Showing posts with label Rocket's Blast Comic Collector. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rocket's Blast Comic Collector. Show all posts

08 September 2019

Okay Now Mister! I Want The TRUTH!

Meanwhile...


You can frequently track what i'm doing by what appears on this blog. Though i may plan things, what really happens is i just tend to record where my brain wanders. So, when it kind of just stops - well, you get weeks like the one just passed. I tend to think most folks don't want to read the blog page equivalent of a dial tone. (Do they still have those? It's been so long since i touched a phone, and they've changed so much, i have to wonder...)

Anyway, while not doing tremendously better at the moment, i have managed to dig into some of those 'plan' piles to prep some work. Just a little bit back, in July, i made mention that we should look more at Eddie Eddings' work. If you don't recall, or never saw that post, it was the toon with Superman commenting on Jimmy wearing pink, too, that triggered the mention.

I believe i also made mention of him taking on some of the art chores for Don Rosa's Information Center, too -




Those columns were, of course, for the Rocket's Blast Comic Collector, wherein all of today's artwork appeared back in 1978 & '79. Some of these are deeply enmeshed in the times, others one could drop in an orange hairball and run them today -


















If you were perhaps wondering what some more traditional comic book art would look like from Eddie, here he is working with Kerry Gammill...


...and by himself -


Okay, that's about it. I'm exhausted and gonna stop wrangling the beast for a bit...

art by Eddie Eddings from RBCC #s 141-149 (1978, 1979)

31 July 2019

Pastime As Prologue or "Get Out Of My House!"

Following up on yesterday's tale, Maxor Of Cirod, from John Adkins Richardson, let's take a look at a few more of his works. I was sorely tempted to rerun his terrific Doctor Strange painting here, but instead i'll just note that it's worth looking back to that post if you've not seen it.












To wrap up this set, here's a self portrait of the artist - 


I've spoken a bit about him in the past, but just who is this JARichardson guy? That's the sort of question that pops up frequently when we look back at artists from the fan scene of decades ago. Fortunately for us, in this case there are interviews from back when. Today we'll look at one that ran in Golden Age #7 back in 1971 -



   John Adkins Richardson keeps martinis in an old peanut butter jar in his refrigerator. He is also a full Professor of Art at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, an elected member of the Faculty Senate, a writer of heavy books and of articles for learned journals, a nostalgia buff, a pipe-smoker, and a painter. I confronted on of his paintings in a gallery some years ago. it was a five foot square self-portrait composed of several dozen painted images mused together, montage-style, into an entity that reveals the man. His own face peers out suspiciously. His blond wife. The two sons. Captain America, bashing the bejazus out of some evil-doer with his mighty shield. Joe Louis. A few bushy nudes. A Bisley Colt. Captain Marvel. A Gee-Bee racing plane! (I thought I was the only man alive who remembered the Gee-Bee.) Hawkman. An elongated Stuka.

   I advanced on the painting and, after half an hour, decided that I knew the man who painted it better than I should know a man that I didn't know. So I hunted him up. He cheered my taste and culture; we got into the martinis. "You are a goodlooking S.O.B. and you know comics," said he. "hmmmm." "If you really like the painting, I'll do one of you." "Gawd." "Have another booze."

   My painting, a three-ply gasser, now hangs in my living room, but the conversations go on. "What was the Lone Ranger's last name?" "Anybody knows that it was Reid." "Damn! All right, who was Tank Tinker?" "Get out of my house!"

  Richardson knows things that an art professor has no real business knowing about. Early radio programs: "You mean that your wife can actually play 'Priscilla' on that piano?" "Of course, can't yours?" "Hmmmm..." But that's nothing. He knows about things like the history of modern mathematics. In fact, the University of Illinois Press is publishing a book of his on the history of modern art and scientific thought. He reads James Joyce. Gets around in the Paris subways. Knows about guitar construction, obscure jazz compositions, handguns, Capt. Midnight, home design. And, of course, the comics.

   "I just got a grant to go to the Library of Congress to study old comics books!" "I thought that was your major at Columbia University." "You mere Assistant Professors are a jealous lot." "But if my tax dollars pay you to -- !" "Get out of my house!"

Here's the actual interview. I'm too lazy to transcribe the entire thing -


For an extra bonus - here's RJ Shay's portrait of Richardson from when Gary Groth interviewed him in Fantastic Fanzine -


Yeah, we might get to that interview at some point. But wouldn't you rather check out that Elric tale he illustrated...?


I suspect we'll wind up there first, y'know?

art by John Adkins Richardson from Golden Age #7, Fantastic Fanzine #13, and Rocket's Blast Comic Collector #s 73, 77, 88, 111, 120, 138, & 149, and RJ Shay from Fantastic Fanzine Special #2 (1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975)

30 July 2019

Over Chronicles Of Wasted Time ... New Shadows Hurtle

The first person we looked at from the Rocket's Blast Comic Collector was John Adkins Richardson. At that time, i rather thought we'd be getting to his Maxor Of Cirod comic - "a combination of science fiction, the macabre, and satire" - in the days following. 

Sixteen months later my peripatetic mind finally wanders back around. Let's jump straight into the story before it wanders off again...




by John Adkins Richardson from RBCC #s 122-126 (1975, 1976)