I got your Mjolnir right here
As it turns out, great resources for comic art are like potato chips — it's nearly impossible to eat just one.
So here are the two newest items I picked up: a dramatic pencil drawing of Thor (quite possibly the most compelling image of the character I've ever seen) and a somewhat more whimsical take on the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four. Both arise from the creative genius of comics artist Geof Isherwood, whose best-known work was on Marvel's Dr. Strange, Conan the Barbarian, and Sub-Mariner, as well as DC's Suicide Squad. He's also renowned for his fantasy art, and he does a considerable amount of storyboard art for major motion pictures, including Battlefield Earth and Gothika. (Yes, those were dreadful movies. But you can't really blame the storyboard artist for that.)
As you can see from this pair of drawings, Isherwood employs a finely delineated, powerfully realistic technique that's clearly based in modern comics, but also hearkens back to the classic styles of such giants as John Buscema, Jim Starlin, and especially Barry Windsor-Smith. What I like most about his art is that it's neither overdrawn in the Todd McFarlane manner, nor underdrawn like most of the sketchy, grotesquely cartoonish, anime-derived trash that pervades TV animation these days.
Isherwood is a generation post-Bronze Age, having broken into comics in the early '80s, but I admire his work so much I'm going to let these two pieces sneak into my collection anyway.
So here are the two newest items I picked up: a dramatic pencil drawing of Thor (quite possibly the most compelling image of the character I've ever seen) and a somewhat more whimsical take on the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four. Both arise from the creative genius of comics artist Geof Isherwood, whose best-known work was on Marvel's Dr. Strange, Conan the Barbarian, and Sub-Mariner, as well as DC's Suicide Squad. He's also renowned for his fantasy art, and he does a considerable amount of storyboard art for major motion pictures, including Battlefield Earth and Gothika. (Yes, those were dreadful movies. But you can't really blame the storyboard artist for that.)
As you can see from this pair of drawings, Isherwood employs a finely delineated, powerfully realistic technique that's clearly based in modern comics, but also hearkens back to the classic styles of such giants as John Buscema, Jim Starlin, and especially Barry Windsor-Smith. What I like most about his art is that it's neither overdrawn in the Todd McFarlane manner, nor underdrawn like most of the sketchy, grotesquely cartoonish, anime-derived trash that pervades TV animation these days.
Isherwood is a generation post-Bronze Age, having broken into comics in the early '80s, but I admire his work so much I'm going to let these two pieces sneak into my collection anyway.
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 11:58 PM
4 insisted on sticking two cents in:
Cool pic of Thor. That Invisible Woman, though: hair Farrah Fawcett but the body of an Olympic athlete. Not a real good combo. But hey! It's comic books ;-)
Yeah, the Sue Storm pic is a tad froofy — it's clearly the Sue of today's postmodern, rebooted FF and not the '60s or '70s original who rarely smiled and had helmet hair. But there's a nice dynamism to the picture, and what the heck — I was the only bidder, and I got it for a fraction of what it would have cost to commission it directly from the artist. And I am nothing if not bargain-conscious!
Thor is the bomb, though. This looks like the image of a guy who says things like, "By Odin's blood! I say thee NAY!" (Does Thor still talk like that, or was that just a Stan-ism?)
RE: Thor.
It's been a while since I followed the title but I believe he still speaks "Stan"ish ;-)
I haven't read the title recently either, but I'd heard a rumor somewhere that a few years ago some writer had attepted to "update" Thor by having him speak in the modern vernacular. Which would be a shame, since the flowery speech pattern is so much a part of the character's identity.
Although it could be argued that there really isn't any sound reason for a Norse quasi-deity to speak Elizabethan English, if indeed he speaks English at all.
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