FEATURES*:
- The randomly-generated *Tintin quiz! (you can play it over & over again)
- *Quiz*: *"Who Are these Ten First Appearances?*" (and here are the *answers*)
- It's free movie night! Here are *eight nine great features & shorts!
- The stupendous, ever-growing FLOOR 796*, featuring animated comics characters doing amusing things.
Okay, I'm not exactly sure what the precise story is above. Schweiz (Switzerland) being a completely landlocked country, I suppose we're to imagine the body of water here being either of lakes Geneva, Neuchâtel or Bienne, yeah?
Always fun to see a Moebius-inspired artist! This is from an eight-issue miniseries published by Boom! Studios* in the States, who also own the *Archaia imprint, which stands out to me because it publishes some of the most 'Euro-like' titles I've seen across the American market.
After searching around for the past couple months and making some fruitful discoveries, I'm now starting to add more webcomix titles to the pinned list (you know where it is). I'll let you know when they're all fully added, but here's a couple goodies for now:
The other day I re-read Matthieu Bonhomme's two re-interpretations of the LL character / universe, i.e.: L'Homme qui tua Lucky Luke and Wanted Lucky Luke. I found them even better than the first time around, altho the feel is vastly different from the source, with those two volumes having quite the brooding, sombre, 'Clint Eastwood' vibe.
Following on from Jung's caricatures, here's a look at some of his 'newspaper-style' comics. And just for fun, I tried testing how Google's image translation services were working these days...
It's one of LEO und friends' shorter series, clocking in at two cycles and 7 books total. The basic premise involves a post-apoc civilisation, one in which white people interestingly find themselves in the minority, with darker-skinned people running the show for the most part.
Requested The Collected Toppi: Vol.1 The Enchanted World from my library's interloan service, and the library that responded gave me Vol 1-3! Three library loans for the price of one, haha.
I can't remember if this fits in to the classic Den series, but my digital library has it, so I'll be giving it a whirl, soon. In any case, TCJ (*The Comics Journal*) has a solid article on this book(s), including more sample art, like this one:
This of course is a Euro adaptation of one of the great Conan tales, here reconstructed by Régis Hautière & Didier Cassegrain, and indeed, part of an excellent series:
Now, I haven't read this one recently, but hopefully you'll allow me the brazen chutzpah to share some thoughts and pics, right here. (I mean, it was already on my list, and I just figured-- let's get to it, matey)
Of course, it's just my pure flight of fancy that artist Dongni Hau was specifically imagining Joan here, but the ages (and maybe armor style?) seem to roughly fit, in which Joan would have been between 17-19yo, around 1429-1431AD.
I've always enjoyed the visceral, impactful red-black or red, black & white color theme. Unfortunately, it's not something I explored very much during my 'watercolors & acrylics' peak of creativity. Hence, why I admire (and envy, dammit) other artists who had success with that theme, as seen above. Still... regardless of the particular color-theme, I find the backdrop art quite superb on its own.
If you feel like playing today's game, then take a moment to come up with your best answers, and then compare them to the answers below:
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BACKSTORY*: I recently had the privilege of reading US publisher Dark Horse's ~250pp collected translation of the 'Rocco' adventures. Previously, I'd only seen *some* of *Torres' art panels, which I shared here about a year+ ago. Naturally, Imgur bumbled them all away, so don't bother searching. :-/
I first saw this question posted at a Tintin community a couple weeks ago, so here's my take on the matter. To be clear, these represent my best 'hangover-cures' for Tintin readers craving more, roughly-ranked from most immediately-relevant, all the way down...
I thought this was a neat, sepia-like piece, what with it's effective pen-like line shading, and a quasi-fairytale interaction of light and shadow. Could be a wimmelbilder, I reckon.
I was seemingly out of the loop in Druillet's heyday, not really being aware of Heavy Metal magazine until the early 90's, I guess it was. Unfortunately, by that time I don't think 'HM' was publishing much of Druillet's stuff, anymore.
Here's a Franco-Italian* collaboration about an English pilot leading an historical Dutch expedition across the mighty Pacific, towards the *Southeast Asian 'lands of silk,' circa 1600. (this was an historical thing, no joke)
*phew* It's been a pretty overwhelming last month for me, what with vital paperwork I needed to fill out exactingly on a deadline in order to retain my Medicare, plus doctor followups, plus snap inspections upon my apartment, necessary to qualify for another rent-contract.
Set in and around London, this series is based on a classic story (see below) in which a group of paranormally-gifted chlldren are born around the same time, in the same area. This version explores the idea of what would happen if they were allowed to grow to adulthood. The result is, well… the collapse of England!
Feeling a bit better today, so figured I'd start on a little project I've been meaning to get to for a while, which is sharing some wimmelbilder pieces. The word is German, which I understand to mean something like "hidden object pictures," in which the pieces are very large (pixel-wise) and detailed, packed with figures and objects. Where's Wally/Waldo would be a famous example of these.
Great article about Quebec comics at Angouleme and a good look at the festival in general. Lots of discussion about the current state of the festival and some of the internal divisions of the fest between the organizers and artists. There's been some controversy regarding 9e, who organize the festival, and the creators that attend over the committee's refocusing on a more commercial outlook for the event, and more disgusting developments such as the rape of Chloe, a former employee that had her employment terminated after the horrific incident. This has caused many publishers to create a counter event in protest, with some publishers looking to avoid the festival for the foreseeable future.
Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen tells about a day in the life of a fictional version of Olivier's cousin. The entirety of the over four hundred page comic is contained in a single Sunday in the life of Thibault, centering mostly on his internal thoughts and mundane doings on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
On top of my friend Cal's recent death, which has more and more impacted me across the last couple weeks... I just am... going to need some time off. Thank you.
Bleu à la lumière du jour has a very haunting, noir-ish feel to the art. The dialogue is sparse, making the big, silent panels even more exaggerated in their quietude. I am still learning French, so I am slowly reading/translating it piece by piece, as sparse as the dialogue is, but am relishing soaking in the sumptuous atmosphere that Gonzalez has sculpted in these panels. Definitely highly recommended.
This piece comes from an Austrian art collection book by "Tobihachi," who we're told is a Japanese woman who likes to paint animals in folk costumery. [BDT]
Geostationary Orbiting Observer
JohnnyEnzyme
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