Category: Look Here

Heads Up! · Look Here · Richard Thompson

Heads Up: “Team Cul de Sac” art auctions now open for business!

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The bidding at Heritage Auctions actually opened on 27 May 2012, so I’m a bit late with this, obviously — although RCN did feature information about the auction back on 17 November 2011 — but anyway, not to worry: you still have until 10 June 2012 to make a play for a beautiful work of original art like this one, entitled “Queen Alice in Wonderland,” by cartoonist David Clark:

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You can browse through the various Team Cul de Sac auction listings via this link.

From the official auction announcement:

Team Cul de Sac was created to honor Richard Thompson, creator of the award-winning comic strip, Cul de Sac, after his recent Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. Cartoonists, artists, illustrators, and animators have donated original artwork for this auction, with 100% of the proceeds benefitting the Michael J. Fox Foundation to support Parkinson¹s research. The auction ends June 10 at 10:00 p.m. The artwork is also collected in a book, Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson’s (Andrews McMeel Publishing), to be published June 5, 2012. A portion of the proceeds from the book will also be directed to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Leo and Diane Dillon · Look Here · Obituaries

Rest in Peace: Leo Dillon (1933 – 2012)

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In a post on the Tor.com blog dated 29 May 2012, Irene Gallo announced the passing of Leo Dillon, one half of the legendary husband-and-wife illustration team of Leo and Diane Dillon. Leo was 79 years old.

Here, in remembrance of Leo Dillon, is a teeny-tiny sampler from the magnificent body of work the Dillons created together (although the Tolstoy cover from 1961 is just signed “Dillon,” so I suppose it might just be rare example of a solo cover illustration by Leo; yes, Leo and Diane were married in 1957, but my understanding is that they didn’t immediately begin to do all of their illustration work as a team); the covers have been scanned by yours truly, from books in my own collection:

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Not that it matters, but I have to say 1) that Who’s in Rabbit’s House? is one of my favourite children’s books of all time, and 2) that my enduring affection for the book is entirely due to the Dillon’s expressive character designs and sly, energetic, innovative staging of the story.

To view all of the covers with art by Leo and Diane Dillon that I’ve posted so far here at RCN, click here.

BONUS IMAGE:

From an online auction, here’s a scan of Leo and Diane Dillon’s original art for the cover of John Brunner’s The Traveler in Black:

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Keywords: The Cossacks and the Raid, The Traveler in Black, Justice and Her Brothers, Dustland, The Art of Leo & Diane Dillon, The Snow Queen, World’s End, Honey, I love, Ashanti to Zulu, Who’s in Rabbit’s House.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · Peter Cross

Look Here: Three John Boyd novels with cover art by Peter Cross

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I only have three paperbacks with covers by Peter Cross, and here they all are:

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Truth be told, I don’t think any of the above covers is really very good. They deliver an immediate visual punch, and so are well-suited to their purpose, which is to attract attention on crowded bookstore shelves, but they don’t reward close examination for the simple reason that the drawing is weak, and the technique, much too simple. They’re the cover-illustration equivalent of black-light posters and black-velvet paintings, both of which were at the height of their popularity in the 1970s, which is when those editions of John Boyd’s novels were published.

Keywords: The Last Starship from Earth, The Rakehells of Heaven, The Girl with the Jade Green Eyes.

Comics · Here, Read · Look Here · Steve Ditko

Look Here, Read: “The Man Who Painted on Air,” with art by Steve Ditko

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From Unusual Tales #7 (May 1957), here’s “The Man Who Painted on Air,” cover and story, with art by Steve Ditko and script by the great unknown:

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Registered users can download Unusual Tales #7, in its entirety, via The Digital Comics Museum; the story posted above is a version of the DCM scan that has been run through GIMP to adjust the colour levels. The cover scan, which is from an online auction, has also been run through GIMP.

A nicely cleaned up (and slightly more muted) version of “The Man Who Painted on Air” is included in Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archives, Vol. 2 (Fantagraphics, 2012).

For those who don’t aleady know, The Steve Ditko Archives, edited by Blake Bell, is a project to reprint all of the pre-Comics Code stories with art by Steve Ditko that have fallen into the public domain.

Unfortunately, the first volume in the series, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1, is currently marked “sold out” in the publisher’s online catalogue.

The most recent volume, Mysterious Traveller: The Steve Ditko Archives, Vol. 3, was published earlier this spring.

Comics · Connections · Gil Kane · Here, Read · Joe Kubert · Look Here

Heads Up: WEIRD HORRORS & DARING ADVENTURES: THE JOE KUBERT ARCHIVES VOL. 1

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Coming in Fall 2012 from Fantagraphics:

Book description and details:

Joe Kubert is one of the greatest American comic-book cartoonists of all time; his Sgt. Rock of Easy Company, Enemy Ace, and Tarzan comics, all done for DC Comics during the 1960s and 1970s, are already the subject of archival editions. In the 1940s, young Kubert developed his design sense and realistic art style by freelancing for a variety of comic-book publishers in a glorious variety of non-superhero genres: horror, crime, science fiction, western, romance, humor, and more. For the first time, 33 of the best of these stories have been collected in one full-color volume, Weird Horrors and Daring Adventures: The Joe Kubert Archives Vol. 1 with a special emphasis on horror and crime … more violent and sexy (by contemporary standards) than much of his later, Code-constrained work.

Hardcover: 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1606995812
ISBN-13: 978-1606995815

BONUS “LOOK HERE, READ” CONTENT:

From Eerie #3 (Oct.-Nov. 1951), here’s an example of the sort of story (now in the public domain) that you’re likely to find in the new collection:

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BONUS “CONNECTIONS” CONTENT:

Displayed in order of publication, the following images are by Max Elkan, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane; if anyone can find a picture of a Gil Kane haymaker published before the Max Elkan haymaker of 1949, you are welcome to share your discovery in the comments section of this post:

One aficionado of the Gil Kane haymaker, Dr. K, has identified what he believes to be the earliest example of a “Gil Kane punch”; the image, from a story published in 1955, is posted on his blog.