Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

[Scrooge]

That's such a great & scary story. Thank you for posting it.

 

Here's my copy.

[cheetah]

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to post that, Michael!

[Jayman]

 

Yes, thanks for posting!

The bottom splash on this page I consider to be one of the most chilling in this story. Even the yellow color choice makes it more shocking!

[Flex Mentallo]

The impact on a 10 year old accustomed to the bright, cheery world of DC Silver Age, is hard to convey.

 

The only other access we in the UK had to earlier times, was via IW/Super Comics. "We will rise again" was a story I found similarly haunting, because it was such a shock not to have a happy ending, and because the Johnny Bell artwork is so comparatively dark and fatalistic in tone. Somehow, I knew that this short story was only the tip of the iceberg, but of course as a small boy growing up in the North East of England, I had no notion that an earlier pre-code epoch even existed!

 

When I got back into collecting much later in life, I used to trawl the London Comic marts in search of this story - but I couldn't recollect the issue I'd read it in - actually, IW's Planet Comics #8 (cue cheetah).

 

It took me years to track it down, and only when I did could I reference Overstreet and discover that it was originally published in Planet Comics #72, which also happens to have one of my very favorite covers..

 

 

 

Story follows...

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

[sartre]

Revisiting a series of paintings that I painted years ago using the "Bride" as a symbol of transformation. I was asked to post some of my paintings on this thread once before ... hope its ok to do so again

[Flex Mentallo]

Revisiting a series of paintings that I painted years ago using the "Bride" as a symbol of transformation. I was asked to post some of my paintings on this thread once before ... hope its ok to do so again

 

Wonderful.

 

Painted with love as well as intense devotion to detail. And you spent just as much care on painting the bricks as on the pearls!

 

You are the only painter I know who paints a wall and makes me wonder who's behind it.

[sartre]

Thanks... hope we could meet some day... here's another Bride

[adamstrange]

WOF 3 is one of my favorite comics -- great front cover & back cover with an exceptional early effort from George Evans inside.

 

 

Yes, thanks for posting!

The bottom splash on this page I consider to be one of the most chilling in this story. Even the yellow color choice makes it more shocking!

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

Stunning use of warm and cool light.

 

 

In one hand she has a slip of paper with a drawing of the symbol for eternity, in the other - a mobile phone?

 

 

Perhaps she is waiting for a call...

 

George de la Tour used to use candlelight to meditate on the transience of life. The floating veils seem to serve the same purpose in your painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind your bride are several faces, which do not seem to inhabit the same space as she. This reminds me a little of my favorite Gauguin, The Spirits of the Dead Keep Watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you know, the color yellow in Gauguin's iconography is meant to denote fear.

 

For reason of it's ambiguity, I find this Bride painting of yours especially poignant, I would only say that the mere fact that she is wearing a bridal gown does not mean that she is a bride.

 

 

A masterpiece.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 21, 2013 by Flex Mentallo

[sartre]

It's a deck of cards in one hand and in the other hand an exposed card with the infinity symbol. This shape repeats throughout the composition.. which includes her glasses... The Bride is a metaphor of transformation... found in many examples of western art ... a kind of eternal purgatory. Choices we make are acts of free will, indeterminable miracles and pure acts of chance.

[adamstrange]

Beautiful paintings, Steve!

 

George de la Tour used to use candlelight to meditate on the transience of life

I was exposed to De LaTour on my trip to Louvre and have been in love with his work ever since.

[Flex Mentallo]

It's a deck of cards in one hand and in the other hand an exposed card with the infinity symbol. This shape repeats throughout the composition.. which includes her glasses... The Bride is a metaphor of transformation... found in many examples of western art ... a kind of eternal purgatory. Choices we make are acts of free will, indeterminable miracles and pure acts of chance.

 

Thanks for the clarification. That last sentence sums it up very well!

[sartre]

I love that Gauguin painting as well... death and the maiden .. an interesting running theme in western art. Gauguin personalizes it through his own suffering and the demons that tortured him... Syphilis being one...