Studio Tour Part Two: Ruth's Bookcase

Opposite my Batman collection sits this little art deco bookcase. This originally belonged to my mother's sister Ruth. A number of the books that reside in it came from my father's cousin -- also named Ruth. And so, this is forever and always "Ruth's bookcase." There's even an illustrated edition (Arthur Szyk) of The Book of Ruth on the bottom shelf....

Taking up increasing amounts of space on the top of the bookcase are the current reprint volumes of Peanuts and Dennis the Menace. The Coney Island beer bottle is a recent addition. Inside the case are a variety of books and collectibles.

This Goldsmith edition of Huck Finn has cover art by Henry Vallely -- the prolific illustrator whose work was often found in original content Big Little Books. The original art for this illustration hangs on the wall. The Sgt. Bilko paperbacks are just a few of the Bilko items scattered throughout my collection.

The new Dennis volumes are kept company by a vintage vinyl figure of Dennis and Ruff -- and a signed edition of More Dennis the Menace. I found the book at a used bookstore on a long-ago trip to California -- priced no higher than the other Dennis hardcovers they had. I suspect they'd never noticed the inscription and drawing from Hank Ketcham inside!

This PeeWee Herman pennant was a gift from Paul Reubens -- from a visit Max Collins and I made to his Los Angeles digs during a San Diego Comic Con trip. We clueless Iowans had no real idea how far LA was from SD! The drive back to San Diego was a long chore -- and we very nearly missed our flight home the next morning due to oversleeping. Thanks to old friend (and TBG publisher) Alan Light pounding on our hotel room door, we managed to get up just in time to rush to the airport!

The witch version of my Trick or Treat "garage kit" lurks in the corner of the top shelf. Sharing that space are a number of items from the Earl Carroll Theatre. This Hollywood hotspot was famous for the celebrity signatures it had on display -- as well as their lovely dancers. That's a program from one of the Earl Carroll Vanities shows, signed by the performers leaning against the back of the bookcase. In front of it, is a set of six glasses covered in faux autographs of the biggest movie stars of the day. An ad for one of these sets claims eight total -- but the shipping box for same (see below) only has room for six -- so perhaps there were multiple versions.

This little -- and fairly flimsy box -- is what the glasses were shipped in -- from Hollywood to Iowa. Not a nick on the glasses. Can you imagine shipping something so fragile like this today? They wouldn't make it past the front desk of the PO before being shattered! Some more Earl Carroll paper below.

Here's a better look at the glasses -- well, five of the six anyhow. And a good look at the Aurora Plastics OZ-kins -- which seems to be missing one figure -- Wooden Sawhorse -- which has since turned up, thank goodness! These are based on the original Denslow illustrations for Wizard of OZ, and are very nicely done. This set was made in '67 and is fairly tough to find complete. Can you guess which figure is almost never found unbroken? I'm rather amazed that long thin piece of plastic on the left hasn't gotten snapped in one of the three or four moves these figures have been though with me. I guess I must pack things well, huh?

The rest of the bookcase is taken up by -- books! The My Book House series is a recent purchase -- and one I hope to share with my son as he gets a little older. The bottom shelf is mostly books that I inherited from the aforementioned cousin Ruth -- with a little Rockwell Kent and Lynd Ward of my own mixed in.
One of the My Book House volumes -- these are chock full of great stories and illustrations.

I love Rockwell Kent's art and writing. N by E is a particular favorite.

Arthur Szyk illustrated edition of the The Book of Job, followed by an interior illustration. Gee -- why didn't I photograph The Book of Ruth, considering...?

A Lynd Ward illustration from Beowulf -- one of cousin Ruth's books.

And finally, from on top of the bookcase -- and hidden by the beer bottle in the pic of that above -- is a Tintin tin! And if there's anything more fun to say than "Tintin tin," I want to know what it is! Much more Tintin in a future installment of this tour.

That's it for Part Two of the studio tour. Part Three coming soon!

Studio Tour Part One: Batman

Our recent move from the Twin Cities to the Kansas City area gave me the opportunity to reorganize my collections and assemble a new studio room. I thought it might be fun to tour the studio one collection at a time. For today, it's Batman.

I've been a fan of the character since I was a kid, reading the Dick Sprang/Bill Finger material in DC's "80 page Giants" and watching the Adam West TV show first run. My professional association with the character lasted more than a decade, as I inked one after another of DC's animated style Batman comics.

I started with Batman and Robin Adventures and went on to ink Gotham Adventures, Batman Beyond, Batman: the Lost Years, the SubZero adaptation, the Superman/Batman World's Finest graphic novel (Eisner Award winner!) and The Batman Strikes. I ended my run with a few issues of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. I'd hoped to get a shot at penciling and inking that particular series, but, alas, it was not to be, and I've gone on to other things.

During my time on the books, I collected quite a few Batman items -- and here's what's on display in my studio. This little bookshelf was in my bedroom when I was a kid, and it's travelled with me everywhere I've lived. It's currently holding a number of Batman figures that reflect the look of the character from the various TV cartoon-based comics that I drew. A '60s vintage "Soaky" shares the top row with a '60s ViewMaster packet.

The gem of this collection is the Aurora Plastics' Penguin model kit on the bottom shelf. It's a particularly rare piece, and I was lucky to find it. I actually found two -- still sealed in their boxes -- at a flea market in Iowa. I purchased both kits and sold the better condition of the two to a Batman collector, recouping most of my investment. I then opened the one in the slightly crushed box -- doing so while on-line with a group of fellow model kit collectors -- describing the process (and the still-present "Aurora smell") as I carefully removed the cellophane from the back of the box and inspected the like-new contents.

I'm sure some collectors will be horrified to hear than I opened this rare, sealed kit -- but I wanted to build it, darn it all! And so I did. You can see the results in the close up below. I love having this little guy on display and have no regrets about building and painting him. You can see the box, as well as a boxed Aurora Robin kit -- which I'll also build sometime -- in the next pic down.

This later edition of the Aurora Batman model is waiting for me to build it. The box art, often credited to Neal Adams is actually by Dick Giordano. I do have a build up of the first issue of the kit, waiting to be restored -- but don't have the box (though I did own it as a kid). One of these days I'll add that '60s box to my collection -- as I love the iconic Murphy Anderson illustration and the bright yellow background on the thing!

This batch of Batman-related books contains a few foreign editions of my own work -- and a number of books in which I've collected autographs of other Batman creators. The bookends are a Warner Brothers Store Two-Face set. Pee-Wee Herman's Billy Baloney and the Famous Monsters paperbacks are a little out of place here -- but that's just where they landed.

An autographed photo of Adam West hangs on the wall above the two Eisner Awards I have, thanks to my work on the Batman books.

I also collected signed pics of some of the other Batman TV show actors -- some in person (Adam West, Frank Gorshin, Yvonne Craig) -- others were gotten for me by friends.

This is a Shelly Moldoff splash page recreation. I purchased this directly from Shelly some years back. One of the treats of working on Batman was getting to know other Batman artists -- as a member of a fairly exclusive club. I had lunch with Shelly at a con and he opened up and told me all sorts of stories about Bob Kane. Interesting stuff....

Below is a Brave and Bold Batman/Elongated Man page, signed to me by artist Jim Aparo and writer Mike Barr. Aparo's signature was acquired at a Chicago Con, where I had the pleasure of introducing Jim to Golden Age Batman artist Dick Sprang -- my finest fan moment. I do have a few things from Dick -- letters, prints, etc. I never could afford to get on his commission list -- but am more pleased to have counted him as a friend. Exclusive club, y'know.

So that's it for the Batman segment of my studio tour. I'll share some more of my collections soon. Now that we're fairly well settled in to our new place, I'll be able to post here more regularly again. Packing for the move turned up all sorts of interesting stuff -- some I'd forgotten about -- and I'll be showing it all here eventually. Come on back and see.

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.

VAMPIRELLA artist proof cards

I recently drew a batch of twenty-five sketch cards for Breygent's new Vampirella card set. That means I also got to do four "artist proof" cards to sell myself. Here are progressive shots of the cards as I drew them -- from pencils to inks to color. All four are up for grabs on eBay -- under the seller ID "beattylee."

I'm now drawing the artist proof cards for the Urban Legends and Shock Stories card set from Monsterwax -- and will soon be doing the same for Breygent's Project Superpowers.

Green Lantern in styrene

We're fairly well settled into our new digs in the Kansas City area, and I'm back to work after finally getting my studio re-assembled. I'll eventually post some pics of the new workspace and my various collections on display there -- but for now, here's one of my latest projects.

This soon-to-be-released Green Lantern model kit from Moebius was designed by me, and I did the box illustration as well. The kit prototype was sculpted by Joe Laudati from my drawing. I'm thrilled with the end result -- as I wasn't even sure this pose was possible!

As this was intended to be the Silver Age Green Lantern, I leaned on Gil Kane's original design as much as possible -- the robot on the base is even a Kane-style 'bot. The box art was meant to invoke the Aurora kits of the '60s -- and I hope it'll fit in well on kit collectors' shelves next to Wonder Woman, Superboy and the others.

This is a kit that I've wanted since I was a kid -- so it was a special treat to be involved in ins creation. My thanks to Frank at Moebius for inviting me to contribute to the process.

Now that the craziness of the move has settled down, I hope to be back to posting regularly here. Please check back often to see new posts -- thanks!

Scary Monsters: Big in Kenosha! Plus: MN to MO!

Scary Monsters makes the news in Kenosha! Thanks to Dave Fuentes for bringing this to my attention.

Followers of this blog will note a lack of activity lately. That's due to life keeping me a little busier than usual. My family and I are leaving Minneapolis and moving to the Kansas City area. The past month has been a flurry of sorting, selling, packing -- and, since we're buying a house -- filling out forms, signing agreements, faxing, scanning, emailing, transferring, hoping, praying, crossing fingers, etc.

We close on the new place today and move early next week. The contents of my studio are now (mostly) packed into boxes -- and my, oh my -- do I own a LOT of books! Once we're moved in and I get Humpty Dumpty put back together again, I'll share some pics of my new work space here.

In the meantime, things are likely to be slow blog-wise. But I promise new and interesting stuff once we get settled. I have some new projects planned and will be sharing info on those as soon as I can.

I will say that I've loved living in Minneapolis, and am going to miss all my amazing friends here. But I already have some pals in KC, and it appears to have a thriving rockabilly scene -- and a big comics community. And the BBQ. Oh, the BBQ! I think I'll fit in just fine.

SCARY MONSTERS #79 -- a whole lot of vampires!

Here's an advance look at the just-finished cover for Scary Monsters #79. Created with a combo of Manga Studio and Photoshop. Get out your garlic, mirrors and crucifixes, folks -- that's a LOT of vampires!