Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Comic Artist Speak...Jack "King" Kirby

I was lucky enough to meet "The King" a few times over the years and was always impressed with his kind and grateful interaction with his many fans. Here is a short clip from a long out-of-print documentary called The Masters Of Comic Book Art highlighting the greatest in the field introduced by science fiction writer Harlan Ellison. 
 

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Top Five American Comic Sales By Categories!

(2012): Amazing Spider-Man #328 (Todd McFarlane) Cover sold for $657,250!


 
 
(2011): Batman: The Dark Knight #3 page 10 (Frank Miller) Splash page sold for $448,125!
 


(2012): Fantastic Four #55 page 3 (Jack Kirby/Joe Sinnott) Panel page sold for $155,350!



(2013): Vampirella #5 [ "Cornered"] (Frank Frazetta) Painted cover sold for $286,800!



 (2012): Calvin and Hobbes 10/19/1986 Comic Strip Sunday sold for $203,150!



Wednesday, March 12, 2014

National Cartoonist Society Profile: Russell Myers

Life began in 1935 in Kansas which is very flat. I'm now old and live in Oregon where it's hilly. Somehow this seems all wrong. Marina and I were married in 1964. She is a nice lad who believes in drinking lots of water. Our children, Stewart and Rosie, turned out quite well and seem to like us. I have a small collection of old cars and every song Bix Beiderbecke ever recorded. In spite of chronic minor foot discomfort I am often quite cheerful. I started out doing greeting cards for Hallmark in 1960 and launched my strip Broom Hilda in 1970. It gets printed in several newspapers, which always surprises me and make me grateful. My parents just celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary and still have all their marbles, something I find very encouraging. Cartooning is fun.


Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Ric Estrada's "He'll Break Your Heart!"

Probably best known for his dynamic superhero comic stories with DC Comics, Ric Estrada was a Cuban American artist who worked for most of the major American publishers in his long and varied career, including EC, Dell, Hillman, St John, Ziff-Davis, and Warren. He also worked in comic strips, political cartoons, advertising, storyboards, and commercial illustration. Though his favorite genre to draw was war art, which he excelled at with DC Comics, I was always impressed with his breezy stylized romance tales as shown here on this ten page example from Young Romance #155 from 1968...