Philip Larkin on the fear of death…

 Posted by RC at 12:42 pm  Commonplace Book
Sep 232008
 

[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

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

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Look There: Highlights from “Drawing With Pen and Ink” by Arthur Guptill

 Posted by RC at 10:02 am  Illustration Art, Look Here, Look There
Sep 232008
 

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

James Montgomery Flagg, illustration from <i>Liberty</em>, 16" x 22.5"

ABOVE: James Montgomery Flagg, illustration from Liberty, 16 x 22.5 in.




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):


Charles Dana Gibson, humorous character studies, 20 x 13 in.

ABOVE: Charles Dana Gibson, humorous character studies, 20 x 13 in.




Oh, I can’t resist. Here’s another:


Charles Dana Gibson, "Bedtime Story," 25 x 16.5 in.

ABOVE: Charles Dana Gibson, "Bedtime Story," 25 x 16.5 in.

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Look Here: Original Art by Rudy Nebres

 Posted by RC at 7:54 pm  Art Collection, Comics, Drawing, Illustration Art, Look Here, Rudy Nebres
Sep 182008
 

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

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Look Here: Five Fantasies by Mirko Ilić

 Posted by RC at 12:38 pm  Comics, Here, Read, Look Here, Mirko Ilic
Sep 172008
 

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.

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Look Here: Three by Schiele

 Posted by RC at 9:39 am  Artist Self-Portraits, Egon Schiele, Fine Art, Look Here
Sep 172008
 

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.

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Look Here: Our Teeny-Tiny Drawing by Hector Mumbly, a.k.a. Dave Cooper

 Posted by RC at 12:20 pm  Art Collection, Dave Cooper, Illustration Art, Look Here
Sep 162008
 

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:

Bagel's Lucky Hat

[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.

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Kierkegaard and Supertramp on the End of the World

 Posted by RC at 1:06 pm  Commonplace Book
Sep 092008
 

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to inform the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who think it’s a joke.” —Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, Trans. Alastaire Hannay (London: Penguin Classics), p. 49.

If Everyone was Listening
by Richard Davies and Roger Hodgson

The actors and jesters are here
The stage is in darkness and clear
For raising the curtain
and no-one’s quite certain whose play it is
How long ago, how long
If only we had listened then.
If we’d known just how right we were going to be.
For we dreamed a lot
And we schemed a lot
And we tried to sing of love before the stage fell apart.

If everyone was listening you know
There’d be a chance that we could save the show
Who’ll be the last clown
To bring the house down?
Oh no, please no, don’t let the curtain fall

Well, what is your costume today?
Who are the props in your play?
You’re acting a part which you thought from the start
was an honest one.
Well how do you plead?
An actor indeed!
Go re-learn your lines,
You don’t know what you’ve done
The finale’s begun.

If everyone was listening you know
There’d be a chance that we could save the show,
Who’ll be the last clown
To bring the house down?
Oh no, please no, don’t let the curtain fall.

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