Vibro Champs

Twin Cities rockabilly legends, the Vibro Champs played several reunion gigs at Lee's Liquor Lounge recently. Last night's show included the premiere of a music video and documentary made with the help of the friendly folks at MCAD. Here are a few pics of the band. For more info, check 'em out on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/vibrochamps .

Blast from the past

On my recent trip home, I discovered this blast from the past, still on display in the window of downtown business K&D Clothiers -- a decal I designed for my high school back in 1976! Yikes!

Comics authors at MCAD

Thursday evening MCAD and Rain Taxi magazine hosted a lecture/Q&A with authors Douglas Wolk and Austin Grossman. Wolk is the author of "Reading Comics," an insightful look at the current state of the comics medium. Grossman's book is "Soon I Will Be Invincible," a witty literary take on the superhero genre. Both authors were interviewed by MCAD instructor (and comic book artist/inker) Barb Schulz (see pic -- from L to R: Grossman, Schulz, Wolk). The event was well attended, with several Twin Cities cartoonists (Zak Sally, Zander Cannon) among the crowd.

Comic art show in Davenport, Iowa

The Figge Art Museum in Davenport is currently hosting a show of original comic art, featuring selections by Kirby, Eisner, Gould, Kelly, Crane, Herriman, Raymond, Frazetta, Arno and many more. On a recent trip home (Muscatine, IA) I made a side trip to catch the show. There was no photography allowed -- so couldn't take any pics to post -- but here are a couple images from the museum's flyer promoting the show -- an Eisner "Spirit" piece and a C.C. Beck "Capt. Marvel." The show runs through Sept. 9 -- and more info can be found at www.figgeartmuseum.org

Cap's Hobby Hints

More old web images rescued! These are shot from the orignal art for four "Cap's Hobby Hints" pages by Henry Boltinoff. This feature ran in DC comic books for several years in the early/mid 1960s. Henry was the brother of DC editor Murray Boltinoff. Aurora, AMT and other model kit companies were regular advertisers in DC's comics at the time. Supporting kids' interest in the modeling hobby was a smart move on DC's part. Cap often gave hints for model railroading and slot car racing as well. You can see the title and issue number of the comic book each strip ran in, at the top of each original. How many of these did you read, way back then?




Here's the published version of the original strip above.

Here's a CAP'S page that was auctioned on eBay -- from VERY early in the series, when it was called CAP'S HOBBY CENTER -- and, no, I wasn't the seller, OR the winning bidder (darn it!) -- unusual in that the kid is actually building a figure kit -- looks like Hodad from the SILLY SURFER line!

Old pics rescued -- model kits

Ah -- just ran across a disc containing pics from some years ago (stuff I thought was lost forever in all my PC computer crashes ). Those of you who may have visited my old website will recall some of these -- but I thought they were worth posting again. This batch of pics is all from my long-lost model kit web page. I've long been involved in the figure kit hobby, and these are a few of my favorite build-up and paint jobs.

Life Drawing

Here are a few drawings from this week's Monday night life drawing session at MCAD. I hadn't done this in quite a while -- and I think my "rustiness" shows in there sketches -- but I still think there's something good in each of them. A number of my students (or former students) were among the crowd of scribblers. It was a two hour session -- with short poses -- the longest being two twenty minute poses at the end. These are all graphite on large sheets of newsprint.

I'm looking forward to the Sunday sessions starting up again during the school year -- longer sessions -- with, I hope, longer poses. I just hope my work load will allow me the time to attend!