Artwork
Beard Or No Beard?
So, for a while I have been pondering & developing a Sunday Comics idea. I have hit some snags & sometimes been busy on other stuff, but would like to put out a comics strip once a week and maybe make it rotating features—one week an SF strip, following week a humour strip, etc. And I’m probably inclined to make it a subscription model, using Patreon and/or similar. (I had a failed Patreon running for a while but killed it about four years ago.) The “fee” for access would have a pretty small baseline, BTW.
Interested in any feedback on this.
Furthermore (per the question in the title)…
Conan, drawn by someone much better than me… or you.
Underrated Artists I Love #1: Frank Robbins
The first in a series? Also, coming up: Overrated Artists I Hate! 🙂
Frank Robbins. He’s that Invaders guy. He’s that weird artist who drew rubber-limbed, contorted figures with insanely distorted, grimacing faces. Everything he drew looked bizarre & wrong, didn’t it? He wasn’t very good, was he?
No. He was GREAT! I mean, come on, get a load of this…
Cover of THE SHADOW #7 (DC Comics, 1974).
Scripts From the Crypt: The Mummy’s Tomb
(Repost with a couple of revisions.)
Out now on Amazon, the 14th in my friend Tom Weaver’s Scripts From the Crypt series… this time with some involvement from me, namely layout/design work on the covers, and the dedication page illustration, plus a few other minor things.
PLEASE NOTE: lest the title deceive you, this is not just a “script” book! It’s packed with essays, info and analysis on the movie too!!
I strongly suggest you buy a copy. Or several copies. See links at bottom of this post!
Hulk vs Boris Johnson
As this idiot is still in the news, somehow, I present an old strip pertaining to The Man With No Comb… which references the UK’s supremely annoying NLP three-sting “COVID” mantra (Hands! Face! Space!).
John Romita, RIP
Thought I’d give a quick mention to John, who passed away aged 93 on June 12th. His death is no tragedy—he had a very long life, well lived—but a sad loss nonetheless, especially as the Silver Age greats of comics are dwindling rapidly now.
John was, of course, the third best Spider-Man artist.
Three Portraits
Newly scanned pieces—firstly, Shatner as Kirk, for Steve on the occasion of his birthday… a portrait of 1940s Bogart… and finally, a nice scan of the Moe Howard piece I posted a photo of here.
Moe Howard Portrait
I am indeed a Three Stooges fan, although I like Laurel & Hardy better—but for some reason have never drawn L&H. Go figure. Must rectify this soon. Anyhow, this is just finished on my drawing table, in the newly revamped studio space. Which, BTW, is actually helping my work quite a bit. Let’s not talk about the cramped working conditions I had previously! It wasn’t good, but I’ll leave it at that.
So, this is a mixed media piece, and a first (but it won’t be last) attempt at a slightly different approach. I thought perhaps the pen & ink portraits just look quite comic booky, and pencil-only is a pretty common approach, and a lot of people do it better than me… but this, I think works a little better for me. The basic outlines are done using my trusty Uni brush pen, but I kept it to a minimum. I left a lot of the toning & modeling out. The background is simple ink-on-sponge—something I have not done in about thirty years! Finally, the tones are done with grey watercolour pencils. (Mostly a couple of darker ones.)
Marie Portrait 2021
LOL, as they say. This is my third try at this Marie Portrait concept, done last December… I think I’ll leave it at that now! Please! No fourth tries!!
(NOTE: Marie is one of my characters, late of Club Vamporama [RIP], and, forthcomingly, Adventures of M.)
Previous attempts below, from 2019 and 2011 respectively…