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The Official "The Studio" Appreciation Thread
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38 posts in this topic

These 4 are awesome. I hope that the remaining 2 are healthy and happy!

Kaluta's work is awesome, and I actually can be counted among the few he has mailed a commission to in a timely and professional manner! He laughed when I thanked him the next time I saw him after receiving it (The Shadow, $75, long gone) and said he couldn't believe he got it all done and out so quickly and that it was an outlier. He seems to be a fun man. @delekkerste - sounds like a great time at Kaluta's!

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A fellow Studio collector Mark Wilcox and I approached all the Studio members perhaps 15 years ago and suggested that we do a followup book called STUDIOS, giving each of the four ¼ of the book to do as they please (presumably dedicated to each of their 'solo' post Studio work), and at the same time reprint properly the original Studio book. Book distributor Bud Plant was very enthusiastic about the project, we talked about signed editions, etc. We didn't draw up contracts or anything but tried to gauge the artist's  interest.

Jeff, Bernie and Mike said 'sure' send details, and Barry said 'no way' and that was that. 

 

Rob

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3 hours ago, delekkerste said:

LOL, yes, Kaluta mentioned the binding was so poor that pages were known to explode/pop out of it. 

I was just looking through my copy last week and the production values are not what they should be.  Somebody needs to get BWS on board with doing an updated, improved reissue of it!  

Someone made an edition of like 25 hardbound copies of the book (not for public sale), of which Kaluta was gifted a copy.  Nice black hardcover with gold embossed lettering...very handsome. :cloud9:   

Attached is a picture - it is on a bookshelf right next to my desk - was lucky to get it from one of the original owners just after publication.  I think you had to send a copy of the book and then they had them signed by all four artists and bound them

 

Studio.jpg

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A couple of things. I thought I'd show my two pieces from members of the Studio though from a much, much later time. I also had a wonderful book (re)binding experience to share since the Studio book is poorly bound.

Bernie Wrightson, City of Others #2, Pages 17 and 18. 
image.thumb.png.f2bb560b0f5efbfa60aed73f5d71a4f6.png

I met Bernie several times. The first was at my LCS, Bedrock City Comic Company. Bernie was living in Austin and Richard brought him in for a signing. There was no one there! I visited for about 30m before I had to go. Did I think to ask for an autograph or offer to pay for a sketch? No, I did not. I'm not very smart. 

Michael W. Kaluta, The Shadow and Margo Lane
image.thumb.png.f77cb810b3c5c00f1fe4a8a819570fce.png

I have never met Mike, but I had plenty of email exchanges while this one was cooking. One of the best parts of the long wait was that he told me that this was what he'd show people when they came over. :)


As for pages popping out of books, I had that problem with two books. I had a great experience with rebinding the first one at Bella Bocho Book and Print Bindery. I put it in spoiler tags because it's not OA, but the reference to failing binding thought it might be of interest.

 

Spoiler

 

I had two books that were literally falling apart:
1) The Art of Richard W. Sprang - a biography of one of DC's best Batman artists. We could argue that he was the best ever.
2) The Monster Society of Evil - a collection of Captain Marvel (SHAZAM, now) tales that formed the longest story in comic book form for many, many years.

Both books are beautifully assembled and both were losing pages. I took both to be rebound. I've picked up the Sprang book so I'm going to talk about it.

Produced more than 20 years ago, the text is an excellent and long interview by B. Koppany, III with Sprang. Each part of the interview is illustrated with 's work from that era of his life. Koppany edited the interview into the form of this book and selected the illustrations - many of which are in color and some of which fold-out from the book.

As Ray says below, Bob Koppany conducted the interview, edited the book, printed the book, and distributed the book - all at his own expense - because of his great admiration for and his work. Because of copyright concerns, DC limited the number of copies that the group could create to 200. I have copy 161. Bob kept only one copy. The rest were released into the wild. Bob did have some help from others and he provides acknowledgments of that help in the book.

This is clearly a labor of love by a very talented fan. It reads as well any biographical interview could and the illustrations are lavish.

Sadly, the Sprang book was very poorly bound. Given the cost of everything it took to make and the fact that DC would not allow copies to be sold, I guess he had to cut costs somewhere.

This summer, I decided, after vainly trying to read it carefully, to get it rebound. This was a very serious decision for me. I'm a comic book collector and, in comic book collecting, restoration is a sin. On the other hand, I'm a book lover and rebinding is sometimes necessary.

After making that big decision, I searched for a book bindery in Houston to fix it. Thanks to Google, I found a few. One, Bella Becho Book & Print Bindery, isn't far from me, had a very informative website, and an A+ BBB rating as a member. They also are a place where many Rice PhDs have their papers bound for the permanent collection. I decided to visit.

I was very impressed by the visit. The people were friendly and clearly loved what they do. The shop is filled with interesting items related to books and binding. The interview went well and the price was reasonable for a book collector wanting to preserve the book.

I left it with them in August (?) and they said it should be ready in November. I was getting anxious to see the work so I called to check on it this week and they said the Sprang book was ready and that I could pick it up if I wished. I did so wish!

I picked it up yesterday and it's everything I could have hoped for it to be.

I don't have before pictures with the loose pages, but here are a couple of shots from the rebound book.

The original binding simply had the pages (individual sheets) glued to the cover. The rebound version has them stitched together like a normal high quality book.

The third picture exists to show how carefully curated the contents are. It's quite readable and the illustrations are wonderful. It's quite a book and I'm very glad to have it and to be able to preserve it.

Thanks to Ray Cuthbert for selling his extra to me and to the folks at Bella Becho Book & Print Bindery here in Houston for the terrific service.

IMG_0181.thumb.jpg.5261316a7c3ffddbc02e3392e8af9b63.jpgIMG_0182.thumb.jpg.86e1108bcc4b4897666eadf063b22cb8.jpgimage.thumb.png.c40fb4ee2e5bb7cfebb2d6c27310ad16.pngimage.thumb.png.d874053df4498a22adae031f5014ea4c.pngimage.thumb.png.1ac0eefd2bba5c7514c71381635281f3.pngIMG_0183.thumb.jpg.bbbc421216a388f51737c89a24b86d22.jpg

 


 

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37 minutes ago, mtlevy1 said:

Attached is a picture - it is on a bookshelf right next to my desk - was lucky to get it from one of the original owners just after publication.  I think you had to send a copy of the book and then they had them signed by all four artists and bound them

 

Studio.jpg

Kaluta told me that one of the other Studio members (I forget which one) called him after he received his hardbound copy of the book and said that he couldn't believe that they didn't send him one of the books the 4 of them all signed. Kaluta said, well, mine is signed...but then checked it and found that it wasn't.  I guess those signed versions were a hot commodity and so they gifted unsigned ones to the actual artists!

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I didn't know about Roger Dean but I'm not surprised. His books from that period fell apart, too.  Like the book on Hypgnosis (if I'm spelling that right). There was just something about illustration art books in the 1970s that made publishers think we were going to tape every individual page up in our dorm rooms.

I was thinking for a moment that BWS was being a prima donna but I just went back to my copy of the book and I can confirm: his section is indeed the worst one.  :foryou:

 

 

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Of The Studio artists, the only one I've owned multiple pieces of has been - so far - Jones. The work really speaks to me. Even when it was a struggle for her, she did interesting stuff. I loved the interviews and her generosity on the comicart-l back in the day. Also, Jeffrey changed how I frame art: 100% black frames,white mats. Here's a couple of things that have passed through my hands.  Why do I ever sell anything? ???

jones batman.jpg

jones cleopatra.jpg

jones idyl.jpg

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I once owned Crimson God by Kaluta and the colors are deep, vibrant, and rich on that one...same with Ayisha...not sure about No You Damn Swine as I've never seen that one in person, but remember it being for sale on Ebay over 16 years ago...Ayisha is definitely a beautiful painting in person...

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14 hours ago, glendgold said:

I have posted this before, long ago: I was at SD one year, talking to Kaluta - I had my portfolio open and he noticed a Colan pencil I had of Daredevil swinging past the Chrysler Building.  Kaluta knows everything about the Chrysler Building. He rattled off some facts and I was inspired: would he ink the Colan piece?  He considered it. He said he'd never inked another artist's work before (if anyone knows different, lmk - he inked that Wrightson Frankenstein plate later). He asked if he could add The Shadow in a gyrocopter, and since I'm not a complete lunatic, I said Sure. 

A cool thing about this - he didn't erase the pencils.  Like: at all. So it kept this cool marbled shading.

 

colan kaluta.jpg

Wait, Kaluta inked a Frankenstein plate Glen???  Which one???

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I'm not Glen, but I believe Kaluta inked a Wrightson pencil version of the Monster going down a cliff with the doctor in the background. Note that the published version in the Frankenstein book of this image is all Wrightson.

Mike

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Annnnnd just now discovered it was auctioned at one time through Heritage. Here's the link to a quality image of the art.

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/bernie-wrightson-and-mike-kaluta-frankenstein-illustration-original-art-circa-1980s-2005-/a/827-43581.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

I think I'm finished padding my posting total for now :wishluck:

Mike

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