Look Here: Two paperback covers with art by Barron Storey

23 January 201311 August 2016 RC1 Comment

[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]

Earlier this morning, I purchased the above paperbacks with cover art by Barron Storey from a local thrift store for a buck a piece. When I arrived home with my haul, I noticed that I had received an email from a past contributor to RCN — see Look Here, Read: “The Believer,” reconstructed by Rotomago — who had sent me scans, front and back, of THE EXACT SAME EDITION (!) of The Lord of the Flies that I had just purchased along with a JPEG of a cover with art by Chris Bachalo that apparently was intended as an homage to Storey’s iconic painting. To his credit, Rotomago had noticed the connection between the two covers on his own, but when he checked online, he found that the well-known comics site, Robot 6, among others, had beaten him (and me) to the punch. Still, I do think the connection is interesting, so I’ve decided to post the JPEG of Bachalo’s Avengers Arena cover here at RCN:

The short critique of the Bachalo’s cover that Rotomago sent to me along with the JPEG is pretty much spot on, so rather than write something myself, I’m just going to quote him:

Some current super-heroes addicts seem to find this homage very cool. Personally I’m not so enthusiastic. I find this cover representative of trendy contemporary illustration, in form and spirit, in its undecided soft aseptic lines and colours, and in its poverty of imagination, but that’s surely a question of taste.

Barron Storey’s online presence includes a blogspot that functions as an archive of old journal pages and a tumblr that Storey is in the process of filling with new journal pages.

Rotomago is a cartoonist as well as the creator of the site, Alberto Breccia Bibliografía, which, although it hasn’t been updated in a while, remains a valuable resource.

P.S. I actually own a drawing by Chris Bachalo that I’ve been meaning to scan and post, but for some reason, I’ve just never gotten around to it. Maybe this year…

P.P.S. I’ve used my own scans of Storey’s Lord of the Flies cover rather than the scans that Rotomago sent to me by email — my copy of the novel is in like-new condition; Rotomago’s copy is faded from wear and slightly damaged on the back — but I must say, if I hadn’t coincidentally just purchased my own copy, it’s Rotomago’s scans that you’d be viewing right now.

Barron Storey · Bill Sienkiewicz · Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · Richard Powers

Look Here: Two SF covers, with art by Richard Powers

6 October 201011 August 2016 RC8 Comments

[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]

richard-powers_brain-wave_ny-ballantine-1960 — **ABOVE:** Poul Anderson, *Brain Wave* (New York: Ballantine, 1960), with cover art by Richard Powers.

powers_brain-wave-wraparound — I don’t own the edition of *Brain Wave* with the wraparound cover, but here’s a little image that’ll give you an idea of how lovely it is.

richard-powers_the-planet-of-the-blind_ny-paperback-library-1969 — **ABOVE:** Paul Corey, *The Planet of the Blind* (New York: Paperback Library, 1969), with cover art by Richard Powers.

When I saw that second cover with the raggedly applied paint, the swooping linear accents, and the colourful little shapes fluttering along the edges of the forms, I immediately was reminded of certain works by Bill Sienkiewicz and by his teacher/mentor, Barron Storey. Like this well-known cover, for instance:

But would either Sienkiewicz or Storey recognize Powers as an influence? I have no idea…

BONUS LINK:

The Powers Compendium — the images are tiny, but there sure are a lot of them! I see that the Compendium site also includes that same little scan of the wraparound Brain Wave cover.

Barron Storey · Heads Up! · Illustration Art

Heads Up: Barron Storey’s “The Marat/Sade Journals”

11 December 200911 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Here’s a book I never expected to see reprinted. It’s Barron Storey’s The Marat/Sade Journals, a visual diary that uses the play Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss as the jumping off point for a raw, painterly exploration of the deep despair of “an ageing artist” forced to deal with the end of a romantic relationship. The book was first published in 1993 by Tundra Publishing and limited to 1,000 copies, and the price of a good, used copy has since climbed into the hundreds of dollars in the collector’s market. The new edition by Graphic Novel Art, re-edited by the artist — 80% of the art has been re-scanned from the originals — with an introduction by David Mack, a new drawing by Dave McKean, and an afterword by Storey himself, is printed on silk-varnished 140gr paper and includes a sewn binding (rather than the glued binding of the first edition) to make the book feel more like one of Storey’s actual journals.

DETAILS:

Barron Storey: The Marat/Sade Journals
132 pages
6.4″ x 9.4″ x 0.8″
Full colour

PURCHASE LINKS:

Buy Barron Storey: The Marat/Sade Journals from the publisher on ebay

Buy Barron Storey: The Marat/Sade Journals from Gallery Nucleus

Buy Barron Storey: Life after Black (the sequel to The Marat/Sade Journals) from the publisher on ebay

[N.B.: I receive no money at all from the sale of this book, which I ordered for my personal library just yesterday; my recommendation is free.]

BONUS LINKS:

Barron Storey: The Journals — follow the progress of Storey’s latest journal pages on blogspot.

Paint it Black: Carl Wyckaert on Barron Storey’s Life After Black — an interview with Barron Storey’s publisher, the owner of Graphic Novel Art, based in Belgium.

Review of Barron Storey: Life after Black