Murry Monday

No Murry artwork today (won't make it to the studio this afternoon) but a link instead.
Did you know that there's actually a blog devoted to entirely to Paul Murry?
You can find it at: Paul Murry.
(in portugese I believe)
More artwork by Murry next monday. Promise!

Hedvigs sketchbook

Hedvigs skechbook is out now (see previous posts) and for sale on SPX at Serieteket in Stockholm.
If your not in Stockholm this weekend it will be available via mailorder from her website when she is back.
(If there are any copies left. She only made 50...)
Until then, here are some quick sketches she left on her drawing board before going to SPX. Enjoy!

Bamse

Vi har städdag idag på Egmont och då hittar man lite kul saker.
Här är en engelsk och en fransk "Bamses skola"-utgåva.
Visste ni att Bamse och hans vänner heter Bamsy, Little Frisky and Professor Shellback på engelska och Martin, Jeannot-Lapin och Tortie-Tortue på franska?




English summary:
Here's something for the Swedish readers and fans of "Bamse".
Recently found in ther archive: English and French editions of early books.
For those of you not familar with Bamse: He's the most popular Swedish comic character and his comic book sells around 100.000 copies per issue.

Patsy Jan. to July 1939 scanned.

Have just finished scanning all of the "Adventures of Patsy" strips from January to June 1939.
So if anyone has other Patsy strips to loan me you can get a CD with the raw scans from the above dates right away. :)
But before starting to scan another batch of Patsys I just have to share two panels from June 29 ,1939.
Damn, he was good!

Murry Monday Pt. III

Just returned from a Midlake concert and way too tired to blog today. But hey, its Muuuuuuuuuurry Monday!:)
For a change here are two samples of surviving Murry art. The cover to Mickey Mouse 159 and a Super Goof cover. Scans that I saved a few years back when Paul Murry artwork was really, really rare and fetched high prices.

Nowdays it seems that every collector has at least one page. Myself I've got four comic book pages and a few sketches and nude pastels. Got mine from Don Ault who met Murry in the 70's. BTW: I guess that Don is also the reason why so much 70's Murry art has survived, something wich I'm really grateful for. More on that some other day. I'm in sleep mode now... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Calling all Adv. of Patsy collectors.

Just a quick note to tell you all that I'm in the middle of scanning my collection of Mel Graff's and Charles Raab's "The Adventures of Patsy". Got several half years of the strip in various quality and looking for what I'm missing. If you got any strips that you want to loan or sell me, please let me know. (Don't have the dates I'm missing here in the studio, but drop me a mail at sekvenskonst (at) telia.com and I'll send you a list. )
The strips are scanned in high resolution and will be mounted as the sample shows. In InDesign and saved as pdfs.
Anyone who loans strips to me for this project will naturally get these pdfs.
When I get some full years scanned and mounted I'll take the pdfs to the printer and have them printed. Naturally I will make additional books for the people who has participated for the same amount I'm paying myself.
Please be aware that this is my "little hobby project" and that it takes time, time and even more time.
But anyone who wants to participate: feel free to let me know, so that we who loves this strip finally can get our runs complete! :)

PS. If you're planning to bid on Patsy strips on eBay please feel free to drop me a line. I wont bid against you if you are willing to loan me/scan the strips. But I'll fight (with a truckload of money) for the strips I'm missing. Now you have been warned.:)

"Red Race" by Alex Raymond

Here's another example of an Alex Raymond sunday page that really doesn't exist. Same here as last post: re-formatted dailies made into a "sunday".
I keep forgetting wich magazine ran this ("Teknik för alla"?) but if my memory serves me right they only ran one episode and called Rip "Red Race". Printed in black, white and RED of course...
I can't find the complete story at the moment, but could it be that Rip was a race car driver in this episode? Mayby that theme fit with the rest of magazine contents, and made them run this episode only.
An odd curiosity for the hardcore Raymond fan. And aren't we all? :)

Alex Raymond's Rip Kirby Sundays!

When I was a kid I just assumed that every newspaper strip had it's own sunday page. So when I read John Prentices "Rip Kirby" in the morning paper (Oddly named "Peter Falk" here in the 70's!) I naturally thought that there was a sunday published somewhere out there. Just my bad luck that "Borås Tidning" didn't carry it...
But, of course, there never was any "Rip Kirby" sunday page.
Or was there?

When I was around ten a friend and I found a huge stack of old weekly magazines in an abandoned house. (FamiljeJournalen from around 1957.)
And to my surprise there they were: Alex Raymonds "Rip Kirby", full pages in color!!! If you don't believe me, see for yourself:




So there were actually "Rip Kirby" sundays! How could this be?
Well, I guess that you already have figured out what I as a ten year old kid didn't get. All those beautiful color pages (Wich I tore out from the magazines and saved like a national treasure...) were re-formatted dailies.
But still, these gives us a glimpse of what could have been.
Later the weekly "Allers" picked up Rip and published it in the format you see below. Still in the form of a "sunday". They continued with Prentices version in this format well into the 60's I believe.


Watch this blog later this weekend for Alex Raymond's mystery strip: "Red Race". Never heard about it? Don't worry. Very few have. But soon you'll be the envy of your friends and colleauges with the facts you'll find about it here.
Stay tuned, as they say.

Well, blow me down...

... and call me a monkeys uncle.
Or should I say a Whiskey bottle's uncle?
After having been pregnant for between 16 and 21 years my Whiskey babes finally gave birth to some lovely sweet bottles.
If you are worried I can report that they are all healthy and fine.
But stay a way! Offissa Pupp is guarding them!


On a slightly more serious note: Tomorrow I hope to present some odd Alex Raymond artwork in glorious color!
Now I gotta finish the biiiig piece ot Kiwi cake I'm eating. And then get some more inking done.

Jonny Janck

Allan Holtz just posted some interesting examples of the Johnny Hazard "clone" Johnny Stardust over at his Stripper's Guide.
But did you know that Sweden also had it's rip-off version of Frank Robbins successful aviation strip?
Back in the early fifties Jan Ullén made "Jonny Janck" (Pronounced "Johnny Yank".) for a Swedish weekly, wich name I keep forgetting.
I only got this tearsheet marked #5/1952 on the back.

Even though is crude I just love the effort. The guy must have been a fan of Robbins artwork and really wanted to do his own take. Hey, he even made it with a panel grid so that it could be re-formatted, even though it only was published in this format...
I wonder how long it lasted.
If anyone out there got more I'd be happy to see them!

More Murry from Smiles #25

Here are three more rare Paul Murry cartoons from Smiles #25.
No pin-ups this time. Sorry. ;-)




More Murry next week. Maybe some Cheerios art, more gag cartoons or... or... some really nude nudes?
Now I know for sure that you'll be back next week. ;-)

Love Hurts - The art of Kim W Andersson

Time to make another short presentation of one of the talented artists in the Studio: Kim W Andersson.

He has been here since the studio started a few years ago and is currently working on his new series "Love Hurts". Romantic horror comics dealing with his favorite subjects, love and fear. They are inked with bold thick strokes with lots of contrasts between light and dark. Think of a mix between Duncan Fegredo and Mike Mignola with a touch of Peter Snejbjerg and you'll be pretty much spot on.
"Love Hurts" can be found in the Swedish comic book NEMI every month and is syndicated via Europa Press.
Also: His Mac and speakers also provides the soundtrack to the Studio in the afternoons. As I write we listen to Foo Fighters. I'm ever so thankful that he's got good taste when it comes to music and that his Mac is stuffed with it.


Here we can see him inking at his drawing board.


And here are a few sample pages from Love Hurts.




More can be found at his website: Lucky Death Comics presents Kim W Andersson Check it out!

For the fans of Hedvig.

Hedvig hard at work with artwork for "Bamse".

Since many of you visitors comes here via Hedvigs Deviant art pages
it's not more than fair to show you part of the Emma & Sara page that she has pencilled and that I'm inking right now. For the final artwork in gloriuos color, go get Julia #11/2007, out in a month or so.

Also:
Don't miss the beautiful Krazy Kat stuff on Arf Lovers blog!
Don't forget to bookmark that blog! It's always worth a visit.

I'll be back tomorrow with some rare and odd stuff from my archive. Check back then!

Emma & Sara #151 Pt. V

Finally!
It's fully inked. Only some touch-ups has to be done before turning it over to the colorist (Janna at Reprostugan i Värmland). Now let's put it aside and forget it. On to the next one. A cartoonist never sleeps...

Actually, I'm already busy inking the next episode that my assistant, Hedvig, has pencilled. Thankfully she's a lot faster and a helluva lot more talented than I am. And... right now she is putting the final touch to her first sketchbook. It will go to print tomorrow if everything works out as it should.

Yesterday was "Lost" evening on Channel 4 so I got no work done that evening at all. Did you know that the basic plot for the hit tv-series is lifted from a comic book story made in the 90's? Which one? Naw, I wouldn't spoil the fun letting you know the secret of the island and telling you how they can escape from it. Or maybe I should...

Emma & Sara #151 Pt. IV

Things are shaping up. After a day of headache yesterday I've actually worked today. Well, at least a little. :-)
I've begun to ink with a Winsor & Newton size 0 brush, using Talens ink.
And... my co-writer phoned me a re-write for two of the balloons, so that's why they now are crossed out.
Tomorrow I work at Egmont in the morning, so part V will probably appear on Wednesday. Check back then.

Paul Murry Monday

As promised here's the first installment of "Murry Monday". Each monday there will be "new" Paul Murry artwork here on the blog. Mainly rare cartoons fron 1950's gag magazines but also other rare stuff. All from the collection of Germund von Wowern.
The following examples are from Smiles #25:





Buck O'Rue

I also hope to present some samples from his and Dick Huemer's western strip "Buck O'Rue" soon.
It was published in American newspapers from January 15, 1951 to approximately January 1953, though noone seems to know exactly what date the strip folded. It was written by Disney veteran Dick Huemer and illustrated by later Disney comic book artist Paul Murry. The strip has been practically impossible to find since the 1950s, so now Richard Huemer, Dick Huemer's son, and longtime Murry fan Germund von Wowern are planning to reprint the complete Buck O'Rue in a single volume. However, they only have black and white proof sheets, i.e. the material that was sent out to subscribing newspapers, of ca 75% of the run. Richard and Germund are searching high and low for these last missing strips and pages, so if anybody knows where they may be accessible, please contact them at germund_vw (at) yahoo.com

The following Buck O'Rue artwork is still needed:

Daily strips: July 21, 1952 and later

1952 Sundays: Jan 20; July 13,20; Oct 7; Dec 14 and later (if they exist)

The following 1952 Sundays have been obtained as newspaper "thirds", but complete halfpage versions would be much preferred: Feb 3; May 4; June 8,15,22,29; July: 6,27; Aug 3,10,17,24
-----------------------------------------------------------

Also: Hi to the new readers in Mourrepiane (France), Lod (Israel), Houston (USA) and Vänersborg (Sweden) just to name a few. :-)
Great to have you all here!

And in case you wonder what has happened to part IV of the Emma & Sara page I can just say that I had a hangover yesterday. Didn't draw a single line. So I gotta work on it now...

Emma & Sara #151 Pt. III

The letters and borders are inked and some of the panels are more or less ready to ink now.
For those of you who wonder, this is made on a Schollenhammer 4G paper, A3 size.
(Might be tricky to find that brand nowdays.) Pencilling is made with a size 0,3 using HB leads.
Borders are inked with a Copic Multiliner 1.0 and the lettering is made with a Staedtler pigment liner 0,3.

Emma & Sara #151 Pt. II

Here's the second stage in the development of my current Emma & Sara page.
Now all of the action has been pencilled in with rough lines. Notice how I've tried to give all poses one strong line of action to make them feel moving/alive. Worst thing that can happen to a pose is that it appears to be stiff or static.
Also, and all of the dialouge has been pencilled and is redady to be inked on the original. (Never have used digital fonts. All is hand letterded and hand drawn down to the logo.)
The next step will be to ink the borders and to refinie and clean up the characters and the backgrounds so that they can be inked.

It's also great to know that so many out there are reading this blog.
I now have readers from such different places as Storsletta and Skillemo in northen Norway to Syracuse and Manteca in USA.
Keep spreading the word if you enjoy it.

PS. Right now I'm having the new "Säkert" CD on repeat here in the studio. It's one of the best new album I've heard since Håkan Hellströms debut. Makes me feel happy. :-)

Emma & Sara #151 pt.I

It's been a while since I wrote something about my own artwork and what I'm up to now. As usual it's "Emma & Sara" for the Julia magazine that occupies most of my time. Had some trouble with my new script but with the help of my co-writer Emma I managed to get past the writers block and actually get an idea down on paper.
The plan was originally to get page #151 done this easter weekend, but thats most likely not about to happen. I just work way too slow for my own good. However, for this page I'll post every step and take you through the daily development of a comic page.

This first post shows the scribbles/the script that I finished in my kitchen right after lunch today.
Since I quit early from my work at Egmont I went straight to the studio afterwards. I then started to prepare the sheet of paper that I'll draw on, like drawing all the borders and pencil all the dialouge. (Unlike some of my colleauges here in the Studio I do all my work on one sheet of paper and then erase all the graphite lines when inking is finished).
But... well... Myself, Kim and Johanna started to drink Rum and Coke instead of working, not much work has been done so far. But the day is not over yet! Stay tuned and you will see this page develop, step by step.

DISNEY ALERT!
For those of you that's here for the Disney stuff I have some good news: Germund Von Wowern has allowed me to post rare stuff from his gigantic collecction of rare artwork by Mickey Mouse artist Paul Murry. There will be pin-ups from 1950's girlie magazines and unseen/unpublished stuff. (And some nude (!!!) drawings from my own Murry archive too!)
Begining this monday every monday will be "Murry monday"! Don't miss it!

Taliaferro art?

Following the post about the Barks drawing that wasn't by Barks here's another example of art that isn't what it's supposed to be. It was sold a few years ago by Illustration House in New York. They sold this as a Donald Duck Sunday by Al Taliaferro. However, if you take a closer look you'll notice that both the date and the copyright tag is missing from the art. And if you compare this to the published version you'll notice that the lines doesn't match.
So is this a forgery? Most likely not.
I believe that this piece might have been done in the forties as a practice or a test by someone.
Maybe someone at the studio aspiering to break into the comic strip department or a freelancer having this as a sample of his talents when he applied for job. The only thing that's actually wrong with this piece is that it was sold as an authentic sunday page. Probably for a lot of bucks. I just hope the collecctor got his money back.

Do you know of any other examples like this one or the Barks piece mentioned earlier? Don't hesitate to let me know!

September

Todays recommended reading is "September" by Swedens most talented "manga" artist: Åsa Ekström.
You can find it, along with other stuff by her at her website.

Strangest Disney cover EVER?

Found this while looking through my piles of various Disney comics that has been stacked in my apartment for far too long time.
This is the Estonian Mickey Mouse weekly(?) #11 from 1998. The title obviously translates into Mickey Mouse with the text in the circle meaning "Mickey and Minnie 70!". So far so good. But then we have the shadow of the Phantom Blot and Donalds nephews cheering a red circle on a carpet and a small bowl of water. Huh? Does it make sense to you?
( Just imagine that all this must once have made sense to an editor who OK:ed this...)

I challenge you all to find a more weird Disney cover than this. Let me know what you have in the back of your closets.

Myself I've been trying to get some writing done today. Got too many ideas and loose ends for the next Emma & Sara page to tie them together. But I think I'm on the right track now. Gotta have a finished page by the end of this Easter weekend...
Don't hold your breath.

And, oh, I need to get a counter for this blog.
Anyone knows where to get one (free and simple to use) on the net?

More on the US #19 cover

As a follow up to the post about the Barks drawing that wasn't by Barks, I can add that the Scandinavian cover is yet another version.
The redrawn version pictured here was used as a cover in early 1958. (Swedish KA&C:o 10-1958.)


Notice that the dollar sign has been substituted. Wonder what happened to all those early Egmont originals.
The earliest cover I've seen the original art to is Einar Lagervalls octopus cover from early 1967. Anyone aware of any earlier Scandinavian original cover art?