Fred (Fred Othon Artistidès) was born on this day in 1931.
A French comic strip creator, Fred created his first comic in 1954. In 1960 he became art director of Hara-Kiri, and illustrated several pieces for the magazine (and its first 60 covers!) over the next few years.
He is best known for his comic Philémon, which appeared in Pilote magazine in 1965. He was awarded the Grand Prix de la ville in 1980.
It used to be, if you wanted to reach for the comic art form for your sex education you had to send a couple bucks to those want ads in the back of the cheesy magazines for “Comics – the Kind Men Like!” That stuff was a bit distorted; well, in the case of the ones that featured [[[Popeye]]], I’d have to say they were quite a bit distorted.
is a sweet and sensitive series that focuses on the psychological aspects of sex as much as – actually, more than – the mechanics. The story is about a young couple, Makoto and Yura, who met through an arranged “marriage meeting.” This is sort of a counseled dating service, but one where the ultimate intent of marriage is upfront. The two 25 year olds dated, liked each other, got married, and only then discovered they were both virgins with a lot of understandable insecurities and a lack of any clue.
The news of Mike Carey writing a fantasy/horror comic set in Japan sounded too good to be true, and when Crossing Midnight
Carey created a deep and supernatural world to backdrop his story of mystery: Two twins, Toshi and Kai, were born on either side of midnight, leaving each with an otherworldly power and putting them at the mercy of dark forces. But Jim Fern’s stiff art and some uneven storytelling held the series back. When sales weren’t strong, the rumors of a looming cancellation kickstarted.
After the so-so showing of that first arc, I gave up on the series. But, when Vertigo sent over a copy of the second volume (the cover seen at right is from DC’s website, but isn’t the cover on the actual book), Crossing Midnight: A Map of Midnight
The volume picks up with Toshi, the female twin, struggling as a slave under an apparently evil spirit. She must fly through Japan at night, cutting unpleasant memories from people’s dreams and collecting them for some unrevealed purpose.
Following the archetype of most stories featuring children, Toshi’s impudence puts her and others into danger as she squares off against one of death’s faces. Perhaps because of the more fantastical nature of the content in this volume, Fern’s art loosens and adeptly adapts an ethereal tone. Later, Eric Nguyen takes over on art and, if anything, is an improvement.
Meanwhile, Kai stumbles onto a group of “telephone club” girls — early teens working essentially as prostitutes — and must help save them from an evil spirit that’s on the prowl. While this storyline feels a bit tangential to the larger theme, it is easily the high point for the series. Carey clearly has strong opinions of such clubs (he denounces them in a postscript) and how deplorable it is that they operate uncensored.
It is only then that the book goes farther than dipping a toe into Japanese culture, and Carey unleashes his horror-writing instincts. Sadly, the series seemed to be finding its footing just as the rug was being pulled out from under it. As Carey wrote on his Web site, [[[Crossing Midnight]]] will be wrapped up at issue #19.
Carey wrote that he knew a cancellation might happen, and all the plot threads will be wrapped up in that final issue.
Mike Carey is a noted writer of both comics and prose – Lucifer
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I’ve reviewed Minx comics twice before for ComicMix – Re-Gifters
The Stumptown Comics Fest, an annual celebration of comics and cartooning art in Portland, Oregon, recently announced that it has chosen Dark Horse Comics founder and head-honch Mike Richardson to be its special Guest of Honor at this year’s event.
Festival organizers chose the accomplished (and extremely tall) Richardson for many reasons, some of which are detailed in the events official press release announcing Richardson’s selection:
Under his direction, Dark Horse has gone from a tiny startup during the black-and-white boom of the ‘80s to the biggest independent comics publisher in the nation, featuring such talents as Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, and the late comics legend Will Eisner, and revolutionizing the industry’s approach to licensed properties through innovative Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Conan, and Aliens/Predator stories.
The Fifth Annual fest will be held on April 26th-27th, 2008, at the Doubletree Hotel Lloyd Center in Portland. To find out more info on the Stumptown Comic Fest, a great event showcasing some exceptional art and artists, check out its official site.
Jim Lauderdale and The Dream Players were on Conan O’Brien’s show last night, promoting and playing from their new CD, Honey Songs, which hits the stores today. The jacket art was drawn by GrimJack artist Timothy Truman; Timothy also writes Conan for Dark Horse. He’s also been known to draw everybody’s favorite barbarian from time to time as well.
Yep. That means that Conan was holding up Conan’s art, but not Conan art. Nor GrimJack art, sadly, but we were thrilled to see Tim’s stuff on network teevee! Nice goin’, bro!
Ahh, the art some people will create, given enough time – and LEGOs.
Here’s the trailer for "The Dark Knight" rendered entirely out of LEGOs. Yes, LEGOs. It’s really impressive in that "I would never have the patience to do this myself" way:
Chris Ryall, IDW Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, recently posted this new, untitled promo art by Nick Roche for an upcoming Transformers project.
That’s about all there is to say about it, other than the fact that it’s now my new desktop background.
Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley illustrate the classic conundrum in today’s brand-new episode of EZ Street: How do you support yourself when you’re doing what you were born to do? Can you create art and still have a job? Is it worth it?
Sure, we heard about this whole Civil War thing that was going on in the Marvel Universe a while back, but as far as we’re concerned, that was small potatoes compared with the epic, universe-spanning shenanigans occurring throughout the Annihilation saga.
Okay, so Civil War left Captain America on a slab and Spider-Man unmasked. We’ll give you that, because they were all big deals at the time, but we challenge you to come up with a bigger event than the Annihilation Wave strapping Galactus to a freakin’ spaceship and using him as a gun, people! Seriously!
… But we digress.
Where were we again? Ah, yes, we were about to direct your attention to this great behind-the-scenes peek at the creation of the Annihilation: Conquest covers. The feature includes plenty of art from both cover artist Aleksi Briclot and Conquest editor Bill Rosemann, the mastermind behind the whole Annihilation event, and it serves as a great "director’s commentary" of sorts for both the storyline and the creative process.
"For the first cover, which I created for the Conquest Prologue, Bill gave me a lot of art suggestions (Joan d’Arc in space, a cinematographic and epic feeling, movies references…)," Briclot recalled. "Over time he also sent me new character concept art (all designed by Marko Djurdjevic), work in progress pages and lots of ideas. Then it was the usual process for each of those covers: sharing ideas and notes via e-mail, making some early quick sketches, a new discussion step, choosing the final content of each covers… Then it was up to me, polishing each picture and trying to produce the most impressive and attractive cover illustrations."
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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