Yes, I am familiar with the work of Clarence Coles Phillips. In fact, a book about Phillips and his work was published in 2019. Lovely!
Connections: Steve Leialoha (1981) and Bill Sienkiewicz (1982)
Connections: Frank Frazetta (1963) and Jeffrey Catherine Jones (1970)
Whether or not you think that a big Frazetta and Burroughs fan like a young Jeffrey Catherine Jones might have been “inspired” by Frazetta’s title-page illustration for Burroughs’ Tarzan and the City of Gold, you surely must agree that Jones’s fan art is all kinds of wonky. Particularly egregious from a pure drawing standpoint is Jones’s botched handling of the perspective of the woman’s arms and the failure of construction that is her shrivelled right hand. Frazetta handles the same pose/angle/elements simply and with aplomb, and he is able to do so partly because he has made the throne large enough, or the woman small enough, to give himself room to operate. In particular, notice that the cylindrical forms of both of the woman’s arms are reinforced by the curves of the wrist and upper arm bands — Jones does this on one wrist, and it’s effective — and the spaces between the large, swooping arms of the throne and the outstretched arms of Frazetta’s woman effectively, along with the subtle dimensional edges of the throne and a bit of tone, push the back of the throne back in space, so that the pose is believable. In fact, as an overall strategy here, Frazetta maintains a strict contrast between the open, unrendered figure and the very simply shaded/rendered elements that surround her. Jones, on the other hand, fills the spaces between the woman’s arms and her body with black ink, and makes the woman too large for the throne, so that the arms have no space to extend toward the viewer and rest on the arms of the throne in a natural way. What Jones does not seem to realize at this point is that no amount of deep shadow and scratchy rendering can solve bad figure construction.
There are other problems with Jones’s illustration, of course, but I’m just gonna leave it there.
Anyone who has delved into the archive of this site will know that I am a huge admirer of Jones’s work, but what this illustration shows is that everyone has to start somewhere, and that that somewhere is often far distant from where one ends up. In other words, and in short, there’s hope for us all, if only we will do the work.
BONUS IMAGES:
Connections: Frank Frazetta (1976) and Dan Panosian (2021)
BONUS IMAGE:
ABOVE: Karl Edward Wagner, Dark Crusade (NY: Warner Books, 1983), with cover art by Frank Frazetta.
LATE BREAKING ADDITION (courtesy of an intrepid reader; see the comments section of this post):
Filter Frazetta and Jusko through Panosian’s style, and voilà: a variant Conan cover!
Look Here: Art by Finn Matthews
In early May of this year, I approached Canadian illustrator Finn Matthews with an idea for a commission. Finn is currently working with writer Mahendra Singh, who is an excellent illustrator in his own right, on an ambitious graphic novel, Tamburlaine: The Scourge of God, that seeks to transmute Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (Part I & Part II) into Space Opera. My idea was to have Finn draw a scene from Tamburlaine that he had not yet tackled, but to do so in a way that would combine his love of Marlowe’s play and his existing Druillet-inspired designs with ideas and motifs from works by Gustave Moreau, Barry Windsor-Smith, and others — some old favourites of mine, basically — and on Friday of last week, I received via Canada Post the completed page, which is absolutely stunning. I think it’s fair to say that Finn and I both had a blast working together to shape the final art, and I thought it might be fun and instructive to display it here at RCN along with some of the images that the page references.
While the choice of scene was mine, it was entirely Finn’s idea to break it down into a three-panel sequence, complete with balloons featuring the precise subsection of the dialogue between the First Virgin and Tamburlaine that I had mentioned in conversation that I like best, which was a cool surprise. (When I first contacted Finn, I had thought that I was commissioning an inked drawing, not a fully formed comics page, which I think anyone would view as a significant upgrade, but let’s just say that, as the process unfolded, we both got a bit carried away.) The term “XenoBramic” in the opening word balloon is an addition to Marlowe that may or may not appear in Tamburlaine: The Scourge of God, which, when it is published, will be Finn’s first professional credit in comics. Follow Finn on Twitter and/or Instagram for updates on the progress of his and Mahendra’s graphic novel. And publishers: there are still opportunities for a few brave souls worldwide to join the crew of Tamburlaine’s corsair, the Maa-Durga, which is already prowling the space lanes for plunder and booty, so hup to it!
Connections: Frank Frazetta and Chris Achilleos
What interests me about these juxtapositions is not merely Achilleos’s obvious debt to Frazetta but that each of the artists revised his original composition after first publication. Whether the compositions are better or worse now, you can decide for yourself. In both instances, however, the changes were probably driven by what I like to call “the tyranny of second thoughts.” That is, once one gets it into one’s head that improvements are possible, it is damned difficult to resist sacrificing what one has for the promise of something better.
Strnad & Corben’s “To Meet the Faces You Meet”: The Movie
In 1972, Kitchen Sink Enterprises published and distributed Fever Dreams, an underground, fantasy comic that included two stories written by Jan Strnad: “The Unicorn Quest,” with art by John Adkins Richardson and “To Meet the Faces You Meet,” with art by the now-legendary Richard Corben. Flash forward forty-eight years — years that delivered to comics fans numerous first-rate Strnad/Corben comics collaborations — and we are now on the cusp of having a high-quality, feature-length, hybrid live-action/animated movie adaptation of “To Meet the Faces You Meet” to enjoy. But this isn’t just any adaptation, it’s an adaption with a script by J. Allen Williams of Parallax Studio, and the man himself, Jan Strnad, that is actually inspired by and respectful of Corben’s conceptual designs, and what’s more, Williams, who is the director and producer of the movie as well as a co-writer, has welcomed the input of Strnad and Corben at every stage of the production.
the cleaned up version posted below
that will appear in the Kickstarter-exclusive reprint
of “To Meet the Faces You Meet.”
As his fans are undoubtedly aware, Corben has, from the beginning of his career as an artist, had an abiding interest in animation, and has himself produced a variety of short films over the years, the most ambitious of which were the animated short film, Neverwhere (1968), which included the earliest appearance of Den and won several awards, and The Dark Planet (1989), an anthology that included “The Tower of Blood” and “Relief Station.” In addition, in 1981, Corben’s Neverwhere graphic novel was adapted to the big screen as a sequence in the film “Heavy Metal,” and in 2012, his story, “King’s Crown,” was adapted for the TV series, Metal Hurlant Chronicles. And now Corben has given his blessing to the forthcoming movie adaptation of “To Meet the Faces You Meet.”
Why am I telling you this? Because, although the animation for the film is complete, and the lead character, MEAD, voiced by Patton Oswalt, has been recorded, Parallax still has work to do. Actors need to be hired for the lead human parts and their performances, filmed and combined with the animation. Now, I have no doubt that the film will, no matter what, eventually be completed, but the fact is, the more money Parallax has, the more leeway they will have to hire experienced actors who best embody the characters. And that is why, on 09 May 2020, the studio created a Kickstarter campaign for their movie.
To learn about the campaign, which includes a variety of levels and rewards, you should visit Parallax’s official “To Meet the Faces You Meet” Kickstarter page. Corben fans, however, should know that, while everyone who contributes to the campaign will get their name in the credits of the movie and in a special-edition comic, other reward possibilities include 1) a Blu-Ray of the completed film, 2) a special, oversized, Kickstarter-exclusive edition of “To Meet the Faces You Meet” with the original Fever Dreams cover art and masthead, 3) a 12.5 x 18 inch print of the original Fever Dreams cover art and masthead, and more!
the Kickstarter-exclusive reprint (left)
and the original comic (right).
of “To Meet the Faces You Meet.” Compare with
same page scanned from the original comic
that appears earlier in this post.
As a Corben fan myself, I selfishly hope that you, dear reader, will seriously consider supporting this project, because the fact is, I want the film, I want the oversized, remastered reprint of “To Meet the Faces You Meet,” and I want the poster of that cover.
And last but not least, I want comics fans to support the “fever dreams” of two legendary creators: Jan Strnad and Richard Corben!
For if they feel the love, who can say what dreams may come?!
Mutant World and Son of Mutant World
On Kickstarter right now:
“A hardback, collector’s edition of two graphic novels for mature readers. Full-color, 160 letter-sized pages, with bonus material. Out of print for more than thirty years, this is the definitive edition. Written by Richard Corben and Jan Strnad, illustrated by Richard Corben.”
This edition marks the first time that all five episodes of “Son of Mutant World” will be published in English in full colour on high-quality paper. The story is being re-coloured for the occasion by Richard’s daughter Beth Corben Reed, who has been a long-time collaborator with her father.
This project will only be funded if it reaches its goal by Mon, September 16 2019 2:00 PM UTC +00:00.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/janstrnad/mutant-world-and-son-of-mutant-world
Heads Up: Corben Art Sale, 9 September 2017
On Saturday 09 September 2017 at 12:00 noon CST, fifteen pages of original comic art and a painting by Richard Corben will go on sale via the “Sales” page on the artist’s official website.
Five of the black-and-white comics pages in the September sale are from Conan the Cimmerian (Dark Horse, 2008-2009), five are from Corben and Strnad’s Denz (Penthouse Comix, 1996-97), and five are from Corben and Strnad’s Son of Mutant World (Fantagor Press, 1990). The painting, Air Battle, was produced in 1985 for a role-playing game. The Conan pages were drawn with Sharpie pens and Pigma pens on 11 x 17 inch Strathmore bristol paper; the Denz pages, with Sharpie pens and Pigma pens on 12 x 16 inch Strathmore bristol paper; and the Son of Mutant World pages, with markers, Sharpie pens, Pigma pens, and pencil tones, on 12 x 16 inch Bainbridge paper. Air Battle was painted in acrylic and oil on 19 x 30 inch composition board.
The small scans that are on the Corben website right now are intended for “viewing only.” Prices will be posted when the sale goes live on Saturday 09 September 2017 at 12:00 noon CST, at which point the first person to complete the PayPal shopping cart for each page will receive that page.
Heads Up: Corben Art Sale, 8 April 2017
On Saturday 08 April 2017 at 12:00 noon CST, sixteen pages of original comic art by Richard Corben will go on sale via the “Sales” page on the artist’s official website.
Three of the pages (including the cover of issue #2) in the April sale are from Cage (Marvel, 2002), five are from Conan the Cimmerian (Dark Horse, 2008-2009), three are from Corben and Strnad’s Denz (Penthouse Comix, 1996), and the remaining five are from Corben and Strnad’s Son of Mutant World #1 (Fantagor Press, 1990). All of the pages have been drawn with Sharpie and Pigma pens on Strathmore Bristol paper.
The small scans that are on the Corben website right now are intended for “viewing only.” Prices will be posted when the sale goes live on Saturday 08 April 2017 at 12:00 noon CST, at which point the first person to complete the PayPal shopping cart for each page will receive that page.
Heads Up: Corben Art Sale, 19 November 2016
I’m a bit late with this, but here goes…
On Saturday 19 November 2016 at 12:00 noon CST — tomorrow! — eleven pages of original comic art by Richard Corben will go on sale via the “Sales” page on the artist’s official website.
Six of the pages in the November sale are from Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil (Dark Horse, 2010), while the other five pages are from Margopoulos and Corben’s ten-page comics adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Sleeper,” first published in Haunt of Horror #1 (Marvel, July 2006).
The small scans that are on the Corben website right now are intended for “viewing only.” Prices will be posted when the sale goes live on Saturday 19 November 2016 at 12:00 noon CST, at which point the first person to complete the PayPal shopping cart for each page will receive that page.
Ragged Claws Network 