Featuring-
A Graphic Expose- A Few of My Favorite Things
Artist Spotlight
This past week was blistering hot and kept a lot of people in doors, including me. The few moments outside made me glad to find an air conditioned place, if only for a few minutes. I prefer warmer weather to cold weather, but this was a bit much even for my heat seeking body.
During the week, I began sorting through some old boxes (ugh), hate doing it, but after seeing an episode of hoarders, it made me want to clean the clutter. As an artist, sometimes its hard to throw things away, so I made an effort to not keep clutter around more than 90 days. That sounds weird, but if the item hasn't been used in 90 days, it's purpose is re-evaluated and it is then filed away, stored or tossed. Can't keep things forever, even though I try.
While sorting, I came across a few of my favorite things. I love poetry and found some old poetry books ranging from Maya Angelo to Audre Lorde. Looking through them brought back the concepts and ideas gleaned from reading these books. I'm not a romance novel type chick, but some good erotica never hurt no one. One of the most fascinating poets to me was Charles Baudelaire, a french poet from the 1900's. Things were so "read between the lines" back then, that the message could be easily lost among the descriptive nature references that imply love/lust. But I do have some more, explicit poetry compilations, including works by Sappho,Terry McMillan and others, great for mental visualization. Ntozake Shange (wrote the play, For Colored Girls who consider suicide when the Rainbow isn't enough) is one of my favorite play writer/poets, she influenced my early attempts at writing. I adapted a style that mimicked hers. However, it didn't prove to be a satisfying avenue of expression for me. I was lost for words.
I have a nice collection of books such as Gregory Maguire, the guy who wrote Wicked. He has written other novels based on fairy tales and classic stories like Cinderella. I also found my graphic novels. Call me a geek, or weird (I learned to embrace the terms), but I'm an avid comic book fan. There is a graphic novel called Fables which tells the story of fairy tales living in a parallel existence to humans. Kind of similar to the witches world that is invisible to the "muggles" in Harry Potter. Ever wonder what Old King Cole, Prince Charming and Red Ridding hood do every day? Fables, is the book to read. Another novel series is Vampire Hunter D. An early 80's vampire slayer, who was a half human, half vampire nomad that went around the country side vanquishing vampires who terrorized the locals. Vampire Hunter D had a few animated movies, depicting him as a beautiful, quiet but deadly man. The novels are written with the same breath taking depiction of him and his smooth moves. The movies were shown late night on Adult Swim. This Vampire series is also printed in Manga style, for those who like a backwards visual. (Manga style books read from back to front.)
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| Den by Corben |
In my graphic novel collection, I have all of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, and all the spin offs that included the Endless, which consists of Morpheus/Dream and his 6 siblings, all their names reflect a human affectation,(destruction, despair, delirium, desire, death, destiny). Its somewhat dark, but dreamy!
I found my Heavy Metal magazines (secretly, I'm a closet semi-goth chick!). Den, one of my favorite stories featured in the magazine, is accompanied by the stellar art of Richard Corben. Its a little explicit, but a good story. I was/am so wowed by the art, that I didn't really care about the story line. I did eventually read the story! That's what good eye candy will do for ya! I remember when HBO showed Heavy Metal the Movie, it was a movie premiere that everyone was talking about. I was 16 when it came out! ooh the date stamp went cha chink!
Sometime in the 90's I discovered Roberta Gregory's Bitchy Bitch! and her alter ego Butchy Bitch. Bitchy deals with life from a single enraged woman's perspective. All the things she thinks, and does often reflect how we would like to handle things, but don't or how we handle things and have raging thoughts on how we really feel about a person or situation. This graphic novel started off as a comic strip and became popular, novels came next. Roberta (my friend on Facebook!) is writing new scenarios for Bitchy, but the old stories, still give a good laugh! Go Girl Power!!
Being the researcher that I am, thought I would look up some of the terrific artwork and artist information. Didn't want it to sound autobiographical, but these writers/illustrators have amazing careers and deserve to be properly represented. Perhaps you've seen their work, and didn't know who did it. Most of the illustrators from the early-mid 80's and 90's who had their work in Heavy Metal are still out there producing.
I'm still a comic collector even though my hard earned cash goes more towards my artistic endeavors and maintaining my existence than my reading pleasure. There is an urge to correct this discrepancy, but I must be careful, going into a comic book store is like giving a recovering addict a fix. This excursion could prove to be painful in the pockets, the words "everything in moderation" are words that go out the window when one is finding missed issues of their favorite comics and graphic novels. Afterwards, I would be grinning and giggling..no cackling like a lunatic and punch drunk happy.(not a good look for a woman my age!) Aah, if only we could spend our money on such frivolous joy!
Artists Spotlight this week is on my favorite artist/illustrators/writers accompanied by a little background information about them.
Julie Bell-has painted the covers for approximately 100 fantasy/science fiction books and magazines since 1990. In the early 1990s, she illustrated painted covers for video games as well as best-selling trading cards for the superheroes of Marvel and DC. A cover art image from the Sega Game Gear video game Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe would depict the semi-barbaric world that the game took place in; thus being entitled Savage Land by Bell herself.[1] She designed the award-winning Dragons of Destiny sculpture series, Mistress of the Dragon's Realm dagger series, as well as the Temptation Rides sculpture series produced by The Franklin Mint.
Julie and her husband, Boris Vallejo, have done many paintings for advertising campaigns such as Nike, Inc., Coca-Cola, and Toyota. She has painted the covers for two albums by musician, Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose and Hang Cool Teddy Bear.
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| Den |
Richard Corben
After working as a professional animator, Corben started doing underground comics, including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Rowlf, Fever Dreams and his own anthology Fantagor.In 1970 he began illustrating horror and science-fiction stories for Warren Publishing.
His stories appeared in Creepy,Eerie, Vampirella, 1984 and Comix International. He also colored several episodes of Will Eisner's Spirit.
In 1975, when
Moebius,
Druillet, and Jean-Pierre Dionnet started publishing the magazine
Métal Hurlant in
France, Corben submitted some of his stories to them. He continued his work for the franchise in America, where the magazine was called
Heavy Metal. In 1976 he adapted a short
Robert E. Howard story in an early
graphic novel,
Bloodstar. From 1986–1994 Corben operated his own publishing imprint, Fantagor Press. Among the titles Fantagor published were Den, Den Saga, Horror in the Dark, Rip in Time, and Son of Mutant World. Fantagor went out of business after the 1994 contraction of the comics industry.
Ever the independent, Corben would work with rocker Rob Zombie and Steve Niles in 2005 on a project for IDW Publishing called Bigfoot. The graphic series ran for five issues and demonstrates the artist's evolution. The story chronicles a young boy who witnesses the brutal slaughter of his parents by the enigmatic title character and his return to the forest for revenge when he becomes older.
"Den" is the name of two characters:
The hero featured in the short film Neverwhere;
and the identical hero featured in all the subsequent comics.
Olivia De Berardinis
"Olivia De
Berardinis" (November 1948 -) is an American artist known for paintings of women, often referred to
as pinup or cheesecake art.
She has been working in this genre since the mid-70's. Since 2004 Olivia has
been a monthly contributor to Playboy
Magazine, where her art pinup page
appears with captions written by Hugh Hefner.
Neil Gaiman
The Sandman's main
character is Dream, the
Lord of Dreams (also known, to various characters throughout the series, as Morpheus, Oneiros, the Shaper, the Shaper of Form, Lord
of the Dreaming, the Dream King, Dream-Sneak, Dream Cat, Murphy, Kai'ckul, and
Lord L'Zoril), who is essentially the anthropomorphic personification of dreams. At the
start of the series, Morpheus is captured by an occult ritual and held prisoner
for 70 years. Morpheus escapes in the modern day and, after avenging himself
upon his captors, sets about rebuilding his kingdom, which has fallen into
disrepair in his absence. Gaiman himself has summarized the plot of the series
(in the foreword to Endless Nights) as
"The Lord of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his
decision."
The character's initial haughty
and often cruel manner begins to soften after his years of imprisonment at the
start of the series, but the challenge of undoing past sins and changing old
ways is an enormous one for a being who has been set in his ways for billions
of years. In its beginnings, the series is a very dark horror comic. Later, the
series evolves into an elaborate fantasy series, incorporating elements of classical and
contemporary mythology,
ultimately placing its protagonist in the role of a tragic
hero.
The storylines primarily take
place in the Dreaming, Morpheus's realm, and the waking world,
with occasional visits to other domains, such as Hell, Faerie, Asgard, and the domains of the other Endless. Many use the
contemporary United States of America and the United Kingdom as a backdrop. The DC
Universe was the
official setting of the series, but well-known DC characters and places were
rarely featured after 1990. A notable exception is Lyta Hall, formerly Fury of the 1980s super-team Infinity,
Inc., who figures prominently in the "Kindly Ones" story
arc, and her superhuman abilities are not ignored.
Most of the storylines take place
in modern times, but many short stories are set in the past, taking advantage
of the immortal nature of many of the characters, and deal with historical
individuals and events such as in the short story "Men of Good
Fortune."
Biographies from Wikipedia On-line Encyclopedia, except where noted.
Roberta Gregory
MEET BITCHY BITCH, my most
well-known cartoon character: a short-tempered, foul-mouthed middle-aged “everywoman.”
When I first started drawing her about 20 years ago, many of my readers
were put off by her harshness, the frankness (and dark humor) of the stories
and the scratchy artwork. Soon, most of my readers became Bitchy’s fans! She
did start out as a one-note joke, but went on to star in 40 issues of my
Naughty Bits comic books and several
trade paperback collections (published by Fantagraphics until 2005) with a
storyline that made her into a very human character, through all the stages of
her life-- people still write to me saying they miss her! Fortunately, I am
writing (and will hopefully soon draw) an original graphic novel starring
Bitchy. So, be patient...c novel starring Bitchy. So, be patient...
Biography from Roberta Gregory.com
As you can see, I deviated from going through my boxes, instead I ended up looking at old copies of favorite books, graphic novels and magazines and managing to stay cool during the intense heat. My topics of interest may have a wide range, same as my musical preferences, but I think illustrators are cool, despite the fact this is a overly male dominated field. More and more women are getting into comics, illustration and animation which is great thing cause there will be more out there to experience. I know this isn't every one's cup of tea, but I believe in expanding horizons. Take a look into reading something a little more creatively expressed. Let your imagination soar and give your outlook a new view.
EXPLORE YOUR WORLD!
Thank you for reading my blog! chat again with you soon. Next post will have a review of the current exhibit at Touchstone and a few other art oddities to come your way. Until next time, see you...
Same blog time, Same blog channel!
I have a name for the new series of female heads that I am currently working on. They started off being part of "Clay Gyrls Are Easy" and they still are, but the name Mi Godessa seems more fitting for the trio of hair whipping womyn en clay. They are part of a series of womyn that are supposed to symbolize the "self" in various states of transformation. Somewhat of a reoccurring theme within my work. The transformation consists of variations alternations, deviations of the "self." Not necessarily how I see myself but the "Inner Self" and its ever changing moods, and faces . They come to me, not that they aren't sought out, but their image becomes clear quickly as if inscribed in my finger tips and is relayed into the clay as my fingers shape her face. Three is usually the magic number in a series for me. The pieces afterwards seem to lack the the vision that is intended within a series of work. They often seem to be different conceptually and therefore ends or begins another duo or trio of pieces that may end up being studies instead of pieces for display. These will stay with me, providing inspiration for future pieces that better define the intended thought. 
Each clay gyrl has flattened & curled locz that become a little spiky in the back. The first and third gyrls are created this way. Only the second one, with her head tilted back is created slightly different. The faces are built up from a shaped wedge of clay which is later hollowed out. 
