JohnnyEnzyme

It's a panel (I just made the title up) from Basura ("Garbage") by Carlos Trillo and Juan Giménez, as published in English in Heavy Metal magazine, Spring '87 edition.

The main figure is just a kind of statue, in a post-apoc world.

First of all, huge, honking credit to u/MadDroog, who I believe took these shots using books from his personal collection. The main point is to show the original American editions and then how they looked in the French magazine.

And yes, that's certainly Robert Crumb's notorious Fritz the Cat on issue 15's cover, but you can indeed catch a glimpse of Corben's story in the lower right teaser.

Evidently to cut down on costs, the magazine used a simple color scheme throughout, and in Corben's case, colored his B&W art themselves with, let's say it-- less than ideal results. :P

So we have both Crumb and Corben seemingly popular in France by at least the early 1970's. I'll see if I can find some issues to see who else might have been included from 'non-BD' countries.

In terms of Corben's work, I find it just amazing. It's full of life, and drawn with a loving tenderness you rarely see in comics. The art was usually absurdly intricate, but even when slightly-rushed, Corben saw -forms- in a way that few other comics artists did. Probably not surprising really, as he had a degree in fine arts and first started working as an animator. I'm also sad to say that he passed away recently at 80yo due to heart surgery. RIP to an utterly unique legend.

As an upcoming treat, I think in a day or two I'm going to post a 13-page chapter from his Denz saga, even though it's American-produced. The art is ridiculously, utterly unique, and here's a sample page:

When I first saw Yoshida's work, it immediately reminded me of classic watercolors from many a fine BD series.

Amazingly, these seem to be -not- watercolors, but woodblock art, in which a series of blocks are carved to impress the total number of ink colors present in a piece. Not unlike screen-printing, but far more laborious I should think. Of course the point of processes like these (and lithography) is to be able to produce a run of high-quality prints using very basic materials.

I'm still learning about Yoshida, but one thing that seems unusual about him is that he made a point of getting out of Japan and exploring as much of the world as he could. Hence, you see authentic Japanese prints of places not normally associated with the style, starting with India.

Versailles' de Pins clearly has a deep attraction to women, admittedly as with many neat-o artists throughout history.

Still, it seems to me what makes him a bit different is his ability to go beyond 'mere appreciation,' all the way to lampooning his own lust, while at the same time keeping in mind social rights.

It's a perilous line to walk, I suppose, but either way, I frankly enjoy de Pins' ability to riff on all these issues in a self-aware, comedic way. In any case, he seems to enjoy celebrating womens' rights in a pop-culture art context, FWIW.

And I think that's pretty cool.

Info on de Pins' various projects is here:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/d/de-pins_arthur.htm

It's a panel from Silas Corey, The Aquila Network, a terrific series scripted by Fabien Nury.

There seem to be two versions of the fetish replica. This one, originally sold by the defunct TintinBoutique.com, and another by Moulinsart [example], without the 'restored' look. I believe they're both made out of resin (not wood), with the former going for as much as $500(!)

Some interesting inside info (and a short quiz) on the album here: https://www.tintin.com/en/albums/the-broken-ear

I found this nice hi-res cover of Pilote magazine #140, Feb '86, presumably by Jean Solé, and now I'm left to name the characters. I'm pretty terrible at this, but here's what I've got:

LEFT COLUMN (front to back):

1. LL, by Morris
2. Jill Bioskop, by Enki Bilal
3. Jack Palmer, by Pétillon
4. Jonathan Cartland, by Harlé & Blanc-Dumont
5. character from The Night, by Druillet
6. Isaac Newton, by Gotlib
7. Félina by Annie Goetzinger
8. Blueberry, by Moebius

RIGHT COLUMN (front to back):

1. Valerian, by Christin & Mézières
2. sheep from Le Génie des alpages, by F’Murr
3. Achille Talon, by "Greg"
4. Philémon, by "Fred"
5. Cellulite, by Bretecher
6. unknown character by Gérard Lauzier
7. Sir Francis Albany, by Floc'h

BOTTOM:

• Left: Le concombre masqué, by Mandryka
• Right: La coccinelle, by Gotlib

EDIT: bolded names are thanks to user input

There's not a lot of info out there for Tomenius, but if I understand correctly, he first discovered a level of fame by riffing on tweets made by former PM and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt of Sweden.

It seems from there, he was inspired to create his delightfully deranged, better-known comic series Twisted Speedo and Poorly Drawn Dinosaurs. The above is a very brief, tame example of his work, so let's dig a bit further with Origin of the Seahorse:

You see, most of his cartoons run long and vertically, averaging about twice the length of the one above. In tone, he's darkly-hilarious, satirical, and no-holds barred. If gore is called for, then there's going to be gore!

Typically, my man here examines modern culture and turns it on its head, sometimes in a purely humorous or even affectionate way, but just as often, with biting nihilism. His 'punchlines' don't always come together the way you might expect... in which case I think it's more his sense of simple, absurd style that makes these work.

Here's a couple more of my favorites: [1], [2], which should help demonstrate what the hell I'm trying to say above.

As for repositories of his work, try: [WebToons], [Tapas], and [TheComicSeries]. His "Poorly Drawn Dinosaurs" site doesn't seem to be up anymore, but fortunately it's preserved at the Internet Archive. Tomenius' also has some collections available on Amazon.

As I was saying elsewhere, what I'm really loving here is the cinematic layout, simulating the way camera cuts work in a movie. It's so wonderful to me, and one of the many l reasons I love BD. Peeters is also the same artistic provocateur who produced such fascinating stuff as Koma, Sandcastle, Lupus, and Aâma.

TBH, one of the reasons I fell head-over-heels in love with BD is because of creators like Peeters and Lewis Trondheim.

Wolski is a recent discovery, and from what I understand, he's a freelance artist who's worked on board games and small-scale BD such as Marcus William Flopper and Interstellar Dust.

Me, I'm greatly enjoying his cartoony, sprawling, colorful and imaginative work.

EDIT: Actually, I'm an idiot. The cover art is very good, but.. not very nice. Me, I was trying to find the best four pics to represent amongst two dozens, and I just wasn't looking close enough at the actual details. So yeah, I'm willing to remake the post if anybody objects. --Johnny

HERE is a curation of Wolski's work, plus his "ArtStation" personal page.

The original volume name is I Cavalieri del Tempo. Note the markups on the margins!

Yes, based on reader suggestion here, I decided to get off my rump and finally check out this long-running paranormal / light horror series. It's Italian-produced, set in London. Quite impressively, it's been running since 1986, with well over 400 issues produced by various teams of artists & writers.

So far I've finished four 100-page books, and found two of the stories quite good and thought-provoking, i.e. Zed and Daisy, and the other two, rather mediocre, pulp-level fare, i.e. The Ghost of Anna Never and The Nights of the Full Moon. DD seems then to be a fertile premise, but a bit hit-or-miss in nature, perhaps down to the individual writers, their schedules, and whatever else.

EDIT: I've updated the above review after finishing the fourth book.

Here's what the published cover looks like:

Btw, I found the art quite satisfactory, altho note: it's usually produced in B&W. Some samples HERE.