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.
Artwork
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.)
Read More »Moe Howard Portrait
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…
Read More »Marie Portrait 2021
Toby (2008-2022)
This is a portrait of one of Tikki’s Westie Twitter friends from Ireland, who sadly passed away recently, a month or so after his 14th birthday.
Neal Adams
Really, really sad to hear about the passing of Neal Adams. I think most of us can agree that he’s a highly significant figure in comics history.
I thought Neal was sure to be around for another 10-15 years, and producing decent art more or less till the day he died. The latter is virtually true—he was working on commissions as recently as ten days ago—but sadly, he had been fighting the effects of a sepsis infection for the past 11 months. That’s a tough battle at any age.
His later work is probably the stuff that will come to mind for some folks, and that’s… well, a small part of the story!! Neal’s art, for the past 30-35 years, has been generally solid and consistent, sometimes quite beautiful, if seldom a match for his peak stuff from the late ’60s through mid-’70s. But, it might be his increasingly eccentric writing that’s gained the most attention in recent years.
Batman: Odyssey, from 2010-11, which ran for 13 issues over two mini-series, had a lot of people scratching their heads. The distinctive and occasionally stunning visuals were a given, but Neal’s writing—barely flirting with conventional structure or internal logic—made the series something of a cult item. His writing only got weirder and more esoteric later on!
The Last Club Vamporama
Yes, the honest-to-goodness end of the road for Club Vamporama, after 15 years, on-and-off!
NOTE: I am recreating this post in May 2026, however, as I accidentally deleted the original post rather than making it private, during one of my anti-archiving spells. Nothing lost in terms of post content, but, alas, the original comments people left are gone… hopefully we can get a few new ones.
OK, the finale deserved two pages, anyhow. Maybe the cynicism about 2021 is somewhat influenced by the current political climate and the lovely COVID era. Away we go…
Kirby Art Inside Amazing Fantasy #15
Of course, everyone knows that Jack Kirby designed the original version of Spider-Man, which never got used. We know, also, that Kirby pencilled the cover to Spidey’s first appearance, in Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962)—because the original cover Ditko drew was rejected by Stan Lee.
But how about Kirby artwork inside this landmark comic? Well, surely, the iconic origin story is fully-pencilled & inked by Mr Ditko. But there’s one aspect I never paid much attention to before—the teeny-tiny Spidey figure at the top right of the opening splash page…
Betty & Veronica: The Kiss
Done for my friend, Nigel. It was his request & his concept… and I believe this “mythical kiss” might have actually been done for-real in an Archie comic in recent years. Not sure—I pay no attention to this stuff!
I decided to employ a couple of techniques I’ve been playing with of late, namely doing the inks solely with a brush pen (a Sakura Pigma, if you’re curious), and adding some “colour accents”…
Read More »Betty & Veronica: The Kiss
Conan by Big John
When I grow up, I wanna be able to draw like this.
It ain’t gonna happen!
Art by John Buscema, from Savage Sword of Conan #222 (1994)—image via Heritage.
