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.

 

 

A.C. 2020 selected winners by American Illustration book

The prestigious American Illustration has announced the selected winners for their AI43 book. I am happy to announce that two of my A.C.2020 comics/visual essays have been selected for inclusion.

I originally created this series to express my anxiety and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, I also tried to address my other anxieties and visual observations beyond the pandemic in the series.

Each visual essay comprises self-contained single-page stories created in greyish-blue tones to reflect the subject.

Here is a link to see, among other things, my other A.C.2020 comics.