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…
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!
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…
Another compare & contrast, this time with something all-new vs a 2016 original…
Both pieces were 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 almost no attention to this stuff!
Anyhow, the composition I came up with in 2016 was A-OK—quite strong—but, my goodness, the execution & rendering was, IMO, absolutely appalling!! Even at the time I felt it was missing the mark, but my problems with it have grown exponentially with the passage of time.
So I deciced to redo it. Nigel deserved better.
Here’s the all-new 2021 version…
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.
Perhaps this was more appropriately posted back in June (the month of his passing), but as September marks his 95th birthday, that’s fine.
It’s hard to believe the great Gene Colan has been gone for ten years. And what a different (but not in the least bit better) world it is today compared to even back then.
Late ’70s Colan cover to DAREDEVIL #154, nicely inked by Steve Leialoha.
Speaking of the passing of greats, I was not actively blogging last December when Richard Corben died unexpectedly, after heart surgery. Very sad loss—I was certain he had another ten years of great stuff in him. He was one of those artists whose work never really bowed to the passage of time.
Most people would only know his work because he did the iconic cover for Meat Loaf’s 1977 classic album Bat Out of Hell. And, sadly, a lot of those folks doubtless don’t even know his name.
I no longer mind being called a Luddite. It might’ve bothered me once. Now, it’s become a lazy catchall slur meant to target anyone who has any kind of reservation about technological ‘progress’—because, after all, progress is an unalloyed good which everyone must believe in like obedient cult members.
(The concept of progress, and/or something being progressive, is not, semantically or in actuality, a good of any kind—or a bad of any kind. It’s a neutral idea that can/should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. For instance, in the negative, pretty much every terminal disease is ‘progressive’.)
Anyhow. I was all for digital tech and online stuff back in the day. And by that, I mean 15+ years ago. Maybe you have to be immersed in something for a while to start seeing the dangers properly. Digital has an insidious tendency to slowly, creepingly replace everything it touches with a digital facsimile. Often as not, the craft or physical actuality it replaces gets killed off completely… or, in cases like, for instance, film being made on film, a few stubborn holdouts will keep the organic original alive (Tarantino, Nolan, etc).
In comics there are a number of aspects you could mention, but let’s focus on LETTERING. To be blunt, digital lettering requires no craft. It’s a form of typsetting. And to any digital letterers out there, SORRY—BUT NOT SORRY. I accept that there’s skill in it—but there’s no craft.
Continuing a Gil Kane theme… something I scanned from the Marvel UK weekly Super Spider-Man #225 (June 1977) a while ago… an ultra-wide angle shot of DD by Gil.
