Monday, May 26, 2014

DAMN! That looks good in color!

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A little while ago I came across this awesome coloring job for this Sal Buscema HULK vs THOR line art
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Hulk-Vs-Thor-By-Sal-Buscema-327576237 So of course I left my compliments and gave the artist a heads up about the recent commission piece that Sal Buscema did earlier this year (my April 4th posting) and suggested it would make for a great coloring job project. As you can see our friend here (who's from Portugal) turned out another fantastic piece so let's here it for this labor of love as someone who has done a lot of coloring work this was a pretty time consuming effort.

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Here's something cool I found that looked like it might have been intended as some sort of cover concept. Unfortunately I don't know who the artist is but seeing this makes me really wish there had been a Sabra mini-series or at least some sort of one shot special. I dunno maybe one of these days I'll do something with this when I have some time. Sabra was created by Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema and Belinda Glass.


X-MEN Days of Future Past: Just wanted to share with you all that I saw the movie last night. I thought it was pretty good and arguably the best film of a franchise that never quite reached a level that could be described as great. Yeah there were some logic gaps, some discontinuities and even a running time that was a bit too long. But all that aside it was still a well thought out story line complimented with some fantastic acting and plenty of homages to 60s / 70s American pop culture. In a lot of ways Quicksilver is the sleeper high light of the movie I wish we could have seen more of him then we did.

Other cool stuff from my Memorial Day weekend included some temporary exhibits at The Oakland Museum of California that I checked out. The first one was on the history of the San Diego/International Comic Con (since 1970!) in which I learned that the Comic Con has become the biggest event The San Diego Convention Center holds every year and as you may have guessed it generates far more revenue for the local economy then any other annual event in the San Diego area.
http://museumca.org/exhibit/sunshine-and-superheroes-san-diego-comic-con
Also at the Oakland Museum was the Art and Giant Robot exhibit which featured among other things this awesome display of the classic giant size Shogun Warriors. It's really cool to see how over the years all this one time obscure comic book/sci-fi nerd stuff become so mainstream.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

BIG WOW Comic Festival San Jose CA. Mike Zeck

On the Marvel end of this weekend's con in San Jose I'm hoping to get a chance to have a few words with Mike Zeck. I've often cited Zeck as being one of the best comic book artists ever seen and certainly among the very best of the Marvel 80s. His body of work among other great stuff included some awesome penciling at the tale on of the 70s on Shang Chi Master of Kung Fu and later with The Punisher, Web of Spiderman and of course Secret Wars. And who can forget that iconic Captain America annual cover by Zeck with Wolverine slashing at Cap's shield with all those sparks n shit!?
There's at least 3 issues of ROM that Zeck did the cover art for so I'm pretty grateful for that even though I would have loved to have seen him having done at least one issue in the series as far as the interior art goes. Needles to say when you think about Secret Wars you can just imagine how awesome Rom#65 could have been had Zeck been the penciler instead of  . . well you know who.

Cover art by Mike Zeck

Like last year Michael Golden will be there again and as you all know he was another powerhouse Marvel 80s artist who did the cover art for at least 9 Rom issues I believe but never the interior art unfortunately. Didn't get a chance to talk to him he got irritated with me when I pointed my camera in his direction he doesn't like that unless you specifically ask him first. But for me the high light of last year's Big Wow Con was meeting Bill Sienkiewicz who also did the cover art for at least 9 issues and even some interior fill in pencils for a couple of them
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2013/05/big-wow-comic-con-san-jose-ca-2013.html


Speaking of those Rom covers that Sienkiewicz did, one of them was Rom annual 3 but the pencils were done by someone named WM Johnson. Who is this guy!? His work on that issue was fantastic but I've never heard of him before and internet searches haven't given me squat. Talk about another artist who could have done justice to the series had he stepped in for Sal.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

ROM issue # 1 signed by our pal Sal and some mind blowing sketch art!


Gary Martin Jr. gave me a heads up on this at the CGC Collector's Society website. It came with the following caption, "Sal Buscema signature and head sketch on cover - very difficult to get and only one in the census".


Proper proportions, perspective the interplay between light and shadow, foreshortening and other principles in good figure composition is a tireless craft you have to be honing all the time if you want to be able to do it well. And let's not even get into the art of drawing hands, feet and facial expressions. Practice practice practice it's what all artists have to do for years in the slim hope that a few of them will be able to make a living at it some day. A big thanks to Jack Crowder for bringing this sketch (deviant art) to my attention.


And a big thanks to Rick Hansen for sending us this commission sketch from the recent C2E2 con. This is what I always imagined a dire wraith would look like if illustrated by greats like Berni Wrightson, Gene Colan and Mike Ploog.


And for a bit more of a finished piece here's the latest from Dann Phillips talk about the fight that should have but never happened back in the day. As irony would have it just prior to Dann giving me a heads up about this I had been telling him how I had this fan art idea of a Baron Karza vs Hybrid piece I really like the idea of the Micronaut's arch enemy having a throw down with what could arguably be Rom's. Too bad Sal Buscema never penciled at least one Micronauts issue.

Oh and look what else just turned up, an extended ROM vs Firefall CG video fight scene  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVX-DIBAgdo

One last thing folks, it looks like my farcebook account got suspended for good this time. Oh well I kinda saw it coming : ) You can always email me for those of you who have my email address or find me here as usual.