Ragged Claws Network

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:

We 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.

The art show is long-time gone but the excellent poster remains:

ABOVE: “the ultra-limited-edition silkscreen show print… for the Ghost World: Special Edition exhibit opening this Friday, August 29, at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.”

BELOW: the Ghost World paperback cover, the Ghost World poster, and the new Ghost World: Special Edition cover.

To tell you the truth, I think the Ghost World: Special Edition cover is not very good at all. It’s clearly meant to echo the movie poster, but I think there’s a glaring disconnect now between the typography and the drawing. In the movie poster, the design of Enid’s black and green skirt and the other elements of black clothing, including Enid’s retro black-plastic-framed glasses, connected very nicely with the sinuous black letters of the title, Ghost World. Now, there’s no connection at all, except for the anemic colouring. Also, the figures in the drawing are too stiff. Their shoulders and hips are both square to the viewer and parallel to each other. Look at the figures in the poster. Both have one shoulder higher than the other; and while Rebecca has her hips nearly parallel with the ground, with both legs bearing her weight almost equally, Enid has her hips at an angle, with one leg clearly bearing more weight than the other, as is naturally the case, most of the time, when a person is standing still. In short, insensitive design plus insensitive drawing equals a mediocre cover.

BONUS LINK:

“Ghost World: ‘You’ve grown into a very beautiful young woman.’” by Ken Parille

(Click each image in this post to view a larger, readable version.)

“Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work!!”:

Ivan Brunetti’s “22 Panels That Always Work* (*Sometimes)”:

“Cheese’s 22 Panels That Never Work!!”:

And…

Jon Morris’s “16 Panels That I Don’t Think Work All That Well (But Which People Keep Using Over and Over) (Also, I Couldn’t Think of 22, So Wally Wood Wins)”:

Bonus Links:

Wally Wood’s 22 Panels that Always Work: Unlimited Edition – Joel Johnson outlines the history of the famous 22 panels and offers, for your downloading pleasure, various “high-resolution versions of ‘Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work’ in ‘Unlimited Edition,’ scanned in from the original paste-up.”

Walking with Wally Wood: 22 Little Panels Project

Self-Portrait with Saxophone is not only my favourite of Max Beckmann’s many self-portraits but also one of my favourite self-portrait paintings of all time. Beckmann’s painting technique, which in his later works can sometimes be a bit messy and offhanded, is beautifully controlled and economical here. The quilted (silk?) robe, which in real life would be soft but sort of slick to the touch, reminds me also of the tough protective skin of a pineapple or a pangolin, though here the underbelly, so to speak, is open and unprotected, with the casual posture, meaty hands, steady gaze, and set jaw of the artist projecting boundless confidence and creative power such that even the ordinarily rigid metallic musical instrument seems to bend and twist in conformity with the artist’s pose and grip rather than vice versa.

ABOVE: Max Beckmann, Self-Portrait with Saxophone (1930), oil on canvas, 55 1/8 x 27 3/8 in., Kunsthalle, Bremen.

From Kookie #1, posted in its entirety by Chance Fiveash at his site, Last of the Spinner Rack Junkies.

Yesterday at Sotheby’s, Francis Bacon’s masterful Triptych 1976 (oil and pastel on canvas in three parts, each 78 x 58 in., 198 x 147.5 cm., 1976) sold for US$86 million at a Sotheby’s auction of contemporary art, thereby setting a record for postwar art and contributing mightily to a record-setting total of $362 million in sales (including commission) for the event.

Who says the filthy rich have no taste?

Here’re some close-ups…

Over at GoofButton, Jeffrey Meyer has posted some terrific scans of José Miguel Covarrubias’s lush illustrations for W. H. Hudson’s Green Mansions. Here’s a taste (you’ll find a larger version on the GoofButton site):

What I especially appreciate about this illustration, in addition to the lovely colour and composition, is the observational quality of the foot. Although the shapes are simplified, they are still clearly based in reality, with the pinky toe tucked in toward the fourth toe, which in turn is tilted slightly toward the pinky toe, and with each of the toenails having a distinctive shape. And then there’s the pale colouration of the toes themselves, bluish near the nail, suggestive of slight downward pressure on the forest floor. And so on. Without such variations and details, the picture would still be attractive; it would not, however, be half so alive.