Studio Tour Part Three: Books and magazines

Below the Batman collection I shared with you in part one of this studio tour, there's a three shelf bookcase, loaded with books and magazines. These are mostly haphazardly organized -- on these particular shelves simply because they fit there. Sometime down the line, I may attempt to get these in some kind of order. In the meantime, I'll just share with you a few favorites from this bunch.

There are many collectible toys and such in my studio -- but the bulk of my collection is books. I can't tell you how many hours I spent combing through used book stores, going to library sales, yard sales and flea markets -- always with an eye out for desirable titles. These days it's book stores, eBay and amazon that account for most of my book buying -- and it's slowed down a great deal -- but I still can't resist a great book.

1001 Riddles by cartoonist George Carlson was a childhood favorite. The copy I grew up with had no dustjacket and was full of crayon marks. As an adult, I picked up this clean copy in dj (jacket art not by Carlson, I was disappointed to discover) -- and still think it's a nifty little book.
Carlson's art does appear on the front boards of the book -- dig this great drawing of a laughing parrot.
Every page of this is chock full of drawings by Carlson. No crayon at all in this copy, thank goodness!
Anatomy and Drawing by Victor Perard is a wonderful art instruction book -- and has seen many printings. I love the embossed decoration on the front boards of this one.

Stan "the man" Lee signed my copy of Origins of Marvel Comics back in '75. My buddy Dave Askam and I skipped a day of high school to attend a lecture by Stan at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. I was thrilled to get the autograph -- but found Stan's pronunciation of Spider-Man as "Spoyda-Man" a little disturbing! Also met Murray Bishoff, then a columnist for Alan Light's The Buyer's Guide for Comics Fandom for the first time at that event.

Ah -- a great used book find -- I paid a whopping 75 cents for this George Burns book about his life with Gracie -- a fantastic read and a real treasure.

Illustrated books make up a large part of my collection. Here is one of many gorgeous interior illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg for Reynard the Fox -- one of several books on this shelf that are part of the collection that came from my father's cousin Ruth -- there were a few too many to fit them all in "Ruth's bookcase" (see Part Two of this tour).

Another used book find. I was not familiar with S. G. Hulme Beaman's work before finding this volume -- but loved it on first sight.

Another case of discovering an illustrator on pulling this book off the shelf at a used book store (likely the Source in Davenport, Iowa) -- Kimo is richly illustrated and every page is a visual delight. Here's a link to a brief biography of artist Lucille Webster Holling.

The bottom shelf of this case is full of magazines -- mostly my Famous Monsters of Filmland collection -- but a number of other monster magazines and assorted titles -- below are a few highlights from the collection, starting with Marvel's Spectacular Spider-Man mags. That John Romita cover painting for #2 still strikes me as one of the best comic book covers ever.

Frank Frazetta and Mickey Spillane! These mags are practically oozing testosterone.

I spent hours and hours drinking in the pictures in this Super Heroes magazine when I was a kid. Imagining the adventures of these Saturday afternoon serial heroes was (mostly) a better experience than actually seeing the movies years later.

Monster mags! Spacemen! Aurora kit ad on the back of a comic book.

Random issues of Creepy and Eerie -- and the Phantom of the Paradise issue of Cinefantastique -- along with the only issue of Judge I own.

1st issue of Castle of Frankenstein!

More monster and movie mags.

Some early issues of Famous Monsters. I had many of these as a kid -- but they didn't survive -- many of them cut up to make collage posters that were displayed in my room -- and eventually thrown away. I've rebuilt this collection (which is far from complete) as an adult.

Creepy #1 and several issues of the FM doppleganger Monster World.

More books, collectibles and wacky stuff in part four -- coming soon!

URBAN LEGENDS and SHOCK STORIES artist proof cards.

After drawing my Vampirella artist proof cards, I remembered that I'd never gotten around to drawing my AP cards for the Monsterwax Urban Legends and Shock Stories card sets. So, with little else on my schedule at the moment, I dug out the blanks and drew this creepy batch of full color images. All are up for grabs on eBay -- and the card sets are still available (in boxed form) from Monsterwax. I really enjoy drawing this weird horror and sci-fi stuff and hope to do more things in this vein in the future.

Haven't had time to post much over the last couple weeks. A trip to Iowa to celebrate my mother's 90th birthday had me off line for a while -- and I'm trying to get ahead of schedule on my Return to Perdition pages -- but here's an item worth sharing. Martin Powell (script), Tom Smith (colors), Kerry Gammill (art direction) and I collaborated on a short story for the new comic book, Bela Lugosi's Tales from the Grave. Here's the listing for the book in the August Diamond Distribution Previews catalog. The painted cover is by Famous Monsters cover artist Basil Gogos. This was a great deal of fun to draw -- and I'm eagerly looking forward to the comic! Here's hoping it has a long run and I can contribute another tale or two down the line. For now, I have to get back to the drawing board. I'll try to post more "cool junk" soon...!

URBAN LEGENDS and SHOCK STORIES trading cards

Here's a project that has been in the works for years!  At long last, we're done and going to print -- with boxes to be released in August.  There are 50 cards in each of these sets -- with additional 3-D versions of the SHOCK cards!  The cards have stories written by Kurt Kuersteiner --and all are drawn by me (my pals Chris Bailey and Michael Collins helped with pencils on a handful of cards -- thanks, guys!)  I've just finished drawing 250 sketch cards (with the assistance of my talented MCAD intern, Hannah on some of them -- thanks, Hannah!) that will be randomly inserted into card packs.  I'm very excited about this project, and can't wait to have the printed versions in my hands!  If you'd like more info, check out Kurt's site: Monsterwax .

Below are an ad for the cards that will be running in Non Sports Update magazine, (which will be running a feature article on the cards), title cards and previews of several cards from the sets.  These will be limited to 1000 boxes, and pre-orders are being taken -- so, if you'd really like a box, I'd suggest ordering soon, as we expect this to sell out -- especially after the NSU article sees print. I really enjoyed getting to cut loose and draw all the creepy monsters and such featured on these cards. If you like EC horror comics, or vintage monster movies -- or just like an old fashioned scary story (the kind told around a campfire), you'll dig these. 

If you'd like to see them, I'll post some preliminary pencils for the cards -- maybe some inked versions (pre-color) and a preview of a few of the sketchcards.  Want to see them?  Leave a comment and let me know!

Uncle Forry SCARY MONSTERS cover

Just finished late last night, this is the wraparound cover for the upcoming 70th issue of SCARY MONSTERS. Click on it to see a larger version.  I've been doing cover illos for this mag for years, usually acrylic on illustration board -- and pasting up logos and copy  on an overlay the old fashioned way -- leaving a lot of the assembly work to the printers.  But this is the second one I've done since buying an 11 x 17 scanner, which is allowing me to scan the whole image, and then, in Photoshop, add background color and cover copy myself, tweaking the colors and such as I like.  The original images were done with colored inks on bristol board.

This is a tribute to the late great Forrest J. Ackerman, whose FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine was a huge influence on me and looms large in my childhood memories.  I was one of "Uncle Forry's" many "nephews" to visit his digs in "Karloffornia," and tour his incredible collection of movie memorabilia.  Every day I wear a reproduction of the Lugosi Dracula ring (pictured here) that was famously part of Forry's collection -- as much in tribute to FJA as to Bela.  I'm pleased to have the opportunity to use my artwork to say thank you to FJA on behalf of "monster kids" everywhere.  

A special thanks to Alan Light for the reference photos of Forry -- taken on his pilgrimage to the "Ackermansion" many moons ago.