"This day's experience, set in order, none of it left ragged or lying about, all of it gathered in like treasure and finished with, set aside." –Alice Munroe, "What is Remembered"
Yesterday, Thom Buchanan over at his blog, The Pictorial Arts, posted scans of Sir William Russell Flint’s colour illustrations for The Odyssey of Homer. Click the image below to jump to Thom’s post:
I’m a bit late to notice this, but back in November of 2009, MaestroMedia Productions released a two-disk DVD set of The Polymath, or the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, produced, written, directed, and photographed by Fred Barney Taylor. Available for a mere US$30 plus shipping and handling (request a total if you live outside the United States), the DVD set includes the original 80-minute documentary, along with a second DVD with over two hours of raw footage of Delany in conversation and a digital transfer of Delany’s “lost” 16-mm film from 1971, The Orchid (which, comic readers may be interested to know, includes Bernie Wrightson as an extra).
The iconic and larger-than life Samuel R. Delany, best known as the author of Dhalgren and Babel-17, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, is considered a grandmaster of the sci-fi community. Born and raised in New York City, Delany began writing in the early 1960s and became famous for his provocative futuristic explorations of race and sexual identity. He was a rebellious pioneer who opened up the white male universe of science fiction to issues of race, gender and sexuality
The grandson of a slave, he has written frankly about his life and sexual adventures as a gay African-American, notably in his brilliantly reflexive memoir, The Motion of Light and [in] Water and in Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, a social and critical complaint about the disappearance of the area’s famous porn theatres.
Back in the day, Chip shared a stage with Bob Dylan, drank with W.H. Auden, wrote an opera, made a film, formed a theatre company, and authored several issues of Wonder Woman. He has had, by his count, over 50,000 sexual partners during the course of his lifetime.
Taylor uses visually-stunning images of water and bridges as abstract compositions; a visual correlative of the author’s multi-layered writing. By juxtaposing Delany’s flow of memories, readings and archival footage with mesmerizing imagery of the city, The Polymath expresses in vivid detail the complexities of an eclectic intellectual.
Just happened to see that someone posted scans of Jones’ “Harry” in glorious black and white! It originally ran in VAMPIRELLA #32 in 1974 with garish colors by Rich Corben (whose work I quite like, but this was a bad pairing), and was reprinted in a later VAMPIRELLA in black and white (which these scans came from). Enjoy!
On 05 March 2010, Glimmer Graphics, known to readers of this blog as the publisher of an ongoing series of first-rate prints and posters by Jeffrey Jones, will release Poetry (see above image), a lush new 22 x 15 inch limited-edition giclée print by Barry Windsor-Smith. Each of the 375 prints that make up the edition will be signed and numbered and will be presented in a foil-stamped linen folder with a tipped-on colour plate. The unit price is US$135, shipped and insured, and you may pay in full or with installments. To place your order, click here.
This is NOT a paid advertisement. If the money BWS makes from the print enables him to complete work on his long-awaited Monsters graphic novel, that will be payment enough. The previews on BWS’s site are gorgeous!
The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives Volume 2 HC (Publication Date: 19 May 2010) — “The two Barry Windsor-Smith archives collect all of the historic and influential Conan the Barbarian comics drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith,” including his adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s “Red Nails”!
“Daddy and the Pie,” Eerie #64 (Warren, March 1975), as reprinted in UFO and Alien Comix (Warren, January 1978). And if you don’t like that scan, try this one.
Click the image below to visit the gallery of images at Golden Age Comic Book Stories:
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):
ABOVE: Charles Dana Gibson, humorous character studies, 20 x 13 in.
Oh, I can’t resist. Here’s another:
ABOVE: Charles Dana Gibson, "Bedtime Story," 25 x 16.5 in.
Lynd Ward’s illustrations for Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, are stunning examples of the wood engraver’s art. Nick Mullins has some great examples from the book on his site, but John Lauritsen has them all.
Above:P. 161: The monster strangles little William.
I had pretty much the same feeling reading this piece as I had when I first read Jillian Tamaki‘s City of Champions mini-comic and the shorter “comic book” edition of Skim a few years ago, i.e., this is someone to watch!
