Here’s a rough-cut trailer featuring parts of Michael Kaluta’s interview for Better Things: Life + Choices of Jeffrey Jones:
Bonus Link:
Wrightson’s fascinating unpublished layouts for his section of The Studio (Dragon’s Dream, 1979) — added 03 May 2010, because it sort of relates to the conversation in the comments section of this post.
From Nightmare, volume 1, number 6, Dec. 1971 (as usual, click the image to view a larger version):
I was reminded of the existence of the interview when a copy was posted on the blog “Booksteve’s Library.” I extracted the above scan from a CBR of the magazine that is freely available elsewhere on the Web. I did not get it from “Booksteve’s Library,” where, in fact, you will find a cropped version of the page. However, I am pretty sure Steve got his scan from the same source I did.
BONUS LINK:
The Studio Artists at the 1978 NY Comc Con — promotional profiles of Jones, Kaluta, Windsor-Smith, and Wrightson, with photos of each. The photo of Jones in the falling snow is classic.
Here’s a piece of original art, a daily dated 7-23-57, by Rod Ruth, from the comic strip The Toodle Family, a.k.a. The Toodles. The strip was written by Stanley and Betsy Baer and was drawn by Ruth from 1941 to 1958. It was then drawn by Pete Winter from 1958 to 1965. Apparently, besides The Toodles, Ruth was an illustrator for Amazing Stories and other Ziff-Davis pulps. Truth be told, I had never heard of either The Toodles or Rod Ruth before I noticed a series of ebay auctions for Ruth’s artwork, but I was happy to pay US$44.00 total (shipping included) US$38.00 total (shipping included; the next day, the seller gave me a partial refund on the shipping charge, presumably to bring it more into line with the actual cost) to add this lively and charming work from 53 years ago (!) to our collection.
I also recently won an ebay auction for a “Miss Peach” daily by Mell Lazarus, and let me tell you, that thing is HUGE! I love it, and I intend post a picture soon.
BONUS LINK:
News of Yore: Profile of the Baers
Vanguard Productions has just announced that, in August of this year, the company will release The Complete Johnny Comet by Frank Frazetta, the first volume in their “Vanguard Frazetta Classics Series.” According the news release, The Complete Johnny Comet “will feature Frazetta’s newspaper strip shot from the artist’s personal proofs, ensuring the best reproduction ever for this material. The 224-page, 8.5” x 11” glossy b/w hardcover will retail for US$39.95.”
Back in May, when the new publishing deal with Frazetta was first announced, Vanguard founder J. David Spurlock gave Frazetta fans a tantalizing glimpse of what they could expect see in the coming years. “We are very excited about launching a line of Frazetta books under the new Vanguard Frazetta Classics brand.” said Spurlock. “The line will include a series of volumes collecting Frazetta’s comics work in top quality book format,” said Spurlock, “Other Vanguard Frazetta Classics will include a new edition of the 1998 hit, Frazetta – The Definitive Reference, a richly illustrated index of every Frazetta work ever published; a Frank Frazetta Sketchbook; and more—all in library-quality collections fully authorized by Frank Frazetta.”
Human figures dwarfed by the universe, blue/green-and-gold/orange colour schemes… I wonder… is Jeffrey Jones edging into Paul Lehr territory in the following covers? I think so!
Click here to view all of the covers by Jeffrey Jones that I’ve posted so far.
Although Spanish artist Sanjulian (born Manuel Pérez Clemente) is, perhaps, primarily known to older comics readers as a fan-favourite cover artist for Warren publications such as Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, he has, in his long career, worked for a wide variety of publishing houses, advertising agencies, movie studios, and so on. What I particularly liked about Sanjulian’s fantasy art from the 1970s was his mastery of classical oil-painting technique, his solid draftsmanship, and his versatility and reliability as an image maker. Here’s a sample of the artist’s work for Ace Books, from 1979, scanned from the library of yours truly [along with a cover from 1988 -- see explanation below]:
And yet, as much as I appreciate solid, sexy covers like Worms of the Earth, and generally admire Sanjulian’s early work as a fantasy cover artist, I can’t recommend the only book of Sanjulian’s art currently in print in English.
Sanjulian: Master Visionary, Volume One (SQP Inc., 2001) is filled with uninspired black-and-white compositions, mostly in pencil, that, like a lot of Sanjulian’s commercial works from the 1980s and beyond, seldom if ever manage to transcend their photographic reference material. Yes, there are eight pages of colour in the middle of the book, but none of the selected paintings come close to the best that Sanjulian had to offer, back in the day. Which is to say, in short, the whole project is a major disappointment!
Sanjulian deserves better.
———-
UPDATE (19 April 2010):
For the purposes of comparison, I have just added a sample of a toothless Sanjulian cover from 1988 to this post, and I have to say, I really and truly find it hard to believe that The White Serpent is by the same artist as Worms of the Earth. The decorative, Alphonse-Mucha-meets-stained-glass Art Nouveau style of The White Serpent, with its snaking jumbles of imagery interrupted by snaking areas of white space, will be familiar to the readers of a certain strain of brick-like romance novels, and no doubt covers in that style sell a lot of books (or why would publishers inflict them on book buyers!?), but man, everything about The White Serpent, from its rainbow colour palette to its unctuous paint surface, is so gooey, so cloying, so like pure corn syrup, straight from the jar, jazzed up with food colouring… unlike Mucha’s original confections, which were so perfectly formed, so sweetly balanced, so like the best kind of candy! Or maybe I’m just cranky this morning…
Here’s another selection from our stash of original comic art. It’s a complete short story from Jughead #321, with art by Samm Schwartz. My apologies in advance for the quality of the images; they were shot with an older digital camera under conditions that I ought to have controlled more carefully than I did.
(Click the images to enlarge them, as usual. I don’t own the cover artwork, but I’ve included a JPEG of the original comic, with cover by Stan Goldberg, for fun — and contrast!)
I bought the story on ebay a long time ago. It was in a lot with a complete Betty and Veronica story by Stan Goldberg. As I recall, the cost of the two stories together was less than US$100, shipping included. Maybe I’ll post the Goldberg another time… though I must admit, I’m not really a Goldberg fan…
When I was a youngster, my favourite “Archie” artists — even before I knew their names — were Samm Schwartz and Harry Lucey. In a corner of the comics world dominated by lacklustre DeCarlo clones, Schwartz and Lucey each took the seemingly inflexible “Archie” house style and made it his own. Schwartz’s work was cool, crisp, refined; Lucey’s, affable, energetic, theatrical. Jughead was never so self-assured, so unflappable, as when Schwartz brought him to life; Archie and the gang, never so determined, or so frazzled, as when Lucey fed them through the wringer. With Dan DeCarlo already in the Eisner Hall of Fame, and Bob Montana, the co-creator of Archie who drew the Riverdale gang for more than 30 years, named to the Hall of Fame for 2010, can Samm Schwartz and Harry Lucey be far behind? In my humble opinion, whether it happens sooner or later, it’s inevitable.
BONUS LINKS:
“It’s the Chicago South Side Choir Society! It’s their annual uplift cruise for Meditation Week!” — includes scans of “The Bad Old Days” and “In Search of Sanity,” both drawn by Samm Schwartz.
A Closer Look at Samm Schwartz — includes a scan of the story “Crowning Glory,” with art by you-know-who.
Samm Schwartz Addenda — further thoughts by Jaime J. Weinman, the author of “A Closer Look at Samm Schwartz.”
A Few Words about Samm Schwartz, My Father
A Loan and Blue — from 1963, with unusually hyper-kinetic art by Samm Schwartz; in later years, Schwartz’s Jughead never got out of control like this! It’s like watching Bugs Bunny melt down.
Little Archie by Samm Schwartz — wow!
Tippy Teen: “Sure Cure Go-Go” — with art by Samm Schwartz.
Here’s another piece of original comic art from our collection: a single pencilled-and-inked panel (image size: 11.4 cm wide x 12.5 cm high) from an out-of-print mini-comic, The Hand of Gold, by Jordan Crane. (You can read the comic online right here.) I bought the artwork back in September 2005, via Jordan Crane’s Comic Art Collective page, for US$20.00 plus $6.00 shipping. The artwork arrived with a short thank-you note handwritten by Jordan on the back of a card (13.9 x 18.4 cm) with an original design silkscreened on the front. I’ve included both the black-and-white artwork and the notecard image here for you, dear reader, to examine in detail, along with the first three covers of Jordan’s terrific one-man anthology comic, Uptight, published by Fantagraphics.
You can buy screen prints by Jordan Crane from the Reddingk.com site. Click here to see what’s currently available.
Finally, I just have to say: Jordan’s elaborately layered, wrap-around, die-cut dustjacket design for the hardcover edition of Michael Chabon’s essay collection, Maps and Legends (McSweeney’s, 2008), is gorgeous! Watch for it, currently remaindered at a Chapters near you!
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