PULPHOPE

RIO

2011-10-22T20:40:00.001-05:00

For my friends at the 2011 RIO CON. Wish I was there with you.

OMAC

2011-08-28T14:48:00.001-05:00

Happy birthday, Jack Kirby. 94 years old today.

A self-rejected 2 panel sequence from my take on the OMAC origin story, from Solo #3.

BX

2011-07-20T13:56:00.004-05:00

bit.ly/qeH6A6

A second limited-edition colorway of my recent BX TOUR 2011 poster is available from NAKATOMI.

JSBX

2011-06-12T13:39:00.002-05:00

My latest screenprint-- a 3 color print for Blues Explosion. Jon Spencer sent me a bunch of hot video clips of Raquel Welch from 1969, which inspired this. The Beguiling in Toronto has a few of these, signed, for sale.

http://www.beguiling.com/artproductlist.asp?ID=42

DIAMOND6

2011-04-11T14:03:00.006-05:00

Floating World's exuberant comics-art magazine DIAMOND drops this week, I did the cover design for this, the 6th issue. It looks like a great line up.

The image was made for the upcoming THEE HYPNOTICS music documentary, coming later this year. My mate Phil from Thee Hypnotics tells this story about a Spanish stripper in Madrid who did an act with a boa constrictor...I was watching Masks Of Fu Manchu at the time I drew this (released 1932, with Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy) (if you see it, see the uncensored version), and researching Native American portraits for another project...all these things blended and out came this...

PRINTER'S PROOF

2011-01-19T12:14:00.004-05:00

I have some of my 2007-2010 screenprint work with Axelle Arts in a group show in Chelsea NYC this month, details below:

Printer’s Proof
10th Anniversary of Axelle Editions featuring a collection of serigraphs by master printer Luther Davis.

BERTRAND DELACROIX GALLERY
535 west 25th street, new york :: 212.627.4444 :: BDGNY.com

Jan 18th – Feb 19th 2010 /OPENING RECEPTION JAN 20th 6-9pm

Artists: Glen Baldridge :: Tomory Dodge :: Elise Ferguson :: Amze Emmons :: Angela Dufresne :: Milton Rosa-Ortiz :: Ian Pedigo :: Sara Greenberger Rafferty :: Tim Lokiec :: Carl Fudge :: Kate Shepherd :: Matthew Benedict :: Torben Giehler :: Pat Steir :: Sue WIlliams :: John Wesley :: Richard Estes :: Matthew Brannon :: Kaws :: David Ellis :: Ena Swansea :: Brian Alfred :: Pon :: Russell Young :: Steven Gagnon :: Paul Pope :: Bob Beck :: Robert Indiana :: Alex Dodge :: Shazia Sikander :: Rudolf Stingel :: Cory Arcangel :: Brian Ewing :: Ian Cooper :: Adam Helms :: Lisa Sandtiz :: Allison Smith :: Frances Stark :: John Tremblay :: Luther Davis :: Jeffrey Burke

XMAS2010

2010-12-25T12:57:00.002-05:00

DIAMOND DOGS

2010-11-30T12:34:00.003-05:00

Terry O'Neill, 1974.

ELECTRIC CAT

2010-11-20T13:02:00.002-05:00

The line art for ELECTRIC ANT, an adaptation of the PK Dick short story of the same name. EA is published by Marvel Comics and scripted by David Mack. This was one of those simple drawings-- it literally took about three hours from start to finish. They're not always this easy. I love drawing animals.

IAN

2010-11-15T14:10:00.001-05:00

fb.me/KC7x9ogD

MISTER X

2010-11-10T13:42:00.006-05:00

The first three pages of the proposed MISTER X comic, written by Dean Motter and drawn by Paul Rivoche. This is some of the finest, most stylish "ligne claire" cartooning to ever be produced outside of Belgium. You can see traces of EP Jacobs, Herge, and Yves Challand in these pages, added with a sense of FW Murau and Fritz Lang's grand deco guignol. I never asked Dean or Paul, but I have a suspicion the title character is named for the song "Mister X" from Ultravox's 1980 album Vienna. Mister X first appeared in print on the cover of a little known anthology title called Vortex Comics #2, although Dean had previously used the character on a design he did for an album by Canadian musician Patrick Cowley. Vortex published a series of visually stunning posters to promote the series and those of us reading comics in the early '80s, including Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, eagerly awaited the first issue. Little did the Hernandez brothers know at the time that they would be the ones writing and drawing the first issue, which debuted in 1984.

KEITH

2010-11-08T10:58:00.003-05:00

ROLLERBALL

2010-09-11T14:09:00.004-05:00

Detail of Robert Peak's iconic 1975 poster for Norman Jewison's film Rollerball.

MATI'S KITCHEN

2010-09-09T11:50:00.001-05:00

Mati Klarwein Spanish Kitchen, 1954.

NURIAS

2010-07-09T11:20:00.004-05:00

NURIAS is an A2 format (16.54 X 23.39 inches) print available from gammaproforma.com/ for the absurdly low rate of £14.95--limited to an edition of 500.

See it here: gammaproforma

ABBEY ROAD

2010-07-07T16:40:00.003-05:00

A ramp-up drawing down while listening to the album...21x13.5 in the original...

ORION

2010-04-09T11:48:00.002-05:00

It's a subtle visual point, but if you look at the hand in the bottom left circle frame, you'll see the fingers have 4 digits. It always mystified me how Kirby would draw hands with a 4th digit on the fingers. He had no regard for correct anatomy--and many times no regard for proper physics or mechanics-- yet he made drawn things seem to have real solidity and mass.

I'm DJing at 10:30pm at the Pourhouse for the MoCCA afterparty, where we will also be screening my sci-fi vid edit, Psychenaut. The club has TV monitors and a projection screen set up throughout the space--and space rock is on the menu.

KYOJIN NO HOSHI

2010-03-28T12:21:00.009-05:00

In 1970, Tadanori Yokoo designed a series of covers for the popular boys' manga weekly, Shonen Magazine. "I thought I'd be able to complete the designs with a minimum of modification, like using a movie poster or a page from a book of drawings as is, and just release the power (the designs) already possesed."

In 1999, Yokoo returned to these themes in his cover design for an issue of the pop culture magazine, Brutus. "For Brutus, I tried making only slight changes in the color of the photograph (I used), adding in some caligraphy. It turned out to portray Miminashi Hoichi's sutra, and so evoked a Buddhist atmosphere. The baseball stars (Shigeo NAGASHIMA and Sadaharu OH of the Yomiuri Giants) make absolutely opposite impressions."

From the book RECENT WORKS OF POSTER ART BY TADANORI YOKOO. Pub: Jitsugyo No Nihon Sha, ltd (2000) isbn#4-408-10390-X

CONFLICT

2010-03-23T21:27:00.001-05:00

MOEBIUS

2010-01-21T13:08:00.002-05:00

A study of a panel from one of Moebius' '70s comics.

A drawing can never be pornography. A drawing is an visual description of an idea and not a documented depiction of an actual event.

2009-12-31T02:32:00.003-05:00

January 2nd? Join us.

CAP'N EASY

2009-12-16T13:46:00.002-05:00

A ramp-up drawing I did while working on Strange Adventures for DC Comics this summer. Here we have the cool, calm, and collected Cap'n Easy floating over the mountains of Afghanistan in a makeshift balloon. Vintage high adventure.

LIGHT TRAILS

2009-12-13T13:28:00.002-05:00

One of the unpublished cover designs I did for Batman Year 100.

DECEMBER EDITIONS

2009-12-06T11:57:00.001-05:00

A number of my recent silkscreen prints will be on display for a month at the Art Director's Club, here in NYC. The opening party: Dec 10th, 2009.

LOIE FULLER

2009-12-02T12:28:00.004-05:00

The uncut (40"x46") gang proof for the SHAKEDOWN poster. I tried to go for a design which blends elements of the traditional circus poster with a vintage rock gig poster. Producing an illustration intended to represent a live event is always a challenge-- how to capture the energy of dynamic music and kinetic movement in one single, static image-- how to give it a uniqueness all its own while also touching on familiar reference points which indicate just what it is we're looking at before we even need to read the text. Sitting in a circus show a couple of years ago at the Victory Theater on 42nd st, watching a group of Polish acrobats perform on what is called the Russian Beam, I considered the complexities underlying the lithographic work of Toulouse Lautrec. It struck me that one of the only* ways we have any sense or impression of the live circus and cabaret performances from his era is through his pictures and designs. It inspired me to try my hand at the same, in an effort to apply the language of comics to Lautrec's sensibilities. Especially today, in a world where even things we don't want documented are documented, the idea of abstracting an artistic expression from a live, moving medium into a static two-dimentional medium seemed like a good application of dynamic comics energy.

I always liked to see the uncut proof sheets for gang printings and have kept a copy of virtually every one I ever did, going all the way back to 1993's Sin Titulo.

*When I saw the early short films of the Lumiere Brothers, which includes a serpentine dance by Loïe Fuller shot in the 1890s, my first thought was of the image Lautrec did of the same rather than anything having to do with the dancer or the dance. The picture is the document of the live event.

SHAKEDOWN

2009-11-25T07:30:00.009-05:00

My next public gig is not at a book signing or a convention, but at a nightclub with Harvest Moon and a cast of professional circus/burlesque artists. Together, we're throwing a party called SHAKEDOWN at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on December 5th. It's circus, striptease, and go-go, set to a rock and roll soundtrack. I am DJing all night plus contributing an exclusive video edit of psychedelic, cosmic imagery for the show (the club has an incredible state-of-the-art sound/visual system set up throughout the huge space) (including a dancefloor for 250+ people, 2 bars, a 7-lane bowling alley and a Blue Ribbon diner, open late). Click here for more about Harvest Moon, and here for more about Brooklyn Bowl. For my part, I am interested in contributing a 21st c. update of the old gel light show bands like Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd used in the '60s. So it is an interesting challenge-- a cartoonist/analog print artist such as myself working in sound and moving pictures--for a live event. If you're in NYC/Brooklyn on December 5th, come by. The Bowl also has a merchandise booth set up for Shakedown-- you can check out my new Homage to Crepax screenprint and T shirt if you want (proceeds of which go to CBLDF).

SHAKEDOWN is on Facebook.

Also-- we're working on a new site re-design for PULPHOPE and PAULPOPE.COM, criminally overdue, launching soon with new content, including a preview of the work for my next major book release, Battling Boy.

HORSEMAN

2009-10-30T11:26:00.008-05:00

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane-- 1858--by John Quidor. From the Smithsonian Collection.

Personally, I've never been able to finish a novel by Washington Irving. I find his writing lugubrious and dull. But you can't deny his contributions to American literature. Enormously popular in his day, he is generally considered to be the first American writer to earn a living solely from his literary efforts (Jack London is said to be the first American author to become a millionaire from his writing). The alternate name for New York City-- Gotham City-- is said to have found popular root in Irving's works, long before it was famously known as the name of the fictional home of Batman and Robin.

Speaking of cartoons, I never realized until recently it was Bing Crosby who did the voice of Beau Brummel in the old Disney short.

BLOW IN HER FACE

2009-10-20T09:50:00.003-05:00

This has got to be the most bewildering ad I've ever seen, it's incredible. If it's any indication of the mentality of the company's executives, it probably also explains why Tipolet cigarettes no longer exist.

See more old cigarette ads here: http://wellmedicated.com/lists/40-gorgeous-vintage-tobacco-advertisements/

M'UAD DIB

2009-10-01T16:02:00.003-05:00

"It is said of Muad'dib that once when he saw a weed trying to grow between two rocks, he moved one of the rocks. Later, when the weed was seen to be flourishing, he covered it with the remaining rock. 'That was its fate,' he explained." --From The Commentaries Of M'Uad Dib (DUNE, Frank Herbert).

I've always been struck by the taciturn Nietzschean aspects of M'uad Dib's character as a leader. One of Frank Herbert's points in DUNE was a warning-- beware of charismatic heroes. When entrusted with great power, they can do great damage to a civilization. Even a brief sweep of history can illustrate this point.

I wanted to try applying the lessons learned from the Wednesday Comics experience to a different subject, here finding a source which would be difficult to illustrate as a page of comics, given that there is very little suggested action. I find that with the format of Wednesday Comics (which is really the traditional Sunday Comics page), one must condense the plot and action to the briefest yet most vivd bursts of information available-- there is a lot of space on the page for the illustrations to really overwhelm the reader/viewer, but there isn't a lot of space for story development in the sense of how we'd develop a plot or work up dialogue for a typical comic book page. In a comic book, one page may be well drawn or well written, but it is still just a single facet of a larger whole. One page can be preceded or followed by another, but no one page carries the entire weight of the sustained narrative. The Wednesday Comics single page format forces the artist to create a story unit which may well be part of a larger storyline, however it still must be able to stand alone.

This depiction of Paul M'uad Dib and the Fremen Stilgar is based on paintings John Schoenherr did for an illustrated edition of Dune published by Berkley Books in 1977. Frank Herbert said that of all the visual depictions of his ideas, Schoenherr's work was closest to the way Dune's people and things looked in his own mind. The colors here are by Lovern Kindzierski, who worked with me on the second half of the Strange Adventures strip.

EISNER

2009-09-29T12:39:00.004-05:00

Baseline magazine's 1990 feature on the comics typography of Will Eisner. Baseline is an excellent design publication, I highly recommend it. They have long championed comics and poster art, every issue is good--some are amazing.

Baseline #12.

SILVER

2009-09-09T13:55:00.002-05:00

The cat hides under the corner table and pops out to peer up at you. A sketch I did on an envelope while waiting on some food at a restaurant.

STEEL JEEG

2009-08-06T10:27:00.008-05:00

A secret history of the transforming robot in pop culture: Without those old-fashioned paper dolls, there would be no Bild Lillie. Without Bild Lillie, there would be no Barbie. Without Barbie, there would be no GI Joe. Without GI Joe, there would be no Henshin Cyborg. Without Henshin Cyborg, there would be no Microman. Without Microman, there would be no Micronauts. Without Micronauts, there would be no Transformers.

Steel Jeeg (above), created by Go Nagai and Tatsuo Yasuda. I remember the rare, imported Japanese toys which you could find in the 1970s. The die-cast metal robots seemed so heavy in your hand, more like a power tool than a toy. I made a small color Jeeg screenprint last week, for no reason at all, really, just because he's been on my mind. I wanted have someplace tangible to place the thought so I could stop carrying it around with me, stuck inside my head.

From paper doll back to paper doll.

OLD PEAK

2009-07-02T13:39:00.002-05:00

Machu Picchu is an archetectural marvel located 8,000 ft above sea level. Often referred to "The Lost City of the Incas", Machu Picchu was constructed around 1462, at the height of the Inca Empire. It is believed the city was originally inhabited for only 100 years then abandoned.

FLYING SAUCERS

2009-06-24T15:21:00.009-05:00

FLYING SAUCERS MYSTIFY THE AIR FORCE-- Official investigators can't decide, are they from far out in space-- or simply "far out"?

Alex Hamilton of Woodsen County, Kansas, was awakened at 10:30 one night by the sound of a disturbance in the cow pasture on his farm. Peering into the night, he observed a huge airship, some 300-feet long, hovering just 30-feet over the frightened herd of cattle. A brightly-lighted control compartment under the craft was occupied by six strange beings clearly visible through transparent panels in the walls of their vehicle. Hearing Hamilton and others approaching, the weird creatures revved-up a big 30-foot rotor under the aircraft which lifted it 300 feet up into the air. Air the same time, a spotlight from the hovering vessel played on Hamilton and company, who had succeeded in getting within fifty yards of the craft.

As the startling airship moved off to the northwest, it carried off a two-year old heifer dangling at the end of a cable dropped about the struggling animal's neck. The hide, legs, and head of the unlucky cow were discovered four miles away the next day.

This incident is all the more astonishing because it happened seventy years ago-- in 1897!

Perhaps the same strange aircraft that plucked up farmer Hamilton's cow visited the village of Sisterville, West Virginia, a few days earlier in April, 1897. Luminous red, and shaped like an immense cigar, the airship hovered in the darkness while two brilliant searchlights glared down on the town below.

The townspeople were awakened and alerted to the aerial visitor by the shrilling whistle of the local sawmill. Some observers claimed they distinguished large fins on the sides of the craft, while others noted flashing red, white, and green lights on its sides and ends. Many witnesses estimated it to be about 180-feet in length and 50-feet in diameter.

--From WHAMMO GIANT COMICS, 1967. Illustrator uncredited, art editor: Del Potter.

YOJIMBO

2009-06-14T13:35:00.004-05:00

My 7 color YOJIMBO screenprint will only be available for the rest of the month of June '09, and I just found out from Nakatomi that over half of the prints have already sold. More info here.

THE BELL TOWER

2009-06-05T08:21:00.004-05:00

Line art for my latest silkscreen print-- for the classic 1961 Kurosawa film of the same name. Final is 16x36 inches, 7 colors, edition of 250. The central calligraphy reads "Yojimbo" and the banner in the circle device at bottom reads "Toshiro Mifune" with the actor's birth and death dates.

http://store.nakatomiinc.com/nakatomiinvitationalshirtposterclub.aspx

A SUPERMEK

2009-05-30T21:03:00.000-05:00

Watson Robot Industries.
Superior Mek Harvesters.

V-CITY/MMC 26-27

STRANGE ADVENTURES

2009-05-23T12:39:00.002-05:00

The first two of twelve weekly episodes of my Adam Strange story for Wednesday Comics, debuting July 2009 from DC Comics. Coloring by Jose Villarrubia.

MEDICINE MAN

2009-04-26T18:28:00.005-05:00

There was this guy called Mike. We called him "Medicine Man" because he was always spewing all this razz-ma-tazz that never made any sense, but he said it fast, so you were always caught a bit off guard by the verbiage. And it kind of sounded like it was gospel, but it was just more of the old shuck and jive. He wore an old bone around his neck, which was the real inspiration for his name. Scott-- my best friend-- christened this guy Medicine Man. Scott was always giving people nicknames like that. He had a wicked sense of humor. There was a DJ who would play at a local club called Mekka, who wasn't very good-- Scott gave him a really derogatory nickname, which I won't repeat, but trust me, it was pretty funny.

Anyhow, Scott-- who had (and likely still has) a high tolerance for crazy people and assorted weirdos-- kind of took a shine to Medicine Man Mike, and would invite him over, which was annoying and alarming. Give the guy dinner, let him crash out. The guy stole stuff, and he never knew when to leave. Eventually, he'd get into all this UFO conspiracy stuff and you'd have to kick him out.

Scott lived on the top floor of a 3 story house, and that room was a masterpiece of youth. It was glorious. LP records and paintings and stuff, it was an oasis for a 21 year old. We were in art school then, and did the kinds of things art school kids did. We would crawl up to the roof and light Roman candles and listen to old Bowie records and argue about art theory. Stuff like that.

One time, out of sympathy or something, Scott bought this strange old idol from Medicine Man. It was like an old Tiki idol or an imitation Easter Island carving, about as long as your leg and made out of ebony wood. Medicine Man Mike made his money from selling old junk which he would find or acquisition. Sometimes he would sell pot. He always had a big bag of stuff which was for sale. He told Scott this long story about the history of the idol, where it came from, all this stuff. Told us that it was haunted by the ghost of a tribesman or something. Total BS, but it made for a good story and it somehow added to the purchase, so what's the harm? Mike told us that one day, the spirit of this old tribesman will return to our realm, that he will come back to Earth because his work isn't finished yet, yadda yadda. Standard, stock B movie stuff.

So Scott kept this thing, and it became a regular feature in his room. It was handsome in a garish way, which is how it always is with kitschy stuff. And time went by.

Once in a while, Scott would tell me he heard weird noises in his room, a kind of scratching sound. As if there was a rat in the wall. Which was a real possibility, of course, since the house was an old one. But Scott never found any evidence of pests. Over time, the sound persisted. It began getting louder. Eventually, Scott would say he thought the sound was coming out of the idol which he got from Mike, which seemed ridiculous to me. But Scott would insist that was the case, it was the one and only place where the sound could be coming from-- a kind of scratching, gnawing sound. Scott said it was random and infrequent. We were coming on summertime, and as it got hotter, the sound got louder and more noticeable.

So Scott is in his room one time, one night. It's summer. He says by now, he is certain that the sound is coming from the idol, and it's kind of freaking him out. When it makes that noise, he shakes the thing, and it stops. Only to start again later at some off hour. He puts the idol over by the window.

And sure enough, one night a big greenish beetle gnaws its way out of the wooden idol. Green and irridecent, like the hood of a Cuban convertible. I have no idea how it could have survived over all those months, but I believe it's an absolutely true story, because Scott has never had any reason to lie to me, especially about something as inconsequential as that. The beetle flew out the window and disappeared, and that was that.

For some reason, I am thinking of Medicine Man today. It's the first really nice Spring day in NYC and it reminds me of those times and those days.

LOVERMAN

2009-03-24T17:21:00.002-05:00

First page of LOVERMAN for Dargaud's PILOTE magazine, appearing June 2009.

Loverman is an American parody of a French parody of the American comic books the French would've seen in the 1970s.

SMILE

2009-03-20T14:40:00.005-05:00

Following the success of The Watchmen in its online "motion comics" format -- a 12 part series which tells the entire story of The Watchmen through the use of limited animation accompanied by a soundtrack narrative-- DC Comics has subsequently released a series of Batman Black And White Motion Comics. My "Batman Broken Nose" short story is one of them-- in this case, paired with Darwyn Cooke's "Here Be Monsters". To see more, go to:

iTunes/TV Shows/BATMANblackandwhiteMOTIONCOMICSseason#1/"Here Be Monsters/Broken Nose"...

MY OBSERVATIONS ON A READING OF HISTORY:

2009-03-18T01:44:00.006-05:00

1.) That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revolutions, etc., are carried on and affected by political parties.

2.) That the view of these parties is their present general interest, or what they take to be such.

3.) That the different views of these different parties occasion all confusion.

4.) That while a party is carrying on a general design, each man has his particular private interest in view.

5.) That as soon as a party has gained its general point, each member becomes intent upon his particular interest; which, thwarting others, breaks that party into divisions, and occasions more confusion.

6.) That few in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend. Although their actions may bring real good to their country, yet men primarily consider that their own and their country's interest are one and the same, and do not act from a principle of benevolence.

7.) That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a view to the good of mankind.

--Benjamin Franklin, writing in August 1788. From Part 6 of his Autobiography.

BATTLING BOY-- THE DESCENT

2008-11-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

I'm excited to report that Paramount Pictures has acquired the film rights to my forthcoming graphic novel Battling Boy, to be produced by Brad Pitt's company, Plan B. We are now developing the story for film adaptation. Above is one of the key sequence paintings my friend--the incredible painter-- Feroze has done for the project. Here, we see an early scene in the story in which Battling Boy and his wargod-like father descend to the mountaintops outside Monstropolis through a UFO-cloud portal. Below is the same scene as it appears in the book.

Battling Boy is to be published by First Second, and is set to launch in the spring of 2010.

BATTLING BOY

2008-10-19T13:28:00.000-05:00

Battling Boy's father fighting the "Dragosaur".

In Batman Year 100, I had room for a couple of long fight sequences, but I felt cramped even with 200 pages. This fight scene from BATTLING BOY alone is about 50 pages. It's liberating to have no page restrictions. I wish Kirby could've had 50 pages for one fight scene, imagine what he would've done.

The extended cinematic sequence is one of the best gifts we've inherited from manga.

PIN-UPS

2008-10-07T11:34:00.002-05:00

Above is my take on Monique St. Pierre's pin-up from the original 1978 November issue, deemed too racy to be included in the box as a special insert, so I am sharing it here (minus shag carpet). As for the figure, she really looks and feels like something out of an old issue of the retrofuturisitc Heavy Metal magazine. Of all the covers in the entire history of Playboy magazine (Playboy gave me the entire run of covers to chose my design from), it was this cover that really stood out to me as unusual. Miss November 1978 was attractive and mysterious in a way that defies the usual idea of a Playboy pin-up girl. I found her pose and attitude somehow defiant and enticing--a very modern woman with universal sex appeal. Her boots reminded me of something out of Barbarella or Flash Gordon.

DKNY:2089

2008-09-29T11:56:00.001-05:00

The 2089 line has hit the stores and is now available anyplace DKNY and DKNY Jeans clothing are sold. Internationally, an alternate 2089 line is available through Club 21 and features additional style and prints not seen in the North American 2089 line, including a pair of black jeans with a silkscreened grasshopper print. I did four window displays for four separate Asian markets (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, and Macau), as well as a lot of press here in the US.

The official 2089 mini-site can be found here. If you can't get to a retail spot to check out the line, you can always view (and purchase) items here-- plus see some of the sketchbook ramp-ups for the line and take a look at some of the artwork by other artists which inspired the line.

Outside of that, I've been working almost exclusively on my upcoming comics projects Battling Boy for First Second and Psychenaut for Dargaud, both of which have big deadlines this season.

THE MASKED KARIMBAH

2008-09-12T10:13:00.002-05:00

People have asked, and it's been made so. Kid Robot has just made The Masked Karimbah available online. We did a limited run of 300 sets, and most are gone. This is hopefully good news for anybody who asked about it but couldn't get to Comic Con International this summer to grab one for themselves. The set also includes a clear vinyl sticker sheet with a bunch of Karimbah stickers and an exclusive Masked Karimbah comic book written and drawn by Your Lad. It makes a ridiculous coffee table piece which is guarenteed to spark a weird conversation with houseguests. If nothing else, the doggie is the size of a real Boston terrier, and anatomically correct in the same way Barbie's boyfriend Ken is.

ANTSPUR

2008-08-29T17:29:00.001-05:00

KLIK KLAK

2008-08-28T16:48:00.001-05:00

Jack Kirby, born today, would've been 91 years old right now. He believed the Earth was visited by flying saucers. He was also the king of comics.

A SUPERMEK

2008-08-27T10:19:00.003-05:00

The THB heirarchy of synthetics goes like this: tools, machines, robots, meks, supermeks, super-com-meks, and finally, megameks. This is a supermek, courtesy of the incredible Feroze.

HEAVY LIQUID

2008-08-02T15:28:00.002-05:00

The new hard cover version of Heavy Liquid is in stores Sept. 24th 2008-- completely redesigned in 2 solid pantone colors. Overtime, I have come to believe the colors in the original version are a bit garish and hard on the eye--so I've picked a red/blue pairing which leans more to the somber side. The results look much better, I think--more artfilm than blacklight poster. Based closely on the French edition which debuted earlier this year from Dargaud, this new format including 12 pages of additional material--developmental sketches and other unpublished "ramp-up" drawings.

If I could re-do only one thing in this story (there is more than one thing I'd do differently now, but if I had to pick just one), I would re-set the date for this science fiction tale in the year 2038, making it consistent with my other DC/Vertigo books, 100% and Batman:Year 100. Heavy Liquid is set in the year 2075, which I somewhat arbitrarily chose without much serious consideration. The technologies shown in the story seem reasonable for a view into the world of the next few decades, and not much more. As it stands, I doubt anyone can imagine how vastly different the world of 2075 will be, and when I read articles like this, I feel rather pessimistic trying.

APOLLO/SOYUZ

2008-07-19T09:05:00.002-05:00

Space artist Robert McCall's comic strip-like sketches portraying the orbital link-up between the US spaceship Apollo and the Russian Soyuz, rendered as McCall watched live footage of the event on TV monitors at the Johnson Space Center Mission Control, July 17th, 1975.

SPACEWALK

2008-07-19T09:04:00.000-05:00

Robert McCall's sequential strip-like sketches showing the moonwalk of Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Jack Schmidt, December 13th, 1972. Drawn while watching the event live on TV monitors at Mission Control.

SPACEFOOD

2008-07-17T10:40:00.001-05:00

The dinner menu from Skylab's 1973 mission, based on space artist Robert MccCall's sketches done at the launchsite.

THE PROTO-ARTISTS

2008-07-14T10:05:00.000-05:00

The artist has always been a special breed. Looking for answers, asking questions, the artist has never been content to let things be. What Picasso calls "the sun in my belly" has always compelled him to invent, to create something out of nothing. To make magic. Wood, stone, clay, metal, charcoal, paint becomes, under his hand, the whole world. The heavens and hell, gods and goddesses, the seven seas, the beasts in the field and the birds in the air, all mankind, the artist creates again and again. He has even made the invisible visible, giving visual form to what he has thought, what he has felt. It is no wonder then that artists for centuries have been the priests, teachers, explorers, experimenters, and magicians.

The artist-priest among primitive peoples was a potent instrument for survival. As doctor who cured ills with his masks and incantation, his fetishes and magic objects, he was charged with averting disasters and attracting good luck. As master of tribal ceremonies, he provided the consolations of community rituals, and the bonds of common belief. He was, in fact, the earliest insurance agent-- one who could protect his people against the uncertainties of life and help them face the finalities of death.

The prehistoric artists who painted the walls of Lascaux and Dordogne were probably such artist-priests. Their brilliantly painted friezes of bison and deer were perhaps created to insure good hunting by identifying the prey. The artist's tasks were to create objects that could readily be identified, which would, at the same time, be symbols that conveyed to man the wonders and mysteries of the universe. Every artist, then, in Africa, Mexico, India, China, and Alaska, had to become familiar with the outward forms of their subjects-- man, trees, animals, birds, fishes. This compelled them to be keen observers, turning them, so to speak, into the first scientists.

--Charlotte Ward, from "The Role Of The Artist", published in Famous Artist Schools Annual vol.1, 1970.

THE MASKED KARIMBAH

2008-07-12T09:02:00.003-05:00

Comic Con International: I will be there on Saturday afternoon July 26th doing an exclusive signing at the Kid Robot booth, 1pm-4pm (Booth #4529).
We will debut my first Kid Robot toy set featuring characters from the THB universe: The Masked Karimbah. This two-figure action piece (3 pts. articulation) is cast in a vinyl-PVC combination and includes a 16-page "Masked Karimbah" comic as well as a secret vinyl throw-in (and no, it's not the plastic fork Karimbah is holding in his left hand, it's something else). The toy will only be available during the convention, in a limited edition of 300 pieces. $150 a piece.

It also looks like Kid Robot will shortly be making an announcement regarding my future toy projects with them. Hint: The Karimbah isn't the only thing we've had in the works this last year or two.

KARIMBAH

2008-06-15T09:05:00.001-05:00

July sees the release of my Masked Karimbah 2-piece vinyl toy set, direct from the THB universe via Kid Robot. We will be debuting this at the San Diego Comics Convention; my only appearance this year will be on Saturday for Kid Robot.

From the official press release:

"Cast in Pope’s signature manga-meets-fine-art style, this two-figure action piece includes an original 16-page comic and a secret vinyl throw-in."

Toy design is a ton of work with lots of follow-through, but it is also extremely interesting. We wanted to do a line of THB toys, but decided if we do that, it'd be better to wait until the THB series launches, in order to not further confuse people. I took in a number of other ideas, from the relatively mundane to the wildly surreal (Karimbah is in the latter category), and we all preferred the Karimbah-- who is technically a THB character (he's a character on a kid's show in the THB universe). From there we did months of design work, including lots of back-and-forths with the sculptor and the factory, based on the dozens of design model sheets I drew up. There were lots of details and problems we needed to get right in the prototype stages, as is to be expected. I also did an original comics story, which appears in an exclusive "Masked Karimbah" comic book, found inside the box... and the box design itself. Kid Robot says it is the most complicated and challenging toy design they've tackled yet (Karimbah's dog is the size of an actual little Boston Terrier).

I consider vinyl-- along with the 2089 clothing line debuting this fall from DKNY Jeans-- to be new canvases for comics. There is no nihilism in pushing the frontiers of comics, no budgets but our imaginations, no reason to stop trying. As Akira Kurosawa said, "It is wonderful to create."

SUITING UP

2008-05-29T08:19:00.000-05:00

Sam Hiti

FRANCIS BACON AT SIXTY

2008-05-15T17:19:00.001-05:00

His room is not so much untidy as beyond any notion of tidiness or untidiness; an equinoctial tide of printed matter, much of it illustrated, washes against the walls. There are two jumbo sofas, both covered in spinach-green velvet, a bed the shape of an elephant's foot, a large Boulle chest of drawers that might have come from a French provincial town-house, a mirror cracked in several places and a plain wooden table that would suit a dinner party of eight or ten. The books are there for use, not for looks, and the electric light hangs unshaded from the ceiling. The telephone usually functions only in an outgoing direction, for Bacon inclines toward Degas' definition of the telephone as a tyrant that would have us drop everything and come running. As far as humanly possible he has disembarrassed himself of possessions and of everything else that could inhibit the drives of instinct. He uses money as an instrument of liberty, not as an instrument of power-- and by "liberty" he means the freedom to go or not go anywhere, at any time, in any company.

--From "Francis Bacon At Sixty", by John Russell. Art In America, January 1970.

POPGUN

2008-04-21T12:11:00.002-05:00

The cover for Image Comics' anthology POPGUN vol. 2. They told me, "You can do what you want with it, so long as there's a hot girl in there wearing headphones."

The headphones are based on an actual vintage set which I've inherited from my girlfriend's dad, who was into The Eagles and Hank Williams Sr. and Hendrix and wore them back in the day to listen to his LPs.

BRACES

2008-04-17T10:48:00.002-05:00

Tablecloth drawings with my nephew, waiting on spagetti. "Do a cartoon animal we haven't seen before," he says.

"Like what?"

He thinks a minute. "Bugs Bunny as a squirrel teenager who comes from the world of Fat Albert."

"With braces?" I ask.

"With braces."

OPTIMISTS

2008-04-11T10:41:00.001-05:00

THE THING

2008-04-07T13:37:00.000-05:00

You know, that one where Doctor Doom takes the Invisible Woman hostage and then tricks the rest of The Fantastic Four into going back in time to steal Blackbeard's treasure...and it turns out The Thing was actually Blackbeard and wanted to stay back there and remain king of the pirates because there he had respect but in modern times he was just a freak? That one.

MANITA

2008-04-03T11:39:00.000-05:00

Picasso measures hands with the great gypsy guitarist Manita de Plata (Silver Hands) and finds they are the same size. Photo by Lucien Clergue, 1968.

THE AVENGERS

2008-03-30T17:27:00.000-05:00

The classic "Kirby close-up".

2089

2008-03-22T15:38:00.001-05:00

Nylon Magazine has an early preview of a number of the designs I did for my capsule line debuting this fall from DKNY Jeans. See them here.

All of the items in the line are designed to be urban streetwear for men although some of the clothes would look good on a lady too (the camo jacket is pretty unisexy). Everything comes in a wide range of sizes for all bodytypes and everything is under $165.00, so it isn't just haute-conceptual catwalk stuff for human billionaire coatracks. We're schedualling a further photoshoot which I will be art directing, to be done sometime before the clothes are available. There are lots of cool little details which you would need to see upclose to get the idea-- some of the buttons have small PULPHOPE logos lazer-etched onto the fronts and some of the jackets have large interior prints. A lot of the fabric inks and clothing materials have nice textural qualities. The 2089 line will be onsale worldwide through a number of chainstores including Club 21 in Europe and Asia.

THE HIMALAYAS ARE A PASSING THOUGHT.

2008-03-11T19:10:00.000-05:00

Woke up in a hotel room in Brussels. It's 6pm in the afternoon here. Cloudy and shitty. I go down for some coffee-- the hotel bar was closed when I went to bed at noon. Now it's open, the bottles brightly line the wall like an attendant glass entourage. But they have coffee. I have the cobwebs, and so I have a cup of coffee. Two cups. Groggy. Working tomorrow. Jetlag is getting harder, the older I am getting.

I read the paper--now hours old. Here is what I read:

"If nature is left to its own devices, about 7.59 billion years from now Earth will be dragged from its orbit by an engorged red Sun and spiral to a rapid vaporous death."

Wow, I think. I read on:

"That is the forecast according to new calculations by a pair of astronomers, Klaus-Peter Schroeder of the University of Guanajuato in Mexico and Robert Connon Smith of the University of Sussex in England.

Their report, to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is the latest and gloomiest installment yet in a long-running debate about the ultimate fate of the planet. Only last year, the discovery of a giant planet orbiting the faint burned-out cinder of a star in Pegasus had suggested that Earth could survive the Sun's death.

As for sentimental attachment to any of the geographic features we might have come to know and love, Smith said: "I should add that the Himalayas are a passing thought anyway. They didn't even exist until India smashed into Asia less than 60 million years ago - the blink of an eye compared with the billions of years we are discussing."

Earth's basic problem is that the Sun will gradually get larger and more luminous as it goes through life, according to widely held theories of stellar evolution. In its first 4.5 billion years, according to the models, the Sun has already grown about 40 percent brighter.

Over the coming eons, life on Earth will become muggier and more uncomfortable and finally impossible.

"Even if the Earth were to marginally escape being engulfed," said Mario Livio, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, "it would still be scorched, and life on Earth would be destroyed."

That's how the day started.

YOUNG BIANCA

2008-03-10T12:43:00.003-05:00

Rose Callahan came by in January and we shot some photos in my studio. This one is a photo of a large screenprint collaboration between myself and English artist Russell Young, a print of mine over an old photo of Bianca Jagger. Russell is famous for a series of large silkscreened celebrity mug shots. He also did a lot of popular music videos in the '80s which got lots of airplay on MTV and etc.

Rose Callahan

Russell Young

The photo ran in the Wall St. Journal on Saturday as part of a feature they ran about my project with DKNY Jeans:

See it here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120493146397420559.html?mod=at_leisure_main_reviews_days_only

THE ROBOT FIGHTER

2008-03-05T11:22:00.001-05:00

Toby Cypress

PIN-UPS3

2008-02-14T21:04:00.001-05:00

LUCKY

2008-02-11T13:42:00.000-05:00

PIN-UPS2

2008-02-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

PIN-UPS

2008-02-04T15:36:00.000-05:00

BUILD-A-FRIEND

2008-01-22T12:23:00.000-05:00

AUTOMATONED

2008-01-17T12:31:00.000-05:00

The ultimate horror in science fiction is neither death nor destruction but dehumanization, a state in which emotional life is suspended, in which the individual is deprived of individual feelings, free will, and moral judgement. That the most successful SF films of the past decade seem to be concerned with dehumanization simply underlines the fact that this type of fiction hits the most exposed nerves of contemporary society: collective anxieties about the loss if individual identity, subliminal mind-bending, or downright scientific/political brainwashing. (Not by accident the trend began to manifest itself after the Korean War and the well-publicized reports coming out of it of brainwashing techniques.)

We have come a long way from Metropolis and the encroachment of the machine. Nowadays man can become the machine himself. The automatoned slaves of modern times look perfectly efficient in their new painless state. From this aspect, they are like the zombies of old-- only we never bother to wonder if zombies were happy in their trance.

--Carlos Clarens: An Illustrated History Of Horror and Science Fiction Films (1895-1967). New York: Putnam, 1967.

COME BACK

2008-01-13T14:18:00.001-05:00

"A man goes away from his home and it is in him to do it. He lies in strange beds in the dark, and the wind is different in the trees. He walks in the streets and there are faces in front of his eyes, but there are no names for the faces. The voices he hears are not the voices he carried away in his ears a long time back when he went away. They are so loud he does not hear for a long time at a stretch those voices he carried away in his ears. But there comes a minute when it is quiet and he can hear those voices he carried away in his ears a long time back. He can make out what they say, and they say, Come back. They say: Come back..."

--Robert Penn Warren, from his novel All The Kings Men, Harcourt, Inc. 1946.

WHITE FANGS

2008-01-12T13:54:00.000-05:00

Jack London was born today in 1876. I've been celebrating by listening to White Fang on tape while drawing an 11 pg. sequence for THE LONE RANGER #11, for Dynamite Entertainment. The story is a beautiful and poignant kind of Indian folktale, written by Brett Matthews.

THE CORRIDOR

2007-12-12T17:10:00.000-05:00

Tony Salmons, circa 1982.

YEAR ONE

2007-12-08T13:22:00.001-05:00

The PULPHOPE blog is one year old this week, hard to believe but true.

I still haven't thought of a better word for these things other than "blog". Blog-- an ugly, truncated word, a contraction, something sounding like the burp of a frog or the bursting of a tar bubble. Is it an onomonopea? Is this what it sounds like to blog?

Blogging to me sounds like quiet clicking in a dark, lonely room.

ORION

2007-11-28T21:40:00.000-05:00

DIAMOND DOGS

2007-11-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

GRIGNANI

2007-11-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

Franco Grignani (Italian, 1908-1999)

"Experimental work in structural tensions."

RITSTIER/OOSTERVEER

2007-11-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

One of the nicest suprises I discovered in Amsterdam recently is a daily Dutch cartoon strip called "Nicky Saxx", written by Willem Ritstier, and illustrated by Minck Oosterveer. This strip appears daily in De Telegraaf, Holland's largest newspaper, something like a cross between USA Today (splashy color covers, large sports/entertainment section with a lean toward the lurid) and the New York Times (world events/business news/editorials). I kept tearsheets of the Saxx strip for the days I was there, and regretted that I couldn't find it on weekends.

De Telegraaf runs their cartoon strips in a rather large format in the first folio-- about 7 inches wide, which is notably large by most American daily cartoon standards. Most of the Dutch dailies are woefully mediocre, featuring the usual laconic, big bagette-footed blobs with half-lidded eyes, all of them "C" level graduates of the lazy post-Garfield school of cartoon humor. Garfield itself can be found there too, as a matter of fact, like some undying dead horse of a joke. I have to admit, I'll never understand the ongoing European popular fascination with Garfield. If you ever do a book signing in Europe involving children, you'll invariably wind up drawing Garfield and/or the slobbering dog. Montezuma has his revenge, and I guess Jim Davis does too. He must be out on the course right now, swinging his nine irons, laughing and laughing.

Ritstier and Oosterveer's sexy, leggy adventurer Nicky Saxx stands out amongst her daily running mates, towers over them infact. While the others are looking into empty dog dishes and blandly warbling to other bagette-footed blobs, Nicky Saxx is dodging bullets, jumping between moving motorcycles, wrestling sharks, piloting yachts and sipping dry champagne. A true adventure strip in the Modesty Blaise/Cap'n Easy tradition, I can't believe I've never heard of her before. In Oosterveer's work, there is a sense of the characteristically tight inking we see in other Dutch cartoonists, such as Joost Swarte and Dick Mategna, yet the subtle abandon in Oosterveer's brush gives his drawings a slightly more international feel. His art is like a suprising blend of the Italian cartoonist Magnus (whom Americans will remember for the erotic strip Necron), and France's Jean-Claude Forrest (Barbarella). His panel compositions are excellent, the story is communicated briefly and with force. His work is brushy and a bit simple, perfectly suited for daily adventures.

Oosterveer writes of Nicky Saxx on his personal website:

"The Nicky Saxx strip has been running for some years now as a daily in Holland's largest-selling newspaper, "De Telegraaf". Nicky and her friend, Elsa Steiner, are globe-trotting adventurers with a taste for danger, hiring themselves out as troubleshooters and investigators of the paranormal via their organisation, Room 666, which is located in a disused lighthouse on the East Coast of America. Aided by computer expert and technical wizard, Ben Folds, the duo specialise in helping all those people the conventional law-enforcement bodies cannot assist."

I enthusiastically recommend Oosterveer's work to people interested in good European cartooning.

www.minckoosterveer.com

SUNRISE IN THE MADHOUSE

2007-11-08T10:01:00.000-05:00

A religious fanatic goes overseas to fight for his God and then returns home to attempt a bloody act of terrorism. As Britons celebrate the capture of Guy Fawkes, a Catholic jihadist who attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, they might reflect how dismally modern the Gunpowder Plot and Europe's wars of religion now seem in 2007.

Back in the 20th century, most Western politicans and intellectuals (and even some clerics) assumed religion was becoming marginal to public life; faith was largely treated as an irrelevance in foreign policy. Symptomatically, State Department diaries ignored Muslim holidays until the 1990s. In the 21st century, by contrast, religion is playing a central role. From Nigeria to Sri Lanka, from Chechnya to Bagdad, people are being slain in God's name; and money and volunteers are pouring into these religions. Once again, one of the world's great religions has a bloody divide (this time it is Sunnis and Shias, not Catholics and Protestants). And once again, zealotry seems all too relevant to foreign policy.

It does not stop there. Outside Western Europe, religion has forced itself dramatically into the public square. In 1960 John Kennedy pleaded with Americans to treat his Catholicism as irrelevant; now a born-again Christian sits in the White House and his most likely Democrat replacement wants voters to know she prays. An Islamist party rules once-secular Turkey; Hindu nationalists may return to power in India's next election; even more children in Israel and Palestine are attending religious schools that tell them that God granted them the whole Holy Land. On present trends, China, the world's largest Communist dictatorship, will also become the world's largest Christian country-- and perhaps the largest Muslim one too. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, not usually a reliable authority on current affairs, got it right in an open letter to George Bush: "Whether we like it or not," he wrote, "the world is gravitating toward faith in the Almightly."

How frightening is this prospect? The idea that religion has "re-emerged" in pubic life is to some extent an illusion. It never really went away-- certainly not to the extend that French politicans and American college professors imagined. Its new power is mostly the consequence of two changes. The first is the failure of secular creeds; religion's political comeback began in the 1970s, when faith in government everywhere was crumbling. Second, although some theocracies survive in the Islamic world, religion has returned to the stage as a much more democratic, individualistic affair; a bottom-up marketing success, suprisingly in tune with globalisation. Secularism was not as modern as many intellectuals hoped, but pluralism is. Free up religion and ardent believers and ardent atheists both do well.

From a classical liberal point of view, this multiplicity of sects is a good thing. Freedom of conscience is an axiom of liberal thought. If man is, after all, a theotropic beast, inclined to believe in a hereafter, it is surely better that he choses his own faith, rather than follow one his government orders. But this also makes religion a politically difficult force to deal with. In domestic policy, adults who choose to become Pentecostals, Orthodox Jews or Muslim fundamentalists are far less likely to forget those beliefs when it comes to the ballot box. The "culture wars" that America has grown used to may become a global phenomenon. We can expect fierce battles over science, in particular.

Abroad, yes, there is a chance of a full-blown war of religion between states. A conflagration between Iran and Israel would, alas, be seen as a faith-based conflict by millions; so would a war between India and Pakistan. But compared with Guy Fawkes's time, when wars sprang from monarchs throwing their military might at other monarchs of different faiths, religious conflict today is the result as much of popular will as of state sponsorship: it is bottom-up, driven by volunteers not conscripts, their activities blessed by rogue preachers not popes, their fury mostly directed at apostates, not competing civilisations. Ironically, America, the model for much choice-based religion, has often seemed stuck in the secular era, declaring war on state-sponsored terror, only to discover the main weapon of militant Islamism is often the ballot box.

-From "The New Wars Of Religion," lead story in the Nov. 3rd edition of The Economist.

CURVING SPACE

2007-10-25T21:34:00.001-05:00

LIGHT TRAILS

2007-10-22T10:47:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Stebbi at Armchair for the photo.

WATER NYMPH

2007-10-16T13:45:00.001-05:00

DIESEL HOLLYWOOD

2007-10-15T09:49:00.000-05:00

I just finished another large limited edition 12 color silkscreen for Italian clothing company Diesel Industries, which will be on display at their new Hollywood store on Melrose Avenue, along with a showcase of my book Pulphope. The screenprints will be exclusively on display for about a month, starting Thursday Oct. 18th. We'll be framing the various process prints from the edition as well, demonstrating how the various layers of color are placed one on top of the other in order to arrive at a final image. This Pulphope installation is Diesel's big fashion week event for the fall season, and also the first big event they've done at the Hollywood store, outside of the opening party. The final screenprint is 30x35 inches, printed on archival paper. I'm also doing a smaller full color print which will be an exclusive gift to anyone purchasing one of the new line of designer time frames at the Diesel Hollywood store. It's been a lot of work, but worth it.

A small number of the silkscreen prints will also be available online through my art dealer, The Beguiling. The Beguiling also has a brand-new shipment of original art from me, at a wide range of prices.

See the entire list here.

MEAT COAT

2007-10-14T12:52:00.000-05:00

The other day, while putting on an overcoat, I tried to imagine this coat to be made of meat (veal, to be precise). I was very pleased about the old powers of imagination, about the way I could feel the wetcoldsoft disgusting edible collar around my neck. Two weeks later I saw a photograph of a girl in a meat coat in an Amsterdam shop window.

Commercial imagination is communal, not personal.

A person's imagination is not commercial.

--Heinz Edelmann, from Graphic Designers in Europe No. 4. Universe Books, 1973, New York.

GRUAU

2007-09-24T14:10:00.000-05:00

The paired words "black and white" express an infinite richness in aesthetic, artistic and symbollic terms.
In illustration, they immediately evoke engraving and the paired concepts dropout/relief, in photography negative/positive, in printing ink/paper, as well as empty and full, shadow and light.
The white surface of the paper is empty until a line or a point brings it to life. Then the emptiness becomes white and light in contrast to the black. In drawing, the artist eliminates the light the way a sculptor cuts away the unwanted parts of a block of stone. Emptiness and fullness, like black and white, are ambivalent.
The artist is a demiurge whose hand makes reality emerge from abstraction, organizes the space of a piece of paper and gives it meaning. The line becomes a sign, a form of communication.

--Rejane Bargiel, from RENE GRUAU-- The Art Of Advertising, Le Cherche Midi Editeur, 1999.

HARMONICA

2007-09-19T20:50:00.000-05:00

Once Upon A Time In The West.

A memory-sketch of the scene where Chyenne bursts into the stable/bar to find Mr. Harmonica licking his wounds in the corner. Harmonica plays his morbid tune while the lantern waves on its wire.

ECHOES OF THE JAZZ AGE

2007-08-28T10:47:00.000-05:00

The ten year period that, as if reluctant to die outmoded in its bed, leaped to a spectacular death in October, 1929, began about the time of the May Day riots in 1919. When the police rode down the demobilized country boys gaping at the orators in Madison Square, it was a sort of measure bound to alienate the more intelligent young men from the prevailing order. We didn't remember anything about the Bill of Rights until Mencken began plugging it, but we did know that such tyranny belonged in the jittery little countries of South Europe. If goose-livered businessmen had this effect on the government, then maybe we had gone to war for J.P. Morgan's loans afterall.

But, because we were tired of Great Causes, there was no more than a short outbreak of moral indignation, typified by Dos Passos' book, Three Soliders. Presently we began to have slices of the national cake and our idealism only flared up when the newspapers made melodrama out of stories such as Harding and the Ohio Gang or Sacco and Vanzetti. The events of 1919 left us cynical rather than revolutionary, in spite of the fact that now we are all rummaging around in our trunks wondering where in the hell we left the liberty cap-- "I KNOW I had it..."-- and the moujik blouse.

It was characteristic of the Jazz Age that it had no interest in politics at all.

--F. Scott Fitgerald, from Echoes Of The Jazz Age (Nov. 1931), from his book, THE CRACK-UP.
]

RANXEROX

2007-08-26T11:26:00.000-05:00

A recent Ranxerox ramp-up, drawn while on the tail-end of Batman Year 100.

A LION CUT IN HALF

2007-08-13T13:18:00.000-05:00

Pablo Picasso's preserved child drawings are now housed at the Musee Picasso in Barcelona, and are available for view upon appointment. Above is one he did in 1893 (aged 12), which we could arguably classify as yet another example of "proto-comics".

In this picture, as Natasha Staller points of in her book A SUM OF DESTRUCTIONS, the young Picasso made a series of sequential images-- his version of a then-popular comic-strip-like format known as an 'aleluya'. The drawing dramatizes the cutting in two of a lion's body, and demonstrates how the act of drawing could fragment and alter objects protrayed.

The bottom-half of the page features a scene depicting a religious procession, with 'imagenes' of a Christ and Virgin. Above this, in this seemingly-unreated sequence moving backwards, right to left, bottom to top-- a hero pulls open a drawer, only to be terrified by an enormous lion's head popping out of the second image. He retaliates in the third, by slicing the lion (as a bowler-hatted gent in the top area pisses obliviously into a corner). In the next sketch, the lion tumbles downward as it splits in two, the front and back halves apparently still alive. In the last, the formerly threatening lion's body parts are reduced to rugs-- to trophies-- upon which women dance, as the hero lords over the scene. Pablo numbered only two of the scenes, the last two of mastery and triumph, with a giant 5 over the hero's head. ('Aleluyas' --like comic strips-- themselves are divided: many parts, taken together, comprising a whole).

--A SUM OF DESTRUCTIONS: PICASSO'S CULTURES & THE CREATION OF CUBISM, by Natasha Staller, Yale University Press, 2001.

LONDON

2007-08-09T13:31:00.000-05:00

"We were on sabbatical, except the kids, who went to the local school and got a splendid education and a Cockney accent. We lived in a drab old North London borough called Islington, long rows of high houses like dirty toffees all stuck together staring at the row of dirty toffees opposite. By the time we left, we found these street very beautiful, and inhaled the exhaust gas of a double-decker red London bus deeply, like sea air. This was essentially a result of the kindliness of the English (including Pakistani Indian Greek Italian, etc.) among whom we lived in Islington. It was the Spirit we were breathing in. London air causes causes asthma in many, but it is worth it. The English are slightly more civilized than anyone else has yet been. Also England is a good country for introverts; they have a place in society for the introvert, which the United States does not. In fact there is a place in London for everything; you can find what you want there, from organized diobolical perversity a la Baron Charlus, to the kinds of lollipops that change color as you proceed inwards...

You know, London buses have 2 storeys with a sort of half-circular staircase, smoking allowed on the top deck-- in winter, between Woodbines & Bronchitis, it's like an advanced T.B. Ward crossed with a Sauna Bath on fire, all lurching through dark Dickensian alleys jammed with Minicars and Miniskirts. Well, you never get up these stairs before the bus plunges off again, so the conductor/tress shouts, 'Eol pridi daeneow!' or 'Eoldon toit luv!'-- or, if West Indian, sings out in a picaresque native dialect (English), 'Hold on pretty tight now!' And if you don't, you've had it. There's no door."

--Ursula Le Guin, from a 1968 letter to Harlan Ellison, as quoted in Ellison's introduction to her story "The Word For World Is Forest", from his anthology of science fiction stories, AGAIN DANGEROUS VISIONS. Doubleday & Co., 1972. He calls her, "the most elegant writer in the science fiction world."

DUNE/STAR WARS

2007-08-07T11:49:00.000-05:00

George Lucas' hit movie Star Wars came out that year (1977). The film was shocking to me, for all the similarities between it and my father's book, Dune. Both featured an evil galactic empire, a desolate desert planet, hooded natives, strong religious elements, and a messianic hero with an aged mentor. Star Wars' Princess Leah had a name with a haunting similarity to Dune's Lady Alia of the noble house Atreides. The movie also had spice mines and a Dune Sea.

I phoned my father and said, "You better see it. The similarities are unbelievable."

When Dad saw the movie, he picked out sixteen points of what he called "absolute identity" between his book and the movie, enough to make him livid. He thought he saw the ideas of other science ficiton writers on the screen as well, including those of Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Ted Sturgeon, Barry Malzberg, and Jerry Pournelle.

Still, Frank Herbert tried to be upbeat. He and the other science fiction writers who thought they saw their work in Lucas' movie formed a loose organization that my father called, with his tongue firmly placed in his cheek, the We're Too Big To Sue George Lucas Society. Through humor, dad tried to mask the pain.

--Brian Herbert, from his biography of Frank Herbert, "Dreamer Of Dune".

RIP LEE HAZLEWOOD

2007-08-06T23:37:00.000-05:00

LAS VEGAS -
Lee Hazlewood, a singer and songwriter best known for writing and producing "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" for Nancy Sinatra, has died. He was 78.

Barton Lee Hazlewood died at his home in Henderson of kidney cancer on Saturday evening, the Clark County coroner's office said.

Hazlewood was most famous for his work with the daughter of Frank Sinatra, including writing and producing such hits as "Sugartown" and "Some Velvet Morning." He also produced "Something Stupid," a duet Nancy recorded with her father in 1967.

He also produced for Duane Eddy and Gram Parsons, and performed on a number of solo albums and with Nancy Sinatra in three "Nancy & Lee" albums.

Hazlewood was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2005 and released his final album, "Cake or Death" in 2006.

He was survived by his third wife, Jeane, his son Mark and daughters Debbie and Samantha.

LA

2007-08-03T22:16:00.000-05:00

I'm in Hollywood. I'm sitting at a gorgeous old hotel bar where Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart used to drink. I'm sipping a twelve dollar Belevedere/rocks, listening to the bartender tell me about some of the hotel's secrets-- they built a secret table in the back of the place for when couples like Brad and Angelina want to come for a fabulous steak dinner and some quiet candlelight. The place looks like an unused set from Citizen Kane--all faded Spanish castle majesty shot through with WiFi and LED lamps. Outside and down the street, a line forms in the heat. It snakes around the block. It's a line waiting to get into some film premiere. Next to the theater is a wax museum full of life-sized replicas of famous dead movie stars--Elvis, Marilyn, Brando, etc.

Meanwhile, in the back of the hotel, under palm trees and fading afternoon sunlight, nearly naked women swim in the pool while Secret Machines, Interpol, Led Zeppelin, Blondie, and other bands are piped in over the sound system. It feels good. Jose Villarrubia comes over, we drink a drink out there. Something big and alive is twilling and croaking in one of the trees as we pass under it, miniature jungle sounds in a tree in Hollywood. Everything here seems to refer to movies--my hotel room looks like the set for the last two minutes of 2001, but in dark wood, without an illuminated floor. There is a strange glass sphere of a lamp on the table which looks like a prop for some sci-fi film which I can't figure out how to work. It looks like it shouldn't be invented for another ten years or so.

The sun sets. A long ride in the back of somebody's sports car and we're downtown. Good food. One of the guys has a margarita and a big slab of bread pudding for dinner. Later we go up to this guy's loft-- a huge 2000 square foot place, nearly empty except for a couch in front of a huge flatscreen TV and a Wii gamestation. It turns out the guy photographs sex toys for some company, retouches them and assembles the photos for the mail order sex toy catalogue, that's his day job.

I hear a weird story--this guy, two weeks back, he shoots a family portrait for some film producer, for the producer's mom. In the family portrait we get the producer and the wife and the two or three kids-- only problem is, the kids are all full grown and won't/can't come home. One's in Africa, the other one's in wherever. So this film guy gets photos of the kids and has the sex toy photographer superimpose the kids back into the photo, as if they were always there to begin with. Perfect simulation.

"So?" I ask, "Do you tell the old lady?"

"Are you kidding?" he says, annoyed.

So the film producer gets a fake family portrait for his mother, artifically assembled by the guy who shoots pictures of sex toys for a living. The film producer's mother gets the portrait and is pleased to have a picture of her happy family on the wall.

HR WATSON

2007-07-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

Sam Hiti's take on HR Watson, from THB. I think Sam is one of the best new American cartoonists to emerge in the past few years, when I look at his drawings I get excited--they have what I call "new comics energy".

The last issue of THB to appear in print was in 2003. Since then, I've been steadily working on it in private, without any concern for a publishing format or schedual-- just doing it in the old style, for myself first and foremost, to amuse myself, to make myself happy--as if I were still a kid in my bedroom, drawing after school and on the weekends, which is how any of us begin.

There will be a big announcement later this week at the San Diego Comics Convention, regarding the future of THB. Something exciting.

See more of Sam's work here and here.

ALEX TOTH

2007-07-21T14:09:00.000-05:00

I just found out from Ruben Procopio that the new film SIMPLICITY: THE LIFE AND ART OF ALEX TOTH will be premiering at the San Diego Comic Con this week! If you have the time--and even a slight interest in the history of cartooning, you really MUST see this film.

SIMPLICITY is a great film, certainly one of the best bio-pics about a cartoonist to date. I've had the good fortune of seeing the entire final cut and was completely bowled over by the production and the narrative thread. It is not only an excellent feature on the life of one of comics' greatest artists-- it is an excellent bio-documentary about the life and times of an incredible, influential artist in its own right, and could easily be shown on PBS, A&E, or the History Channel and not seem at all out of place.

I was able to see the final cut because I am in it-- and so is Ruben. We were interviewed along with a handful of other artists, editors, and friends of Toth, including DC Comics' Art Director, Mark Chiarello, as were Toth's four children. Informative, amusing, emotional, stimulating...this is an excellent film. Please catch it if you can.

Here's the news item as it runs on Tothfans.dynu.com:

Simplicity: The Life and Art of Alex Toth Documentary at Comic-con

Just Announced! At this year's San Diego Comic-Con International on Saturday, July 28 @ 3:30-4:30pm see "Simplicity: The Life and Art of Alex Toth".

"Featured for the first time will be the exclusive screening of the documentary Simplicity: The Life and Art of Alex Toth. The documentary will show what made Alex such a unique and beloved artist. Following the screening will be a brief panel discussion featuring the appearance of Mark Chiarello, Ruben Procopio, Toth’s children as well as documentary producers Alex Gray and Jon Mefford. Room 3"

Eric Toth has let us know that in addition to Mark Chiarello, Rubén Procopio and Jon Mefford, he and his Brother Damon will be there representing the Toth Family.

Eric also mentioned, "I have seen a rough cut (of the documentary) and it will be very good".