The top 75 Iconic DC covers of all-time
posted by Artw on Dec 11, 2009 - 67 comments

Starting her comics career as a colorist, Marie Severin was largely responsible for the distinctive color palette of EC Comics, where her brother Johnny Severin also worked. She later worked in the Marvel Bullpen, drawing just about everything, including many well loved staff caricatures. She turned 80 this year; here are a few of her Marvel covers from the 60s and 70s.
posted by interrobang on Nov 30, 2009 - 18 comments

Chris Foss concept art for Dune, with bonus Nostromo. The images were produced for Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1974 attempt at filming the story, with other artists involved including Moebius and HR Giger. Though the project failed Jodorowsky collaborated further with Moebius to lay the groundwork for his own Dune-like comicbook universe (and a trailer for an animated version of it was even created). More visions of Arrakis can be seen on this page of Dune cover artwork through the ages, with bonus midi Toto.
posted by Artw on Nov 20, 2009 - 97 comments

15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee. 17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat. The MotherF**king Pterodactyl. These and various other amusements courtesy of The Oatmeal.
posted by brain_drain on Nov 18, 2009 - 30 comments

Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!! is a blog featuring gobs of drawings by comic book artists of their favorite literary authors or characters. [via] [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Nov 6, 2009 - 26 comments

"Some People" is a comic about perspective, misunderstanding, and people. The artist writes a lot of interesting comics.
posted by Taft on Oct 31, 2009 - 22 comments

Rom: Spaceknight was an improbable comics success: Based on a toy series that consisted of one figure (Rom), the comics series debuted in 1979 and lasted an unlikely 75 issues, featuring art from such luminaries as P. Craig Russell and Steve Ditko (previously, previously and previously). The series was written by Marvel Comics mainstay Bill Mantlo, who retired from comics and became a public defender (the legal kind), only to suffer a tragic accident in the mid-1990s that left him in need of constant medical attention. A 2007 benefit for the writer -- Spacenight: A Tribute to Bill Mantlo -- will be followed by Spacenight 2, an auction of original Rom-related artwork that can be viewed here.
posted by kittens for breakfast on Sep 19, 2009 - 32 comments

Zap! Pow! Comicbook artist Chris Weston fights crime!
posted by Artw on Sep 2, 2009 - 20 comments

The usual summary of comic book artist Will Eisner’s career follows the formula that he drew the Spirit all through the 1940s except for the war years and a bunch of ‘graphic novels’ from 1978 till the end of his life in 2005. There’s a long missing period between 1951 and 1978 during which he packaged and adapted cartoon art to commercial purposes, which has not been readily available for our scrutiny or pleasure. It is sometimes summarily dismissed as being of little interest. - Artist Eddie Campbell reappraises Will Eisner's missing years.
posted by Artw on Aug 31, 2009 - 13 comments

Singles, a wonderful animation by young artist Rebecca Sugar.
posted by archagon on Aug 13, 2009 - 31 comments

The Adam Hughes Corollary to the Gene Siskel Movie Test - “Before making a movie based on a licensed property, ask yourself: is this movie going to be less entertaining than just Googling for Adam Hughes drawings of these same characters?” [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Aug 10, 2009 - 113 comments

The Adventures Of A Would Be Arms Dealer (PDF) is an eight-page comic illustrating how an illegal arms deal works in practice. Via.
posted by Fiasco da Gama on Jul 28, 2009 - 16 comments

21 artists who changed mainstream comics (for better or worse)
posted by Artw on Jul 20, 2009 - 53 comments

Top 10 comic book cities
posted by Artw on Jul 13, 2009 - 45 comments

Comics in the Classroom: 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jul 7, 2009 - 27 comments

NAWLZ: A science fiction flash-based graphic novel 'experiment in interactive storytelling' that's pretty cool. Now up to 13 'issues'. [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jun 6, 2009 - 7 comments

The Incredible Hulk, as told by Koike Kazuo, of Lone Wolf and Cub fame, and Yoshihiro Morifuji. More scans here.
posted by Artw on May 27, 2009 - 16 comments

An epic blog post on the evolution of the architecture of Megacity-One, the futuristic comic-book home of Judge Dredd, by Matt Brooker, showing influence of artists such as Carlso Esquerra, Mike McMahon and Ian Gibson over the years. Judge Dredds cover appearances on 2000ad from 1977 onwards (when each Prog cost 8p), and plenty other images from the world of Judge Dredd. As for that movie... [more inside]
posted by Artw on Apr 4, 2009 - 23 comments

Some images of rare and obscure Alan Moore material from Slovobooks.
posted by Artw on Mar 26, 2009 - 19 comments

Eclectic Micks - Irish comicbook artists posting a sketch a day.
posted by Artw on Mar 17, 2009 - 2 comments

The Zine Library has hundreds of zines in pdf format for your perusal. They are organized into categories ranging from the common political (anarchism, political prisoners & animal liberation) and identity based zines (indigenous, race & gender) to the more esoteric (anarchist history, primitivism & theory) as well as the useful (cooking, DIY & organizing manuals) and arty (art, comics & music). Now, zines are by their very nature hit and miss but there are some real treasures to be found. I recommend these three: [all links pdf] The Rebel's Dark Laughter - The Writings of Bruno Filippi, Barefoot in the Kitchen and Delivery from Below, Resistance from Above - Electricity and the Politics of Struggle in Tembisa, South Africa. Note: Many if not most zines are set up to be printed out and bound together in chapbooks. That requires a bit of going back and forth when reading in pdf-format, but they wouldn't be real zines if they were straightforward to read ;) Don't know what a zine is? A pretty good overview is provided by zine librarian Jenna Freedman in Zines Are Not Blogs: A Not Unbiased Analysis. [This site has been posted previously but was buried deep in the weeds of more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Mar 10, 2009 - 16 comments

Secret Identity - The fetish art of Superman's co-creator Joe Shuster.
posted by Artw on Mar 8, 2009 - 44 comments

Comic book lettering has some grammatical and aesthetic traditions that are quite unique. What follows is a list that every letterer eventually commits to his/her own mental reference file.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Feb 3, 2009 - 36 comments

Understanding comics - Scott McCloud recaps his comics theory work at TED. [more inside]
posted by Artw on Jan 31, 2009 - 30 comments

A curated collection of web comics over at Greylock Arts, with creator interviews and lots of links to strips like Underwire, Persimmon Cup, Truth Serum, Wondermark, The Process, Amazing Facts...and Beyond!, Phil McAndrew and more, including a few previously featured on the blue. [via Bookslut]
posted by mediareport on Jan 26, 2009 - 4 comments

old comics and illustration (-v-)
posted by vronsky on Jan 17, 2009 - 14 comments

The 25 best comics covers of 2008 - from Robot 6, the new home of the old blog@Newsarama team. [more inside]
posted by Artw on Jan 3, 2009 - 21 comments

Tales of the Beanworld ("A most peculiar comic book experience") recently resumed publication after a long hiatus. It's a strange and abstract mix of Native American mythology and culture, with a strong ecological focus, into an wonderfully charming cosmology. While it certainly invites, uh, overthinking, it's also entertaining on a purely casual level.
A sample short Beanworld story is on the Dark Horse Comics Myspace page.
If you have questions about it, the BeanWeb just may have answers, along with illustrations from the comics. There is now a Beanworld Wiki to supplement it, and creator Larry Marder keeps a blog where he talks about things bean.

Okay, now that it's properly introduced... the real point of this post is to link to this awesome Beanworld Flash cartoon, animated by Fashionbuddha and with music by They Might Be Giants!
posted by JHarris on Dec 20, 2008 - 17 comments

Portraiture of the living dead. [some NSFW; via Bygone Bureau] [more inside]
posted by Korou on Dec 10, 2008 - 31 comments

Original character designs for Watchmen, including a (dropped) full body suit for Rorschach, by Dave Gibbons. (Also it looks like the movie version will have a different ending, so fears of a non-sucky Alan Moore film can be put to rest.)
posted by Artw on Oct 27, 2008 - 163 comments

The political cartoons of Clifford K. Berryman lampooned American politics from the era of Grover Cleveland to the Truman administration. If he's known today it's mostly for having originated the teddy bear. While some of his cartoons have scant relevance today, many remain surprisingly relevant. Of the many historical events he drew there are women's suffrage, the 1948 election and the 1912 Republican primaries between Taft and Roosevelt.
posted by Kattullus on Aug 21, 2008 - 10 comments

The king of comics - Jack Kirby
posted by vronsky on Aug 10, 2008 - 31 comments

Curt Purcell of The Groovy Age of Horror (previously) on Vampirella and the art of José González, who modeled his version of the character after Sophia Loren (NSFW, mild boobies) (Previous Vampirella)
posted by Artw on Jul 31, 2008 - 7 comments

Busted Wonder ― The cartoon art of Charity Larrison and Kieron Gillen.
posted by netbros on Jul 18, 2008 - 9 comments

J.R. Williams is a prolific comics artist with a distinctive visual style 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. He is fond of fanciful takes on pop culture icons like Quisp and Yogi Bear, as well as more ribald characterizations like Polly Purebred and Jane Jetson (NSFW) More recently he has branched out into abstraction, which might be characterized as psychedelic pictographs.
posted by Tube on Jul 5, 2008 - 4 comments

Do Your Strip: A hopeful book and exhibition where 70 artists and illustrators invent a character, provide instructions on how to draw it, then create the first comic adventure. Exhibit-goers would then create additional stories with their favorite characters. All the characters, instructions, and first strips can be seen here [pdf]. [more inside]
posted by artifarce on Jun 4, 2008 - 5 comments

The Hole in the Wall [via mefi projects] is our own interrobang's surrealistic cat story now being serialized at Top Shelf Comics as part of their new Webcomics section, and it's definitely something special - pen & ink & watercolor adventures of two cats exploring a mysterious and dangerous underground landscape. More comics like this will be posted there depending on the popularity of this one, so if you love art, great comics, or cats, you will want to check it out. This was a part of interrobang's Year in Comics project, so if you fall in love with the Hole in the Wall kittehs (you will!), go have look at his other stuff, as well.
posted by taz on May 23, 2008 - 30 comments

But is it art? Apparently so - A page of original Tintin artwork by Belgian artist Hergé becomes part of the Pompidou Centre's permanent collection of Modern Art, the first comics artwork to do so despite Frances vibrant comics culture.
posted by Artw on May 22, 2008 - 18 comments

An introduction to the works of Alberto Breccia, 'often referred to as "The master of black and white."' A brilliant comic artist little known in the english-speaking world, his works have mostly been published in italian, french and spanish. In the '70s he and writer Norberto Buscaglia adapted nine H.P. Lovecraft stories, available here in ebook form (in spanish, but the art speaks for itself).
posted by aldurtregi on Apr 11, 2008 - 4 comments

The Daily [Batman / Superman / Wolverine] [more inside]
posted by brownpau on Apr 11, 2008 - 34 comments

Do you like video games? Art about video games? Comics about video games? If yes, Lifemeter may be for YOU! [more inside]
posted by piratebowling on Mar 16, 2008 - 8 comments

Drawing Superheros... Youtube videos of comics artists sketching and inking. Direct links: John Romita and Joe Kubert, John Buscema and Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Gibbons and Travis Charest.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Mar 15, 2008 - 16 comments

Marvel vs. the BMI (one-link, but fun.)
posted by Navelgazer on Mar 4, 2008 - 69 comments

On the Road of Knives is never-ceasing illustrated carnage... Zak Smith, Shawn Cheng and Nicholas Di Genova alternate drawing a perpetual narrative of monsters killing monsters being fought by monsters.
posted by pokermonk on Feb 22, 2008 - 10 comments

Comics writer Warren Ellis invited indie comics creators to introduce their work (warning: image intensive page) in his new forum, Whitechapel. With posts from 100+ writers/artists creating everything from free webcomics to traditional books, it's a great source for new reading material.
posted by nerdcore on Jan 18, 2008 - 6 comments

James Jean shows how he creates the painted cover for Fables. His blog is full of gorgeous figure studies and sketches that show influences from Lucian Freud and pop/manga design. His eponymous site also includes a broad cross-section of his works: Dive, Tigerlily, and his great recess series.
posted by klangklangston on Jan 14, 2008 - 14 comments

"Nate Notes are crazed, obscene or blindingly profound 10x10 images that are born from blood, tears, and relentless toil. Sometimes they are funny. Please laugh at them."
posted by anarcation on Jan 10, 2008 - 27 comments

"Zuda takes the Web publishing aspect out of the creators' hands, freeing them up to focus on writing and drawing the story. But to get Zuda to publish your comic, you first have to win a competition..." A major player enters into the fray of web comics publishing, previously populated mostly by independents. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? [more inside]
posted by ZachsMind on Dec 28, 2007 - 47 comments

Wayne White's paintings [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf on Dec 20, 2007 - 19 comments

"Introducing the new Portable Halo, a device that will revolutionize lies." The art of Swedish illustrator Mattias Adolfsson, strongly recommended for fans of Gahan Wilson. Also check out his Flickr set of fictional cityscapes, sketchbook samples, and the rest of his sprawling real/imaginary world.
posted by jbickers on Oct 29, 2007 - 6 comments