Monday, October 24, 2011

Nostalgia Time: Maxx & Batman 'Mixed media' covers... sorta.

New Chickens update ... plus I joined Jon in posted some more process painting pics on the Chickens website...  check it out... also just finished an interview with MTV Geek about it. Will pass that along when it comes out too..

BTW: I'm scanning these a little bigger, so give a second click for a slightly larger view of the pics below.



Okay, i admit it - i threw in this batman one above up front, just to catch your attention. It's from the Scratch mini series, and there's more bat-crap below.

But don't skip down just yet ( as if i could stop you?) ..

BEFORE we get t that.. here's something chalk full of nostalgia from the dusty old sam vaults.

Here's an old maxx cover.. i forget which one..


It's funny how mixed media was still sort of tentative for me back then..


This is the first time anyone's seen it out side of the printer version. Not like it's some big deal, just kinda weird i never got around to throwing this old stuff up.


Before some of you put on your rose colored glasses about this old thing, please remember a few things about this sophomore effort from me?  Mixed media wise, it's kind of a cheat. The paper i used behind the cat? ... all those swirls in the background?

Not *my* doing - just a textured paper i picked up at an art store. Same goes for the multi-grain looking straw looking crap on the borders.. i had to staple it in in fact. (pre-glue days)


In fact, outside of the figures and the tree, the leaves I added in the corners are only quasi- original thing  I pasted them in.


Looking back on this i can see how i struggled to pull it all this stuff together... not super successfully either. The cat is so white because it's pasted on bristol of course. Not that I hate it, it's just kinda wonkey...

But,  this point *is* where I started to really explore all this really eclectic mixed media stuff I'm knee deep in now with bonsai on leather and stuff..


Now onto some Batman covers from Scratch. It's odd how tall and distended bats got here.. i must have been looking at old Jelly Jones covers, huh? : )


Speaking of folds, (and no one was... but I remember Frank P was asking about them ) ... here's a few 'zigzag' & 'half lock' folds in Bats cape. Not to get off on the subject too much...


Here's that George Bridgman page listing the folds I mentioned in last weeks comments and link to Frank showing what I mean.


..and here's some more subtle folds I did with Dana last week..


But back to bats for now...



Funny how below bat's tummy is very softish Wrightson-like brush strokes, very delicate? Which seem totally at odds with the almost violently raw looking Sienkiewcz-like pen strokes on bats shoulder. The whole spectrum of styles right there in one cover... ouch. 

No wonder some fans don't 'get' my stuff sometimes - who could blame them with how i bounce around? : ) 


Not admiring it, just surprised how ill at ease they really are together. Or maybe doesn't. The colored comic 'makes' (persuades?) ... our mind blend the differing styles in a way, doesn't it? 



This an unused splash from Batman: Secrets i threw up top.

Maybe it's a stretch to call this 'mixed media', but i remember with that series the office i worked in had a 11x 17 photo copier, so i was experimenting, pulling art in circled as the machine would copy.. (an old trick for distorting crap before digital took off. )

You can see the paste ins where i tried to blend the india ink and the photo copy here..


and here..


Again, fledgling efforts to try something NEW... not always successful , and I still fumble and flounder a lot.


It's like a have a bigger 'artistic vocabulary' now, am less intimidated by mixed media, and now I do try MORE things now that before...


But truth is I also have less 'fire' or 'drive' i did in my youth.  So one of the trade off's of aging i guess.