I just acquired this daily comic of Flash Gordon by Dan Barry from November 9th, 1965. It perfectly fits with the other two daily comics from the same story, which I acquired earlier.
Monday, October 7, 2024
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
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"
Monday, September 30, 2024
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.
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
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.
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
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.
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.