Crypto-Art?

 Has the world of crypto-currency and money laundering at last intruded upon comic-book collecting?

As reported here, a single page of Mike Zeck's art for Secret Wars #8, featuring the first appearance of the black symbiote that would become first Spider-Man's new costume and then the villainous Venom, sold for a record $3.36 million dollars at auction on Friday. It's said that the reason for the high price is Venom's role in the recent Spider-Man films, making the character a "hot property".

It is further speculated that the price was actually paid in crypto-currency; such deals for artwork (though never before for comics art, as far as anyone knows) are said to be a frequent method for laundering illicit income, especially by foreign entities.

Certainly, absent the current interest in Venom, the page would never have reached such an astronomical price--the pre-auction estimate was $330,000 (and I think even that is incredibly inflated).

New Computer II

OK...so I'm on the new computer. I never did manage to get the virtual machine with Windows 7 set up--because I couldn't get a working version of Win7 (or of any earlier version of Windows, despite having disks for 95 and 98 still on hand from older computers).

But it has forced me to explore some of the capabilities of parts of Win10 I wasn't aware of. Turns out Paint 3D will do a lot of the things I wanted that other, older, image program for...not in the same way and not without some finagling, but I can achieve many of the same effects.

I'd still like to find a good video editor, since Win10 eliminated Moviemaker. MS claims Photos' video editor is just as good, but--from what I can tell in playing around with it--no, it's not. For instance, in Moviemaker, I could "splice" two videos together by starting with one and then inserting the other one, and then doing a fade or some other transition to the next. Can't do that in Photos and believe me, I've looked through the instructions and the help files.

Anyone have a good video editor they trust, preferably free?

Illustration vs. "Art"

As I mentioned yesterday, this morning Jill and I visited the Brandywine River Museum, dedicated to the works of the Wyeth family and related artists. It has one of the finest collections of book and magazine illustration from the "Golden Age" (circa 1880 to 1920), including, of course, the work of the family patriarch, N.C. Wyeth.

Despite a very successful career, Wyeth struggled with being recognized within the larger art community, in which he was derided as "merely an illustrator," as were his friends and contemporaries Howard Pyle and Norman Rockwell--as well as all those who turned out dozens of drawings, paintings to illustrate stories, articles, books, and magazine covers. To be honest, it's a distinction I've never understood.

First of all, if the objection is that the illustrators worked on commission, producing not what they wished but what their clients wished, then so did hundreds of "classical" painters. Perhaps the most famous painting of all time, the Mona Lisa, was done on commission for the subject's husband. If the objection is that, rather than painting from their own imaginations or from nature, the illustrators are interpreting the words of storyteller, how does that differ from da Vinci interpreting the words of the Gospels to delineate the Last Supper, or Botticelli interpreting the Roman myths to paint the birth of Venus?

At any rate, if you have any interest in great illustration, I urge you to visit this museum. Here's a link to its website: https://www.brandywine.org/museum

And, if you are unfamiliar with Wyeth's work, here's one of his paintings for the Charles Scribner edition of Treasure Island:

Fan Art: Hazard Pay?

More years ago than I care to remember (1975, I think), a friend named Jim Glenn (now known as Teel James Glenn) and I published two issues of a comics fanzine called Factors Unknown. My major contribution was a character called Chris Sheridan, the Hazardman. (Our major claim to fame as editors and publishers is being one of the first places to put George Perez's work in print.)

Anyway, skip ahead about five years, and as I'm working on stuff for Star Trek and Star Wars fanzines, I was asked by one editor (Anne Zeek, I think) to come up with an original idea, as she was expanding what she wanted to publish. I returned to Hazardman and revamped the concept as "H is for Hazard". The character was much the same--a human raised by aliens and returned to  Earth as their agent. He operates in disguise, under the name Hazard, and in pretty much the same outfit I drew him as when he was a comic-book superhero. I added to the regular cast his girlfriend, Caroline, who knew his secret.

I needed models for those characters in illustrating the stories, and I chose Parker Stevenson (The Hardy Boys) for Sheridan/Hazard and Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time) as Caroline (admittedly, she was something of a crush of mine at the time). Again, that art is long disappeared, but here's a recreation of it:

A side note: Chris Sheridan's name comes from a subway stop on the Number 1 line in New York: Christopher Street/Sheridan Square.

Fan Art: Modesty and the Doctor

More years ago than I want to remember (though I think it must have been about 1979-80) I wrote and illustrated a fanfic story about the Third Doctor of Doctor Who meeting and having an adventure with Modesty Blaise, the sexy criminal/adventurer created by Peter O'Donnell in a British comic strip and then in a series of excellent thriller novels. It was one of a series I was thinking of, with various incarnations of the Doctor meeting characters from comic books and comic strips. (The only other one that was ever finished involved the Fourth Doctor and a member of the Green Lantern Corps. I had planned on one with the First Doctor meeting the Fantastic Four early in their career, but never got around to it.)

Anyway, since I wanted the art to be similar for both the Doctor's characters and Modesty's, I had to "cast" actors to play Modesty and her partner Willie Garvin. (Obviously, I used photo reference of Jon Pertwee and Katie Manning for the Doctor and Jo Grant.) The art from that story is lost to time, but I decided to try and re-create it here and now. Modesty is "portrayed" by Barbara Bach (best known from The Spy Who Loved Me and as Ringo Starr's wife); Willie is David Warner (the number of movies and TV shows he's been in is countless, but you might know him as Jack the Ripper in Time After Time).

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry

What was the first Marvel Comics character adapted to live-action on the screen? I suppose you could argue it was Captain America, in the Republic serial of the 1940s...but Marvel wasn't Marvel then, so I'd say it doesn't count.

The first, then, surprisingly, is The Incredible Hulk, in the TV series of that name that ran on the CBS network and starred Bill Bixby as David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as his big, verdant alter ego. It ran for five seasons and was a surprising hit. Producer Kenneth Johnson used a variation of The Fugitive motif, as Banner moves from town to town, on the run from tabloid reporter Jack McGee (played by Jack Colvin) and always seeking a cure for his "condition."

The series introduced what became a tag line for the character in all his subsequent appearances, even moving to the comics: "Don't make me angry--you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Anyway, here's a recent piece of art I did with the two stars, in character:

Fan Art: Modern Western

I can't say I'm a big fan of Western movies and TV series, but there are a few that I watch whenever they're on: Dodge City and Virginia City with Errol Flynn, Red River with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, and the one I'm celebrating here: Silverado.

Silverado was written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. It is clearly an homage to the classic Westerns of the past, but with a more modern sensibility about race and gender. The cast has tremendous chemistry--but what else can you expect from a group that includes Scott Glenn, Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Jeff Goldblum and Linda Hunt?

I won't go too deep into the plot, except to say it involves four strangers who meet and become not just friends, but a team in cleaning up a corrupt town.

Fan Art: Hi-Yo Silver!

A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty, "Hi Yo Silver!" The Lone Ranger! With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!

I never saw The Lone Ranger in its original network run on ABC, at least not that I remember. I saw it in the Saturday reruns on CBS in the late 1950s and '60s. In my memory, it ran at noon, followed by Sky King. I also don't remember seeing the episodes from the one season that Clayton Moore didn't play the Ranger (he was replaced by John Hart in a salary dispute); my guess is that those episodes were dropped from the rotation. I finally saw them when the series returned to the air in the 1970s in afternoon syndication.

At any rate, here's my take on the masked man and Tonto, as played by Jay Silverheels.

Fan Art: Caped Crusaders

In January 1966, a new TV series debuted on ABC. Aired two nights a week, it was an instant hit...but the bloom was off by the end of its second season. The third season ran only one night a week...and then the series was not renewed.

The program, of course, was Batman.

Immediate reaction among comics fans was split; some loved it for its sense of fun, others reviled it for the same reason. Batman became the premiere character at DC Comics, outshining his sometimes partner, Superman. They found a way to put Batman on every cover they could think of. He became the permanent star of the team-up book The Brave and the Bold.

But when the show ended, even Batman's hold on the print audience faded. A re-modeling was in order from the camp, humorous style of the show, and he became not the Caped Crusader, but the Dark Knight. By the time of the 1989 movie starring Michael Keaton, the change was complete...and the more recent movies have taken it even farther.

But the influence of the TV series remains, even more than 50 years later. The series revived a number of otherwise forgotten Batman foes, most notably the Riddler and Mister Freeze (who, until the TV show, was known as Mister Zero in the comics). Julie Newmar's version of Catwoman is the model for every depiction since. And those, like me, who have grown tired of the unrelenting pessimism and grim style of the current Batman, point back to the TV series as a way to lighten the mood, to have a Batman who at least smiles some of the time.

So, here's my tribute to the show that helped bring comic books into the public consciousness once more.

Theater Art: Inherit the Wind

Two years ago, I directed one of my favorite plays of all time, a play based on real events. I had the good fortune of having a marvelous cast, made up of actors I had never met before and some I had worked with before--including a man who I first met as my son's drama teacher in high school. Here's the art I did for the cast of Inherit the Wind.

Just thinking about this makes me eager to get back to working in theater!

Fan Art...and A Look at a Certain Kind of TV

Over the years, there have been a number of movie and TV series that attempted to play with the format of the very successful "Thin Man" series about the adventures of Nick and Nora Charles, as played by William Powell and Myrna Loy. There was even a TV series of that name in the 1950s, with Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk. More recent examples include Hart to Hart with Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers or McMillan & Wife, with Rock Hudson and Susan St. James.

All of those match the pattern of a professional male detective with an amateur female partner, usually his wife. Since the 1980s, there have been a number of similar series with the roles reversed: a pro female detective and an amateur male partner--usually not married. The most important element in these series has been the sexual tension between the partners, as in Remington Steele, Moonlighting, and the example I illustrated here, Castle.

All of these shows eventually decided they had to resolve that tension, either by having the protagonists admit their attraction and fall into bed together or, in some cases, actually get married. The problem? Once that happened, there was little to differentiate this series from any other detective/police procedural on the air. The fun was gone. (Of course, with both Castle and Moonlighting, there was the additional problem of animosity between the two leads and/or the producers.)

It's happened with other sorts of shows as well: I present The Nanny and Who's the Boss? as prime examples. Maybe relying on this sort of relationship simply isn't conducive to a long run?

Fan Art: A Different Fandom

Mystery fans don't do fanfic and fan art quite the same way or to the same extent that science-fiction fans do, but they do exist. And fandoms have arisen around some mystery and detective TV series.

Spenser for Hire, based on Robert B. Parker's series of novels, only lasted 3 seasons and 66 episodes, but it is well remembered, especially for Avery Brooks' portrayal of Hawk, the title character's friend and occasional partner. There were later TV movies with a different cast, but this is the one I still think is the best. Robert Urich caught the attitude of Parker's character for me, especially in his voice-over narration.

So here's my look at the cast, including Barbara Stock as Spenser's one-and-only, Susan Silverman.

Fan Art: The Captains

A few days ago, I posted the initial work on this piece, two different versions of the Captain Kirk portrait. As you can see, I decided to go with the line-shaded version, as the version using a dot matrix tended to get distorted when the images were resized. At any rate, here are "The Captains". I thought about including Trisha O'Neill as Captain Rachel Garrett of the Enterprise-C, but I couldn't find a suitable image to work from. And, if someday there's a live-action version of Robert April, perhaps I'll rework this to include him. As yet, the only image of him is from the animated series.

Theater Art: Brighton Beach Memoirs

On one level, I suppose I should be posting about all the events that occurred all over the nation this weekend, even just a few miles from me, but I think I need time to contemplate what to say.

So, instead, I'll post one of the first things I did for a cast. I assistant directed this show about ten years ago. I think my major contribution, other than this art, was to teach a bunch of suburban Philadelphians how to sound like Jewish Brooklynites...including that "pecan" is pronounced "pee-can".

Fan Art: Return to Trek

I haven't really done any Star Trek-related art in something like 20 years, probably not since I did some spot illos for friends' fanzines when I still lived in New York. But I was casting around for something new to work on and I got an idea--why not do a montage of all the captains from the various series, not unlike the Superman montage I posted earlier this month?

So I started work on it yesterday. Here are two versions of Captain Kirk. I'm not sure if I prefer the more organic look of the straight line work, or the slightly techno feel of the shading done in dot matrix.

I'd appreciate your reactions.

 

Fan Art: Two Ideas from Arrow

OK, I think we've had enough controversy for a while.

Here's some more fan art, a portrait of Stephen Amell in his role as Oliver Queen/Arrow/Green Arrow, in two different shading effects:

After I'd done these, I got to thinking, "what would it look like if the makeup department had given Amell a beard more like the one Oliver Queen usually sports in the comic books?"

Thoughts? Comments?

Fan-Art: Comedy Crossover

A few years back, a friend suggested a fanfic crossover, as Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory took a job in the titular town of Eureka. She asked me to put together some art for it. This is the result:

A Different Kind of Fan Art

Sometimes when I'm involved in a community theater production, most often when I'm directing, I try to do a piece of art for the cast. Often it starts as individual portraits of each cast member which are arranged as a final montage.

The first one I did was actually for a show in which I played a part, 12 Angry Men. Here's the finished product (and, yes, that is me second from the left in the top row).

Fan Art 2: Superman

Another piece of art I did several years ago, obviously before Henry Cavill and Tyler Hoechlin were cast to play the Man of Steel. Maybe at some point I will redo this one and add them in.

Perfect Casting?

In the days before comic-book movies became blockbusters, when they were looked on as just "kid stuff", comic fans used to suggest and argue about what actor was the best choice to play a favorite character.

These illustrations, though done just a few years ago, represent the people I saw as most physically or temperamentally suited to play these characters in my youth.

Roger Smith, best known as one of the stars of 77 Sunset Strip and Ann-Margret's husband, as Green Lantern Hal Jordan. Gil Kane based Jordan's looks, in part, on Paul Newman, and I thought Smith embodied the same kind of All-American good looks.

Jack Lord, star of the original Hawaii Five-O, resembled, to me, a cross between Jack Kirby's and Jim Steranko's version of Nick Fury. His gruff, no-nonsense attitude as Steve McGarrett seemed to be the right personality for a guy who was a commando sergeant in World War II.

This one isn't really an actor, and may only be familiar to New Yorkers of a certain age. Jim Jensen was the news anchor at WCBS Channel 2 in the Big Apple for something like two decades. I always thought he bore a startling resemblance to Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four.








Do you have any actors or celebrities you think would be perfect for a role as a comic-book character?