Art Feature - James Jean

I recently heard, via Scott's blog, that James Jean is leaving Fables. I am weeping. Now even more happy that I ordered a Fables Covers book for myself. His covers have been beautiful and I can't imagine who they'll find to fill in. Fables is one of those perfect storms in comics with fantastic covers, fantastic interior art (Mark Buckingham primarily) and fantastic stories (Bill Willingham). Hopefully DC/Vertigo has another awesome artist waiting in the wings to fill this vacancy. Jean's last issue is 81.

Jean wants to move on to do his own stuff, which is great for him. Except that I'll really miss those Fables covers. His web site has some of his non-comic book stuff available for viewing, but none of his comic book art, sadly. However I did find another site full of the covers. While his style might not work for every comic book, he has found a way to get his artistic style of painted art to fit into the covers he has done - and work well.

Jean has won 4 Eisner Awars for Best Cover Artist, two Harvey Awards for Best Cover Artist, and the 2007 Eagle Award for Best Comic Book Cover. Clearly in the short time he's been in comics he has really impressed people. Not only has he done Fables, but there are some Green Arrow and Batgirl covers that he's done as well. Click on the montage above to see them closer. Farwell James Jean!

I could barely finish it...

Have you ever picked up an issue of a comic book you typically enjoy, only to discover that there is a new interior artist? An artist whose work you, for some reason, just don't like? Maybe it's that the style is very different from what the book was before, maybe it's just the style altogether? Then you have a hard time getting through the issue because you just aren't enjoying it the way you used to. Has this happened to you?

Well I had this happen when I read X-Factor 33. I am not saying that Larry Stroman isn't a good artist. He's WAY better than I'll ever be, better than some other comic book artists out there too. But it's just so different from the artwork of Pablo Raimondi and Renato Arlem, two other artists who've worked on the comic. It is so manga-ish and just not as finely detailed. The characters are barely recognizable to me!

Raimondi on the left, Stroman on the right. See for yourself the vast difference in style. Now maybe you personally prefer Stroman, and that's fine. But I have to admit, I want Raimondi back!

Art Feature - Brian Bolland

Today's feature artist is BRIAN BOLLAND

you can click on the photo above to see it better

Brian Bolland is one of my FAVORITE comic book artists. I really enjoy his work. It is incredibly detailed, to the point of being meticulous. His characters are well proportioned, the faces have great expressions that pull you into the scene and weather his work is inks only or colored I'm hard pressed to find a Bolland piece I don't like. Although I could live without his seeming infatuation with bondage. But that's another post altogether.

Bolland is English, born in 1951, and while clearly he has a talent in art, he did attend art school. He claims to have started drawing comic book art when he was only 10 years old. He officially made it into the "main stream" when he began working regularly for DC in 1979. While known mainly for his cover art, he also has done some interiors too. The Killing Joke features his art, and is one of the most well read and sought after of all Batman stories.

His official web site can be found here. You can see just about every comic book art piece done by him here, at the Grand Comics Database.

Good stuff, hey.

Who is your favorite artist?

Art Feature - Imaginism Studios

While at the Chicago comic con I saw a few interesting art studios with cool, unusual art. One of those was Imaginism Studios. Their stuff is cute & fun! Right now they are made up of two artists: Boby Chiu and Kei Acedera.

Not only do they create these cute prints, but you can have them do custom work and they also do TV and movie pre-production. The link above will take you to their site, where you can find out all about them and see more of their fun art. Now we just need to get them to make a great all-age comic book!

Imaginism also offers art classes, especially for digital painting and caricature drawing. And what kind of studio would they be if they didn't also have a blog. You can check that out here!

I'm going to try to post some art features as time goes on - make it something of a periodically reoccurring thing for the blog. So if you like this, stay tuned!

Get Well Gene

You might have noticed in my Wizard World Chicago pictures the "Gene Colan Benefit Jam" sketches. Gene, a comic book titan of the Silver Age, is very ill. He has been for at least a couple of months now. His liver is giving out, according to reports, and he might not be with us much longer. His official web site is here.

Craig and I were lucky enough to get a piece of Gene Colan artwork as he was heading into retirement. Click here to see it. A great variety of his art can be found here.

If you want to help, I know the HERO Initiative has a number of fund raising activities earmarked for Gene, and they are selling a Gene Colan Daredevil print at the conventions this year to raise money for Gene and other comic book creators in need of financial assistance. If you know of other fund raising efforts to help Gene, feel free to email me (llopacinski@sbcglobal.net) or post links here.

You can also write a Get Well or Thank You card and send it to Gene. His wife says he really enjoys those. Mail them to:

Gene Colan
2 Sea Cliff Avenue
Sea Cliff, NY 11579
USA


This year has taken several comic book greats from us. It really makes me think about how much we take for granted until it is gone. Gene was a major comic book artist in the day, and his art contributed to making Marvel comics what it is today. Let us honor, respect, and help him while we still can.

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Wizard World Chicago 2008

Another Wizard World Chicago has come and gone. This year's con was earlier than usual and it seemed a little less attended than the last few I've been to.

I have photos from the con on Flickr now.

We found out about Michael Turner's death at the convention, which made things a bit more somber. At first we thought it was just a rumor someone made up. But as Saturday progressed we found out it was true. Some creators left the show to go bet with Michael's family. Others stayed, but their mood was definitely changed due to his passing. While he had been sick for a while, making his death a little less surprising, that doesn't make it any easier to know a young and talented man is now only a spirit and memory. But at least he left many footprints - his work will live on and be enjoyed by generations. This has been a rough year for the comic book industry as we have lost a few very good people.

Overall Chicago was fun. We hung out with friends, met some new people, and enjoyed costumes and comics. Craig got a Wonder Woman headsketch from Aaron Lopresti which I'm sure he'll upload onto here in the next day or two. We got to learn about Diamond's POS system, which is everything our current POS system was supposed to be but isn't, so we are 99% sure that we will switch. Cheryl (who is a regular reader of this blog, by the way - HI CHERYL!) did a great job showing us the bells & whistles of Comic Suite and it really impressed us - plus Diamond makes the system affordable by providing retailers with payment options. For those stores not yet on a POS & inventory management system, I recommend checking it out. If not the Diamond system, then some system, because it is SO important and valuable of a tool.

Well, it's getting late and that's all I've got for now.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Wonder Woman Fan Art

I saw the link to this on KellyAnn's blog and had to post the link here as well. I think she did a great job with it!

Behold, Neptune's Namor!

Fellow blogger Heidi from Comics Fairplay introduced me to the art of Ben Hansen. He's not a comic book big shot yet, but he's pretty good and I think he could become a future comic book artist star. Right now he's doing commissions for some extra money, so we had him do Namor - in honor of Neptune (not the planet version, the Roman god version) and of course he's holding the trident - which is symbolic of our Neptune logo. I think it turned out pretty cool! We don't have the paper versions yet, but Ben will probably get them to us in a week or two.




(head to my Flickr page if you want to see them larger)

David Finch Moon Knight Sketch

We got this awesome sketch from David Finch at WWC on Saturday.

This was our first con sketch purchase that worked out. We tried to get one at Baltimore ComicCon last year from Mark Texeira but he took our money and ran. Thankfully Finch does his sketches while you wait, so there isn't any paying for something you don't get, or trying to chase him down later to find out if he finished your piece. I like the Finch method better. It might make standing in line take longer, but at least you get instant gratification, plus you can talk to the artist a bit while he draws, which is pretty cool.

Thanks Finch! We love it! Keep up the good work!

Art Imitates Life and Fails

Sometimes even if you take a photo of a real live person and try to make it into art, you fail.
Take this Satana #1 cover - inspired by a Pamela Anderson cover, the artist, Greg Land admits he used as inspiration for the cover.

Problem - Anderson has heels on her shoes and is leaning up against a wall. Satana is missing heels so she's balancing sharply on her toes, and she's not leaning up against anything - which should make holding that pose even more difficult.

I've seen worse covers in terms of half naked women in poses that are demeaning. That's not what this is about. It's about how, if you are going to draw, at least make it realistic, especially if you're copying a real cover.

Tart T's

The hard working gals over at Sequential Tart have just put a bunch of the monthy covers onto T-Shirts. They have both regular and "buxom" sizes available. They are pretty cool shirts at a decent price. There are a bunch of nice ones, done by some great artists. There are mugs and tote bags too. Check them out! Just clikc the banner.

Heroes Art Auction

Quick Update - the Heroes auction started this past Monday and there are just a couple of pieces still for sale. Too rich for my blood, but you can bid by clicking here.

There are a couple more that will go up next Monday April 2nd at the same site. All proceeds benefit the Epilepsy Foundation.