Showing posts with label Paneltopia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paneltopia. Show all posts

Friday, December 6, 2013

Slap Him Out've the Air!

Comic book artists have an undeniable talent for telling expansive stories in confined areas. Imagine putting all this action into two small panels and giving it believable perspective and superb rendering. Many comic book artists are graphic geniuses. The graphic genius of these two panels is Russ Heath (I don't know if the breakdowns are by Heath or Joe Kubert.



Friday, November 23, 2012

Cresting the High Wave

Well, well, well, I appear to be back in ship shape order . . . I hope. 

I'm skimming the surface of various applications, apprehensive of hearing the theme from Jaws. But at this point, I'm cresting the high wave, and seeking calm on the far side. I've a lot of work to catch up on, but I wanted to say 'hey' and hope to see more of you sailing through here again. 

And yes, after taking the longest possible time, the geniuses from Apple called me in on Black Friday to pick up my machine. Aarrrghhh.

Hal Foster — Prince Valiant panel — 1940s

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Battle Cry

One of the finest comic strip panels in the history of the medium:

Hal Foster — Prince Valiant — panel detail from June 19, 1938

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Out of This World

For all their imperfections, comic books are still out of this world for primary color entertainment. This is a nice panel.

John Giunta — Crom the Barbarian - panel detail
Out of This World comics

Friday, April 20, 2012

The Sad-Eyed Princess

Burne Hogarth had a propensity for overdoing his comic panels, with too much clutter and details. Yet the technique had its charm . . .

Burne Hogarth — Tarzan Sees the Sad-Eyed Princess Leecia

Monday, February 20, 2012

Rarified Atmosphere

Whenever I'm feeling tired and overwhelmed, all I have to do is spend a few minutes with images that catapult me into the rarified atmosphere of fantasy, and I am energized like the ion thrusters of a space cruiser exiting an asteroid field.

The isolated panel below is one of my all time favorites from the golden age of 'science fiction', or more aptly 'space opera' or just plain 'fantasy adventure'. Totally unsophisticated, it is supremely iconic of the genre, from Flash Gordon to Buck Rogers and beyond. Drawn by a young Murphy Anderson, Star Pirate must have influenced Ron Goulart and Gil Kane with their StarHawks, and I'd even venture that the young Frank Frazetta probably admired this work as well.

Imagine, if you will, the pulpy smell of old comics, and let your mind unfocus from your worries as it wanders the astro lanes from distant worlds — but always keep your blaster close at hand.

Murphy Anderson — Planet Comics #50 _ 1947

Monday, February 13, 2012

Defensive Formation

Imagine that. One simple average panel for Hal Foster . . .

Hal Foster — Prince Valiant — panel detail —8-3-1969

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Stand-Alone Beauty

Time to isolate another panel from the comics to celebrate its stand-alone beauty. This panel from the newspaper comics of 1912 looks more like an elegant kid's book illustration.

Johnny Gruelle — Mr. TweeDeedle — panel — 1912

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Gee Bee

Dave Stevens' adventurous The Rocketeer was a way cool graphic novel that took place in the way cool '30s, with way cool aviation themes, including the (last time, I promise) way cool Gee Bee Series aircraft. The Gee Bee (stands for Granville Brothers, its designer & manufacturer) was a dangerous racing plane that only the most skilled pilots could handle — perfect for an adventure series. The 1991 film of The Rocketeer opens with a test flight (and crash) of a Gee Bee (Model Z) plane.

Below are several of Stevens' panels showcasing the Gee Bee, along with a couple of photos of the real thing.

Dave Stevens is certainly missed in the world of graphic storytelling.



Above, this rendering of the Gee Bee looks a lot like Russ Heath's art style. Knowing they were buds, I wonder if there was collaboration. Perhaps not.


Above, the Gee Bee Sportster was a less lethal version of the Gee Bee planes, but was also less maneuverable and less popular among the speedsters. A version of this plane also showed up in The Rocketeer.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Cerebral Quality

I like the cerebral quality of this cover (no punching), the very cool chair and the huge monitor—before its time.

Garcia Lopez/Dick Giordano — Superman #391 — January 1984

Monday, January 16, 2012

Donn Philip Crane

Some of you perhaps have enjoyed the My BookHouse set of early 20th century books that collected stories, tales and legends for kids to understand and appreciate. Perhaps you inherited them from family or perhaps have seen them in quality used book stores. The illustrations are fondly remembered by many, and most of those illustrations were primarily the work of one artist, Donn P. Crane, a man I have admired for many many years and yet knew ab-so-lute-ly nothing about . . . until now.

Mr. Jaffe over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie kindly sent over a Crane bookplate and a heads up. Through his site, a lot of information falls into place via a link (babylonbaroque. wordpress) where some of Crane's descendants are in contact, as well as with Mr. Jaffe.

You can find info about Crane by linking to those two sites, and you can look here for some large scans I've made of a few of the MANY Crane drawings I have collected, admired and treasured over the years. I can post many more if some of you show interest.

Crane was prolific in illustrating history, legends and fairytales, mostly for the My BookHouse series in the 1st third of the xxth century. He worked in pen and ink and for color was limited to using various shadings of 3 colors, which to me is fascinating and enjoyable. If he had chosen to illustrate a comic strip, he could have rivaled the artistry of the great Hal Foster. But he chose to help inspire generations of kids to understand the world around them.

Really, please tell me you want to see more of Crane's work.

Carried away by the witchery of the clever, fascinating Cleopatra, the coarse, pleasure-loving Antony, master of the eastern Mediterranean, at once becomes her devoted slave. All matters of war and policy are completely forgotten.

Isis beseeching the sun god Ra, on behalf of Osiris

After his defeat by Aetius at Chalons, Attila withdraws the remnant of his host to a fortified wagon circle. There he prepares a pyre of saddles and horse-furnishings, on which to sacrifice himself if about to be taken captive.

Frey, god of sunshine, on his golden boar whose bristles symbolize the sunbeams, and Freya, his sister, in her chariot drawn by cats. As goddess of love, Freya entertained lovers and married pairs in her palace after death. Cats, as symbols of purring affection were sacred to her as doves were sacred to Venus; but when Christian missionaries said that Freya was not a goddess, but a demon, the Northern people said she was leader of the witches who held their hag-like revels on a barren mountain-top on the horrid Valpurgis-night, and hence to this very day a witch is always shown as being accompanied by a cat.

Alfheim

A lovely bookplate created for the artist himself.
Thanks Lew!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Fanboy Stuff

Here's something for you fanboys out there (and fangirls?). As you Wally Wood fans know, Wood was in contention as artist when Hal Foster was retiring from the Prince Valiant strip. Wood 'lost out' to John Cullen Murphy, but (no offense to Murphy) I think we lost out from the direction Wood might have taken the strip (and I don't know, maybe given him more reason to live?). He couldn't have taken it as far as this page from his Wizard King pages, but one for one brief moment imagine this big panel as if Prince Valiant had ascended to King through mighty combat and fair Aleta was his Queene. Yeah, yeah, fanboy stuff.

Wally Wood — page from Wizard King story entitled The End

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Resolution

Resolve this year to get out from whatever thumb you're under.

George Herriman — Krazy Kat

Monday, January 2, 2012

Storming Up the Stair

Here is another closer examination of a Sunday panel of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant—just one 'ordinary' panel, but a masterpiece of composition from the 1960s.

Val is battling his way up the staircase, yet is front and center with his men for us to know who the good guys are here, displaying his heraldic horse and all. The perspective and shadows feel proper and the melange of arms and legs are perfectly placed and connected so that we feel a total authenticity to the scene.

Foster was not using models or photos here—you couldn't stage such a scene. This is his mind and hand at work.

Hal Foster — Prince Valiant — panel detail

Friday, December 30, 2011

Wop! Umm Zop!

Woosh. I-am-SOAKed. For those who couldn't join our snowball fight, here's an image to show you pretty much the way it looked:

Winsor McCay — Little Nemo panel — 1907

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Amethyst

My little category of Paneltopia is a close-up examination of stand-alone comic art panels. I'm including covers in Paneltopia, because they are indeed splash panels that just happen to be on the outside of a comic.

Amethyst-Princess of Gemworld was a comic that I believe was intended for a young female audience, seeing as the protagonist was a young female that, upon entering a transdimensional world, became a grown woman who just happened to be a princess. Some of the art was quite nice, as this cover demonstrates:

George Perez/Ernie Colon
Amethyst-Princess of Gemworld
October 1983

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

That Silly Season

Ah, the first ever appearance of Uncle Scrooge McDuck, from Christmas on Bear Mountain, already iconic in his first panel. Zoom in on the iconic beauty of Carl Barks' art.

Carl Barks — Christmas on Bear Mountain — December 1947

Bright Spot

A panel from today's 'Pickles', by Brian Crane—one of the bright spots of the comic pages of the current newspaper offerings.

© 2011 Brian Crane

Friday, December 16, 2011

Luxury and Indolence

Hal Foster really 'illustrated' the Prince Valiant comic strip, rather than 'cartooned' it, composing more detail into one panel than most Sunday strips had in their entirety. It's almost ludicrous to turn over one of the published Valiant full pages to see Yogi Bear, ViP, and Wizard of Id with their simplistic, repetitive graphics.

For the ongoing Paneltopia category, here is another isolated panel that deserves to be examined in closer detail.

Hal Foster — Prince Valiant

Monday, December 12, 2011

Portals of the Imagination

Let's post up a couple more panels for Paneltopia, these from a colorful graphic novel adaptation of New Tales of the Arabian Nights by Richard Corben.

Telling tales well is a magical art, as Shahrazad (and Corben) demonstrate here. These kinds of panels make you want to step into them, as portals of the imagination they are.

Richard Corben — New Tales of the Arabian Nights

Richard Corben — New Tales of the Arabian Nights