Profiles in History Dec 2019 2 2

[vodou]

2 hours ago, delekkerste said:

What are you trying to imply?  That it's just a hot mess?  If you think that, I'd hate to hear what you think of Guernica.  "Where exactly is the focal point, Pablo??"     

Oh baby, you've got to know (even master) the rules before you can properly escape/break them. It's a mistake invoking PP here as he did exactly that (same as Dali, both academic masters in their youth...propelled elsewhere by sheer boredom to other planes, very early on). I'll leave it that maybe you could come up with another better example instead but, of course, flattening all planes to one actually eliminates the need (in anything working the realism shtick) for a focal point

But man, you've got a bone to pick here. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were the consignor with the vested interest in the final hammer!

I only suggested that this piece of Bernie's would be a good challenge to my friend, Focal Point Guy, that otherwise wouldn't ever criticize Wrightson. I do have a problem with so much detail everywhere but I also believe the rules should be broken in service of a greater purpose (example: Kirby, all day every day) and I think that's what we have here too. That is what elevates a "drawing" to "art". By lavishing such teetering chaos, in such scale, and detail...Bernie is creating the mood of the mad scientist barely working within the bounds of sanity, and certainly "not like the rest of us" (with all our "rules" and "organization", all strictly adhered to or else!) That is the Monster story right there, somebody daring the un-dareable, succeeding, but then paying the most terrible of prices anyway per unintended consequences. Great moral tragedy story, great art thus - in that sense. But also, absolute technical masturbation by the artist.

[vodou]

5 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

What am I trying to get at here? I guess it’s totally whatever you are into. I like Wrightson at his most off-kilter. The lanky knock-kneed figures. The hunching. The brooding. The shadows and fabric folds. The dark subject and temperament of the scene. To me THAT is what makes a Wrightson really a Wrightson. Past a certain point, the rest is technical superflitude.

I call this Wrighton's Graham Ingels, my favorite BW too.

[exitmusicblue]

48 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

Number of Twitter followers:

Justin Bieber:  107.3 million

Jim Lee:  363.4 thousand

Jeff Koons:  237.6 thousand

Alex Ross:  94.6 thousand

Scottie Young:  86.5 thousand

Sean Gordon Murphy:  61.7 thousand

Bill Sienkiewicz:  59.7 thousand

Walter Simonson:  41.5 thousand

Joelle Jones:  25.1 thousand

Frazetta Girls/Frank Frazetta Art:  18.4 thousand

Not the # of followers, silly snarky (I follow Lee and Sienkiewicz to boot).  Likes/retweets, actual engagements.  And wasn't being literal... Bieber is a god king, obviously.  Responses to tweets -- per my post's actual wording -- match the top tier of Modern artists today.  Compare with JSC's.

Also: Didn't know there's a Simonson twitter account, sweet!

Edited November 5, 2019 by exitmusicblue

[exitmusicblue]

18 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

As EMB rightly points out, this was intended to wrap. It does cut down on the chaos a little. But it's also clearly a single scene, and its a LOT.

For lack of a better analogy, this piece is IMO, Wrightson doing the most brain melting guitar solo he could at the moment he inked this.

For MY money it’s not the best Wrightson there is. And to narrow it down further, it’s not my personal favorite Franky plate.
I personally tend to like a little more balance between Wrightson’s beautifully obsessive linework, and dare I say, negative space. But I can totally see why so many are drawn to this piece (and the other lab plates as well).

On the face of it, I see the large basis of it’s popularity as driven by the folks that also think that Andrew Wyeth’s art is great because he painted every blade of grass in Christina’s World.
I don’t lump everyone in on that, because many folks like work for many reasons, but that does seem to be the main touchstone when people are asked. It’s an impressive exercise. I certainly won’t take that way from Bernie at all. He earned it.

Wrightson, like more or less all artists, had influences. We all know the biggies. Franklin Booth being the top of that list.
Wrightson didn’t invent that form of linework, by a long shot, but he studied it and he brought it into comics. Just as Barry W. Smith was bringing in the Pre-Raphaelites. And later one of the many Jeff Jones devotees, Kent Williams would later bring in Egon Schiele. Etc, and so on.

I really think Bernie simply was pushing himself to see how far and how impressive of a scene he could make, utilizing these skills he had been working at.
So some folks like guitar shredding. They thought Eddie Van Halen’s Eruption was amazing, and think of the Steve Vai’s and Yngwie Malmsteens’ of the world as guitar gods. Other folks yawn, and site some other player/period of music, etc. and so on.

Wrightson played a lot of notes (as Gene paraphrases above). And whether they are the right notes, well it wouldn’t be this piece if it was different. It’d be a different piece… aduhhhh.

What am I trying to get at here? I guess it’s totally whatever you are into. I like Wrightson at his most off-kilter. The lanky knock-kneed figures. The hunching. The brooding. The shadows and fabric folds. The dark subject and temperament of the scene. To me THAT is what makes a Wrightson really a Wrightson. Past a certain point, the rest is technical superflitude.

It doesn’t make me respect it any less. But I know my own tastes well enough to understand where this is bonkers. It’s a trophy, by any measure. It’s just not one I personally would want to display at home.
Which is great, cause I couldn’t afford it if I went after it with everything I had. Sometimes it is handy to have tastes that steer around the desires of the crowd.

 

The guitar shredding analogy is apt.  If you've got it, flaunt it.

[ESeffinga]

Neil Gaiman: 2.73 Million

[exitmusicblue]

13 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

Neil Gaiman: 2.73 Million

Speaking of posterity/legacy, I really hope the Sandman TV series does well.  Watchmen and Sandman... their derivative successor works haven't been close in quality.

Also, Neil is a noted Twitter evangelist.  Charles Soule's account is excellent, too.

Edited November 5, 2019 by exitmusicblue

[exitmusicblue]

34 minutes ago, vodou said:

Oh baby, you've got to know (even master) the rules before you can properly escape/break them. It's a mistake invoking PP here as he did exactly that (same as Dali, both academic masters in their youth...propelled elsewhere by sheer boredom to other planes, very early on). I'll leave it that maybe you could come up with another better example instead but, of course, flattening all planes to one actually eliminates the need (in anything working the realism shtick) for a focal point

But man, you've got a bone to pick here. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were the consignor with the vested interest in the final hammer!

I only suggested that this piece of Bernie's would be a good challenge to my friend, Focal Point Guy, that otherwise wouldn't ever criticize Wrightson. I do have a problem with so much detail everywhere but I also believe the rules should be broken in service of a greater purpose (example: Kirby, all day every day) and I think that's what we have here too. That is what elevates a "drawing" to "art". By lavishing such teetering chaos, in such scale, and detail...Bernie is creating the mood of the mad scientist barely working within the bounds of sanity, and certainly "not like the rest of us" (with all our "rules" and "organization", all strictly adhered to or else!) That is the Monster story right there, somebody daring the un-dareable, succeeding, but then paying the most terrible of prices anyway per unintended consequences. Great moral tragedy story, great art thus - in that sense. But also, absolute technical masturbation by the artist.

I dig the vodou-delek back-and-forths, FWIW. 

Respect to my elders.  

[Mmehdy]

3 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Wrightson is a bit of an anomaly. He didn't do a lot of mainstream comic work and, yet, the market for his work is currently very strong (even as the market for much of BWS, Jones and Kaluta is largely flatlining...mainstream hero artwork and GoT tie-ins by them excluded!)  You're right that this is an exception to the norm of franchise characters and nostalgia generally triumphing over craft (not that there isn't at least some nostalgia and character-driven appreciation for the Frankie cover as well). 

That said, who's buying the Wrightson art these days...GDT is in his mid-50s IIRC and the other Wrightson aficionados I know are in that age range as well.  Who knows if the Wrightson market (Frazetta too, for that matter) will continue to go from strength to strength after these, say, late 40s/50s/60s collectors are eventually supplanted by the next generation at the top of the hobby food chain. 

I guess from that standpoint, one may be better off with the Batman #251 or DKR #1 covers, but, the Frankie is the one I'd most like to see every day on my wall out of the three. 

I would take the Wrightson over Bat 251 or DKN #1 in heartbeat, but I have to disagree with you on the EQ or Death Dealer from Frtiz....but ALL of this is great and what a sale, especially "I Rocket"...wow tough call between that and the classic Mad cover of the headless horseman cover by Freas at Ha.com...great stuff

Edited November 5, 2019 by Mmehdy

[delekkerste]

32 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

I would take the Wrightson over Bat 251 or DKN #1 in heartbeat, but I have to disagree with you on the EQ or Death Dealer from Frtiz....

Just my personal preference...can't say I ever cared a whit about either "Egyptian Queen" or "Death Dealer", so, I'd take Frankie all day long over those two*.  I've loved "The Berserker" ever since I was 11 years old, though, and would take that Frazetta over the Wrightson in a heartbeat (even though I think the latter is the nicer piece of artwork).

 

 

*Monetary considerations notwithstanding of course...otherwise, I'd take "Death Dealer", sell it, buy the Wrightson, and bank the rest of it!

Edited November 5, 2019 by delekkerste

[Crowzilla]

5 hours ago, Bronty said:

But it’s valuation seems to run on principles counter to the norm for comic artists (where work outside comics proper is less valuable) so that part doesn’t make sense to me.    But , I’m sure it will find a very very happy home.

Isn't that kind of every Barks painting, or since they are still ducks it is part of comics proper? Not to mention the fact that his most valuable work came a decade plus after he retired from comics.

[batman_fan]

3 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Number of Twitter followers:

Justin Bieber:  107.3 million

Jim Lee:  363.4 thousand

Jeff Koons:  237.6 thousand

Alex Ross:  94.6 thousand

Scottie Young:  86.5 thousand

Sean Gordon Murphy:  61.7 thousand

Bill Sienkiewicz:  59.7 thousand

Walter Simonson:  41.5 thousand

Joelle Jones:  25.1 thousand

Frazetta Girls/Frank Frazetta Art:  18.4 thousand

So you are saying Justin Bieber is buying Comic Art 

[exitmusicblue]

The day the Beebs starts tweeting his fave OA on his insta... well... it'll be Riverdale x 10000.

All the kids these days know Archie, Juggie, B&V, etc.  Quite a coup by Aguirre-Sacasa, originally of Afterlife with Archie fame.

[Bronty]

44 minutes ago, Crowzilla said:

Isn't that kind of every Barks painting, or since they are still ducks it is part of comics proper? Not to mention the fact that his most valuable work came a decade plus after he retired from comics.

Its not purely apples to apples for sure.  As you know almost none of his line work existed, so the paintings were created to fill that void.

The only reason they are his most valuable works are because what the market would really treasure isn't available.    I have no doubt that if the cover to Uncle Scrooge 1 existed, it would absolutely crush the price for his paintings.

 

 

 

[batman_fan]

13 hours ago, delekkerste said:

I think you're nuts.  

Does anyone else here think the Wrightson image is perfectly in focus?  It is hyper-detailed, but, it is not hyper-realistic; Wrightson's hand-breakingly fine hatching creates the illusion of light and shadow but is interpreted by the eye very differently than a photograph or hyper-realistic painting. 

I have never found hyper-realism to be compelling personally, and nor do I find certain Modern comic artists (who shall remain nameless!!) from the '90s through the present noted for their hyper-detailing very interesting either.  I'll even go so far as to say that I don't put Wrightson's Frankie plates on as high pedestal as some (the best are great, but, to hear some OA aficionados wax lyrically about them, nobody else in the history of art has ever come close to putting anything as nice on paper...ummmm, no).  

But, this one is genuinely  

Does anyone have D i ck Sprang’s “Secrets of the Batcave”?  I found that to be a pretty “busy” piece but something I really enjoyed looking at and finding all the little pieces incorporated in it.  I think I would do the same if I had the Frankenstein piece (please consider donating to my GoFundMe page so we can all make that dream a reality).

[Dick Pontoon]

Meh. Profiles, schmofiles. Some auction. There's not even any Sal Buscema pages.

[zhamlau]

41 minutes ago, Pontoon said:

Meh. Profiles, schmofiles. Some auction. There's not even any Sal Buscema pages.

[ESeffinga]

Top 5!

[batman_fan]

I did a quick scan of the plate and found some interesting items in it which I have highlighted.  Based on my careful analysis, I think the following items can be noted.

1.  This item appears to be bitters, I suspect angostura bitters for making old fashions

2.  Definitely a beer stein, I can’t tell if it held a domestic or craft spirit.

3.  Half eaten Sunday, looks like it may have had nuts on top.

4.  Definitely some sort of cocktail glass most likely used for “Tom Collins”

5.  These chains do not appear to be adequate to support the weight of those empty glassware.

[exitmusicblue]

21 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

I did a quick scan of the plate and found some interesting items in it which I have highlighted.  Based on my careful analysis, I think the following items can be noted.

1.  This item appears to be bitters, I suspect angostura bitters for making old fashions

2.  Definitely a beer stein, I can’t tell if it held a domestic or craft spirit.

3.  Half eaten Sunday, looks like it may have had nuts on top.

4.  Definitely some sort of cocktail glass most likely used for “Tom Collins”

5.  These chains do not appear to be adequate to support the weight of those empty glassware.

I'm honestly feeling compelled to pick up my first Wrightson at this point.  He reminds me so much of Frazetta minus the babe fixation... (no doubt on these here boards such a statement will open up a deluge of Bernie babes, which would be more than welcome).

 

 

[comix4fun]

12 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Exactly.  This scene calls for 343 (or whatever) beakers.  Not 3 and not 3,430.  It is, as you noted, instrumental in portraying the obsession of Dr. Frankenstein.  A sparse and meticulous lab would give the character and the scene a totally different interpretation.  Any more crowded and it would have been exaggerated to the point of not being believable.  

I've seen single-character covers that have totally unnecessary and gratuitous detail.  There is nothing gratuitous or unnecessary about this image at all.  It is sublime.  

And, honestly, it's not drawn as if someone is standing there...in the lab....while these two are having their disagreement and thus they can only focus on three beakers. 

It doesn't fail because science says someone standing there can only focus on a few items at a time. It doesn't fail at all. 

It's created to set the scene in complete detail, not too much detail, just exact detail. It's perfection.