absolutely nothing happened in the DC Universe!

DC calendar page 

This is from either 1976 or 1977, I can't remember. Pre Final Crisis though, in the good ol' silly DC daze. I miss that daze and those days.

Your Line is Divine

Ad from an old pulp mag — 1949

Nocturnal Plane

I used to think that sleep was an awful waste of 8 hours that I could be doing something useful. I've discovered lately that sleep is a wonderful little invention, as I give into it fully and soundly. I have great dreams as I walk foreign times and places. Perhaps we've run into each other on some other nocturnal plane, you and I. Perhaps not.

Charles Chaplin (not the silent film guy) seemed to be mildly obsessed with naked women sleeping the soft sleep (alright, maybe the silent film guy too).

 Charles Chaplin — La Nuit — 1870s

Charles Chaplin — La Nuit — 1874

Mysterious and Ancient

I love the subtle coloration and lighting of this acrylic painting. I fantasize that this is a detail from a grove temple, deep in a mysterious and ancient grotto.

Kazuhiko Sano — circa 1993

Make the Jump

I love comparing original illustrative art to the printed page—to see how well it reproduces, to see how color adds to the impact of line drawing, and also to see any changes along the way. Such is the case here where the title logo-type jumped from an older blocky style into a more modern (for the time) organic style. Unfortunately the artist's name, Al Gabrielle, didn't make the jump with it.

Al Gabrielle — The Black Cat — printed page 1940s

Al Gabrielle — The Black Cat — original art

Psyché et l'Amour

High drama from the Victorian Age . . .

Robaudi — Psyche and Cupid — circa 1885

If You Can Read This . . .

Guy Hoff, an under-valued illustrator of yester-century, shows us cute usage of a now common phrase, pre-bumper-sticker. 

When was the first bumper-sticker used, anyway?

Guy Hoff — Judge — November 21, 1925

A Hint

Somewhere along the way new-world architecture went totally left-brained and became 'stream-lined', and thus boring for the most part. 

This beautiful rendering in ink and watercolor gives us a hint of what a metropolis might look like if the old-world right-brain still had a hand in it as well.

© 1993 Albert Lorenz —Architectural Fantasia

Extra! Extra!

One of the greatest double page spread splash panels of all time, by one of the greatest comics partnerships of all time, Simon and Kirby:

Joe Simon & Jack Kirby — Stuntman — 1946

It's amazing how the 'new and improved', 'stream-lined' blogger interface won't allow me to post an image 'big' size, like I've been doing for 4 years now, without cutting off an edge in the main viewer. If you click on the image though, you'll see it larger, without any cutting off shenanigans.

When somebody goes to improve something, they usually don't.—me

Fearless

I love this pic of Carole Lombard. 

She looks fearless, despite her ultimate destiny.

Demon Battle

I'd like to apologize for several things. First, for being away from blogging on not just this site for the last several days, but also away from my other blogs for really long periods. I'm always belly-aching about back-to-back deadlines, but this last one really hit me hard and wiped me out. I finished it off at 4am on Monday morning after a final 48 hour frenzy to turn out illustrations and cartoons that I should have had a couple of weeks to do, getting it all sent in one hour before the drop-dead deadline. And I've got 2 more killer deadlines these next two weeks. This last one came on me so viciously that I had to just turn my back on everything else. That's no way to live. I've got to make changes in serious ways.

My other apology is to all my cyber friends that have been expecting things from me that I still haven't done—responses, promises, thanks and various other want-to do's. (I know that apostrophe doesn't really belong with that last phrase, but you might wonder what I mean by "dos"). Some of you have sent wonderful things that I'd like to blog about, or provide links to, or respond to. Some of you, I've lost communication with entirely, and I feel really awful about that.

I'm going to make a comeback, I know I will. I just have a few demons to do battle with until then.

John Buscema — Conan Battling the Demons of Hell