"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 Munro, "What is Remembered"
From Heavy Metal volume 1, number 8 (November 1977), here’s the fourth chapter of Claveloux and Zha’s The Green Hand:
From Slow Death #2 (Dec. 1970), here’s an underground classic by Richard Corben:
From Heavy Metal volume 1, number 7 (October 1977), here’s the third chapter of Claveloux and Zha’s The Green Hand:
From Heavy Metal volume 1, number 6 (September 1977), here’s the second installment of Claveloux and Zha’s The Green Hand, which to my knowledge has never been published in a single volume in English:
The graphic album, “La Main Verte,” by Nicole Claveloux and Elisabeth “Zha” Salomon, published in French in 1978 by Humanoids, was also serialized in English in Heavy Metal. The following is the first of five chapters that appeared in Heavy Metal from August to December 1977 (33 years ago!); I’ve also included the cover by Bernie Wrightson, for comparison and contrast fun:
The moment when the woman says to the flightless, depressed bird, “Get out of here. I’m going to do something desperate,” and then unexpectedly slides through the wall into the ivy-choked apartment next door, leaving her clothes in shreds on the floor, is not only beautifully realized but also, for me, absolutely unforgettable.
Should I post the rest of the story? You tell me.
UPDATE:
From Heavy Metal’s Greatest Hits, volume 8, number 2 (1994), here’s a lushly painted little parable on freedom of expression by a neglected master, Alberto Breccia.
So… all you lovers of freedom, beware the wrath of the frustrated would-be artist… also, all you dictators out there, beware the brutal efficiency of your own brain-dead blackshirts…
More good news for comics fans. In reply to a post by blogger Tom Crippen featuring a couple of “Nuts” comics over at the Comics Journal site, TCJ and Fantagraphics employee, Kristi Valenti, let slip the following big news for Gahan Wilson fans, and I quote, “FYI, Fanta will be reprinting these. Should be out by SDCC 2011.” For those of you who don’t already know, Gahan Wilson’s “Nuts” first appeared as a regular feature in National Lampoon in the 1970s, along with “Idyl” by Jeffrey Jones, “Trots and Bonnie” by Shary Flenniken, and several other strips that deserved to be collected and brought back into print. Yes, a “Nuts” collection was published back in 1979 by Richard Marek Publishers; however, since that book has been out of print for almost thirty years, and since Fantagraphics has had a big success with their three-volume boxed set of “50 years of Playboy Cartoons” by Gahan Wilson, perhaps the time is ripe for a more general readership to discover, or re-discover, the greatness that is Gahan. One can only hope!
ComiCrazys has posted twelve Hey Look! single-page comic strips (in colour) and nine Mad covers (also in colour) by the late, great Harvey Kurtzman for your viewing enjoyment, but they don’t have this one:
Here’s a 10-page story by Spanish comics artist and illustrator Fernando Fernandez that was published in the collection, Son of Heavy Metal, in 1984:
Although I wish the story amounted to more than a poorly thought out variation on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, I do admire how the bold contrasts and the variety of illustration techniques on display here give the story such an opulent, even decadent, feeling. As I recall, several other Spanish artists, including fan-favourite Jose Gonzalez (1939–2009), used to switch back and forth between mediums in the stories they drew for Vampirella, although in black and white, the effect is somewhat different.
In a couple of spots, Fernandez’s work reminds me of Bill Sienkiewicz’s painted comics, but I have no idea whether Sienkiewicz would count Fernandez as an influence. Maybe, maybe not.
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Born in Spain on 07 February 1940, Fernando Fernandez passed away in Barcelona this past summer, on 09 August 2010, at the age of 70.
From Arcade volume 1, number 5 (Spring 1976), here’s a comic two-page comic by the incomparable M. K. Brown:
Click here to read “Self-Portrait” in colour online. Lots of other M. K. Brown comics on that site as well, so be sure to take a look around! You won’t regret it.
I went looking for a book collection of M. K. Brown’s comics to light up my life, but I couldn’t find one. My conclusion: this is not the best of all possible worlds.
Ragged Claws Network 