Ragged Claws Network

This morning, early, we drove out to the town of Lumsden, Saskatchewan, to take in some of the events associated with their “Great Pumpkin and Scarecrow Festival.” We had pancakes, with strawberries and whipped cream, and all the pork sausages we wanted — three was my limit — at the open-air “Pancake Breakfast”; we examined the well-intentioned but relentlessly unremarkable entries in the “Eclectic Chair Auction” and the pumpkin carving contest; we browsed through the “Farmers’ Market,” which was devoid of fresh vegetables but had plenty of ornamental gourds, dried flowers and herbs, preserves, and honey; and we bought tickets to ride on one of the “People Movers,” two low flatbed trailers, with bales down the middle to sit on, which the organizers had hired to cart spectators around town to view the award winners and also-rans in the scarecrow contest. While touring around, I chewed on wheat straw, for old time’s sake, and when I wasn’t warming my hands in my pockets, I took a few pictures. Here are two:

We had intended to stay for the “Pumpkin Catapult” event — though as our son rightly pointed out, the “catapults” were actually trebuchets — but after the scarecrow tour, we decided we had neither the patience nor the endurance to mill around for three and a half additional hours in the bone-chilling wind just to watch a procession of unlucky pumpkins soar jauntily across the sky only to smash to smithereens on the Lions Park lawn. So we got in the car — what a relief to be warm again — and headed home.

And yet, believe it or not, it was fun while it lasted…

I recommended Beefheart and his Magic Band to the adult son of my wife’s sister, a young man who is heavily into music both as a listener and as a working muscian and songwriter, but he would have none of it. In fact, he sent me the CD he bought for himself, so now I have two copies of Clear Spot/The Spotlight Kid, a double-album CD which isn’t exactly hardcore Beefheart but which is a good entry point for people who want to ease into the oeuvre. Cool thing is, I’ve played Beefheart enough around the house and in the car that my fourteen-year-old son is a fan. Maybe that’s the trick: repeated exposure. Or maybe it’s just parental influence/approval. No matter. Whatever it is, BEEFHEART LIVES!

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

PART 4:

PART 5:

PART 6:

“Rock ‘n’ roll is a fixation, that bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, momma heartbeat. I don’t like hypnotics, you see, I’m doing non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state. And I think there is one right now.” --Captain Beefheart

Here’s a fun single-page comic, written by Robert Barrett, drawn by Richard Corben, featuring dopplegangers of Conan, Tarzan, and Prince Valiant:

According to The Most Complete Comicography of Richard Corben, “Duel of the Titans” was first published in the fourth issue of the venerable E.C. fanzine, Squa Tront, in 1970, and was reprinted eleven years later, in 1981, on page 25 of the only book on Richard Corben’s career and art, the long out-of-print (not to mention long out-of-date) Flights into Fantasy.

The following illustrations are from the story, “Brer Fox Goes A-Hunting,” which is a chapter in the book, Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox (London: Collins, 1969). The stories in Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox are retold by Jane Shaw from the original of Joel Chandler Harris, and the illustrations are by William Blackhouse.

An interesting doorway? Interesting to whom? And for what reason, really? LOL!





Bonus Link:

Ronald Searle Tribute

The design is attractive, the words are clear, but in this context, what does the image of the hand hovering over a box labelled “culture” mean, exactly? I have no idea…

“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every languagE. E.ven deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

“I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in God’s name! ‘Tis the utmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work.”

–from Sartor Resartus, Book 2, Chapter 9, by Thomas Carlyle

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

–from “Aubade” by Philip Larkin

Bonus Link:

Philip Larkin’s almost perfect poem by A.N. Wilson

Click the image below to visit the gallery of images at Golden Age Comic Book Stories:

In Drawing with Pen and Ink (a book which I myself own, in a later edition), Arthur Guptill writes that Flagg “draws his lines very rapidly, as may be ascertained by a glance at his illustrations, yet in spite of this rapidity thesee lines are skilfully placed. Many of his blacks are added with a brush[...]. If one of these spots seems over-black or solid to Mr. Flagg, he scratches through the ink to the surface of the paper, thus making white lines[...]. He also employs cross-hatch freely where he feels the need of it” (page 426).

Here’s a bonus scan — which I just created — that you won’t find on the Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog (as usual, please click the image to view the big version):

Oh, I can’t resist. Here’s another:

My wife and I purchased the following magnificent page by Filipino artist Rudy Nebres earlier this year:

From the early 1970s to the present day, Rudy Nebres has worked, sometimes as a penciller, sometimes as an inker, and sometimes as both (see above), on comics of all kinds, including “adult”-themed comics, for a wide variety of publishers. He’s a skilled artist who has had a long and productive career, and that’s great for him! Not so great for the average, non-art-obsessed reader, however, is the fact that only a handful of the comics Nebres worked on are worth reading for any reason other than to marvel at the man’s amazing craftsmanship. It’s a pity Nebres never found the perfect project to harness his prodigious talent — if only he could have drawn nothing but Western comics! — but the same can be said for most comics artists of his generation and before who scrambled to make a living doing nothing but “work for hire.”

I don’t know which Warren comics magazine the page we now own is from; the dealer didn’t have the information. The only information he had on his site was “Rook Story p.8 Warren Art,” so it is possible this is a page from a Rook story that appeared in Eerie or one that appeared in the Rook’s solo magazine, entitled, what else, The Rook. From Wikipedia:

He [Restin Dane, the time-traveller known as "The Rook"] appeared in Eerie #82-85, 87-95, 98-105. He got his own Rook Magazine which ran 14 issues from 1979 to 1982 (after which he returned to Eerie and concluded the storyline in #132 and continued in 134 and 136). Warren Presents #2 reprints the stories from Eerie #82-85. Eerie isues #116 and 120 had stories staring his great-grandfather.

After perusing Richard Arndt’s index of Warren Magazines, I would venture to guess that the page appeared in The Rook #11 (or possibly #12). But that’s only a guess, so if you by chance recognize the page, and remember which Warren magazine and which issue the story was in, please post a comment, or send me a private message using the link at the top of the page, and let me know. I’d really appreciate the information.

p.s. If you’re wondering why there are no captions or word balloons on the page, it’s because all that is on a separate clear overlay, which thankfully came with the artwork.

UPDATE 03 OCTOBER 2008:

Acting on the basic research outlined above, I mosied on over to ebay and purchased the two issues of The Rook most likely to contain the story with our page in it. Well, the books arrived today, and I was right. Our Rudy Nebres page was printed in The Rook #11 (October 1981), page 12. The story, written by Will Richardson, is titled, simply, “The Rook.” Mystery solved!

Bonus Links:

The Comic Book Database: Rudy Nebres

Komiklopedia: Rudy Nebres

The Philippine Comics Art Museum: Rudy Nebres

Bonus Links:

Wikipedia: Mirko Ilić

Mirko Ilić Corp. official site

Mirko Ilić Exhibition on Flickr – includes a photo of the framed original artwork for “The Victor”; also, this is cool.

Austrian painter Egon Schiele was born in Tulln on the Danube on the 12th of June 1890 and died of pandemic influenza in Vienna on the 31st of October 1918. He was 28 years old.

In August, we purchased a teeny-tiny drawing by “Hector Mumbly,” which is the children’s book nom de plume of artist Dave Cooper. Here’s a scan:

[Copyright: Dave Cooper.]

The artwork, which is from the Hector Mumbly book entitled Bagel’s Lucky Hat, is 124 mm high x 127 mm wide, red and black ink over printed blueline. The featured character, Bagel, is a mere 25 mm from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

The drawing was accompanied by an illustrated thank-you note on standard-size typing paper. Here’s a scan:

BONUS LINK:

davegraphics’ photostream – there’s lots of really good (and, sometimes, disturbing) work on display here, including some enlightening step-by-step documentations of paintings in progress.