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Showing posts with label graphic novels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graphic novels. Show all posts

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Neal Adams / The Sketch Book


Recently I purchased   "Neal Adams/The Sketchbook" on line.  I received my copy just a few days ago by mail. I was very much impressed as a whole and greatly enjoyed it! The book's editor and designer Arlan Shumer asked me to write a review of his book to post at his " Neal Adams Almanac" page on Facebook after finding out I had written one for Amazon.  Here’s that brief review:


"Neal Adams/The Sketchbook"

Previously unpublished originals by the great Neal Adams are seen here publicly, many for the first time. Adam’s powerful, emotional and heroic works are vivid reminders of his phenomenal talents. The untouched works by the artist's hand, heart and mind are enhanced by the distinctive editing of historian Arlen Schumer. Schumer uses Neal’s words from private interviews they shared while leaving out his questions. This makes for a most unique, insightful and flowing literary experience. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, while always informative. The text often has the feel of an informal, relaxed seminar of sorts on Neal’s favorite subjects; comic books and creativity.



Neal Adams for most considered himself a story teller rather than an artist. That being the case; story telling is a grand tradition and he is among the most “artful” of the form. While at the same time; this volume exists and can also be enjoyed as a look at the portfolio of the master draftsman he was, one of the best of the creative geniuses of our times.















You might be interested in viewing and possibly joining "Neal Adams Almanac." 

Visit @ Facebook.com 


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.

Monday, January 3, 2022

Mike Mignola "The Quarantine Sketchbook"

 









Artist Mike Mignola has been a mainstay and luminary in the world of story illustration particularly comic books and graphic novels for a multitude of years. He is unique in style, popularity and “rock solid.” With the rest of the nation and world he has experienced the Covid 19 lock downs and quarantines with a true resilience. His personal story within our shared (2020) isolation dilemma has become one of dedication to creativity, craft and what appears to have been also fun and a discovery of sorts.






Mignola spent much of his time and efforts during quarantine doing what began in childhood for the many and certainly for the most accomplished artists; sketching. The drawings from the many months were done for his own amusement and later he started sharing on line with his fans and followers. This led to their submissions of ideas for more sketches and experimentation. Going beyond what might have been a light-hearted frolic to the said drawings becoming donations for many charitable causes resulting in auctions.
 




The resulting images from those multitudes of hours is available now in book form (released last year) “The Quarantine Sketch Book.”   It is a delightfully misanthropic collection of monsters, absurdities and abundant curiosities. Each drawing bathed in a perfection of light and shadow enhancing a remarkable mastery of form.

Continuing here are more sketches from the volume and other drawings from Mignola for this blogs viewers. As reflecting with Mile’s original intention “Have Fun” with this page!

 











































               







For additional information and a more detailed look at the career of “The Magnificent” Mike Mignola follow this link:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mignola








Sunday, February 28, 2021

Her Favorite Thing Is Monsters!


By every standard Emil Ferris is a great artist. Her work is moving, provocative, masterful, entertaining, and just fantastically original and down-right good. Now; on to the Monsters. Like the majority of Emil’s fans it was her breakout graphic novel “My favorite Thing is Monsters” that first got my attention. The title alone was a grabber for me. I have personally always loved monsters too; yes, a true love. Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, the Phantom of The Opera; those familiar guys and many other classics dominates my bed room like those of, I imagine, a lot of kids from my generation. They were there as small plastic sculpture/models that I painstakingly assembled like a mad scientist. There were magazines and comic books too. Whenever “The Wolf Man,” “The Thing” or “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” aired I was in front of our television, regardless of time of day. I remember my beloved Grandmother saying; “You like all that weird stuff.” My response was: “Well, Yea…I do.”  It didn’t seem weird to me. In fact it made perfect sense. I associated them with religion, mythology, psychology and society as great works of literature and art. I’m sure Emil Ferris would agree. 

 

The Ferris debut work (MFTIM) is as mentioned before as masterful as it is beautiful and an inspiration. Her opening debut to the world stage is every bit as fantastic as her subject matter. She keeps it equally personal and intimate in turn. She explores her awakening sexuality, cultural norms and coming of age. It is a love letter to the discovery of truth and beauty through the study and observation of art.  She does all this while wrapping her narrative in a murder mystery. This is surly enough to satisfy the most demanding of audiences. She skillfully ties it all together while presenting it in great style that is most assuredly her own and uniquely so. 



Ferris chooses to execute her illustrations on compositional notebook paper which gives the work a personal touch. Every aspiring artist and young person begins drawing with lined paper I’m sure. This is a connection to her own past as well as the masses she is reaching with her efforts. What she is putting down is far indeed from any kiddie stuff. 




Ferris often faithfully recreates works of the great academics such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Winslow Homer. She does an incredible take on Henry Fuseceli’s “The Nightmare” that is truly to marvel.  Her work; rightfully so, has been feature in the most prominent art magazine of the day “Art Forum” a welcome validation and honoring of her achievements and uncanny abilities.



Think of “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters” when you think of “Maus,” “Persepolis,” “Sin City,” “The Arrival,” “God’s Man” or Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman.” It is comfortable among the best of the genre and like the other fore mentioned also rates among other works of “High Art.” Ferris fits nicely on the book shelf with Wells, Shelly, Bradbury and Hugo. 



                                                                                                                          




She presents herself with an elegance of presence and off beat flair; a character unto herself. I will not be surprised to see her cast one future day by Guillermo del Toro for one of his screen plays. What an asset she would be to any production. 




No problem, no fear.



Sunday, March 1, 2020

Mayan God Camazotz: The First Batman




























There is a link between religion, faith and the fantastic; the heroic. Among my first bedtime stories both read and told to me were the mythologies of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman.  These were no less equal to the biblical tales and exploits of Samson, David and Noah among others I was introduced to early on. Each in their own way amazing and all miraculous. Would Jesus be as effective had he not walked on water, cured and fed multitudes and eventually raised from the grave himself? Questions…                                 

 There are abundant similarities in ancient mythologies, texts and carvings and associations with our modern mass communications.  One deity and theme that seems to be timeless and multi-cultural is the man-bat or in our popular culture “Batman.” The Mayan’s worshiped what seemed the first bat demi-god in their own Camazotz.  He was half man, half bat, full of mystery and vengeance. He dates back culturally as far as 200 yrs. B. C. and he is still being researched today. The Mesoamericans viewed their bat deity as terrifying and like ever good bat lusting for blood. There were thousands of sacrifices made to him. He would; as to legend emerge from his bat cave nightly and was even connected to the creation of mankind. His visage, persona and legend were equally terrifying. His totems were used for protection and to ward off evils.  This principle element was again not unlike our own, much beloved and lauded Batman.
              
The Mayan Man-Bat creature aroused from his cave in a chronicled tale of a once vengeful murder of the Mayan hero Hunahpu. The blood lust associated with Camazotz was tremendous and legend says he killed his victim by decapitation. The similarities here are much closer to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” Camazotz is linked to both nocturnal characters (Batman and Dracula.) This attests to the richness of the ancient culture’s imagination in multiplicitous forms including writings, stone and stories.

There is no shortage of interpretations; but the idea of the “Batman” abounds, especially for our southern Mesoamerican neighbors and ourselves.  In the end it is all about the idea. The myths live on across space and time, across cultures. They are as envisioned in and through “The Batman” whether intended or unintended and in their magnificence; eternal.




“I shall become a Bat!”

“…and thus is born this weird figure of the dark…this avenger of evil...The BATMAN
 
                              

The art featured on this page range from the minds and hands of Bob Kane, Neal Adams and original Mayan drawings to the spectacular “Camazotz Armour”
 from the phenomenal designer Kimbal.

 Camazotz Bat Armour