Look There: Sergio Toppi Gallery
Category: Illustration Art
Look Here: Highlights from “Drawing With Pen and Ink” by Arthur Guptill
Three highlights, to be exact, the first by James Montgomery Flagg, the other two by Charles Dana Gibson:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
In Drawing with Pen and Ink, Arthur Guptill writes that Flagg “draws his lines very rapidly, as may be ascertained by a glance at his illustrations, yet in spite of this rapidity these lines are skilfully placed. Many of his blacks are added with a brush[…]. If one of these spots seems over-black or solid to Mr. Flagg, he scratches through the ink to the surface of the paper, thus making white lines[…]. He also employs cross-hatch freely where he feels the need of it” (p. 426).
And here’s Guptill on Charles Dana Gibson:
Mr. Gibson, it will be seen, has at his command almost every sort of line and dot which the pen is capable of making. And he uses them all. Though his work as a whole is extremely free and direct, being done with a dash and daring for which, among other things, he is famous, it is by no means carelessly done in the sense that the student sometimes seems to think such work to be. Mr. Gibson is undoubtedly primarily interested in the message that his drawing is supposed to convey. In its making he almost instinctively chooses for every detail of the whole the sort of stroke which will lend itself best to the expression of his purpose, whether it be a delicate, hair-like line or a stroke a quarter of an inch wide. [p. 426]
Look Here: Original Art by Rudy Nebres
My wife and I purchased the following magnificent page by Filipino artist Rudy Nebres earlier this year:
From the early 1970s to the present day, Rudy Nebres has worked, sometimes as a penciller, sometimes as an inker, and sometimes as both (see above), on comics of all kinds, including “adult”-themed comics, for a wide variety of publishers. He’s a skilled artist who has had a long and productive career, and that’s great for him! Not so great for the average, non-art-obsessed reader, however, is the fact that only a handful of the comics Nebres worked on are worth reading for any reason other than to marvel at the man’s amazing craftsmanship. It’s a pity Nebres never found the perfect project to harness his prodigious talent — if only he could have drawn nothing but Western comics! — but the same can be said for most comics artists of his generation and before who scrambled to make a living doing nothing but “work for hire.”
I don’t know which Warren comics magazine the page we now own is from; the dealer didn’t have the information. The only information he had on his site was “Rook Story p.8 Warren Art,” so it is possible this is a page from a Rook story that appeared in Eerie or one that appeared in the Rook’s solo magazine, entitled, what else, The Rook. From Wikipedia:
He [Restin Dane, the time-traveller known as “The Rook”] appeared in Eerie #82-85, 87-95, 98-105. He got his own Rook Magazine which ran 14 issues from 1979 to 1982 (after which he returned to Eerie and concluded the storyline in #132 and continued in 134 and 136). Warren Presents #2 reprints the stories from Eerie #82-85. Eerie isues #116 and 120 had stories staring his great-grandfather.
After perusing Richard Arndt’s index of Warren Magazines, I would venture to guess that the page appeared in The Rook #11 (or possibly #12). But that’s only a guess, so if you by chance recognize the page, and remember which Warren magazine and which issue the story was in, please post a comment, or send me a private message using the link at the top of the page, and let me know. I’d really appreciate the information.
p.s. If you’re wondering why there are no captions or word balloons on the page, it’s because all that is on a separate clear overlay, which thankfully came with the artwork.
UPDATE 03 OCTOBER 2008:
Acting on the basic research outlined above, I mosied on over to ebay and purchased the two issues of The Rook most likely to contain the story with our page in it. Well, the books arrived today, and I was right. Our Rudy Nebres page was printed in The Rook #11 (October 1981), page 12. The story, written by Will Richardson, is titled, simply, “The Rook.” Mystery solved!
Bonus Links:
Look Here: Our Teeny-Tiny Drawing by Hector Mumbly, a.k.a. Dave Cooper
In August, we purchased a teeny-tiny drawing by “Hector Mumbly,” which is the children’s book nom de plume of artist Dave Cooper. Here’s a scan:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
The artwork, which is from the Hector Mumbly book entitled Bagel’s Lucky Hat, is 124 mm high x 127 mm wide, red and black ink over printed blueline. The featured character, Bagel, is a mere 25 mm from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.
The drawing was accompanied by an illustrated thank-you note on standard-size typing paper. Here’s a scan:
BONUS LINK:
davegraphics’ photostream – there’s lots of really good (and, sometimes, disturbing) work on display here, including some enlightening step-by-step documentations of paintings in progress.
Look Here: “Misery Loves Comedy” Poster
The art show is long-time gone but the excellent poster remains:
Look There: Lynd Ward’s Frankenstein
Lynd Ward’s illustrations for Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, are stunning examples of the wood engraver’s art, and John Lauritsen has posted them all on his Web site:
BONUS LINKS:
Look There: An Alex Toth Gallery
(UPDATE [20 Janurary 2016]: Looks like that Alex Toth Gallery has disappeared. I’d delete the post entirely, except that if I did, I’d lose the nice comment below. So instead, all I’ve done is to remove the link… )
Download: Six Books by Andrew Loomis
UPDATED (08 April 2013; 27 May 2019):
Just noticed that that distribution site for Loomis’s books that I originally linked to here is no longer in operation.
The good news, however, is that Loomis’s books have long been available in PDF format via Alex Hays’ Save Loomis! page.
AND they are available via the Internet Archive.
(The books used to be distributed via the Illustration Age site, but that’s no longer the case. The explanation offered is as follows: “Out of respect for the Andrew Loomis estate, Illustration Age has removed these out-of-print books from our free collection.” Previously, however, Illustration Age site claimed that Loomis’s books “are free to distribute because of their public domain status.” My view is, if the books are in the public domain, they’re in the public domain. Too bad for the estate that they didn’t give a shit about the books when they could easily have protected the copyright. But what’s done is done. In fact, the free PDFs are what prompted me and others to buy the lovely the hardcover reprints a few years back. Free e-Loomis for everyone!)
Look Here: José Miguel Covarrubias
Over at GoofButton, Jeffrey Meyer has posted some terrific scans of José Miguel Covarrubias‘s lush illustrations for W. H. Hudson’s Green Mansions. Here’s a taste (you’ll find a larger version on the GoofButton site):
What I especially appreciate about this illustration, in addition to the lovely colour and composition, is the observational quality of the foot. Although the shapes are simplified, they are still clearly based in reality, with the pinky toe tucked in toward the fourth toe, which in turn is tilted slightly toward the pinky toe, and with each of the toenails having a distinctive shape. And then there’s the pale colouration of the toes themselves, bluish near the nail, suggestive of slight downward pressure on the forest floor. And so on. Without such variations and details, the picture would still be attractive; it would not, however, be half so alive.
Ragged Claws Network 
