Tagged: art

New York Times Profiles Comics Art Collectors

  • News
  • June 30, 2008

batmankillingjokespecialalanmoorebr-4924521Comics have long been a haven for collectors, that niche of consumers who’ll drop six figures on an old Disney issue or a near-mint of a Golden Age superhero.

As comics are becoming less of a disposable form of entertainment, the issues are increasingly common. So individual issues are no longer a hot commodity.

I don’t see it as a new trend, but The New York Times saw fit to devote a lengthy story to the new target of comics collectors — original artwork. The article mentions how originals were once used to sop up ink stains, but they’ve gradually become more and more valuable, to the point that they’re now selling for inordinately high prices.

Collectors of original comic-book art sound like a subculture within a subculture, and that’s fine with many aficionados. “There was a thrill in finding something nerdier than collecting comics,” said David Mandel, 37, an executive producer of the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” who first bought original art during a visit to the San Diego Comic-Con in 1995.

Mr. Mandel has pieces that would make many fans drool, like the cover, by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, of Giant-Size X-Men from 1975, which trumpeted Wolverine, Storm and others as the new incarnation of the mutant team, and the 1982 cover of Daredevil No. 181, by Frank Miller, depicting the death of Elektra, the title hero’s girlfriend.

His collection also includes the last four pages from “The Killing Joke,” a seminal 1988 story that helped usher in a new level of maturity for comic books. That Batman tale chronicles a possible origin for the hero’s nemesis, and was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland. In November the last page of the story became available at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas. Mr. Mandel landed it for just over $31,000.

It would’ve been nice if the reporter had talked to Scott Dunbier, currently an IDW editor and formerly one of the better known art dealers. If you want to hear some great stories about buying and selling comics art, I highly recommend Scott’s blog.

What Happens In Vegas… Sucks, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • June 27, 2008

What many of my readers don’t know is – I’m an artist, trained at some of the finest art schools in the country. I’m also an educator, having written curricula for an art school and created reading programs for high interest low-level students grades four to six. I have quite a few proclamations from various cities for my educational work and my mentor program. I even have part of a school campus named after me.

I’m not telling you this to impress you, but to impress upon you that I know a wee bit about the arts.

Education and training aside, I belong to the “I know what I like club.” I truly believe that art is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t care how big the artist is, I’m not jumping on the bandwagon because his or her last painting sold for a zillion dollars. As an example, take the artist David Hockney. I don’t like his work but I respect the career he has built for himself.

I also think that Thomas Kinkade is the luckiest man on earth. I much prefer and miss Bob Ross and his “happy little trees.” For my money, his “happy little trees” pimp slap anything done by either Hockney or Kinkade. That may be because I just liked him as a man and that translated into why I like his work so much. Truth be told, his work was more of a gimmick – but I don’t care: I like what I like. Hockney or Kinkade are huge successes and deserve to be. They create the art and let it speak for itself. Critics love it or hate it, people buy it or they don’t. (more…)

Comic Artists Sketch David Bowie

  • News
  • June 19, 2008

My buddy Sean T. Collins received a lot of attention late last year when he posted a gallery of sketches from his David Bowie-themed sketchbook, and rightly so. Over the last year or so, Collins has been collecting some outstanding sketches of ol’ Ziggy Stardust himself by some of the industry’s most popular creators in print and webcomics (as well as some of its rising stars), and the results have been endlessly amusing, to say the least.

Collins recently posted the Bowie sketches he garnered at this year’s MoCCA Art Festival (you can read our ComicMix coverage of MoCCA here), and the art continues to not only be amazing on its own, but also spark some great discussion of Bowie and the various artists’ impressions of him.

The art I’ve posted here is by Jason, a favorite of mine, and his depiction of "Bowie as an anthropomorphized doggie version of The Little Prince." You can view the full gallery of Collins’ MoCCA sketches of David Bowie here, then be sure to go back and view the first Bowie sketch gallery, The Thin White Sketchbook, and its sequel, The Return of the Thin White Sketchbook. 

The list of artists featured in Collins’ sketchbook reads like a Who’s Who of cartoon and comic celebrity, so no matter where your interests lie, there’s a good chance you’ll see one of your favorites’ renditions of David Bowie.

Interview: Adam Freeman on ‘Genius’ and Top Cow’s Pilot Season

  • News
  • June 17, 2008

genius1-200-4505231Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman’s first big comics project, last year’s five-issue miniseries The Highwaymen, was one of last year’s biggest surprises — but not for the reasons you might expect.

Despite a massive marketing push by the series’  publisher, Wildstorm, as well as fairly positive reviews of the first issue, in the end the series was widely regarded as a commercial disappointment. After all was said and done, the series’ performance left many figures in and around the industry, including Bernardin himself, wondering what the difficulties experienced by The Highwaymen say about the industry as a whole.

Nevertheless, the pair has persevered, and this week marks the release of Genius, their original story about a 17-year-old girl in South Central Los Angeles who unites the region’s gangs in a war against the L.A. Police Department.

From the Top Cow solicit for the project:

Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, Patton. What if the greatest military mind of OUR generation was born in strife, surrounded by violence and combat since birth? When the gauntlet is dropped, the question isn’t "How did 17-year-old Destiny Ajaye unite the gangs of South Central into a killer army and declare war on the LAPD?" No, the question is, "Can anyone stop her?"

This Wednesday, Genius will hit shelves as one of the titles in Top Cow’s "Pilot Season" program, and readers will eventually be able to vote on which of the "Pilot Season" projects becomes an ongoing series with the publisher.

I spoke with Adam Freeman about Genius, where the idea for the story originated and the Top Cow program that once again puts a story he co-created with Bernardin at the mercy of comics fans everywhere.

COMICMIX: Can you tell me about the genesis of Genius? What was the spark that developed into this story?

ADAM FREEMAN: It was an idea that Marc had swimming in his head for a while, but I responded to instantly.  I have always been fascinated with prodigies and savants.  I am not a religious or spiritual person by any means, but the idea that someone — regardless of their walk of life — could be "chosen" to be the best at something is incredibly cool to me.

(more…)

Happy Birthday: Susan Van Camp

  • News
  • June 11, 2008

Born in Flint, Michigan in 1959, Susan van Camp has always loved art and doodled pictures on all her school notes as a child.

Her first commercial work was in roleplaying games, on Steve Jackson’s Car Wars. She worked on Tales from the Aniverse for Arrow Comics in 1984, and then Varcel’s Vixens for Caliber Comics.

In 1994 Van Camp began doing artwork for a brand-new card game, Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering. She has also worked for several other game publishers, including Flying Buffalo, FASA, Pinnacle, and Alderac.

In 1996 Van Camp produced her own roleplaying game, Dragon Storm. Today she  continues to do artwork for various roleplaying games and to produce and sell Dragon Storm as well.

Happy Birthday: Charles Vess

  • News
  • June 10, 2008

Born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1951, Charles Dana Vess fell in love with comic books and art while still a child—he drew his first full-length comic when he was ten years old.

He attended Virginia Commonwealth University and graduated with a BFA in 1974, then went to work as a commercial animator for Candy Apple Productions in Richmond. In 1976, Vess moved to New York City to try his hand as a freelance illustrator. In 1980, he joined Parsons School of Design as an art instructor.

He was getting regular comic book work, and drew books for Dark Horse, Marvel, Epic, and DC, but it was in 1989 that Vess became truly well-known in the field. He collaborated with Neil Gaiman on one of the issues of the original Books of Magic mini-series and also drew three issues of Gaiman’s Sandman series for Vertigo. One of those issues, #19 (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story.

In 1994, Vess moved back to Virginia and organized The Dreamweavers, a traveling exhibition of 15 fantasy artists. Since then he has had many other showings and worked on many other comic books.

Another Vess-Gaiman collaboration, Stardust, won an Alex Award from the American Library Association, a Mythopoeic Award, and a World Fantasy Award for Best Artist. Vess has won a Will Eisner Comics Industry Award three times. He has also won a Comic Creators’ Guild award, a Silver Award, and an Ink Pot. He has won numerous children’s book awards as well, primarily for his collaborations with Charles de Lint.

Happy Birthday: Graham Ingels

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1915, Graham Ingels began work early, joining the work force at 14, shortly after his father died. At 16 he began doing art jobs. He married at 20 and entered the Navy at 27 in 1943. After WWII, Ingels worked for Fiction House, Magazine Enterprises, and several other comic book and pulp magazine publishers.

In 1948, he began drawing Western and romance stories at EC Comics. He switched to the horror line—Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, and The Haunt of Fear—as soon as they began and was quickly dubbed “Ghastly Graham Ingels” for his facility with the genre. By 1952, Ingels was even signing his work as “Ghastly.”

After the horror line was canceled in the early 1950s, Ingels contributed to other EC lines, and then did some work for Classics Illustrated after EC folded in the mid-1950s.

He later taught art in Westport, Connecticut, and then became an art instructor in Florida. Ingels died in 1991.

 

Review: This Week in ‘Trinity’ – Part 1

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This week we begin a new regular feature on ComicMix in which we’ll review DC’s latest weekly series, Trinity, featuring a story by comics legend Kurt Busiek and art by one of the industry’s biggest names, Mark Bagley. Join us every week as ComicMix contributor Van Jensen analyzes the most recent issue of Trinity and decides whether the series lives up to the hype. -RM]

A couple years ago, DC made history by undertaking a weekly series and, miraculously, actually getting an issue out on time every week for a year. As much of a success as 52 was, their following weekly, Countdown, was an utter flop.

Now we have the debut of [[[Trinity]]], which instead of following mostly lesser-knowns, focuses intently on the big three: [[[Superman]]], [[[Wonder Woman]]] and [[[Batman]]]. The creative team is as good as it gets, with Kurt Busiek writing and Mark Bagley drawing, so this has the potential for big things.

Will Trinity come through? I don’t know, ask me in a year, when I’ll either be singing DC’s praises or freebasing illicit substances while muttering incoherently.

Introduction aside, how was this first issue? Pretty not too shabby, which is a vague way of saying it wasn’t stellar and it wasn’t horrible. The story so far:

We start out in the cosmos, with a big flaming face screaming, “Let me out!” Turns out the central three heroes have been dreaming about this entity, which they discuss over a way-too-public breakfast in Keystone City.

(more…)

Review: Out of Picture, Vol. 2

picture21-3506137Out of Picture, Vol. 2
no editor credited
Villard Books, June 2008, $tk

No one will admit to editing [[[Out of Picture 2]]], though they seem to be proud of it – buried deep on the copyright page is the “produced by” credit I’ve pulled out for the bibliographic information above, but that doesn’t necessarily mean those were the editors. Ah, well – someone was in charge of this book, even if we’re not sure who that was.

Out of Picture 2 is the second book from a group of animators and illustrators connected to Blue Sky Studios – the first Out of Picture was published by a French house, caused a stir at some conventions, and was reprinted by Villard in December. (And I reviewed it then.) Basically the same crew is back for this volume, though they don’t all work at Blue Sky anymore.

And I see, looking back at my review of Out of Picture 1, that it was a gorgeous book, but a bit lacking in the story department – somewhat obvious and clichéd. I’m sorry to say that Out of Picture 2 is the same kind of thing – amazing art, reproduced fantastically well on large pages of nice paper…but telling stories that aren’t all that special.

This time, we open with Jason Sadler’s wordless “[[[Sub Plotter]]],” a cute little story about the effects of sneezing on a gigantic war-map of an ocean. It seems to be set during WWII, and it’s quite visually inventive, using the space of the large pages very well and popping up with more insets than I would have thought possible. But the story told is a silly little vignette, and, even more so, it’s a vignette that would probably be better animated than in its current form.

(more…)

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