My latest acquisition, Bob Lubbers (as Bob Lewis) "Secret Agent Corrigan" daily comic strip from 1966. Secret Agent Phil Corrigan stars in this aviation-themed adventure alongside Miss Perkins. It was created in ink over graphite with Duotone chemical shading board.

This strip has a bonus: Bob often included rough pencil corrections or sketches on the back. In this case, it's interesting to see how he changed the airplane's direction, creating a more dramatic composition.

This isn't the first Bob Lubbers "Secret Agent" comic strip in my collection; I actually own quite a few. See here.

I also have his "Robin Malone" and "Tarzan" strips. See here.

 

I really appreciate his stylization and the balance between realism and cartoonish drawing. As my friend Zoran Djukanovic said, "He is very, very talented. There is such ease in his heart and his hand."

 

 

Poster for "Man's Teardrop"

My new poster design for the play "Man's Teardrop" by JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theater in Belgrade, Serbia.

 

A "Man's Teardrop" is a collage drama based on the motifs of four one-act plays, and one short story by A. P. Chekhov. The actors of this theater play are defeated in love, lost in time and imprisoned in an inn during an apocalyptic storm that directs them to each other and incites both conflicts and reminiscences, soaked in the writer's all-pervading irony. The least common content of the selected texts are the breakdowns of the male heroes that bring them to tears, which are still seen today as a sign of inappropriate weakness, and therefore exposed to stigma and self-restraint. 

 

The elements of comedy are, a natural consequence of the poetics of the everyday and ordinary, but also a progressive and always modern, and certainly contemporary, Chekhov's comment on the banality and dullness of male machoism and patriarchy as a social order. And that storm, as a metaphor for the chaos, tumult and wars of today, represents all the turmoil that inevitably comes to the surface, if tears are suppressed, and pride and shame due to male "weakness" are encouraged.

 

You can see more of my JDP theatrical posters here:

https://www.behance.net/MirkoIlic

 

 

Casey Ruggles by Warren Tufts

My recent acquisition, the daily comic Casey Ruggles by Warren Tufts from 1951.

I bought this strip partly because, for some strange reason, the drawing of the horse reminded me of Hal Foster's drawings of horses. Even the signature looks similar. 

 

This isn’t the only comic strip by Tufts that I have. 

You can see a few more here, here, and here.

Online lecture to students in China

On Friday, September 20th, from 8:30 am to 9:30 am (ET), I gave an online lecture to visual art students in China.

The title of the lecture is Using Imagery to Convey Thoughts Across Time.

In this lecture, we explored various topics, including my 60-year creative journey, the challenges I've faced, and how to effectively use imagery to tell stories.

This online lecture was organized by Inspiration Drawer. Special thanks to Jin Xiaojing for her effort in making it happen.

 

 

 

 

Here is a "Rip Kirby" daily strip by Alex Raymond from the story "The Laughs on Giggles," featuring Giggles Magee.

This strip was published on September 27th, 1955—fun coincidence, just two days after I was born.

"Rip Kirby" is an American comic strip created by Alex Raymond and Ward Greene featuring the adventures of private detective "Rip Kirby". The strip ran from 1946 to 1999 and was in the hands of artist John Prentice for more than 40 years. During Raymond's years on the strip, the stories were initially written by Ward Greene, and later, following Greene's death, by Fred Dickenson. Some sequences were also written by Raymond. In 1956, Raymond was killed in a car crash. King Features quickly needed a replacement, and found it in John Prentice.

Here’s a link to see my other "Rip Kirby" daily strip by Alex Raymond. And here, here, and here, you can see "Rip Kirby" by John Prentice.

 

 

Rip Kirby's hairy arms

In the late 60s I was living in Zagrab, Croatia/Yugoslavia at that time and despite being a communist country they published a lot of comics. Especially in newspapers, one of them was Rip Kirby but at that time already drawn by John Prentice. I discovered much later that it was original drawn by Alex Raymond. 

 There were two things that made comics very fascinating for me that had nothing to do with art even though earlier versions of drawings by John Prentice were very skillful. One was he had a butler, in communist countries and probably even outside of them, it was unheard of. Bruce Wayne was at least living in a castle, it’s a huge place you need a butler to help you out. But Rip Kirby was living in an apartment in New York, why would he need a butler? Other P.I.’s had female companions/secretaries/assistants… Rip Kirby has a butler? 

Another fascinating thing for me was that he had hairy arms. I never saw anyone drawing a comic hero with hairy arms. That was partly appealing to me because I was coming from a country of hairy male.

Here are links to more, and more, and more Rip Kirby comics from my collection.

 

"Flash Gordon" by Dan Barry

Recently, I acquired two consecutive daily strips of Flash Gordon by Dan Barry: one from November 1, and the other from November 2, 1965. These strips may not be his most amazing work, but they are drawn solely by Dan Barry.

Previously, I have collected several Flash Gordon comics by Barry, mostly those he created in collaboration with Bob Fujitani, which are later Flash Gordon comics produced after 1976.

You can view my other acquisitions of Dan Barry's comics here, here, here, and here.