Kellogg's Aldebaran

I've mentioned Cinebooks before, a publisher reprinting popular European comic strips in English editions reflecting the European album format rather than the US trade format. I get the impression that Cinebook started reprinting humour/kiddie fare (primarily as there are umpteen Lucky Luke collections already) and have only just started diversifying into the older market. I have zero interest in the humour stuff but have dabbled with their 12+ and 15+ ranges. Both Alpha and IR$ are solid espionage thrillers and I'll pick up the next volumes but definitely my favourite of the range by far is Aldebaran.

Created by the Brazilian artist Leo, each Cinebook collection contains two 48-page album. There are five albums set on Aldebaran and another five moving on to Betelgeuse, so Cinebook will collect these over five volumes before hopefully moving on to Antares, the first album of which was published last year.

Aldebaran is a sci fi story set on the colonised world of Aldebaran, which was inhabited by man sometime in the 21st Century before contact with Earth was cut off a century later. Aldebaran is a marine world with the islands reflecting a contemporary society. There are no lasers, clones or other science fiction elements beyond native animals, transport is powered by either electric engines, sail power or the wind and the colony is ruled over by an almost fascistic religious ruling body. When a small fishing village is destroyed by a mysterious creature, the only survivors are 17 year old fisherman Mark Sorensen, a girl he fancies and her 13 year old sister Kim Kellar. As they attempt to move on to the nearest city to start a new life, they become slowly involved with a mystery involving the creature responsible for their home's destruction. This mystery slowly hints at intrigue concerning unusual abilities the creature can have on humans...

I can't really compare this to any other thing I've read as it's so unique. The art is gorgeous, reminiscent of an ultra-clean line Eric Shanower style with nice watercolour embellishment rather than computer colours. The dialogue occasionally hits an odd note (it is translated after all) but generally the story is scripted and constructed well enough and peopled with distinct individuals to draw readers in. There's annoyingly little information I can find regarding the series online (some untranslated pages are available to view by clicking on specific albums at http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.mondes-aldebaran.com/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dleo%2Baldebaran%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG and a nice piece of CG animation at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sd2w4iOsM8 ) but I'd definitely recommend this to anybody looking to try something solid beyond the spandex genre.

Hey, Kids, Cartoonz!

While I've not done too much "proper" art recently, thought I'd post something a bit different. I've been asked to do quite a few pieces of non-comics art throughout the years, ranging from designing logos and characters for bands, a logo and iconic character for a local comic shop and art for a Norfolk menu to illustrations for a local self-publisher's book, corporate logos and an offer to draw caricatures at a county fair (I declined that offer as I'd feel extremely uncomfortable in those situations). While these projects have been fun occasional things that have come down throughout the years, I've been doing quite alot in my current job.

I've been roped into providing art for various locally produced leaflets (the above illo is from a pamphlet about housing rights in the event of relationship breakdown---I quite like this image as it gets a split across pretty well without assigning blame to either party) and events but have also been asked for caricatures from various workmates. Being able to draw is similar to being able to play an instrument in that it always creates interest from others. Inevitably they can be impressed with work that you consider to be crap so when asked to do caricatures of family members, it's actually an enjoyable experience. Although there's the pressure of pleasing the person you're doing the art for (and ultimately the subject too!), there's also the knowledge that it's cartoony so details don't have to be exact (beyond a reasonable likeness). This means you can just kick back and actually enjoy drawing for its own sake rather than worrying about the quality of the art too much.

I try to get a good likeness rather than bignose type caricatures and the results seem to be popular as I keep getting requests. I always refuse payment but have wound up with A3 pads, chocolates, booze and vouchers anyway. I had two to do this week so thought I'd post one: as girls are always sensitive about their appearance, I tend to make them less exaggerated but I still like the challenge of trying to incorporate some of their characteristics and interests. My favourite recent job was a pic of someone snowboarding that came out really dynamic---wish I could get that into my sequentials but I'd rather focus on clarity than impact!

Anyway, thought I'd post one for abit of variety...

Random Roundup Regeneris

Well, my time off work is nearly at an end and I decided to just unwind and relax a bit after so long working my arse off and getting artwork done or BICS. I've done the odd bit of drawing but it's not really gone to plan. I've been admiring Tone's Photoshop technique and have been struggling to achieve anything near his level so we agreed to collaborate on a pic for fun: I'd draw it and Tone would colour it, and we'd see how things work out.

The art had to be done in two stages to make things easier for the way Tone colours, so my first choice was Flash Gordon. I was struggling for a subject so looked over my bookcase and my Alex Raymond Flash Gordon collections caught my eye: I'd just been perusing Dave Sim's Glamourpuss issues which seemed to mainly be his thoughts on comic art history, following a line from Raymond through Williamson to himself (something I never saw before but can now see clear as day). I did the line art, scanned it in and was then about to shade it before rescanning when I lost interest: the rocks don't fit right (even though they ARE alien rocks!) and I didn't line up my compass right, ending up in a circle that should have bisected the pair of planets now touching their circumference and throwing the whole composition off.

I then returned to my bookshelf and flicked through my Steve Rude Commission books and after settled on Emma Frost as I'd never drawn her. I wasn't keen on the top half of Quietly's design and the Cassaday cloak line wasn't inspiring me either so I went back to the original corset design, but decided to soften it up a bit with lingerie more reminiscent of later 80s hellfire club stories.

Just as I was nearing completion of the pencil shading, it suddenly dawned on me that having a character mostly dressed in white isn't much use in a colouring exercise, so it was back to square one again (although I used this for an experiment with "colourholds" that proves I need further practice!).

Cracking open the Rude books again, I passed over characters such as Leeja from Magnus (too much solid black) and fell back on the boring choice of Supergirl. As uninspired as the choice was, the art came out OK (though the pose is a bit dull) but Tone's colouring makes it look pretty spiffy. I'm sure there'll be another collaboration soon now that we have a feel for what we're doing.

Talking of Alex Raymond, after getting drunk while playing Guinness World Records on the Wii (and I'm presuming either the game's really unpopular or we're pretty ace gamers as we were consistently scoring regional championships on our first attempts), I crashed over at my sister's then made a mad bomb up to London to meet up with some old pals--not everyone turned up and I had to leave early as I was knackered, the beer was shooting through me like a fart in a wind tunnel and there were signal problems causing delays on the underground--but it was great to meet up again. Now the pub's only 10 minutes walk from what I call Comic Shop Corner (four comic shops all within minutes of each other) so I had to pop in, didn't I? As orbital was out of my way, Forbidden Planet was kinda out of my way and Comicana's crap and I was in a rush, I only ventured into Gosh.

FP has a larger selection of merchandise as it's honking big but Gosh has a more interesting selection. I came across a reduced copy of The Art of Alex Raymond but while it had some nice work, it was more a biography with photos and text, not as much concentrated art as I would have liked so I passed it over. After looking at the Euro collections, in particular any Valerians--still can't believe I'm a Wikipedia fact now in relation to that!--I walked out with the first Thorgal collection and the first prince Valiant hardcover collection. Although he's a master, I've never really looked at any Hal Foster so I decided to pick up the first volume and lose myself in his sumptuous art. The strip's still going today and still looks pretty good, one of newspapers' last adventure strips.

In addition to those books, the final Wally Wood collection I was after also arrived from a special rare art (particularly comic, animation and illustration) book dealer in the States: it was more expensive than I would have liked but a damn sight less than the £111 asking price on Amazon! I managed to find another Wood book for £20-odd a few months ago, over £100 less than Amazon's price, so hopefully one day I'll find me a copy of the Rocketeer Adventure Magazine collection...

Rainbow Green

Well, it was only ever going to be one of two characters for green, wasn't it? (Although I ran across an obscure Golden Age hero called the Green Turtle that I was tempted to do as a laugh!). So here's Hal Jordan, the best Green Lantern---I may do silver, purple, scarlet or crimson as the final post as I think all the colours are as represented as they're gonna get.

I started these as an exercise in anatomy but haven't really learned anything as I'm pretty much drawing a pose and using ref to tighten details. I'm hoping to crack open my mini-pad and start some proper practice and learning now...

Rainbow Grey

Well, for the latest instalment of the rainbow thread I've done Jean Grey. OK, that might be a bit of a cheat but c'mon--who really wants to see the Grey Gargoyle? Sheesh! This isn't perfect but isn't too bad...I had originally intended to do a nice flamebird effect but time got away with me again (what with catching up on sleep, washing and ironing, etc) so I had to let it go.

Rolf Harris Night on BBC3 tonight so I'll watch most of that, though I'll flip over to watch Survivors...I don't recall the original but the premise is interesting so I'll give it a try. I've been watching DC Super Heroes on DVD recently, something of a strange collection.

Containing 18 6-minute episodes originally run as backup segments of the Superman/Aquaman Hour (if I recall my research on my still lingering book on comic movies and TV correctly), this DVD features 3 outings each for the Atom, Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman, who also join with Superman in 3 Justice League episodes: the original Teen Titans round out the disc. These were produced by Filmation, who produced such childhood cartoon favourites as Flash Gordon and Tarzan and are apparently notorious for reused footage. This is quickly evident in the animation itself but also the plots, which usually find the heroes fighting off alien invaders. Though primitive by today's standards, and burdened with a stereotypical superhero narration, the shows are not without charm but get hard going if viewed together.

The designs are fairly faithful with two notable exceptions. The Atom and Kid Flash have two of comics' greatest designs but the cartoons do away with the Atom's red pointed torso design and extend his blue mask and chest area down to his shorts, a pointless change that detracts from the visuals. While the Flash is given yellow gloves and a standard yellow belt, he is not as altered as his sidekick (who keeps calling his mentor "Flasher"!). Kid Flash basically has his colours reversed and is also given a pair of shorts: the only reason I can think they made this change was to make him look more like the Flash, except he looks almost identical to Johnny Quick instead.

While a friend laughed at a Frazetta DVD special feature showing Frazetta draw with his left hand (sounds amusing till you find out he had a stroke which means he can't use his right hand to draw so he learned to use his left hand instead--and he's still good!), this contains the most pointless DVD extra EVER: the end credits of the otherwise unrepresented Aquaman cartoon! It wouldn't be so bad if the sequence was interesting, but it's just a still shot of the domed city of Atlantis! WTF? Another thing that puzzles the hell out of me is the inclusion of Birdman on the DVD menu. Now I don't recall this character at all (currently revived as Harvey Birdman, Attorney on Cartoon Network), but not only does he not appear on the disc whatsoever, he was a Hanna-Barbera character and has no ties to Filmation's DC adaptations whatsoever.

These goofy facts are more interesting than the episodes and the DVD has convinced me not to try the Space Ghost DVD as I can't face anymore shoddy old animation---though Space Ghost could be gold in comparison...

Mr Pjangless

I had a bookcase delivered today and hoped to get it built pretty quick and crack on with some practice drawing---there's a headshot I want to do and I went to the Works yesterday to pick up a cheap little A5 pad for some practice sketching (which I've not done for years). Needless to say, things didn't go to plan and I got waylaid again.

Building the unit was fine--a 2 person assembly job swiftly put together just by myself with great results. Trouble is, the idea was to get the bookcase to free up some storage space for my trades and whatnot. Inevitably, this led to me routing through my collection again, weeding out a few things and transferring stuff from box to box to shelf. Outside of a handful of favourite runs, most of my collection is filed in artist order and as most of it's boxed up, I don't know where most of it is but at least I was able to drag out my longbox of Adam Hughes stuff (and I have virtually every issue he'd provided art for from his earliest indie work up until Rose & Thorn, when I couldn't justify continuing to buy stuff for his glorious covers to find absolute crap inside--specifically Frankenstein Mobster, one of the worst comics I've ever been suckered into shelling out cash for).

Incidentally, was around my sister's last night and caught a bit of I'm A So-Called celebrity and rifling through my back issues today, I was struck how muck Alex Ross' Supreme looks like Robert Kilroy Silk...

...course, that show also features George Takei of Star Trek, and have to say, I'm quite impressed by the new Star Trek trailer. I'm still not sure if I can get past Shatner and Nimoy not in the lead roles, but it looks like a decent flick in its own right.

Talking of young faces from the future, check out the pic above of the Legion of Superheroes from Smallville. They were never going to be in full uniform but I like the incorporation of Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy's emblems on the jackets...looking forward to this (think the episode is also written by Geoff Johns, so they should remain in character!).

Seeing as I've not done anything artistic--not even colouring the next colour character--today, I've put up my cover for Pjang #2 (check the link at the left to Rol's site for more info). I wasn't going to post it until it was printed as unveiling it was Rol's prerogative but he's already unveiled the lettered version (and some back stage discussions!), so it's no spoiler now. I was considering a second version that would try to closely emulate Adam Hughes' style but Rol said he liked the first version while I was still pencilling the second version. I was already going wrong so I gave up but would still like to do a Hughesish piece sometime.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get around to pencil pushing again...

Rainbow Yellow

Y'know, this colour thing's not as fun as I first thought as although there are tons of black and red characters, the choices thin out as you move through the colour range. The next pic's already scanned in but I'm really not looking forward to considering an Orange Lantern!

Anyway, here is a pic of Yellowjacket---I've done two pics of him before so thought I'd vary things by streamlining his costume a bit (the yellow stripes on his gloves and boots meant to be reminiscent of wasps). I didn't think till after that I'm not overly fond of the earlier pics so should have done the standard version anyway. Instead, we have something...different...