UPDATE 1/10l15

Long live Missy! We'll miss seeing you on walks.

It’s a New Year! Here’s hoping that everyone has a great 2015!

Last night I hosted a dinner for a couple of artist friends of mine who dropped by and we spent the evening talking about the independent comics that we are all producing. One of them was Henry Cram, who worked with me as an assistant for a while. It was good to see that the exposure didn’t completely destroy his artistic sensibilities. Actually, it was a treat to see just how much his work has developed over the years, and while he has a day job, he has continued to pursue the comics material on his own time. A true artist.

My other friend was Rod Dryden a longtime associate from Bill Stout’s Sunday morning drawing class. Rod spent his career working in advertising and theme park design and was one of the best in the business. He has never done comics. When he talked about his project a couple of years back, I gave him the standard “doing this stuff is tougher than it looks” speech. When I saw the material I immediately told him to ignore everything I had just told him. Let’s just say it was like going to local community theater group and discovering that Lawrence Olivier is one of your neighbors and in the cast. 

From left, Rod Dryden, myself, and Henry Cram

Hopefully, both of these gentlemen will provide me with the examples of their incredible work for a future entry on the blog. And yes, I am desperately trying to talk Henry (who is working with another of my former assistants, Scott Gordon) into using one of their stories for a backup feature in my Mad Mummy book. Details as it happens….

Most of the week I’ve been working frantically on creating new web pages for my emended LoriLovecraft.com. I’m hoping that work on that is completed and the revised site is up and functioning by early Feburary.  At the same time I finished the rough draft of the script for Mad Mummy #7. And here are the latest creative efforts I’ve been working on lately.

In the process, the left third of this picture got cropped.

There is the illustration I did for my friend Tony Bellisario that I went to high school with in Pontiac, Michigan. Tony had the prettiest jump shot this side of Jerry West. He also refurbished and managed a restaurant for a few years in the old home town.  There are a couple of Clint Eastwood portraits. I was working on the first one and had reservations about how it was going when I received my copy of the new Al Parker book. After looking at that material I decided you can’t ever give less than your best efforts, so I started over and did a second piece that I was much happier with. Then I went back and tried a couple of solutions in the original painting and managed to save that…by literally chopping off part of the picture.

The Iron Maiden I did just because I was looking at some of the art of Wally Wood recently and realized  what an influence he was on my work. You can also see that in the finished black and white work on the cover of Mad Mummy 6. I’ve decided to start integrating more of the pencil line/tone in the finished artwork; it adds a bit of needed dimension  and tone. As you can can see below in the life drawings from my sketchbook, there is a freshness and spontaneity in the combination of pencil and ink in those drawings that I don’t always see in my comic book work. So I’m trying something a little different.

And in the world of the vanishing art supplies, I finally found someone who carries the Seth Cote newsprint in a smooth finish. I use this paper to do my daily still life warmups in the morning. All I’ve been able to find in the last year or so is a rougher finish. It keeps you from noodling too much, but there is a greater sensitivity you get on the smooth paper that I prefer.

I need to start sending out press releases on the Mad Mummy books as well as getting them in the hands of reviewers. Anyone with any helpful hints?

Best,

Mike

Robert Fawcett's SHERLOCK HOLMES

The Adventure of the Gold Hunter

In his long career , Robert Fawcett was best known for the series of illustrations he did for Sherlock Holmes, written by Conan Doyle's nephew Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr. There were a dozen stories that appeared. The first ran in Cosmopolitan, and the other eleven were published in Collier's Magazine in l953. Looking at this series you can understand why Fawcett was considered one of the truly great illustrators.

The Adventure of the Demon Angels

The Adventure of the Deptford Horror

The Adventure of Foulkes Rath

One of the hallmarks of RF's work was his powerful sense of value. While the majority of his illustrations were finished color pieces, like Rembrandt, it was the black and white tonal structure underneath (along with his precise draftsmanship ) that brought the work to life. As the late great cartoonist Rowland B. Wilson once counseled me: if you plan a picture with strong value, you've given yourself a good chance for success.

The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle

The Adventure of the Red Window

The Adventure of the Sealed Room

The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers

Fawcett's drawing The Kelkie (below) is a prime example of the importance of value. The following story, related by Fritz Henning in his excellent book, Drawing and Painting in Ink, drives home this point.

"In his haste to get started, Bob overlooked the art director's written instructions that the illustration was to be reproduced in full color. Only after he had completed the entire rendering in black ink and had it in a mat and ready for delivery did he discover the directive about color."

With his wife Agnes suggesting hues (Fawcett himself was color-blind) RF quickly laid down a series of color washes over the illustration- less than an hour's work. After it was published in the Saturday Evening Post, the NY Society of Illustrators awarded it the gold medal for best color illustration of the year.

You can compare the original as it was printed (on the right) with a reproduction from the original taken years later after a good part of the color faded (Fawcett often used colored dyes that were not light fast on his paintings.)

Below is a demonstration from one of the Famous Artists courses that explains Fawcett's approach to design and storytelling.

Fawcett did this story for Cosmopolitan. It was received so successfully that when Colliers signed on to do the series, he was immediately contacted to do more illustrations for the stories.

Those below were part of the Collier's run. For the opening story, The Black Baronet, a frontpiece was also created besides the main illustration.

The Adventure of the Abbas Ruby

The Adventure of the Black Baronet

The Adventure of the Two Women

Fawcett and a good friend.

For those of you interested in more of Robert Fawcett's magnificent work, there is an excellent book available throught Auad Publishing....and check out his newest publication on the other Hall of Fame illustrator Al Parker. (http://www.auadpublishing.com/)

See you next week,

Best,

Mike

UPDATE: 12/27/14

JOE MONTANA- A picture I did for one of my doctors.
Health Care is important!


Here’s hoping everyone had a Happy Holiday Season with a very merry Christmas. Soon it will be on to the New Year. Cheers!!

This is the pencil for the final cover.
There will be a painted backdrop
which will feature the large face.

Cover for The Mad Mummy no.6
Rough Versions-part of the working process

Let’s have a look at the some of the recent work on The Mad Mummy. Issue No. 5 is being wrapped up and will be off to iVerse  next week. Here’s a sneak peak at a couple of the pages. The issue is a homage to George McDonald Fraser’s Flashman series, and the beginning of a four issue arc that features a tip of the skullcap another of my favorite fictional villains.

If you missed issue four, it’s available through iVerse (Click on the link. then type in Mad Mummy in Search. http://digital.comicsplusapp.com/). War of the Wizards features lots of action, magic and necessary information on how to revitalize a newly awakened mummy.

Issue No. 6, The Devil Doctor, is pencilled and the script is written. The next two issue have been thumb nailed and I’m working on the scripts this week. The best news is that an old friend rejoins me for the editing process on this- but more on that in a future update.

On to 2015! See you then.

-Mike 

UPDATE 12/19/14

UPDATE 12/ 19/14

As the year draws to an end it’s been almost four months since I last posted anything on my blog. My excuse is that I’ve been so busy trying to keep up with the schedule of producing my bi-monthly digital book, The Mad Mummy, that I’ve pretty much let everything else slip by. A couple of things have happened lately that have made me re-examine that schedule.

The first is that while the that book, and the rest of my reissues (Lori Lovecraft, Retrowood,and Voodoo Mansion) all get great creative compliments, the sales figures on them are extremely low. So I either have to abandon the process or spend more time on the business and promotional side of comics. Yeah, it ain’t pretty but that’s the awful truth.

So part of that routine is to start to post weekly progress updates on my blog about what’s happening with the books. And once a month I still want to continue the “magazine article” format that I’ve already established.

Currently my LoriLovecraft.com website is being revised and updated as another outlet to reach fans of the stories. When I first learned how to create a website, we used the process called “wysiwyg” (what you see is what you get). It was very similar to photoshop and you simply pasted in text and dragged images to create pages. Then you posted it on your website. Unfortunately, depending on what browser you were using, where you put the text and image might appear quite different from one monitor to the next.  And you now have the additional complication of working for multiple size screens: computer, tablet, iPhone,etc. The only solution is that you now have to really examine the html code for each page while you are creating them; that’s a slow and tedious process, but I am still hoping to have a revamped Lori site up and functioning by late January 2015. Believe me, you’ll here about it here as it happens. 

The fifth issue of The Mad Mummy is nearing completion and will be off to my digital publishers before the end of the year.  This is a period piece where Aten Ra, the title character, meets up with my homage to Harry Flashman and a very young Asian doctor who was also one of my favorite fictional villains. Great fun to write and draw. The sixth issue is pencilled and picks up the story fifty years later when the doctor’s daughter enters the picture.

And I’m still trying to keep my hand in with drawing everyday and doing painting and illustration when I can. Life is short; use it up.

See you next week!  

-Mike