Artists to Check Out

Been a while since I've done an artist post. Rather than look to traditional comics artists, these are artists whose work has popped up on my Tumblr and that have caught my attention.

Raf Banzuela: Pen and ink, I think, and heaping helpings of strangeness. I'd love to see a comic illustrated by Mr. Banzuela.

Richard Vergez: Some very cool mixed media weirdness going on here. It's one of the things I love about art that manipulates photography so well - it looks like something that's happened even though we know that it's something that could never happen. Cognitive dissonance like that makes me happy.

Mark Powell: I'll admit, what caught my eye about Mr. Powell's work was the picture below that uses playing cards as the background. I love this kind of layering in a visual medium (there's a word for it that has completely escaped me right now). His other work uses other materials as backgrounds, giving the art a kind of physical aesthetic/medial depth.

Artists to Check Out

It's been a very long while since I posted some links to artists - here's some you should check out!

Ashleigh Beevers: Not sure what to say about Ms. Beevers' art - every single piece is adorable and sexy and awesome. Wonderful, evocative style.

Josan Gonzales: I really hope this is what the future looks like - it's so colourful and busy. I fully support the anti-homogeneity movement!

Elsa Ha: A remarkably versatile portfolio, but this little Inktober sketch really caught my attention. Simple, clean lines, but so much attitude and fun.

Welcome (the return of the sequel to the original 'Welcome')

I had thought for a little while there that the huge bump in page views was due to a particularly insistent bot or something, but the numbers appear to be steady, so I'll chance it, and welcome new readers to the blog!

Hi. I'm really honoured that you've taken some of your time to have a look at what I do. Here's some links that might help:

These social media ones occasionally will have content not on the blog, but mostly link back to the 40 Years project.
Facebook
Tumblr
Twitter
Pinterest

For those just joining the 40 Years of Comics Project, here's the first entry, and an explanation of the project.

If you're curious about where my collection came from (in part), here's some pictures of the store I ran in 2001 - 2002, The Magic Mirror.

I also have some semi-regular features:

On the Run: Mark Waid's The Flash - unfortunately on a bit of a hiatus - life and stuff, y'know?

The Dollar Bin - in which I wax lyrical about the pleasures and pains of cheap comics.

Artists to Check Out - whenever I find a bunch of cool art, I'll give you links to the artists' sites.

And, just occasionally, I venture into actually making comics: Sad Monster Comics.

There's more up here, so much that I've probably lost track. Have a poke about, and drop me a line if you're inclined. I'm always happy to talk about comics!

Artists to Check Out

Holy crap there's a lot of phenomenally talented people out there making art. I LOVE IT!!

Kevin Wada: How could this not catch my attention? How could anyone make a more perfect Selina Kyle than Audrey Hepburn? Mr. Wada's art is beautiful and sexy. There's a picture of a very naked man eating a banana on there that gave me...feelings ;P

Sarah con Hache: Apparently on Tumblr there's a thing called "Mer-may," so all last month I was getting inundated with pictures of mermaids. This is not by any means a bad thing. Ms. Hache's picture here stood out to me. It has all the lovely hallmarks of Foglio's Xxenophile, that is, fun, sexy, and amazingly well-rendered. Like everything else on her site.

Aortdn: Not much info on the site about this artist. But their style is fantastic, and the picture below is just wonderful. I've always thought Power Girl needed to be buff like this, a bit like the Keatinge/Campbell redesign of Glory for Image Comics a couple of years ago.

Artists to Check Out

Another small sampling of artists who have caught my eye online.

Valentine Pasche: I've been married to a woman of Swiss descent for 20 years now, so Ms. Pasche is included not only because her art is just flaming beautiful, but also because she's representing Switzerland.

Margaux Kindhauser: (I hope that's her name. It's the only name I could find on the site) Another great artist doing some very cool Steampunk-ish designs. She's the author of the comic Clues, and, while I could have posted a bit of art from that, I suppose, you know me and superheroes...

Nic ter Horst: Insanely cute, burlesque-esque artwork. I absolutely adore this Catwoman, and everything else on the site is just as fantastic.

Artists to Check Out

Some more bits and pieces of art I've found around the Web.
Top Hat and Goggles: No artist information on the tumblr, just a love of Steampunk aesthetic. If anyone can give me information about the artist, I'll update this post. But this picture is all kinds of win.

Anna Maystrenko: I have to admit, the demon girls with little tiny wings coming out of their heads is something I've never been able to wrap my head around. I mean, what's that all about? (Asks the guy who accepts that the little tiny wings on the Submariner's feet let him fly.) Regardless, this is a beautiful picture. And, actually, everything on Ms. Maystrenko's site is beautiful.

Karl Liversidge: Phenomenally beautiful portrait work. His DC ladies are breathtaking. (Also, I've just realized that I've already featured Mr. Liversidge in one of my artists posts. It was bound to happen, I guess.)

Artists to Check Out

If my time at the Edmonton Comic Con has taught me anything, it's that there is an incredible range of stunningly talented artists out there. I hope my little bits of promotion here do some good for people whose work deserves to be looked at.

Pericles Junior - I don't know much about this amazing artist, but I think the picture can speak for itself. A great picture, be it photo, painting, drawing, tells a story, without even having to say a word. This one certainly does. (Also, best name ever!)

Melissa Ballesteros - there's a profusion of this kind of stylized art (I often think of it as DC Animated U-inspired), and it certainly holds up the notions of detail removal and abstraction that a lot of formal comics theorists put forth as the reason cartooning communicates with us. But just because one abstracts art doesn't mean it's guaranteed to communicate. Ms. Ballesteros' art does.

 Rozenn Grosjean - I don't know what to say. As with the others, it communicates, it abstracts, it speaks. But that fusion of pencils and watercolours is magical. I love this picture.

Artists to Check Out

Been a little while, so here's some more great comics-style art from around the Web.

Sergey Ishmaev: Mr. Ishmaev's art is indicative of this interesting style that combines the cartoony, the super-stylized, and the sexy all in one place. Puts me in mind of Skottie Young, though with less tiny versions of superheroes.

 

Karl Liversidge: A very different style from Mr. Liversidge. The violet eyes, pursed lips, just a beautiful picture, a slight hint of amusement, Mona Lisa-style going on in this expression.

Ashley Odell: I'm not sure why, but I can imagine a whole animated sequence, Fantasia-style, in Ms. Odell's beautiful hand. I wonder about the idea of "iconic abstraction" that McCloud coined and others have elaborated upon when it comes to such stylized figures. We still recognize them as bodies, and beautiful ones, even though they bear almost no resemblance to reality. Though reality's often overrated, really.

Artists to Check Out

It occurs to me that many of the pictures I post here are of sexy ladies. It's worth considering, I suppose, that that's the predominant subject for much comic-inspired artwork. Perhaps, starting next time, I'll try to have a broader selection of subjects.

Kit - just, y'know, gorgeous manga-inspired artwork. There's occasional forays by North American publishers into Japan's rich trove of artists. Kit deserves to do, at the very least, a Powergirl comic.

Loui Jover - I don't even have the words. There is so much emotion behind these pieces. Simply stunning.

Fernanda Ribeiro - So. Damned. Cute. Marvel needs to get this young lady on a new volume of Girl Comics immediately.

Artists to Check Out

Marhahering - gorgeous art style. Also, this particular picture reminds me strongly of a very good friend, and it's a lovely picture of her.

Natalie Hall - Ms. Hall has an amazing array of fox-headed women. There's something just remarkably liquid about her drawings. But my personal favourite is this picture of Titania and Bottom. What I wouldn't give to see her do an adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

What If Kirby - an amazing gallery of Jack Kirby originals. If I'm going to hype the new artists I find amazing, I should probably hype the forerunners as well. Kirby gets flack for his writing, and sometimes art, style, but he's an original. Few have managed to have the same impact on comics that he achieved.

Artists to Check Out

I love that the advent of the World Wide Web has enabled such a wonderful sharing of art in all kinds of media. But I think the one that I had the least contact with in pre-Internet days was visual art. I am happy to remedy that now.

Benjamin Anders: There's a whole school of visual artists now whose styles grow from having grown up on the Bruce Timm DC cartoon series. I love that style, and I love the aesthetic that has grown from it. Mr. Anders is definitely of that lineage, but he takes it to a very interesting, possibly even more stylized, place. I'm imagining him illustrating a season 3 Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic.

Mel Milton: I know very little about Mr. Milton, but look at this picture. There's a story going on there. It's lovely, and a bit ominous. She's looking at something horrendous that the Joker's doing, isn't she?

Emma Geary: Simply breathtaking art. I don't even know what else to say. Have a look at her blog and her store and marvel at how gorgeous every aspect of every picture is.

Artists to Check Out

Another round of excellent artists.

Edwardian Taylor: I have always been a big fan of original costume Psylocke. Her story during the "Marvel Mutant Massacre" storyline was one of the best X-Men stories of that era. Mr. Taylor's art does justice to it.

Tula Lotay: Ms. Lotay will always have a special place in my heart for being a part of the team that finally brought Supreme back up to the golden age of Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse. Also, her work in comics is unlike anything else out there. I'm not kidding.

Jim Mahfood: I don't even know where to start with Mr. Mahfood. Hands down one of my favourite artists in or out of comics. His Generation X Underground Special is one of the best Marvel mutant comics I've read. And his real commitment to a funk visual art aesthetic is beautiful. In a perfect world, for me at least, Mahfood ascends to the same kind of acclaim as someone like Crumb. I think he's that good.

Artists to Check Out

I so wish I could see entire comics of some of these people. Some I'm sure I can, but unfortunately not all.

Vanessa Del Rey: the variety of styles is pretty stunning, just as much for how different they are as for how subtly similar.

Bruno Bellamy: The ladies Mr. Bellamy creates are cute and wonderful. I would gladly put these up on the wall. So lovely.

Erica Henderson: If you're not reading Ms. Henderson's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, you're missing out on one of the best superhero comics I've read in ages. Also. Etta. Goddamn. Candy.

Artists to Check Out

Another batch of cool artists from my travels in the Web.

Jean Laine - just amazing. Highly kinetic art, puts me in mind of Bill Sienkiewicz, but faster. If that makes sense.

Rion Vernon - Vernon's Pin Up Toons are gorgeous. I'm trying to imagine a whole comic done in this art style. It would be magnificent.

The Adventures of Business Cat - seriously, go read Tom Fonder's comic. Business Cat is the bomb.

Artists to Check Out

If the Internet has made one thing remarkably simple, it is the dissemination of works of art, be they visual, linguistic, musical, whatever. As I come across artists, specifically those practicing in a style I consider "comics," I'll save them up and post them.

Simone Kesterton - Ms. Kesterton does these excellent sketches of outfits she wears that I think are just wonderful.

Matt Crabe - I don't really know how to describe Mr. Crabe's stuff. Weird. Fucked up. Definitely NSFW.

Michael Manning - Mr. Manning pushes the boundaries of BDSM into truly fantastic realms, and has a gorgeous style in which to do it. This picture was literally the most safe one I could find on the site. You've been warned.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 48: 1602 #2, November 2003

I realized today that I haven't talked much about covers yet. I love this one. I think it's one of the nicest covers I've seen. (That's why it's a little bigger today.) It, and all of the covers for 1602, were created by Stratford, Ontario artist Scott McKowen. The ostensible use of a cover on a comic, and on anything, really, is to draw the eye to that object over all the other objects that might be vying for your attention.

Look at that cover. Even surrounded by hundreds of other comic, that's going to draw your eye.

I don't know how others look at it, but I begin to look for esoteric symbols in the hedge designs. That's only one of the ways that this cover also achieves the feat of really expertly symbolizing the atmosphere and action of the story beneath it. Did you ever see a cover of a comic and get really excited by it and then find that, really, nothing even remotely like what's happening on the cover happens inside? This cover, without explicitly citing some of the interior artwork, tells you precisely what's going to happen in the story within, but spoils nothing. The figures on the cover are doing precisely what they do in the comic, but in a highly symbolic environment. Some move toward the center, some are left at the periphery, some look ahead and some look back.

And that's what happens in this issue. I feel like this one's going to be a bit weird to talk about, because it really is a matter of each chapter basically breaking down to intrigue upon intrigue. Plans were made, predictions divined, powers revealed. In a lot of ways, this book is really a love-letter to the Marvel characters, proof from a gifted pen that they really could exist in any milieu, that there really is something timeless about them. The trouble with this is whether or not the story is really that good. Let me explain: I'm trying to ascertain how much of the appeal of the story is the revelation of the characters in a new setting, the novelty of seeing Daredevil as a blind Irish minstrel, or Peter Parker...ahem....Parquaugh as Nicholas Fury's assistant, and how much is the actual story. Or would this story, one of the end of the world and a lost Templar treasure still be as good if it were not the Marvel characters filling the leading roles. Does the story depend too much on the affection we have for the characters prior to their appearance here? And what does that say about the way comics work, let alone why these characters have succeeded where others have dwindled away into history? We no longer read Timely's original Vision, but his contemporary Captain America is still about. Many superheroes simply disappear, so what makes these ones so loved, and so adaptable?

These are the kinds of questions that drive me in my research. I think they're important ones to ask.