Archive for January, 2009
Here’s whats on my pile this month (in no particular order):
• Doktor Sleepless #11 (wrap cover)
• Gravel #7 (wrap cover)
• Gravel #8 (wrap cover)
• Hellblazer #251
• Hellboy — The Wild Hunt #2 (of 8)
• B.P.R.D. — The Black Goddess #1 (and it has cover art by Kevin Nowlan!)
• Ultimatum #2 (of five)
• Fantastic Four #562
• Fantastic Four #563
• Astonishing X-Men #28
• Amazing Spider-Man #583 (Yes, the Obama issue – although I have the regular cover)
• Amazing Spider-Man #584
• Wolverine #70
• Battlefields — Night of the Witches part 3 of 3
• Battlefields — Dear Billy part 1 of 3
• KICK-ASS #5
• No Hero #3 (wrap cover)
• Crossed #3 (wrap cover)
• Gantz #3
I recently added a set to Flickr containing covers of some of my favourite Marvel Comics I have from the 70s and 80s. Looking back I admit this was one of my favourite periods in comics. Maybe I’m being nostalgic — but the unapologetic style of comics from that period is something that has been long gone and replaced by something much more somber. It was during that period that I started reading comics — translated in Ducth — and gradually shifted to English language comics because I wanted to read them as they were intended, with their cover designs intact and not butchered by some poor cut and paste translation job.
There’s absolutely nothing special about these comics — they’re not collectors items (although I do have my fair share of those as well) — other than those are the comics that made me fall in love with the medium. The pure ennergy of those cover, that engaged you from the outset and almost forced you to pick up a copy and start reading was something typical of the Bronze Age of comics — sadly long gone and slowly replaced over the years to the current wave of stylised pin-up shots on covers that have no relation with whats happening between the covers.
This April, Image Comics will release a new comic series by my pal Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein called Viking.
In 2007, not too long after 24SEVEN #2 was released (for which I had done design work) Ivan asked me if i was interested in designing the logo for a comic pitch he was developing called Viking.
Ivan didn’t give any specifics, other than that it needed to be modern and bold. Not your typical Norse heraldic designs you’d associate with the culture. Since it was early days, all I had to go on was Ivan’s direction.
My first instinct was to go and look at the Runic alphabet to look for stylistic characteristics. I thought that even though the book needs a contemporary logo, it never hurts to have some sort fo visual key to the time period its based in.
Continue reading…
After having spent most of 2001 without a proper job, living off my savings and the occasional freelance gig, things were about to change. In January 2002 whilst checking my list of agency sites to spam with more pathetic pleas for work I discovered that Kleber had a job opening for a designer…
Kleber had always been high on my list of agencies to work at, so I didn’t waste any time emailing them. I waited the obligatory week before emailing them again to see if they received my application. Three weeks passed without a reply. I’d learned from experience that if you haven’t had a reply after a month, your chances of hearing anything positive are small so I put this job application on the back burner and continued freelancing and worrying about ever getting a full time job again… Continue reading…
Just discovered this brilliant Flickr set of Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters) — the classic French SF animated film directed by René Laloux and designed by Moebius. I know most people will say La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet) is his masterpiece, but Les Maîtres du temps will always be my favourite film of his. Maybe because of Moebius’ design and art direction…
Was the question I got asked by the guys that run Inspired Inspirers, a site that “is a place for people who inspire the world to show us who inspires them.”
So there you go. Here’s what gets my juices flowing (and yes, those are my comics in that photo).
Computer Arts 158 (also out now) — which incidentally also looks ahead to 2009 — is filled cover to cover with handy tips and tricks on how to increase your productivity and creative output. I offer one or two soundbites on the latter suggesting that your workspace can be a source of inspiration and a stimulus for creating good work.
In .net magazine issue 185 (out now) I share some predictions on what this year will hold in store for the web, and what trends will appear — “iPhone” sites will become more and more in demand (they already are), and everyone will want a WordPress blog. Especially since WP has released version 2.7 of their platform, it’ll become the go-to tool for easy and free CMS solutions/blogs…