I’ve been following Scottish concept artist Ian McQue on Twitter for some time now (he’s English you know, he just lives in Scotland). He has a thing for flying tug boats, future tech and the odd robot now and then.
He posts the most incredible images and calls them ‘doodles’, ‘sketches’ or ‘speed-paints’. It’s good that people with this much talent are also humble. Check out more of his work on CGHub or his blogspot (but he posts a lot more on Twitter).
Just saw this on a blog – 2011 Mondo poster apparently – but look at that gorgeous type! Wow. By Aaron Horkey and Vania Zouravliov Title: Dracula Size: 23.75″ x 36″ Edition of 330 Mondotees Numbered Edition Screenprint. Just too many talented people out there. Long gone and $500 minimum on eBay…
Love this old sleeve design for The Yellow Moon Band album by Luke Insect I discovered the other day. The record isn’t bad either although it only seems to be available on CD.
Nice interview with Nick Egan over on the Album Cover Hall of Fame blog about the design process for Malcolm McLaren‘s ‘Duck Rock’ LP. Easily one of my favourite records of all time along with being a pivotal influential moment in my musical upbringing. With artists such as Dondi White, Keith Haring and Vivienne Westwood‘s wares vying for space on the sleeve it’s a wonder it all hangs together but somehow it does. I wish the interview had gone into the making of the ‘Duck Rocker’ boombox a little as I’d love to know who made it and where it is now.
The mystery revealed: Ron West – who made the original Duck Rocker(s) posted this on his Facebook page at the end of 2020. It’s lost its horns and the graffiti is in a drawer but that is a copy of the original from the LP cover. Apparently Malcolm lost the original in the States and asked Ron to make a copy for promo purposes.
Sold on the cover art alone. Richard Norris and Luke Insect‘s new Dark Seed project gets its first sleeve. Pre-order HERE. Comes with a free fold out poster too!
Love this cover for a new comp of French Cosmic and Electronic music. Very Phillippe Druillet, if not cribbed directly from one of his works. See the tracklist and pre-order here.
Ralph Steadman at 77 is a retrospective currently running at the Cartoon Museum in Little Russell St., London, WC1A 2HH. Featuring over 100 of his works, most of them originals, from Punch, Rolling Stone, Private Eye and the Observer. His book illustration work is also featured with some of the incredible Alice In Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass images (see below), Leonardo, Fear & Loathing and various children’s books.
Seeing the originals of some of these classic (for me) images was amazing, his line work is incredible but it was nice to see the amount of white out where he hadn’t quite nailed it every time too. The real treat though, was seeing some of his earlier 60’s work that I wasn’t familiar with, a few incorporating colour imagery collaged into the background (see top). Another was an illustration of the infamous Rolling Stones drug bust but my favourite of all was a square print from 1967 called ‘Bedlam’. This circular design of what looked like a board game was unlike many of his works that I’d ever seen, tightly (typo)graphic with all his usual unhinged, unkempt flair reigned in.
Seeing original work like this is one of my favourite past times, with a connection in scale and technique that is rarely captured in the books the pieces were made for. The imperfections and corrections, staining, yellowed paper and sometimes pasted-on additions fascinate me in the same way as a making-of documentary. An artist’s early work, his or her formative years, are always the most interesting for me, the style signposts slowly emerging whilst others are discarded as they find their own direction. Steadman found his fairly quickly and has been mining the same vein for decades now but he’s one of the few that have kept pushing himself into new areas, thus keeping the ‘shock’ factor intact. After the satire and bile of the 70’s and 80’s caricatures he and Gerald Scarfe became known for he moved into promotion for Oddbins, the off-licence, and then on into children’s books, neither of which you would ever have dreamed his material suitable for.
The exhibition runs until September 8th so there’s still a month left to catch it. Entry ranges from £5-3 and children are free. The upstairs houses original art from a lot of classic children’s comics at the moment, the Beano and Dandy being well represented but also a couple of pages from vintage 2000ad too: a Mike McMahon Dredd and a stunning Massimo Belardinelli Dan Dare splash page. By coincidence, Dave Gibbons’ ‘Whaat!?’ piece from the Image Duplicator show also currently resides there too at the moment.
I got into a conversation recently about comic book opening pages where type and title became part of the landscape which reminded me of the king of this; Will Eisner. I can’t claim to be an expert but I always found The Spirit opening pages that I saw to be endlessly inventive with the idea being ripped off numerous times over the decades.
Speaks for itself really, Shaky Kane redesigns the Orbital Comics bag.
The bag is in black & white but, if you pick up the latest issue of the free paper Your Days Are Numbered (cover, left), you get a colour version in the back (above). This is a decent quarterly freebie, printed A3 size and available in various places by the counter or where they put flyers.
Featuring original comics, interviews with creators and reviews, it’s one of the good ones to look for. The latest issue has interviews with David Hine & Shaky Kane, Gustavo Duarte (who also does the cover) and Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba.
Also inside is this great ad for Gosh! Comics by Ben Newman (below) which, along with the new Orbital bag by Shaky, means that Forbidden Planet really need to step up with their promo artwork.
Nice lot of work gone into this jazz LP-parodying flyer for a series of DJ jams in Crotona Park this summer. The last one is actually today and features Lord Finesse, DJ Cheese and Johnny Juice.
How cool is this? An animated version of the Micronauts toy and comic franchise that looks pitched somewhere between Transformers Animated and Tron: Uprising.
These are concept drawings, posted by Dave Johnson aka @Devilpig666 via his Twitter account after reaching 10k followers.
The pitch ultimately failed and it looks like it won’t be made because Hasbro bought the rights but he revealed that they would have got original Micronauts comic artist Michael Golden in to do some designs too.
Regardless, it’s just nice to see this modern day re-imagining of an old classic although this does look like it would be a bit less brutal than the old comics.
From the Heritage Auctions sale site where these two original Jack Kirby pieces are due to be auctioned this weekend:
“Jack Kirby Lord of Light/Argo “Pavilions of Joy” Illustration Original Art (1978). This incredible Jack Kirby illustration, loaded with the kind of style only “King” Kirby could provide, has a very interesting story connected with it. Originally conceived as production pieces for a proposed film, based on a Roger Zelazny Science Fiction novel, the commissioned art was stored away when producer Barry Geller lost his funding. It was later picked up by the CIA for use in a daring covert rescue mission of six Americans held in Iran. A fake film production company was created, with offices set up in Hollywood, and permission to film scenes in Iran was obtained, all as a ruse to spirit the Americans out. The Ben Affleck film, Argo, is based on these true events, and this piece of art played a pivotal role in that astounding and successful mission.
The art is in ink on paper, with an approximate image area of 22.25″ x 17″, matted to an overall size of 26″ x 20″. The art is in Excellent condition, and even without the fascinating story behind it, this is Classic Kirby as you love him.
Incidentally, this piece and the other “Lord of Light” piece we’re offering have spent the last 20 years in the collection of star artist and DC Comics co-publisher Jim Lee.”
* post script: in the end these two pieces sold for $16, 730 and $23,900!
Steve Cook put these photos up last week on his Secret Oranges blog. Above is Jim Murray and below, Jason Brashill, taken at Tribal Gathering in ’97. Both were then working for 2000ad on various projects, with Jim eventually finishing off vol.2 of the Batman/Judge Dredd team-up ‘Die Laughing’ after Glenn Fabry couldn’t commit to it. He then went off to work in the computer games industry but has just put out a gorgeous book with Robbie Morrison called ‘Drowntown’ which is the first of several apparently. Jason followed a similar path but not before he’d painted one of my favourite sleeves for The Herbaliser in the shape of ‘Wall Crawling Giant Insect Breaks’, which I commissioned from him after seeing his work with graffiti artists She One and Req 1 as part of their Brighton crew, The Dusty Knights.
I found this old print here yesterday, by Bill Scienkiewicz in ’88 but new to me.
More old Dan McPharlin designs just because they’re so fantastic, this time for The Sword, check out the hexagonal picture disc.
These are pretty old now but I’m a sucker for Dan McPharlin‘s work. Such beautiful examples of image and typography evoking a certain era perfectly.
A seller (inddes)has put some seriously rare Syd Mead books up on eBay – a lot of them signed, with very low starting prices. Most of these books rarely come up for sale and when they do will start at around the £100 mark. Marvel at his beautiful design work, if I had the money I’d bid on the lot.
You get the impression that Jim Mahfood can pull these kind of illustrations off in his sleep, even though, some days he’s just on fire. Did you know he also has a podcast – The Beat Bee sessions – with Jane Dope and they just passed the 50th edition?
A package dropped through the door last week and I instantly knew it was from Nigel Peake. He always addresses packages to ‘Master K. Foakes’ in the old tradition my grandmother used to. Inside was a new book, something of a departure for him as it’s a story this time rather than observational illustrations based on a theme.
Drawn during the winter month in Austria and Switzerland between 2012-3, ‘In The Dark’ tells of a boy’s fear of the dark and can be enjoyed by adult or child alike. With all the current talk of ‘Supermoons’ it seemed apt that the moon featured large (literally) in the story too. It’s self published and available from his website for £14, as are several other of his books and his Ninja Tune family tree poster. Check out Nigel’s equivalent of a ‘Fragile’ sticker too, ‘careful please’.
Props to Kid Acne for this fantastic package, updating his ‘Council Pop‘ LP and ‘Radio Music’ 12″ – this joins my ever growing collection of hand-screened or painted records.
