Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Manny Aguilera makes his second, but not last appearance in my Stallone Sketch Gallery with his take on Sly as John Spartan from Demolition Man.
I highly recommend Manny to sketch collectors. He’s fast, his prices are reasonable and he’s one of the genuine nice guys!. – Craig
Walt Parrish has a cool sketch collection theme. Walt collects original art created on three inch by three inch bristol board.
The art ranges from full color paintings to quickie pencil pieces by artists such as Ken Meyer, Jr. [the Breaking Bad piece above], Tim Sale [the sketch below], Michael Golden, Matt Wagner, Neal Adams, Wilfredo Torres, Gabriel Hardman, Franchesco Francavilla, Bruce Timm, Howard Chaykin, Patric Reynolds and others.
Walt has the art on display at his three by three site and it is more than worth a look.
The photo above is of one of my all-time favorite Conan covers. It was created by Neal Adams for The Savage Sword of Conan #2, published by Marvel in October 1974.
Source: The Bristol Board.
There’s a little bit of a controversy brewing over Marvel’s reprinting of the Miracleman series originally published by Eclipse.
The hubhub is because of the remastered coloring on the latest version. It’s not going to look like the original colors when reprinted.
Most will argue it will look better. Traditionalists will argue that it shouldn’t change.
Marvel’s way of thinking is making the colors look better will increase sales. Those who are fans of the original series will probably buy it either way [enhanced coloring or not], but new readers may be put off by the original colors and pass. So the thought process becomes do what will increase sales.
I probably first became aware of this mindset when Ted Turner started colorizing old films that held the rights to. Turner did this to increase ratings when he aired the colorized movies and to increase video sales.
George Lucas made changes to his Star Wars films enhancing special effects and making it clear that Han didn’t shoot first.
Enhancing effects on the original Star Trek tv series was also done to help the show remain popular in syndication.
I’ve always figured as long as the originals are still available in their original form, then what’s the harm of an “enhanced” version?
I was really sorry to hear about Tom Laughlin’s passing. His Billy Jack character really made an impact on me my generation.
So it was nice to come across this great Neal Adams’ cover painting of Billy Jack when I was cruising the web today.
Source: Steve Niles’ Tumbler.
I am really looking forward to The Saviors by James Robinson and J. Bone.
James Robinson describes The Saviors as…
…an alien conspiracy horror comic where an innocent, naive slacker discovers, completely by chance, an alien infiltration of the human race. In the course of eluding the aliens and finding other people aware of the infiltration, he becomes more of a hero and less a helpless young guy with no clue.
Robinson sites his influences for The Saviors…
…combine the spooky, creepy aspects of pulps stories, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie and the short-lived The InvadersTV show from the 1960s. I try to combine that with, at the same time, the idea of these somewhat human looking aliens can when the situation requires transform into really monstrous creatures like in John Carpenter’s The Thing. Real big monster horror, which thinking about it is the other end of the spectrum from Invasion of the Body Snatchers in terms of 1950s alien horror films.
Couple Robinson’s story with J. Bone’s art and how can we not have a winner? I pre-ordered as soon as I heard about the series and can’t wait to get the first issue in my mitts.
If you want to know more about The Saviors [and see additional J. Bone art for the series] you can thanks to Newsarama.
Manny Aguilera makes his first, but not last appearance in my Stallone Sketch Gallery with his take on Sly as Lincoln Hawk from Over the Top.
I highly recommend Manny to sketch collectors. He’s fast, his prices are reasonable and he’s one of the genuine nice guys!. – Craig
The art above is a just a small taste of the preview art by Darwyn Cooke for his adaptation of Donald Westlake’s [writing as Richard Stark] Slayground.
You can see much more at Comic Alliance’s: DARWYN COOKE ADAPTS A MASTERPIECE IN ‘RICHARD STARK’S PARKER: SLAYGROUND..
I am diggin’ this poster [as well as these other three] for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
Source: IMPAwards.
These are just two of the nice pen and ink illos by Superman co-creater Joe Shuster that appeared in 1942 hardcover edition of The Adventures of Superman. You can see all of them as well as some paintings by Shuster that also appeared in the book thanks to J. J. Sedelmaier’s post at Printmag.com.
Thanks for the tip to Ron Salas.
Those are just a few of the “best” James Bond covers that have been published over the years. You can see more as well as each Bond novel’s opening line at Shortlist.com.
Jerry Gaylord aka The Franchize makes his fourth, but not his last appearance in my Stallone Sketch Gallery with his take on Sly as John Rambo.
I highly recommend Jerry to all sketch collectors. He quickly responds to e-mails, his turnaround time is quick and he packages the art to ensure it arrives safely.
To check out more of Jerry’s art, head here. – Craig
Do you ever get the urge to see Batman vs a werewolf? Thanks to Neal Adams we can.
Dead Body Road by Justin Jordan and Matteo Scalera is a six issue mini-series that tells the story of an ex-cop named Gage who is killing those he feels are responsible for his wife’s death. According to Jordan it’s amodern-day western, crime thriller, with noir sensibilities.
You can see more of the art and read an interview with Justin Jordan over at Newsarama.
Henrik Sahlstrom created the very moody Batman Noir piece above.
Sahlstrom also gave the same treatment to the Riddler, the Joker and Catwoman. You can see how those turned out at Sahlstrom’s blog.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a Batman Noir story created by Sahlstrom.
DC Comics are you listening?
