"Cisco Kid' by Jose Luis Salinas

I recently acquired these two partial daily comic strips of Cisco Kid by Jose Luis Salinas from 1952. It is beautiful to see on Salinas' originals, how gently and easily, without any “suffering" he applied the ink with the stroke of a brush, without needing any corrections. 

These two partial panels are from the story called Deadly Stage Ride. The panels are probably partial because, believe it or not, at that time it was common practice for the syndicate to cut the strips and send a panel or two to, for example, fans who wrote and asked. Looking through the Cisco Kid book trying to find how the complete comic strip looks, I was quite pleased to find that on the top of the page of one of them is a comic strip that I already have. Pure coincidence.

 

Modesty Blaise by Neville Colvin

When one says Modesty Blaise, the first thing that comes to mind is the iconic artwork of Jim Holdaway. Unfortunately, the work of Neville Colvin gets overlooked. 

I recently acquired two strips from a Neville Colvin comic from 1984. The first frame in both strips are excellent examples of Colvin’s craftsmanship. He is bleeding random brush and pen strokes, which almost brings the drawing to a level of abstraction. But at the same time, everything is there. 

Here is a link to my previous acquisition of Modesty Blaise by Colvin.

 

Poster for "The Last Cowboy"

This is my poster design for the documentary film "The Last Cowboy”.

"The Last Cowboy is documentary film about the eternal dreamer from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hari Džekson. The American wild west was out of his reach so he created his own right at home and in the sixties officially changed his name from Aljuš Musli to Hari Džekson. This is a film about a man who created an illusory reality from his dreams of being a heroic cowboy who would save the world, in which he himself lived. He was a fan of westerns and he filmed a couple of them, in which good always triumphs over bad. When the world he dreamed about collapsed due to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so did his dreams collapse and he along with them. His film about cowboys who saved and at the same time decorated the world in the middle of Balkan, remained unfinished. But some of his friends tried to finish the open ending he had left.”

"Few years ago in Ljubljana I met Mirko Ilić, graphic designer who was born in Bijeljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina and who lives and works in New York City today. I interviewed him for RTV Slovenia. He told me about the man who filmed westerns by the river Drina, who knew everything about western films, who officially changed his name from Aljuš Musli to Hari Dzekson, whom the inhabitants of Bijeljina considered a kind of court jester… I didn't believe him. The story sounded unbelievable. It sounded too Hollywood. I thought, of course, Mirko comes from America. The next day I verified the story online and I saw movie material. It was a script that wrote itself. In other words, Mirko Ilić offered me a script that just needed to be written. Thus was born a film about a cowboy who lived his dreams and dreamed his whole life.” 

–Tadej Čater, documentary film director

You can read more about Hari Džekson here and here.

 

Photo of city of Bijeljina is by Ajdin Kamber.

 

 

 

Comic "Trees" by Jason Howard

My recent acquisition is page 12 from the third episode of the comic Trees from 2014. The art is done by Jason Howard. I bought this comic exclusively because of the beautiful textures which were unfortunately destroyed when the comic was colorized.