Arsène Schrauwen

Amazing Belgian comic book artist Olivier Schrauwen (My Boy, The Man Who Grew His Beard) is currently working on the 2nd of a 3 part biography of his grandfather Arsène. Part 1 has been published but is sold out, a new print run will appear as part 2 is released. Some images and great praise can be seen and read on this blog, by Matt Seneca (link).

Alan Moore interviews Brian Eno

This is a radio interview from 2005. I've always enjoyed hearing Alan Moore speaking, and I've always enjoyed hearing Brian Eno speaking. So what could be better than the two of them in conversation? 28 mins. Enjoy!

http://n3ta.com/radio/?p=46

via Coilhouse

Olivier Schrauwen: The Man Who Grew His Beard

Berlin-based Belgian comic book artist Olivier Schrauwen created one of my favourite recent comic books, the Winsor-McCay-meets-Eraserhead-ish "My Boy", published in 2008. I've been waiting for more than a year to read his latest opus, which up to this date hasn't been available in English.

But now, according to Amazon.de, "The Man Who Grew His Beard" will be available next week in glorious comprehensible English for non-flemish buffoons like myself. So looking forward to this, I can hardly wait!

Alan Moore Interview

I just found a one and a half hour interview with Alan Moore from 2007, on resonance.fm. It's a very interesting listen and I think I'll have to listen to it all over again at least once.

During the course of the interview, Moore discusses (of course) his comics, his thoughts about art and magic (and why they're the same thing), and why low-budget B-movies are more imaginative and magical than big-budget blockbusters. And much more. He's a fascinating person indeed.


You can download the interviews in three parts here:
Part one
Part two
Part three

...or listen through Youtube, part one of nine starts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNLwTwVbkng

Dutch Classic: Jan van Haasteren

You might be familiar with the funny jigsaw puzzles made by Jan van Haasteren (JvH). His drawings are part of our Dutch collective youth memories, and known all over the world. Born in 1936 he is an old man now, but still produces three puzzles a year. To me, he is a hero that has had a big influence, I remember being utterly fascinated by his posters, at the butchers, in the hospital, wherever I saw his posters I would stop and try to find all the hidden jokes he squeezed on the paper.
He started out as a comic/animation artist for the famous 'Toonder studios' and worked on the various projects they produced, like Donald Duck magazine, the Smurfs, commercial illustrations, mostly anonymous in others' styles and set formats.

He got more and more credit for his work and started creating his own series in which we can see his his style devellop into the one we know.
But far more than for his comics, he is famous for his posters and puzzles. With his vast imagination he makes every scene he draws into a hilarious chaos, adding jokes and funny details in every small space available. But he does this with great craftmanship, superb drawing skills in terms of placement and perspective, character design and use of color. It is always a chaos, but never a mess. He has some copycats trying to do what he does, but he is the master, and always recognisable by the shark fin coming through and the hands coming from everywhere since those are registered trademarks!

Four Color Fear

Boing Boing has an article up about a book, Four Color Fear, that seems like another item that should be in Bart's library. There's also a flickr collection of some pages from the book.

Meet Tavis Coburn

This Canadian illustrator combines 1940s comicbook art with Russian propaganda styles and old printing techniques. This wonderfull mix makes powerfull, fat illustrations that explode right of the page.
What I think is really good on these works, is that from a distance they seem simple and clear. However, if you look closer you discover a ton of details, anatomical knowledge and sweet printmaking 'accidents'. Not only is it well illustrated, also very well designed. Typography, composition and use of color fits perfectly together.
What also works, and this is something I've been thinking about more often, is how his works look like they belong together, consequently the same style, recognisable and therefore probably better marketable. You call this guy, you know what to expect. It will spread his name easier and agents can promote him efficiently to specific jobs. This is hard if you look at my work, a mixture of everything more or less. I should keep this in mind and maybe slowly form a more united body of work.
I'm not so fond of his animations found on his website. I miss the printed feel and the time you can take to look at all the details. But take a look at his portfolio if you like the ones posted here. There's a lot more and all are great.

4CP/four color process

I've been trying for a while now to create the old feel in my own comics. I love the dots Lichtenstein enlarged so prominently, I love the little errors of pre-computer printmaking techniques, I love the sloppyness that came with hand made massproduction. Marcus' previous post of the treasures to be found in the digital comic museum are great reference material, and now I found a blog dedicated to 4CP, four color process, the wonderfull technique they used to color the comics.

They even wrote those dots a loveletter:

Dots emit radiation. As you get closer to them, they begin to vibrate and pulse. Moving closer still, the color separations become dramatically separate: Solids become very solid and the black ink holds together, while the CMY dots fly apart. Foreground and background, positive and negative space, reverse unexpectedly. Orange, green, brown, and fake gray give up their secrets, and the basic building blocks of a universe reveal themselves. Unstable molecules, built of primary colored atoms, buzz at different frequencies. Vectors of visual force, experienced implicitly at original size, become intense. Behind everything is wood pulp paper, a still deeper layer of creation, with its own unstable properties.

Here are some of my attempts to get more or less the same effect. I think if this is printed, and than scanned again, it might be as close as I can get.

Eerie Publication Covers

Something for Bart, this...

popeye

These drawings by Mort Drucker for MAD magazine are AWESOME!! They were made early 80's when the, apparently not so good, film 'Popeye' came out. What a wonderfull new take on the characters, and what lovely linework! It is cartoony, but shows tremendous skill and knowledge of anatomy, composition and general form. These drawings are just swinging off the page! The quality is really good, click for details.

Tim Lane

My dad sent me an email last week and it read like this: Do you know Tim Lane, Alan Moore and Kazuichi Hanawa? Well, I don't know where it came from but I had to check out the two mystery names ofcourse. turns out I LOVE Tim Lane's work. He is an American illustrator and comicbook artist. His retro style and linework are great. It is like Charles Burns (who also inspires him) but less stiff. His drawings may not be perfect anatomically but he bends his characters in playfull and expressive ways. I am defenitely going after his books, they seem to have some sort of film-noir feel over them. On his blog he is posting a weekly comicseries called The Belligerent Piano. I haven't had the time to read it all yet, but it looks like my cup of tea. Great find dad!

The Digital Comic Museum

I think this will be of great interest to at least 3/4 of this little blogging community: The Digital Comic Museum is an archive of public domain comics from the 'golden age' -- free to download, remix, and share. All right!! :)

(via BoingBoing)

Miguel Calatayud

Basically just directing you to a blog post about this Spanish illustrator who appears to have done some sweet, sweet early '70s style work.

Superman Sees

This is why I like comic books.