Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Sean Phillips is an amazing artist as you can see from his James Cagney piece above. The art appears with an article on Angels with Dirty Faces by Kim Morgan that will appear in Criminal #2 dropping on February 12th.
The great thing about the Criminal comic series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is that each issue is packed with a great comic story PLUS bonus features and art.
Source: Kim Morgan.
The 7 Deadly Sins is available as a graphic novel, a six part mini-series and a digital download published by TKO Studios.
*** Beware – spoilers may be found below ***
THE 7 DEADLY SINS
SEVEN DEADLY SINS.
ONE DEADLY MISSION.1857. Texas. A group of death row criminals is recruited by a Mexican priest for a suicide mission into Comancheria.
Seven death row prisoners are recruited to accompany a Priest on a suicide mission into Indian territory to recover a child stolen from settlers. Each of those on the mission have reasons to go above and beyond avoiding the gallows.
Tze Chun has created a story much more aligned to The Wild Bunch and The Searchers than most western comic book stories. His characters all have individual personalities, depth and backstory. Chun developed excellent twists that, although you won’t see coming, feel true. Chun is a writer to watch!
Artyom Trakhanov’s art is beautiful. I’ve followed his work in other stories but The 7 Deadly Sins is his masterpiece (at least so far). Trakhanhov has the rare ability (think Eduardo Risso and Palle Schimdt) to make all of his characters, including those in the backgrounds, have their own unique feel and personality. Trakhanov’s style is his own, but reminds me of a young Michael Golden. (High praise, indeed!)
Giulia Brusco’s colors compliment Trakhanov’s art and enhance the story. Brusco’s color’s are beautiful without being overbearing or drawing attention away from the story.
TKO Studios releases all of their comics in three different formats: digital download, as individual comics in a collector’s box and as a graphic novel. The comics and graphic novels are slightly larger than traditional comics/graphic novels. With TKO Studios there is no waiting for individual issues month to month — all issues are available from day one of publication! Also, each first issue is available to read online for free! Hats off to TKO Studios for these welcome innovations.
If I was going to nit pick, I’d ask TKO Studios to include the individual comic series covers with the graphic novels.
The 7 Deadly Sins is the complete package – great story and art – and gets my highest recommendation.
Rating: 5 of 5 stars.
Today we have a very rare Frank Frazetta painting of Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula. I thought the layout looked as if it was to be used for two book covers. I was pleased to learn that it was used on two covers (front and back) but for one book.
My introduction to independent comics was the first issue of Star*Reach. It featured a Howard Chaykin Cody Starbuck story. Starbuck was a swashbuckling space pirate. Over the years I followed his all-too infrequent adventures.
Cody Starbuck made appearances in…
There was also another Cody Starbuck story published in Spain back in the early 80’s. Sadly, I like many Chaykin/Cody Starbuck fans never got a chance to see it. It was never reprinted in the US.
Isn’t it time we got a US version of the Cody Starbuck story published in Spain? Better yet, how about a nice hardcover omnibus reprinting all the Cody Starbuck stories, the portfolio and other bonus materials?
Here’s something you don’t see everyday. It is a vintage Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD prelim by Steranko.
Can you believe it was rejected? It was supposed to be the cover to the first issue.
Truth be told, I like the published cover of the first issue better, but Steranko used a modified version of the art above for the cover of issue 5 and it was accepted.
Source: Jeff Rose.
This rare, vintage Shang-Chi art by Paul Gulacy brings a smile to my face every time I see it. Hope you enjoy it as well.
Source: Gulacy.
I’m a huge fan of Victor Santos’ Polar graphic novels so you can imagine how much I’ve been looking forward to the movie adaptation of Polar. Today we get the poster and trailer and I love ’em both. I hope you do as well.
Each of these beautiful classic universal monsters was created by the uber-talented Duncan Fegredo. Click on the image above to see a larger version.
Source: Longbox of Darkness.
Alex Toth was an artist who made drawings look easy because he didn’t clutter them with any unnecessary lines. His Zorro is a classic example.
Source: Comics in the Golden Age.
Regular readers probably remember seeing the John Wick & Jack Carter piece that John Beatty created and gifted to me back in November. After he was finished John decided it would look better with a gray wash and created / added to the piece as you can see above. You can see it even better and bigger if you click on the image.
I’ve attached the U-Stream of John adding the tones below. You can check out all of John’s live drawing recordings here.
As we head into 2019, I thought it would be interesting to see our top 2018 posts and our all-time favorites. So, without further adieu, here are the 2018 most viewed posts…
And our all-time favs…
Thanks to everyone who checks in here. I hope your 2018 was a good one and your 2019 will be even better!
Once a week Joblo.com posts Awesome Art We’ve Found Around the Net.
I always enjoy seeing what JoBlo has found because with each post they list the artist’s name and a link to more of his/her art. That’s where I saw this Rambo poster by Branden Hafiz.
Today we have Tony Stella’s knockout poster for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Source: Tony Stella.
That’s Paul Gulacy’s art for Master of Kung Fu #51. It’s one of Paul’s classic MOKF covers and rarely seen as just the pure black and white art. What a beauty!
Source: Browse the Stacks.
