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Showing posts with label drawings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drawings. Show all posts

Sunday, May 29, 2022

NEAL ADAMS...The Best There Ever Was...The Best There Will Ever Be.


From Archie to the Avengers, from Ben Casey to “The Brave & The Bold. ”He was to say; The Natural. The Best there ever was…The Best there will ever be.”

Neal Adams  1941 - 2022



He was a creative force of tireless energy. That along with his mastery of drawing and artistic innovation would cement his place in the history of the American Comic Book as a true genius. The dialogue of what the form described and known by various names including comic book / graphic novelization / sequential story-telling is (while in fact dating back to the dawn of humankind and civilization) has been altered from Adam's time forward into the future by his countless contributions and collaborations (chiefly with writer Denny O’Neil.) 




Neal Adams was actually much more than a prominent  voice of the social and racial injustices, changes  and turmoil of the Nineteen 60’s and 70’s within his chosen field; in his eminent way he was too a real life advocated for contemporary creator’s rights, a lobbyist and a bare knuckles fighter of sorts for the community of human kind. This was evident in along with a number of his creations and his reaching out along with Harland Ellison, Gary Trudeau and others over his lifetime to congress and world organizations and institutions. He fought for the teenagers that birthed “Superman,” Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, for the compensation and recognition they had been denied yet so richly deserved for decades.
 He won. 




Holocaust survivor, Dina Babbitt would become the beneficiary of Adam’s fight for the return of her artwork that she used in bartering for the life and survival of her mother and herself during the Nazi reign of terror. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland has recently returned said works to Ms. Babbitt. These are only a small portion of the Adam’s body of resolutions and the righting of selected cultural and historic failings.


                                           More on Neal Adams @ Why Not: A Blog                                          

            
                                 







Sadly; Neal Adams passed on April 28th from complications of Sepsis, a type of blood poisoning. Adams was a man as legendary as the characters he created, developed and voiced within his visual stories. He was one with no legitimate rivals while possessing legions of admirers, supporters and friends.  



Vintage News Footage
Neal, Denny O'Neil & Julie Schwartz 
  


"How to be Great as an Artist"
Neal Adams
     

Adams Sketches 
Deadman
from
"STRANGE ADVENTURES"
        

Adams 1987 Interview
Harlan Ellison Intro.

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Ridley Scott's Original "BLADE RUNNER"



Elegant within it’s cyber punk, dystopian madness “Blade Runner” stands momentously as a cinematic mild stone, a classic that continues to delight, bewilder, beguile and intrigue. You’re right; I am a fan. Former art director Ridley Scott set out to create something marvelous. He achieved just that as he eclipsed his himself and his magnificent crew’s original daring visions. Together they discovered (created) that rare wonder; a masterpiece of cinema and in that including of all of art and creativity.

The film as a whole is purely a visual splendor. Every performance to note from Harrison Ford to Sean Young to Rutger Hauer to Edward James Olmos to Daryl Hannah and M. Emmet Walsh is pitch perfect, nuanced and individually unique. The score is rich, enchanting, futuristic and reflective of an earlier form; the film noir. This atmospheric, dark, foggy acid rain refracting look is hypnotic and equally contributing to the film’s narrative. Former Police Officer/Blade Runner Rick Deckard must hunt down and “retire a group of super sophisticated, self-aware renegade androids (Replicants) and “retire” them.





The inspiration and basis of the film is the Phillip K. Dick Sci-Fi novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” It is a well-executed and provocative work that bears almost no resemblance to Scott’s film. I am guessing that it was Scott’s intention to do so.   



The film was not originally a huge hit. It was far too radical, distinctive and for all general purposes dark for that. How many times does the general public adapt and gravitate to the new and daring? It is an even rarer thing and in many ways a compliment to go unnoticed and unheralded at first encounter. I saw it at least four times in 1982 the summer of it’s release. Imagine too; that the lead, Harrison Ford was not a star in his own right at the time. He had appeared in “Star Wars” in 1977 a few years before but it was “Blade Runner” that established his remarkable and unique super stardom along with years of long and continuing acting successes.  







The iconic Poster (Left) features Deckard and Rachel above the aerial view of the fabled acid rain drenched city of the then future (2019) Los Angelos. Original versions of the poster retail for as much as $2,000.

Much of the visuals and themes of “Blade Runner” are influenced by the look of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.” It is a fitting homage of sorts to Lang’s film. It is also truly in the same vein of the H.G. Wells book “The Shape of Things to Come.” 

The film has gone through a number of rereleases and subsequent director’s cuts. It is the original 1982 release with the matter of fact and often nuanced voice over by Deckard (Harrison Ford) that was the most striking and entertaining incarnation that I most completely enjoyed. The eloquent and somewhat world weary voice added the right touch with the “film noir” over tones and feel of the production.































 As of date the seminal “Blade Runner” is without equal or legitimate successor. The film does create many questions in plot and purpose. One major question concerns who and what Deccard himself might actually be. The original cut of the movie alluded to in several instances and tone to the possibility of the Deckard character being himself a replicant. The final director’s cut of the film (2007) attempts to clear up the discrepancies. A dream sequence featuring a startled and running unicorn is held by Deckard in his sleep. The dream along with a strategically placed origami unicorn by the Gaff character late in the film serves as an explanation of sorts. The inference is that Gaff is privy to Deckard’s programmed and implanted dreams. This can be interpreted as a true explanation or the subject for more confusion; the debate continues.The mostly unsuccessful and lackluster sequel “Blade Runner 2049” attempts to expand, to enhance and explain other elements of the original film; the attempt was futile. In my imagination there was no need for a sequel or expansion and it falls far short of the original. Many, many films need no sequel and the attempt to extend their narratives are hackneyed, lackluster attempts at best but well the subjects for further debate. 





VIDEO

 Animation Depicting Events Between Original Film and "Blade Runner 2049"






Another superb outing for director Scott was the “1984” titled commercial for the Apple PC that aired during the 1984 Super bowl. The commercial is a response to the George Orwell novel. It is considered by many aficionados and experts to be one of the greatest commercials of stated history.  See it here as originally and nationally viewed in January of said year.  


Until and if ever eclipsed Scott remains the pre-eminent and unchallenged champion of the cyber punk, the fantastic world of film experimentation and it’s successful execution!

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Vija Celmins The Drawings & Paintings Of...



Vija Celmins is an artist whose works ask and surely compel the viewer to slow down, breath in and absorb her brilliance and subtlety of technique and style. The photographic feel and look she masters beg to be studied unlike any other artist working today. She is not loud, bold or extravagant but the genuine powers of her pieces are transformative. Look at these works of her hand’s precision, intricacy and exacting measure. She delivers her grace of being for our understanding and joy.



“There aren't really rules for painting, but there’s certain facts and fictions about painting. Part of what I do is document another surface and sort of translate it. They’re like translations, and then part of it is fiction, which is invention.”
                                                                                                            Vija Celmins



The Latvian born Celmins (now living in the United States) has authored several books including The Painting of Modern Life and The Stars; a book about her long term obsession with viewing the cosmos. She likes to think of her paintings as things that she builds rather than paints. Celmins starts with the construction and preparation of her canvas and sees every step as integral to the finished piece. She also paints as many as nine layers of paint; as many as deemed necessary to achieve her desired result.


“Somehow the image begins to have a sort of memory in it, even if you can't see it. It can build up a dense feeling toward the end, and then it makes me happier.”
                                                                                                           Vija Celmins




The spider webs, stars and space configurations, still life’s and ocean surfaces are most often mono-chromes likened to black and white photos.  Vija uses photographs extensively as reference and she also paints familiar objects from her studio and home.  She uses color sparingly as if to not distract the viewer from a mental connection of purpose. Her works displayed in museums, sought by collectors and viewed by the millions are quiet treasures to behold.  






Friday, March 1, 2013

Dali Drawings




 Sigmund Freud, Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney; all varied and names to be associated with Salvador Dali. Dali’s showmanship and his works intrigued enlivened and enriched the lives of his viewers and admirers for decades. He still touches millions even though he is not currently en vogue in anything close to the same manner he was just a few years prior. Dali dazzled and confused with his paintings, films, prints and sculptures. His drawings were equally impressive and mysterious. They are the features of this blog.



The lines of Dali are elegant and masterful. The drawings range from the subtle to the beautifully extravagant. The many dream images, the surreal works he playfully produced in his lifetime are statements to his unusual and marvelous mind. 




He could be both baroque and modern in ways that few were able to equal. Perhaps the fact that he outdistanced his surrealist peers is the reason he was denounced by those fellows. To call Dali a genius is almost redundant but if such a thing exists he is certainly among those elite. It has been said that and there is a thin line between genius and madness.
 
 
Dali walked that line for the entirety of his public life with his wife and muse Gala by his side. We can only guess at the meanings and symbols he conjuring’s provided his public; but that is part of the pleasures of his work. He mastered many forms and illuminated many lives.
 


                   “The only difference between a madman and myself is that I am not insane.”
                                                                                                                             Salvador Dali