Blue Mary Finale

Welcome back to our Blue Monday celebration of Mary Fleener's work - step right in!

Before we take a look at some of her covers, let's take a quick peek at a few comics.
This one seems right at home with Fleener's visual style-

NOTE: The following 2 pages, and much of Mary's artwork below,

 contains nudity and has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork.

How's your Lawrence?

Confused?
The Swiss publication, Das Magazin, has a feature entitled Werke der Weltliteratur (Works Of World Literature) in which they ask artists to translate a classic novel into a single comic page. As might be expected with such an endeavor, it helps tremendously if you're familiar with the original material.

Here's a couple more from Mary:

Yes, she does use words! (In case you were starting to wonder)
Of course, she may incorporate said words into the art...

Mary's works are as uniquely personal expressions as her artwork might suggest. The source material is often her own life and surroundings, and the events shaping her world. So, it might help a bit to know a little about her, eh?
Let's let her tell it:

I can relate. Creating my artwork is my best therapy. (I sure hope we get that system fully functional soon so i can resume therapy)

You were promised Covers with you Comics, so let's view some now.
Here are 10 covers from Mary Fleener -

Mary is the kind of Twisted Sister i quite enjoy. We'll look more at some of her longer comics on another day - we've already got a pretty full post with three cubed pics.
So let's wrap with a just few more bits & pieces of Fleener flair -

I'm so feeling the Coppertone.
I may have to use that last piece as a colouring book page and have fun with it.

While i'm doing that, you can learn more about, and see more from, Mary Fleener at her website. Perhaps more importantly, you buy some of her original paintings, too.

all artwork by Mary Fleener for various, mostly shown above (1987-1997)

MFin' Blue Velvet Monday

Before we dive into Ms Fleener's comic book work, let us pause to enjoy some of her oddly delightful black velvet paintings.


Serenade To A Tiki-

NOTE: Most of Mary's artwork here contains nudity
and has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork.

Open Mic Night At The Bongo Hut-



Apparition On The Road Less Taken-

Voodoo Gidget-



Voodoo Smoke-



Voodoo Swing-

Voodoo Tween-


Next up - Comics and covers!
Join us then.

all paintings by Mary Fleener

MFin' Blue Monday - Opening Salvo

You likely read the subject line, so you already know it's a post for an off-kilter edition of

My head has been in chaos lately, as evidenced by the recent lack of postings. So i'm just going to embrace that today, and turn to someone who routinely pulls beauty out of the chaos -

NOTE: Mary's artwork here contains abstract nudity
and has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork. 

This may or may not be a self-portrait.

Welcome to the weirdly wonderful artwork of Mary Fleener.
For our first peek, we'll echo last week's posts with a set of seven acrylic paintings that might be called Modern Religion:



Go ahead, take your time and let her work seep into your head.
We'll return later in the day with more MFin' art.

Y'know - this one strikes me as chaotic art for the #metoo movement...

See you then.

all artwork by Mary Fleener

Blue Monday Calendar 2018 Week 03

This week's Elvgren is Colette from 1957 -

Saturday Whozit Solutions

Welcome back for the solutions to our Comic Creator Whozit Quiz posted yesterday.
(We'll try to stall for a little space in case you wanted to avoid seeing the answers before clicking on that link when visiting from the future.)

The photos for our current Whozit quiz were taken in 1975 at the New York Comic Art Convention, and come to us via the program for the following year's Con, as seen at right. I may not have found what i was digging for, but at least we got a quiz out of it, eh?
(Now if i can just figure out for which conventions Matt Howarth did those early Post Brothers/Star Trek parody comics. And, more importantly, where the frell those program books are hiding)

Anyway...
Let's see how we did spotting ancient creators in the wild, shall we? Here are the identities of our guests:

.Yes, Berni snuck in there twicet. I obviously wasn't going to identify the fan costume in the quiz - too much of a hint as to who the creators were. Even if Len is looking kind of Al Jaffe-y there.

Funny thing - i've exchanged emails with a couple of these people, but had no clue what they looked like until running into these old pics. As you might suspect given that information, my score on this quiz was Epic Fail. I might recognize a lot of styles, but not a lot of faces.

pics from the 1976 Comic Art Convention program (1976)

Whozit - ConEd

So... Apparently it's Friday. 

Time and i have been rather estranged of late, even more-so than our typical relations. But a lovely lady's birthday coming up tomorrow finally made me aware of today, and so it's time for

Let's go behind the scenes of comics today, and see how well you can spot the pros.
Not today's comic pros - they post their faces online all the time, even when nobody wants to see them. So let's make it trickier and jump back a bit over 40 years. These pictures were taken at one of Phil Seuling's early New York Comic Art Conventions, one of the only places fans could go to see the people who created comics way back in the when.

We've got 15 for you to identify, if you can. Here's our first 10 -

And now, we get a little trickier for the bonus round -

Don't worry. Now that i know today is Friday, i can do the math and figure out when the solution is due.

He Beat Starro, Too

Another quick reminder -

This man who is arguably the 2nd best Batman voice (after Kevin Conroy, of course) looks like this:

Of course, Conroy looks nothing like the voice of Batman, either. But i just love that a man well known for playing whacked out oddballs is so terrific in the role of Batman. It's really quite appropriate when one thinks about it.

With only 3 seasons, Batman: The Brave & The Bold felt like it was cut off too soon (by Bat-Mite). But they sure crammed a ton of Silver Age fun into the show while it lasted. And one of the latest DCU animated series, Justice League Action, draws heavy on those old comics as well. (They won me over when the guest star of the 5th episode was freaking Space Cabbie!)

It's great fun hearing Diedrich Bader guest starring in the role of Booster Gold. I hope we see more of him next season.

Masters of Another Domain

Just a quick reminder:

This happened -

Maybe that's the Masters Of The Universe movie we really want to see?

Приключения Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона

There have been some very popular re-imaginings of Sherlock Holmes in the 21st century in recent times. When it comes to the classic characters, however, the greatest cinematic version is still largely unknown in this country. I don't know how it is these days - it's been quite a while since i had an eye on the inside - but last i knew there was a gallery on the wall of the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker St that showcased all the film stars who have portrayed Mr. Holmes & Dr. Watson. Two portraits overshadowed the others, nearly twice their size - those of Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin:

This Russian filmed series of 5 (or 11, depending on how you're counting) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson movies are marvelously unique in capturing what feels like the authentic adventures of our famed duo. The casting is not the least of it, though both are perfect in the roles, and our Mrs. Hudson, Rina Zelyonaya, seems quite right, too -

The handling of the introduction of our pair in The Acquaintance is very entertaining, even with our familiarity of the material by now. Watson's sense of isolation and confusion as he tries to figure out what he's gotten himself involved with pairs beautifully with the often stark lighting, leaving him alone in the dark physically as well as mentally -

The first half of the first episode of the first film is fully consumed by Watson's puzzle of this Holmes weirdo, and serves as excellent introduction to both characters, and to set up the relationship.

Our first view of Holmes as he discovers a hemoglobin reactive reagent.

The chemistry between the actors is such that when Solomin died 16 years after the last of the Holmes & Watson films, Livanov declared that Vitaly was such a part of him that he would not be gone until after both had died.
Happily, that day has yet to arrive.

There are many things that give this series its excellent feeling, from the actors to the music - picture a Victorian light jazz on harpsichord - to the sets & locations. One advantage the production team had was access to villages where things haven't changed in general appearance in the previous century, giving them not only an authentic look, but a lived in feeling as well.

This is not a Big Budget spectacle in any way. It's quiet, intimate, and involving. The films have been in my re-watch pile for a while, and i've finally started back into them. As mentioned in passing above, the format is bit odd, with each film being composed of 2 (or more) episodes. Most of these screens are from The Acquaintance, episode one of the first film. A few locations are grabbed from Bloody Inscription (or Bloody Signature, depending on which translation you find), the concluding episode of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.(1979)
The following four films are The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (1980), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1981), The Treasures of Agra (1983), and The Twentieth Century Approaches (1986).

Over the course of the films they adapt an even dozen of Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes tales, ending with His Last Bow.

Just to keep things Odd, it turns out that Vasily Livanov is also the director & writer of the first Russian animated movie i ever saw - The Blue Bird. This fact had eluded me until just this morning.
Well - Bravo, Sir! Yet one more reason to admire the man's work.
The body of his works is indeed impressive, far beyond the scope of today's discussion. Suffice it to say that he has not only received multiple Russian film & cultural awards, (the most recent of which i'm familiar being a special Golden Eagle Award - "For outstanding contribution to the history of Russian cinema") to honorary induction to the Order of the British Empire, "For service to the theatre and performing arts"

Did i mention that he also writes screenplays, novels, faerie tales and more?

In addition to Sherlock Holmes, he played Not Sherlock Holmes in the animated adventure Pup In Boots, and a role i haven't seen - Don Quixote in the film that he wrote, directed, produced and starred in - The Return Of Don Quixote. I'm so curious.

Okay - we'll call that an answer to this morning's query, right?

What? You thought only cowboys rode off in the sunset?

EDIT:
Вітаю! Хороша робота, українські шанувальники.
Ви підняли одне з моїх улюблених постів то тhe дуже високо.

screens from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (1979)