Archive for August, 2009
One of my complaints about technology has always been that you get increasing functionality, but also increasing cost and complexity. Think of replacing a $15 walkman with a $250 iPod.
But I’m reading there’s a trend to move away from that. Here’s an interesting article from Wired magazine about “Good Enough” technology: Technology that is cheap and easy, but works just well enough to satisfy demand. The mascot for this is the Flip videocamera.
After some trial and error, Pure Digital released what it called the Flip Ultra in 2007. The stripped-down camcorder—like the Single Use Digital Camera—had lots of downsides. It captured relatively low-quality 640 x 480 footage at a time when Sony, Panasonic, and Canon were launching camcorders capable of recording in 1080 hi-def. It had a minuscule viewing screen, no color-adjustment features, and only the most rudimentary controls. It didn’t even have an optical zoom. But it was small (slightly bigger than a pack of smokes), inexpensive ($150, compared with $800 for a midpriced Sony), and so simple to operate—from recording to uploading—that pretty much anyone could figure it out in roughly 6.7 seconds.
Within a few months, Pure Digital could barely keep up with orders.
(sorry this is late, but piece of sh*t blogger wouldn’t let me upload the picture)
It seems like a lot of my posts lately have been making references to tna, so I figure, why stop now? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a comic that pretty much summarizes the state of the comics biz in the mid-90s: Purgatori vs. Lady Death.
Insert own joke here.
It’s Jack Kirby’s birthday today. He would of been 92. (It’s also my brother’s birthday). I don’t think he would have approved of the constant regurgitation by the big two. The best way to celebrate his birthday would be to create something new. Good or bad, he was always creating new characters and worlds. The guy was a machine. I’ve been admiring all the Kirby art pouring out of the wood works today.
(This ties in tangentially to the post I made earlier in the summer about the art of rock posters)
Ward Sutton, he of the Sutton Impact alt comic strip, has written a review of Died Young, Stayed Pretty, a documentary film about show posters. Except his review is done as a slideshow of one-panel comic art. Worth a look. It’s over at The Village Voice.
You know, this recent spate of celebrity “created” comic books is really starting to piss me off. Now normally I don’t get too worked up about this sort of stuff, but come on, enough is enough. We get it. Comic books are the current “cool” and “hip” things, especially where Hollywood is concerned. So now every actor, singer, reality star and stunt man is getting into the action and creating a comic book. And by “creating” I mean slapping their name on something that’s written, drawn, colored, and edited by other people.
Michael Chiklis has “created” a comic book series.
Matthew Fox has “created” a comic book series, and surprise, surprise, is going to star in a movie based on it. Gee, didn’t see that one coming.
Jennifer Love Hewitt has “created” a comic book series.
Tyrese Gibson has “created” a comic book series, although it doesn’t seem like it’s going too well.
The guy who played the Punisher in the 2nd movie has “created” a comic book series. Well, two, actually.
That one actor from Heroes has “created” a comic book series.
And on and on and on…until you get such masterpieces as this newly announced gem from “country music star” Trace Adkins. Everything in that press release makes me want to throw up, from the worthless marketing claims (“Adkins becomes the first country artist to invent an alter ego in comic books…”) to the cliched, derivative story (“a hard-as-nails adventure story of revenge and redemption, in the tradition of “Walking Tall” and “Billy Jack”…) to the obligatory bullshit faux praise from the poor sap who’s trying to make a living by writing this celebrity vanity project (“The McBain character kicks ass and takes names,” says writer David Tischman (Red Herring). “But the character also has a compassionate side, and he makes the hard choices few others have the guts to make.”)
It used to be that anytime someone made a name for themselves as a celebrity, they’d run off and open a trendy restaurant or come out with their own chic perfume or line of clothing. Apparently now comic books have replaced sushi joints and handbags as the celebrity masturbatory product of choice.
And yes, I realize I’m coming off as a bitter or disgruntled aspiring writer. But you know what? In the big picture, I don’t even matter. This is still very much a hobby for me. It burns me to think that there are infinitely more talented writers and artists out there, professionals who are trying to make their living through their craft, who can’t get their original, innovative series past an editor’s door while publishers are falling all over each other trying to sign up the backup drummer from that one 90s band to “create” a new series for them.
F them all.
Here’s the latest entry in the Art for All series, sharing various one-off sketches and commissions I’ve done recently. This time – THE PHANTOM STRANGER.
I’m a big fan of DC Comics’ supernatural characters—Constantine, Swamp Thing, The Spectre, etc—but was oddly completely unfamiliar with the Phantom Stranger, apart from his appearance in Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic series.
The Stranger has a pretty cryptic history. In fact, he’s one of the very few characters whose origin story has never actually been revealed. He first appeared in the 50′s in his own short-lived solo series, with art by the great Carmine Infantino. As the years went by, he was featured more prominently in the DC Universe proper in titles like Justice League of America, Swamp Thing, and Detective Comics, among many others.
According to his Wikipedia page, In his earliest appearances, the Phantom Stranger would prove supernatural events to be hoaxes. In later stories, the supernatural events were real and the Phantom Stranger was given unspecified superhuman powers to defeat them. He later appeared in various other DC Universe titles, sometimes as a major participant; in others, the Phantom Stranger just appears and gives advice or warning to the featured heroes. Occasionally he serves simply as narrator. In some stories, he seems to be answerable to a mysterious Voice, implied to be God, or the Lords of Order.
This piece, like most others, is 9 x 12″, and drawn on Strathmore cold-press watercolor paper. For more information on commissions, drop by
my gallery on deviantART or my website.I was Googling a bit today, looking for artists who are especially adept at drawing robots (shhh, it’s a secret project…for now) and came across this blog:
Concept Robots – “An online animated concept robotics art magazine blog”
and its companion site:
Concept Ships – “An online animated spaceship and experimental aircraft art magazine”
Both are graphics heavy and quite slow to load, even with high speed connections, but there’s a variety of cool artwork on each. Worth a look.
Frank Cho has “created” a new series that he will be publishing through Image. It’s called 50 Girl 50. However, he’s not writing it. Doug Murray is handling that part. And he’s not drawing it, either. That job might belong to you.
Yep, there’s a contest to pick an artist.
You have to draw a 6-page script. Deadline is October 2nd. No, you don’t get any ownership of the property. It’s a work-for-hire deal.
Good luck.
This weekend’s titanic clash is Super Heroes vs. Super Villains.
This 68 page one-shot was published by Mighty Comics Group (actually Archie Comics) in 1966, and featured their lineup of costumed heroes that were later purchased by DC. The label “By: Dick, Vic, Bob, and Paul” on the cover refers to the creators featured within, although the only ones I can discern are editor Richard Goldwater and penciller Paul Reinman. Not mentioned on the cover, but apparently the scribe of all the stories, is Jerry Siegel.
Add this one to the very first edition of 7 Covers, which had the theme of “7 comic book covers featuring Barack Obama that make me embarrassed to be a comic book fan”:
(apparently a new volume in the Bomb Queen t-n-a mini-series called “Bomb Queen vs. Obama)
This edition of 7 Covers is curated by PANELista Andy Bennett. Andy writes:
“Frank Miller is the best cover artist of the past 50 years. Everyone gets a “What have you done for me lately” attitude about Frank, but the truth is – so many of the comics you enjoy today would not be around, were it not for his seminal work in the 80′s. These particular covers were all released over about a year’s time. How could you not buy these comics? THE POWER OF FRANK COMPELS YOU.”
(If you’d like to submit your own set of 7 covers – it can be any theme, or no theme at all – send me small files (i.e. 72 dpi for the web) to ferret at ferretpress dot com and include “7 covers” in the subject line. Also, let me know if you have a blog or website you’d like me to link to.)
Here’s a new entry in the Art for All series, sharing various one-off sketches and commissions I’ve done recently. This time – Mike Mignola’s HELLBOY.
Hellboy debuted, to the general public, in 1994 with the 4-issue mini-series “Seed of Destruction” at Dark Horse Comics. It was released as part of Dark Horse’s “LEGEND” line, and co-written by fan favorite John Byrne. At this stage, Mignola wasn’t nearly as well-known as he is today, and I’ll tell you – I bought those comics strictly for the backup story, Arthur Adams’ “Monkeyman & O’Brien”. Little did I know, Hellboy would eventually become one of my favorite comics of all time.
