Tagged: art

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Happy Birthday: Marc Silvestri

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Born in 1958 in Palm Beach, Florida, artist Marc Silvestri joined Marvel Comics in the late 1980s, and became the penciller on Uncanny X-Men from 1987 to 1990.

In 1992 he and six other artists broke away to form Image Comics. Each artist had his own imprint, and Silvestri’s was Top Cow, which is best known for its major hits Witchblade, The Darkness, and Fathom. Top Cow has continued to be a major portion of Image, although Silvestri has spent less time doing his own art and more time publishing.

He has returned to Marvel a few times to work on various X titles.

 

Dark Horse Offers ‘Making Of’ for ‘Serenity: Better Days’ #1

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  • March 24, 2008

If you’re reading ComicMix, chances are you’re a fan of sci-fi, movies, TV and, of course, you probably read comic books on a regular basis. Being a fan and reader of comics, perhaps you’ve wondered how all the elements from script to art to color to lettering come together to form the finished comic you hold in your hands and read each week?

If you have wondered about this magical process, the folks at Dark Horse Comics have got something for you. At their website, they’ve put up a "How-To" guide which takes you through the steps from script to finished page of their brand-new Serenity: Better Days comic book.

Clicking through the guide you can see the original script pages written by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, rough sketches of the panel placement, art and pencils by Will Conrad, colors by Michele Madsen and letters by Michael Heisler — all the elements that go into a finished comic book page.

It’s an interesting look at how things go from normal-looking words on a page to a colorful and exciting final product. Check it out.

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Recolored ‘Killing Joke’ Compared to Original

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  • March 23, 2008

 

Brother J at PopCultureShock recently posted a comparison of interior art from the original Alan Moore/Brian Bolland one-shot Batman: The Killing Joke and DC’s new, recolored "Anniversary Edition" of the story.

The $17.99 hardcover edition was recolored by Bolland himself, and the result is a very different atmosphere for the classic tale:

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The post also contains another page-to-page comparison that’s certainly worth checking out.

 

On This Day: The National Gallery of Art

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  • March 17, 2008

The National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C. on March 17, 1941.

Financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon established the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust just before his death in 1937, and it was this trust that worked with Congress to establish the art museum. John Russell Pope, who later designed the Jefferson Memorial, designed the original building, and I.M. PEI designed an East Wing addition that was completed in 1978.

The gallery was centered around twenty-one masterpieces originally owned by Catherine II of Russia—Mellon purchased the collection in the early 1930s.

 

Gary Panter on ‘Omega: The Unknown’

  • News
  • March 16, 2008

Over at Marvel.com, Sean T. Collins interviews "punk comics" legend Gary Panter, who will be providing interior art for an upcoming issue of Jonathan Lethem’s Omega: The Unknown.

Panter’s ridiculously impressive resume includes work for everyone from Frank Zappa to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, designing the set for the children’s television series/weekly acid trip Pee Wee’s Playhouse, a prominent teaching position at New York’s School of Visual Arts and, among other things, a freakin’ Emmy Award.

See? I told you it was an impressive resume.

Marvel.com: What exactly will you be drawing for the series? I believe you’re providing the art that within the story is being drawn by Omega himself, right?

Gary Panter: Omega draws his own origin story in the form of a wordless comic. I draw it for him. At first I was going to draw it with really jagged lines like the punky stuff I did in the ’70s, but I decided to draw kind of like I draw these days, but even a little more retarded than usual. I figured that a [super hero] could probably draw [as well] as me, without trying very hard, but I didn’t want to draw it exactly like the other comics I’m drawing these days. I wanted it to be kind of like old Marvel comics, but spazzier.

Omega: The Unknown #7 will hit shelves on April 2.

 

Atari Comics Receive Digital Reprint

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  • March 13, 2008

The Steam online digital distrubution system announced that Atari PC games would be added to their catalog of programs. One of the games, Atari 80 Classics in 1, is more of a bargain then meets the eye. A collection of retro Atari games from the arcades and the Atari 2600 game system, the package includes a bonus not listed in any of the marketing materials.

Each game in the collection has an Extras bonus content section. Usually this includes box art and original manuals. But the Atari archivists were very thorough and included the bonus mini-comics that were published in conjunction with DC Comics. These comics, while never valuable, do entertain on a cult status level. Atari comics had surprisingly high quality for what was essentially a marketing pack-in item.

Comics included in the collection are as follows:

Swordquest #1-3. Written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, but the real star of these comics is the amazingly great art by George Perez and Dick Giordano. Swordquest was intended to be an epic multi-part adventure game. Each game in the series would include a comic to explain the story while the games would be puzzle adventures based on mythology.

Atari Force #3. Sci-fi from Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. Artists included Ross Andru, Gil Kane, Dick Giordano and Mike DeCarlo. Atari Force proved popular enough that DC Comics published a second volume in the regular, monthly comic format. Unfortunately, the games collection only includes one of the issues since the rights for the other games that included the comics are no longer held by Atari.

Centipede #1. A light-hearted kids’ book in the style of Harvey Comics. An evil wizard turns Oliver the Elf’s forest friends into monsters. Who knew Centipede had a deep back story? We thought we were just shooting bugs.

Atari 80 Classics in 1 is available at Steampowered.com for $18.95. That’s 80 games and five hard-to-find comics… Why not?

Marvel Comics Unveils ‘Secret Invasion’ Covers

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  • March 12, 2008

Even with all the hype and recent discussion of Marvel’s grammar skills, like it or not, the "Secret Invasion" is coming from Marvel Comics. Another example of this inevitable occurrence was revealed today by Marvel with the release of cover art for the first issue of the Secret Invasion comic book series.

However, Marvel didn’t just release one cover by artist Gabrielle Dell’Otto, featuring some of Marvel’s heroes who may or may not be Skrulls, they also unveiled two pretty-cool variant covers for the first issue as well. One of the variants, by Civil War veteran artist Steve McNiven, features some of your favorite Marvel heroes being squeezed by the claws of a giant Skrull.

The other variant cover is by series penciler Leinil Yu and showcases Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor and other heroes standing in defiance of the invasion and ready to kick some Skrull butt.

Check out larger pics of all three covers after the jump.

Secret Invasion #1, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Leinil Yu, is set to hit your local comic shop on April 2nd. (more…)

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Josh Howard Previews ‘Dead@17 Compendium’

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Josh Howard, the "comic book and pin-up artist" behind Viper Comics’ Dead@17, The Lost Books of Eve and Clubbing (from DC’s MINX imprint) has posted a preview of the upcoming Dead@17 Compendium on his website.

While his work has trended more towards the T&A over time, I’ve always been a fan of his storytelling ability as much as his art. In fact, during my time with the-company-that-shall-remain-nameless, I even convinced him to write a great little column about life in the independent comics scene. Howard showed a real knack for the written word that, to be quite honest, impressed the heck out of me. While his old column seems to have been "disappeared" due to a recent redesign, it’s good to see that he’s been keeping busy.

There doesn’t seem to be any release date set for the Dead@17 Compendium, but Howard has indicated the collection will feature a mixture of touched-up and brand-new art — as well as an abundance of near-naked girls beating the snot out of zombies, demons and each other.

 

On This Day: Rick Burchett

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  • March 9, 2008

Comic book artist Rick Burchett was born in 1952. He originally worked in advertising in St. Louis, Missouri but was always a comic book fan. In the early 1980s he switched to comics professionally and worked for several smaller comic book publishers before joining DC.

His first DC title was Blackhawk, but that was quickly followed by Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and others. Burchett has won two Eisner Awards, for his art on The Batman and Robin Adventures and Batman: The Gotham Adventure.

His most recent work has been on Marvel’s She-Hulk.

 

Primary Sources, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • March 4, 2008

bill_everett-8634197In days of yore – my yore anyway – I briefly wondered if my particular literary backwater, the writing of comic books, would be properly remembered. It seemed to me that young snots such as myself were getting attention – interviews and the like – and the guys who were around at the beginning, the guys who virtually created the form, were pretty much ignored, although many of them were still alive and frisky.

I needn’t have worried and I didn’t, which is good because, even more than most worry, this variety would have been a waste of time.

I do wish there had been more interviews with…oh, to cite the first name that pops into the shopworn old psyche, Bill Everett. And I don’t remember ever reading a Q and A with Carl Burgos: if none exists, too bad. Even Bill Finger doesn’t seem to have left many historical footprints, and some of what we know about him comes from people like me, whose memories are emphatically not to be trusted.

Having said all that: comics are undoubtedly the most documented medium/art form in history. They came to their early maturity just in time to benefit from the explosion of media and distribution, and the belated realization that every art form was pop culture once, and none are prima facie inferior. And guys like Gerry Jones know how to use the information sources available and have the patience and literary skill to put the pieces together.

(more…)

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