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Sites devoted to Comic Artists and Print Comics
This isn't any kind of comprehensive listing, just references to a bunch of artists and comics I happen to like. I'll add interesting things as I stumble across them.
- Moebius
- Otherwise known as Jean Giraud. A lot of people have asked me if I have a favorite comics artist. Moebius is at the top of the list. This guy has more imagination in his little finger than 100 superhero artists put together. The link above is to Moebius Arcana, part of the Starwatcher site (which is a great reference on French Comics in general), informative, but not well organized. The French Moebius site is much nicer, if smaller. Dark Horse Comics produced some nice (but inexplicably small) collections of his stuff not too long ago ago. See if you can find some of the softbound Marvel/Epic collections from a few years ago, or the hardbacks that have come out in the last couple of years like Fusion, Metallic Memories and Chaos.. Check Mars Import or Bud Plant's Catalog. Here's a nice HotWired article.
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- Jack Kirby
- Just to make a liar of myself (and point out that I actually do like superhero comics), here's the guy that practically invented the dynamics of modern superhero comics. Another guy with imagination coming out of his ears, and another one of my favorites. Amazingly prolific, "King" Kirby's career spanned the Golden and Silver ages of comics. Look for his Marvel comics stuff from the 60's and DC work from the 70's. A lot of the credit given to Stan Lee for reinventing comics in the 60's should go to Kirby. The link is to The Kirby Collector, a magazine devoted to collecting Jacks art.
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- Sam & Max, Freelance Police! by Steve Purcell.
- My favorite "funny animal" comic book, and I do mean funny and I do mean animal! Where does he keep that gun, anyway? Unfortunately the comics are being overshadowed by the animated TV show. Here's an actual Sam & Max comic that happens to be up on The Adventurer section of the Lucasarts site.
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- Krazy Kat
- George Herriman's enchanted and enchanting newspaper strip from the early part of the century. Timeless. I don't know how to describe this, and many people may find it difficult to relate to, but if you can get into it it's pure magic.
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Little Nemo in Slumberland
Also from the early 1900's, an astonishing, perception-stretching work of surreal adventure and fantasy. Winsor McCay was a pioneer comic strip artist and the father of Cartoon animation with his animated version of Little Nemo and the famous Gertie the Dinosaur. Unfortunately neither of these sites contains enough of the strip for you to get a feel for it. The link to Little Nemo (above) gives reference to where you can get reprint books. The link for Winsor McCay has more graphics. It's also worth checking your local library. Amazing stuff.
Harvey Kurtzman
The brilliant comic genius behind the original Mad comics of the late '50s. Not to be confused with the pathetic shell that's served as Mad magazine for the past 20 years (with the notable exception of Mort Drucker's always wonderful drawings). Also responsible for Help, where he employed both Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam, and Little Annie Fanny in Playboy.This guy played a vital role in twisting my sense of humor into its present state of idyllic dementia, along with...
Will Elder
Possibly the funniest comics artist to ever stalk the pages of a comic book. This guy's drawings make me laugh even without longtime collaborator Kurtzman's words. Together they're a knockout punch to the funnybone.
Wally Wood
Another Mad Comics alumni, who also did a lot of wonderful work for the notorious EC Comics in the 50's. This guy was amazing and did the coolest 50's style spaceships and machinery you'll ever want to see. He also continued to do beautiful tone-board work for Mad when it became a black and white magazine. Along with Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta, Woody taught the rest of the comics artists how to do cool sci-fi and adventure comics. His stuff had a depth and tactile demensional feel to it that was never matched. A successor to Hal Foster's sense of solid realism, but applied to the fantastic. Wonderful eye candy. I'm still looking for a good link to another page about him. Anybody know of one?
I'm also looking for good pages about Hal Foster and Alex Raymond.
Hal Foster
Probably, the finest draughtsman in comics with the possible exception of Alex Raymond (below).The creator of Prince Valiant and the original artist on the Tarzan newspaper strip.
Alex Raymond
For my money, the finest draughtsman in comics when it came to drawing the human form. His figures are liquid and alive. He was the creator of Flash Gordon and Rip Kirby. More...
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Unfortunately there isn't a specific page devoted to this book, as far as I know. The above link is to the Amazon.com page which contains a description and some reviews. Scott McCloud's own page has a brief listing of UC and some of his other work.
On the surface, Understanding Comics is a fun, fascinating, and highly perceptive look at the nature of the medium, told in comics form. But I think the book goes well beyond that into the relationship of words and pictures, our perception of time and the fascinating mental process of "closure".
I find a strong relationship between the "words and pictures in sequence telling a story" aspect of comics and the "words and pictures linked together in paths conveying information" nature of the Web, so I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Web, even though it never even mentions computers.
In his newest book, Reinventing Comics, he takes on the origins and development of comics as a mass medium and its potential and future possibilities. As usual, his explorations dig well beyond the surface of the topic and delve into such things as the relationship of art to commerce and the contact between an artist and the audience that experiences the art. Like Understandint Comics, this is an essay written in comics form. His ability to communicate this way is so elegant that you may not notice that he's basically reinventing this aspect of the comics medium as he goes along. He's not illustrating written words, as others might do, he's using carefully craftediconographic images that add additional levels of meaning to the narritive. A good portion of this book is devoted to the new possibilities opened up for the comics medium by the advent of computer graphics and the Net. He gives a nice mention of Argon Zark! in the process.
In his previous book, The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln, Scott dives directly into computer comics with a playful mix of 3-D rendering and iconographic drawing that I think Argon Zark! readers will find appealing. The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln is available at most good comic book stores, and many bookstores. Also, look for recent compilations of his delightful early work, Zot! Volume 1 and Zot! Book 2 Volume 2. Brilliant stuff. See the listing for his online work under "Online Strips and Experiments" above.
Comics and Sequential Art
Will Eisner is one of the true geniuses of comic art. This is essentially his "how to" book. Along with Understanding Comics, it's the essential goods on what comics are all about. Anyone interested in doing comics or really knowing something about the medium should have both of these books. The height of Eisner's work, and one of the heights of comics art, was The Spirit, essentially an 8 page comic book distributed as a newspaper suppliment in the 40's and 50's. Brilliant.
Zippy the Pinhead
Bill Griffith's hilarious, bizzare, thought-provoking daily strip. How it ever got into into the newspapers, I'll never know. It's only in a handful, though, so my faith in American Mediocrity is largely unshaken. Also don't miss The Zippy Filter.
World Wide Woodring
JIm Woodring's surreal, sometimes disturbing comics. Check out "Jim" or "Frank". Not for everyone, but captivating if it appeals to you at all. Not for children.
Alum Falls, Ohio
Damon Rarey's quiet, unassuming slice-of-life stories about teenage life in the 1950s, affectionately told in comics form. Rarey's father, George, was an accomplished cartoonist who chronicled his World War II experiences in the Army Air Corps in a series of cartoon Sketchbook Journals. Rarey senior's drawings carry delightful echoes of many of the best cartoonists and illustrators of the period.
Reflux
Ground breaking CD-ROM comic with some interesting ideas about interactivity. Instead of alternate endings or storylines (which bores me to tears), they offer alternate points of view to the same story and additional levels of background information on the characters and story. Mixes animated panlels, morphing and even video with traditional comic art.
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