Here’s something I didn’t catch right away in the promotion for the Fantastic Four movie.
Category: Comic Books
Another Mandatory Reboot
They’re going with H.E.R.B.I.E., the robot from the 1978 cartoon series? Really?
Satisfying a Kraving
I haven’t seen Kraven the Hunter. The movie has very mixed, mostly negative, reviews. For now, I’ll stick with the original Kraven, as drawn by Steve Ditko.
The Two Jacks
Two comic book artists who had an uncanny ability to put whatever they wanted on paper, seemingly without effort, were Jack Kirby and Jack Davis. They were able to work so quickly, it was as if they had a “drawing nerve,” sending what was in their minds directly to their hands.
Davis left comics, except for MAD Magazine, to become perhaps the most successful commercial artist of all time. He was certainly the most prolific. This 1966 ink and wash drawing, borrowed from the Art of Jack Davis group on Facebook, was for a TV promotion of Guys and Dolls.
This pencil drawing was posted by Jack Kirby’s grandson Jermey on the Facebook group, Jack Kirby: The King of Comics.
Noteworthy Passings
Twin Peaks pushed the limits of network television beyond anything ever seen before. Co-created by David Lynch, who directed a half-dozen episodes, the series’ premise was shocking and it would never have aired if the subject matter hadn’t been presented in the surreal way that it was.
Jules Feiffer started in Will Eisner’s cartooning studio. His essay “The Great Comic Book Heroes” for Playboy in 1965 was well-timed for the Pop Art era. It was expanded into a popular and groundbreaking book.
Feiffer wrote the screenplay for the Mike Nichols movie Carnal Knowledge. Nichols talked Prue’s bestie friend, Cynthia O’Neal, into accepting a role.
Speaking of Belgium
Some of the early installments of Tintin by Georges Remi, aka Hergé, are racist. The Nazis allowed Remi to work undisturbed in German-occupied Belgium, leading to his arrest as a collaborator after the war. The case was later dropped.
The Adventures of Tintin, from 1991-92, is a mostly faithful cartoon adaptation of the books, minus the objectionable material. Some enterprising person has made the series available online in its original aspect ratio. Some other copies are zoomed and cropped to distraction.