JohnnyEnzyme

I admit... I'm sort of a huge, pompous blowhard when it comes to the strident truism "great art or not, a good story still needs good storytelling and plot!"

Yet here I am, just blown away by Swedish-dude Simon's incredible collection of wordless paintings offered up in the "comic book" Flood, each page of which arguably provides ~1000 possible stories alone, if only one's eyes merely observe a bit, so to speak.

https://i.imgur.com/Y79JkeC.jpeg

Simon Stålenhag (b. 1984) is the internationally acclaimed author and artist behind The Electric State, Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood. His highly imaginative images and stories depicting illusive sci-fi phenomena in mundane, hyper-realistic Scandinavian and American landscapes have made Stålenhag one of the most sought-after visual storytellers in the world. Tales from the Loop was ranked one of the “10 Best Dystopias” by The Guardian, along with such works as Franz Kafka’s The Trial and Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca. --salomonssonagency.se

https://i.imgur.com/OwErKyT.jpeg

Now me, as someone who's arguably overly-fixated on post-apoc works, I love how Simon keeps playing with that definition:

"Perhaps we know these situations."
"Perhaps they're complete fantasy."
"Perhaps we're merely gazing through a muddy troposphere!"

https://i.imgur.com/geWNIcR.jpeg

In any case, I hope you enjoyed this tiny introduction to Simon's work. There is his official site.

I don't know much about Olsen other than he has a Danish-Norwegian surname and his art vaguely fits under the umbrella of 'LC.' Specifically, I enjoy the playful style he uses in his comics. More samples from Tiny Dracula here:

https://mastodon.art/tags/TinyDracula

I'm kinda stressed these days, but much thanks to @https://lemm.ee/u/paf@jlai.lu and @https://lemm.ee/u/Taniwha420 for filling in!

I really like this Greek-English artist George Bletsis, who designed the movie poster:

https://www.monstertree.co.uk/

This is by Tyler Miles Lockett, and the first in his Atalanta series.

I first bumped to his work based on classic Greek mythology, here: https://thecollectibles.tumblr.com/post/742334797740933120/greek-goddesses-by-tyler-miles-lockett

Evidently Benoit visited the Atomium building / sculpture in 1982 and was inspired to create this piece.

The nine central spheres have been disassembled and reduced in size. Who are these girls exactly, what is this building (a museum, perhaps?), and why are we looking at a rocky desert landscape? I'm afraid Ted can't tell us anymore since he passed on a few years ago, but there is this blog post, for what it's worth.

I just discovered that Casterman made a "ciné album" to accompany Spielberg's 2011 Tintin film. It makes for quite a unique-looking comic book, and is essentially a curated set of stills from the movie, set to balloon text. Seems like a fine way to revisit and enjoy The Secret of the Unicorn, perhaps appreciating it from different angles.

It's in French of course:
https://www.bedetheque.com/BD-Tintin-Divers-C4c-Cine-album-174093.html

I just finished reading the first three books of this swords & magic series, Percevan. It's sort of like 'the Smurfs meet Thorgal,' with the style and pacing reminding me of the Dutch series Douwe Dabbert. The characters are almost completely 'stock,' but that's normal for this kind of work.

I'd say this series is best for young adults and casual readers. It's generally light, comical reading, but there are enough moments of implied sex and mortal violence that it's maybe not quite ideal for kids. In terms of quality, I found it surprisingly absorbing, altho it also has plot weaknesses and some pretty dopey moments.

https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-24-BD-Percevan.html

I first saw this one in the Summer 1988 issue of Heavy Metal. I'm leading with the first line of the story instead of the actual title (To Draw or not to Draw) because the first line (in the upper left, see?) easily gets lost upon reading.

-----> https://imgur.com/gallery/a03BUpl <-----

This Grimmsian-kinda tale stood out to me because the ~~orange~~ purple admiral in the story reminded me of a modern contemporary whose base wants to begin dismantling democracy early next year. (yes, I kid you not)

The author of course is legendary Uruguayan-Argentinian artist Alberto Breccia, working in a wild, colorful style that reminded me a bit of Corben & Strnad's utterly unique work on Denz, previously posted here. I believe Breccia's usually known more for his detailed but expressive B&W work on stuff like Mort Cinder, a sort of alternate Frankenstein's monster series which I bemusedly enjoyed.

There's certainly much more to say about Breccia and his son & daughters, each of whom seemed to riff on his style, yet finding their own paths. As usual, one place to read about the family would be: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/breccia.htm

A couple more Breccia stories in this incredible visual style are collected here: https://raggedclaws.com/category/alberto-breccia/

I think my translation needs upgrading, but--

Godammit!
Maurice, stop torturing
our ears with
that funeral march!
Why can't you be more positive?

In fact the trip was an actual thing, and this album Gringos Locos (2012) by writer Yann & artist Olivier Schwartz is a rare case of a comic about the lives of comic book artists.

(here they are in silhouette, contemplating their departing ocean liner)

Evidently these three Belgians, Joseph Gillain ("Jijé"), André Franquin and Maurice de Bevere ("Morris"), took this trip to America specifically to join Walt Disney Studios and make their fortunes there.

(Jijé's the big one, Morris' the blond,
and Franquin's the tall slim bloke)

As it happened the expedition was a failure across most fronts, and the trio returned to Bruxelles, their hopes of making it, dashed. Little did they know at the time that they'd go on to become some of the biggest superstars of BD.

(while Franquin's down in the dumps and Jijé's
fussing with his family, Morris has his fun!)

I'd say this series is primarily pitched towards kids and fanciers of the comic medium. The 'superhero' here is like a riff on ComicBookGuy from The Simpsons. He's completely out of shape, unremarkable in physical appearance, and wears one of the silliest outfits since the days of Ma Hunkel masquerading as The Red Tornado in the pages of the classic American comic, Scribbly. BUT he does have a 'comics superpower,' in that he can interact between panels, bending the very laws of the medium. (or dare I say "multiverse?")

We've occasionally seen this technique used before across various famous comics, going back to Little Nemo I think, but generally as more of a one-off gag. In this case it's developed much further, and is unambiguously the entire point of the series. Imbattable (i.e. Mr. Invincible) is amusingly billed as the 'one and only true comic book superhero,' and if you follow that logic, I think it works!

First appearing in Spirou, there are three collected books in this series, plus a special, authored by writer / artist / colorist Pascal Jousselin from Rennes, France. [list of his BD works] 'Mr. I.' has been nominated for multiple Eisner awards and did win an Italian award, the Bologna Ragazzi.

Of course there are some occasional hiccups with Mr. I.'s superpower. What would be the fun without a little kryptonite here and there?

There's a nice, longer-form article below by the School Library Journal's Betsy Bird. It does a fine job getting in to the nuts & bolts of the series, and raises some interesting points, such as the issue of what kinds of comics pander to kids vs. which truly respect their intelligence.

https://afuse8production.slj.com/2020/11/12/review-of-the-day-mr-invincible-local-hero-by-pascal-jousselin/

I first discovered Marco's art in the pages of Heavy Metal, specifically in the #267 issue from 2014. He's from Pontedera, Italy, and seems to have gotten in to comics via his dad, who lettered Tex.

(from the ~25pp story E.V.A. appearing in HM)

Aside from the fact that he also wrote the story, I was mighty impressed by how well he commanded the city architecture from any number of views, the human figures, and his lovely, somewhat 'electric pastel' color palette.

Turini launched the character "Claudia Poe" online (through Lycos and Dot Com), but she has subsequently appeared in dailies like Il Tirreno, La Nazione, Quotiano and Il Centro, on radio, television (local and MTV) and in a comic book called I Sogni di Claudia (Titivillus/Dot Com edizioni, 2002). In recent years, he has drawn for Miss Italia, Sesso Alieno, Blue and Underground Press. --Lambiek, with edits

Judging by his sites, it looks like he also does work for some American heavyweights:

ArtStation:
https://www.artstation.com/marcoturini

Artist site:
https://www.marcoturiniart.com/

I've always loved watercolors, but as a disabled artist with faltering energy, I also found them to be a lot of work to bring off well. Hence, why I'm honestly a bit jealous that nowadays, digital tools allow one to skip much of the drudgery of tediously hydrating paint medium and/or coaxing every little bit out of 'watercolor pencils.' 😮‍💨

But... yes, I must yield to the fact that digital watercolors (like this one) can be quite interesting, lovely, and even ground-breaking in their own way. Rosie herself doesn't seem to have a lot out there yet, but I do hope she keeps working away, as this is a great start IMO.

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/pinkclouds/