Posted by Michael Pinto on May 4, 2008 in Comic Books
Published by Image Comics Lucha Libre #4 hits stores this week. What I hate about so many comic books is that while the cover knocks you out the interior artwork just isn’t up to snuff. However in this case the team behind Lucha Libre (Bill, Tanquerelle, Fabien M., Gobi, Witco and Jerry Frissen) have done an amazing job as seen above. Every panel in this book looks rich and luscious which makes you want to turn the page. I also like the fact that the book doesn’t take itself too seriously and has a cartoony look to it. Shown below is the cover art:
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 3, 2008 in Comic Books
I spotted the above gem in the preview for Suburban Glamour Volume 1 which will be out this upcoming week and is published by Image Comics. What I like about the above panels by Jamie McKelvie is that they tell a story with no words, giving you the cinematic feeling that you’d get from a well done silent movie. Too often comic books force a story along with endless talking heads only to be interrupted by fist fights. With a series of 14 panels McKelvie brings you inside the world of his teenage protagonist Astrid Johnson.
Sadly the rest of the book falls back into conventional storytelling with the talking heads which populate daytime television. In fact you’d think that the above panels were the cover art, but sadly the publisher has tucked them inside the book. McKelvie also has a good eye for fashion, although I’d love to see him take it a step further and bring some texture into the book. Yes I get the fact that he’s going for a Patrick Nagel look, but after a few pages this gives you a sort of stark look which takes away from the story. Besides you don’t have to be too slavish to the 80s. Although McKelvie does seem to be off to a good start with the series, and I’ll look forward to more of his work.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 1, 2008 in Comic Books
Iron Man is like so yesterday already! Shown above is the latest trailer for the Incredible Hulk film. While I think that Edward Norton is a great choice for the Hulk, the actor that I’m looking ahead to seeing in the film is Tim Roth of Reservoir Dogs fame.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 1, 2008 in Comic Books
Illustrator Lorena Alvarez was inspired by Marie Antoinette when she created this sketch entitled Killer Queen. I love the fact that the sketch fuses traditional French fashion with a bit of Japanese anime and Aubrey Beardsley thrown in for fun. Lorena is from Bogotá, Colombia and also does some amazing craft work as well.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 29, 2008 in Comic Books
I just love the character designs above — you almost want to go out and party (or go on some magical quest) with the two of them. The credit for the artwork goes to Cesar Evangelista Bautista who is from Mexico City, México (check out his blog here).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 28, 2008 in Comic Books
El Estratografico collects cropped Spanish comic book images and posts them to Flickr, I just love the Roy Lichtenstein quality of his picks. I love the artwork above, the primitive use of color makes it all the more fun…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 25, 2008 in Comic Books
I’ve always felt that Tori Amos was a second rate Kate Bush! This isn’t to say that Tori isn’t talented, in fact she has a great voice. But yet again Tori is coming in second place by copying Courtney Love by jumping on the “sirens who want to cash in on manga” trend. However judging by the fact that Tori is in my iTunes library maybe this isn’t a bad thing?
Shown above is the cover for the upcoming book Comic Book Tattoo (click on the image to see it full sized) which is slated for release in July from Image Comics, and as much as I love to slag poor Tori — the book looks very promising! The cover illustration by Jason “Stuntkid” Levesque looks wonderful, and over 80 artists and writers are contributing to the project including an introduction by Neil Gaiman. So I’d have to admit that Tori is rising on my charts. The limited edition of the book will set back hardcore fanboys for about $150 while non-Tori fanboys like myself can get away with $30 for the softcover edition.
And as for this fanboy I deeply wish that Kate Bush join the “sirens with manga” trend!
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 24, 2008 in Comic Books
Rosemary Travale created the above gouache painting — what I like about the illustration is the sense of High School emotion that you don’t often see super heroes show off to us mortals. Wonder Woman looks vexed, the hidden gem is the framed photo of a frowning Batman. I wish DC Comics would commission Rosemary to do an entire series like this!
Posted by Guest Author on Apr 23, 2008 in Comic Books
As part of our ongoing campaign to support the destruction of superheroes I’ve decided to shine some light on publisher :01 First Second books. What I like about these folks is that they’ve done an amazing job bringing high quality yet quirky graphic novels to a world that’s been lost to the epic battle of comic book clichés. So here’s a title from their back catalog reviewed by indie comix expert Jenny Gonzalez:
Reading this book I couldn’t help but picturing it’s protagonist, Ferdinand the Vampire, being ill at ease in the NYC vampire scene, a notion that made me chuckle. He’s an anachronistic lover of acoustic folk music, cats and three piece suits. He never kills when he feeds—in fact, he bites his victims with only one tooth so it will be no worse than a mosquito bite. And despite the sensuality and romanticism that has flourished around vampires in recent decades, his love life is in shambles:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 23, 2008 in Comic Books
As part of our ongoing campaign to support the destruction of superheroes I’ve decided to shine some light on publisher :01 First Second books. What I like about these folks is that they’ve done an amazing job bringing high quality yet quirky graphic novels to a world that’s been lost to the epic battle of comic book clichés. So here’s a title from their back catalog which I think is worth checking out:
Alright stop, I know you’ve just glanced quickly at the cover art of this graphic novel — but go back and take another look. That abstract silhouette in the foreground isn’t jungle growth but the bottom of a giant robot! Grady Klein’s graphic novel is set in on a mythical island cut off from the antebellum south and features a rich mixture of Mark Twain inspired characters living in a Jules Verne world. Under its comic exterior Lost Colony explores larger themes from that era from slavery to industrialization.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 20, 2008 in Comic Books
For me the unexpected high point of the convention was getting me meet Ryo Moto an amazing artist from Japan (Ryo is his pen name, his actual name is Ryusuke Hamamoto). He was selling copies of his portfolio which was fantastic — everything looks golden: the composition, the color, the textures, the sense of lighting and great life drawing skills. Shown below are two examples of his work from his Spring 2008 sketchbook collection, this book is packed with many more goodies and is a real treat to the eyes. In addition to manga Ryo Moto has also worked on a Nintendo DS game too. I think my only regret is that I was too shy to ask for his autograph and I didn’t buy the other volumes of his work (I also wish I could speak Japanese too).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 20, 2008 in Comic Books
Imaginism Studios is team of talented illustrators from Canada, shown above is Bobby Chiu. I was quite impressed with the quality of their artwork, their sense of color and lighting works well to tell an imaginative story. Below are illustrations by Kei Acedara (Kimono Girl) and Bobby Chiu (KangamoleBunny):
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 19, 2008 in Comic Books
I love the film noir look of this poster — it picks up on the comic book so well. I’m slowly gaining faith that Frank Miller may do a good job with this film yet…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 19, 2008 in Comic Books
One of my daily pleasures us following Dan Goodsell’s Flickr updates, so it was a pleasure to meet the creator of Mister Toast in person! Shown above is Dan and Shaky Bacon, and below is Mope the Onion.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 18, 2008 in Comic Books
As part of our ongoing campaign to support the destruction of superheroes I’ve decided to shine some light on publisher :01 First Second books. What I like about these folks is that they’ve done an amazing job bringing high quality yet quirky graphic novels to a world that’s been lost to the epic battle of comic book clichés. So here’s a title from their back catalog which I think is worth checking out:
What I like about Gene Luen Yang’s work is that he’s telling a very personal story drawing on his own past and surrounding Chinese-American culture. Even though he’s telling his own story I found quite a few nerd architypes that other fanboys can relate in the book touching on age old geek themes like High School isolation and dealing with everyone from bullies to a crush on a pretty classmate:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 16, 2008 in Comic Books
As part of our ongoing campaign to support the destruction of superheroes I’ve decided to shine some light on publisher :01 First Second books. What I like about these folks is that they’ve done an amazing job bringing high quality yet quirky graphic novels to a world that’s been lost to the epic battle of comic book clichés. So here’s a title from their back catalog which I think is worth checking out:
Lewis Trondheim is the pen name for Laurent Chabosy, a well known French cartoonist whose previous work has made the jump to animation in Europe. The first thing I liked about this book is that sort of reminds me a great deal of Krazy Kat in that you have a set of silent characters wandering around a surrealist (and somewhat alien) landscape:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 13, 2008 in Comic Books
When I’m looking for inspiration (or just for a cool gift) I always find myself wandering over to the MoMA giftshop here in Soho, New York. This is always a dangerous activity as in their basement they have an amazing mini-book store which is crammed with all sorts of goodies — which are mostly oversized expensive art books. However I was recently pleased to come across this cute little book put out by Spanish publisher (or maybe they’re a design firm?) Pepe Gimeno:
I did some searching on the net, but sadly I couldn’t find out anything more about the illustrator of the book who is just credited as Vane. I wish I could find out more becuse while the artwork had that typical hipster feel on the surface, the sense of surrealism reminded me of a Fellini film:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 8, 2008 in Comic Books
UDON Entertainment is publishing an English edition of APPLE, an amazing looking Korean illustration and comics anthology. As a manga snob I’ve been quite impressed with the quality of comics coming out of Korea recently, and the previews I’ve seen of this publication are a good example of what I hope is the start of a new trend. APPLE stands for “A Place for People who Love Entertainment” and features many artists who work on video games, so they’re also bringing a bit of an outside perspective to comics which is quite refreshing. Volume One comes out in May and you can pre-order at Amazon.com:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 8, 2008 in Comic Books
This week Image Comics is releasing Stupid Comics: Phoenix Edition by Jim Mahfood. The book is filled with his comic strips from the weekly Phoenix New Times newspaper and deal with every theme from sex to politics (two of my favorite topics!). In addition to his sense of humor I just love the look of Mahfood’s artwork, it has a sharp sense of style.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 6, 2008 in Comic Books
These superheroes are so posed looking in their silly costumes that I find myself rooting for the giant monster who views The Last Defenders as an all-you-can-eat smörgåsbord. Cover art by chef Mike Deodato (this issue will be food courts on April 9th, 2008).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 2, 2008 in Comic Books
I’ve seen it time and time again — everyone since the 60s has been ripping off Roy Lichtenstein ripping off comic book cover sin the name of fine art. But alas Mark Todd has come up with a brilliant twist that breaks the cliché: Instead of painting yet another comic book cover in a pop art style Todd uses a style that’s a mix of expressionism and folk art. Instead of cropping in on the artwork like Lichtenstein, Todd embraces the constructs of the comic book by including hand drawn logos, issue numbers and even comics code stamp. I also admire the fact that the work doesn’t take itself so seriously and has a childlike yet charming sense of humor.
Shown above is Coil (mixed media on panel 24″x36″) and below is Oof (mixed media on panel 9″x12″) .
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 1, 2008 in Comic Books
Browsing through Waffle Whiffer’sFlickr site I came across the cover of Adventures of Big Boy #137 from 1968 which is shown on the left. The first thing that shocked me was that they had already done over a hundred issues by the 60s, but by further hunting around I came across the cover on the right from 1971 — so I sort of assumed that the comic book had come to an end.
However much to my shock I found out that not only is Big Boy still alive and kicking, but his current savior is none other than talented illustrator/toy genius Craig Yoe:
“We’ve tried hard to be inspired by the great comics we read when we were kids—from Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge to John Stanley’s Little Lulu, not to mention the wacky [Superman’s Pal] Jimmy Olsen stories of the ’50s and ’60s. Along that line, a couple of years ago I came up with Bob Boy as a superhero: Bigger Boy. We often feature Bigger Boy, and now he’s part of a superhero group with Dolly, his friend Zack, and Nugget, his dog. Assembled, they are the Big League!”
