"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"
The Eisner-winning dynamic trio of writer Mike Mignola, penciller/inker Richard Corben, and colourist Dave Stewart reunites for an original 56-page hardcover Hellboy graphic novel (ISBN-10: 1-59582-757-9; ISBN-13: 978-1-59582-757-9), available in November from Dark Horse. “Devastated over the loss of his luchador comrade to vampires,” writes the publisher, “Hellboy lingers in Mexican bars until he’s invited to participate in the ultimate wrestling match with a vicious Frankenstein monster!”
Corben’s unique method of producing full-colour art by combining a continuous-tone black-and-white grisaille (produced using airbrush, pen and ink, markers, pencil crayons, brushes and paint, etc.) with overlaid, handmade colour separations, gave his finished work a luminosity, intensity, and above all, a texture, that artists who relied on airbrush alone struggled to imitate; it also meant that all of the images produced via Corben’s process — including not only many classic covers but also entire graphic novels such as New Tales of the Arabian Nights, the multi-volume Den saga, and the Heavy Metal reprint of Bloodstar — only exist in colour in the printed versions. The cover of 1984 #1 is a case in point:
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From the Warren magazine 1994 (October 1980), here’s a mad six-pager entitled “1894,” with script by Budd Lewis and sprawling art by Alex Nino:
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Coming soon from IDW:
I’ll update this post when more details are released.
UPDATE (06 March 2012):
Here’s the latest information, from IDW’s publishing solicitations for May 2012:
Few works by comic-book artists have earned the universal acclaim and reverence that Bernie Wrightson’s illustrated version of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein was met with upon its original release in 1983.
Nearly 30 years later, Wrightson returns to his passion project with a comic series that picks up at the end of the classic novel, hailed as one of the greatest horror stories of all time. Frequent Wrightson collaborator Steve Niles provides the script for this epic, decades in the making.
While appearing to be in black and white, each page was scanned in color to mimic as closely as possible the experience of viewing the actual original art, showing off the exquisitely detailed brush work of one of the greatest living artists in comics today.
Each issue will also include supplemental materials, including interviews, essays and a serialization of the original prose story by Shelley.
B&W • 32 pages • $3.99
With very few exceptions, I simply don’t buy comics any more; however, I have a suspicion that this series will eventually be published as a hardcover companion to the Dark Horse edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson, when it’s done. But if not, I guess I’ll just have to do without it.
The rioting in Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins in game seven of the playoffs was disgraceful. Now that the smoke has cleared, however, the following photograph has attracted a lot of positive (and some negative) attention, with many hoping that it wasn’t staged but was a true candid shot, as the photographer, Richard Lam of Getty Images, has claimed:
According to a report by Brad Frenette published on the Vancouver Sun Web site on June 17, 2011 5:46 AM, someone named “William” wrote to the paper to describe what he witnessed:
I was on the top floor of a parkade on Seymour, the couple [who have now been identified as Canadian Alexandra Thomas and her Australian boyfriend Scott Jones] was right outside of the parkade on the street in front of me. What happen was the police line rushed the crowd and this couple trying to stay together couldn’t react in time and were run over by 2 riot police officers. The girl who was knocked over landed head first on the pavement with her boyfriend landed partially on top of her. She was in visible pain, crying, but the 2 officers gave them a parting shove and moved on. By standers went to go make sure she was ok. I understand that the front line police have to control the crowd but it is a bit ridiculous that they couldn’t have other officers or paramedics behind the line to help anyone who is hurt.
If William’s account is accurate, then what we have here is neither the artful documentation of a provocative piece of street theatre nor a lurid snapshot of a couple who were “too aroused to seek privacy” (as one idiot going by the name “anon252708922” put it on the Vancouver Sun site), but rather the spontaneous and touching photographic record of one human being taking the time to comfort another who has been harmed, even while they are in the midst of real danger — although, of course, it is the additional, fortuitous frisson of eroticism conveyed by the woman’s bare skin that has given the image legs, so to speak.
UPDATE:
Here’s part of a CBC News report with the headline “Vancouver riot’s kissing couple uncovered”:
Brett Jones [Scott’s father] said the couple had been at the NHL final game, and after the frenzy following the loss spilled into the street, the two were caught in the violence.
“They were between the riot police and the rioters, and the riot police were actually charging forward, and Alex got knocked by a [police] shield and fell to the ground,” he told CBC News. “[Scott] was comforting her and gave her a kiss to say, ‘It’s going to be OK,’ and the photographer just took the shot at that moment.”
Brett Jones said Scott is fine, and Alex suffered a bruised leg from falling to the ground.
The two are overwhelmed by all the coverage the picture has gotten, he said, noting that he has been fielding calls from media around the world.
“They are both just totally stunned by it, actually.”
In an interview this morning with the Toronto Star, the woman in the photograph, Alexandra Thomas, said, “When I first saw it, I thought, ‘No way, that’s not … I can’t believe that’s us.’ Then I looked some more and realized, that is us. That’s a very revealing picture of us.”
Finally, video footage has also been released that confirms the couple’s, and William’s, and the photographer’s, story:
The Vancouver Sun > Video: EXCLUSIVE: Raw video footage of mysterious “Kissing Couple” caught in Vancouver Stanley Cup riot
Final score: Romantics 1, Cynics 0.
From The Witching Hour #1 (Feb. – March 1969), here’s the introduction to the issue/series as well as the second story, “Eternal Hour,” both with art by Alex Toth:
“Autumn Leaves” is the sixth track on the 1962 instrumental album, Playing It Straight, by comedy legends Henry “Homer” Haynes and Kenneth “Jethro” Burns:
From The Witching Hour #12 (Dec.-Jan. 1970-71), here’s “Double Edge,” with story by Steve Skeates and art by Alex Toth; note that I’ve included the opening page of the issue, drawn by Toth, because it explains the witch-host’s appearance halfway through the story:
Ragged Claws Network 