Ink and destroy

Scene:
Tuesday evening in the studio. It's dark and only one lamp is burning. The one next to Joakim's drawingboard. Rain and thunder outside the window. Joakim is alone in the studio and looks through a bunch of unfinished drawings.

– Hmm... a nice little rough. Maybe I should finish it...


– Well, well... I think this actually can be a nifty piece when finished. Let's get a good brush...


– And now, let's destroy it with lots of shading!

Sigh... I should have put the brush aside before I started to clutter it up.
Well, done is done. I probably won't make the same mistake again.
Yeah, right...


The rain is still pouring down here in Malmö. Still alone in a dark studio in the Mazetti house. My colleauges were smart enough to leave before the rain. Listening to the radio and surfing the net. Police sirens from the street. More rain.

Realized today that Lina Neidenstam probably is one of the best new comic artists we got here in Sweden. Certainly one of the funniest. I'll be first in line when her Zelda album is released this autumn. Go check out her blog: Lina kan rita fint.

Well, I should probably head home for some food. And Lost! There's a new episode airing today! Must see!

/Joakim.

More E. Simms Campbell

Flipped through an old Esquire cartoon album some days ago. Found some really nice E. Simms Campbell art in it. Not as rare as the previous Campbell art I have posted, but still...




The bathtub scene reminds me of a drawing by Alex Toth. (Maybe it was published in Kitchens book or one of Auads collections.) I'll see if I can find it and post it here for you to compare.

Me, me, me

My girlfriend usually complains that there are too many pics of old illustrations and scans of old newspaper comics on my blog, and too little about me and my own artwork.
Well... I found some old newspaper articles about me and decided to post them on the blog. They are all in Swedish and I hope the journalists don't mind me posting them here. (If not, I'll remove them ASAP.)
The first one is from 2006. I was interviewed during the Gothenburg bookfair and while I wanted to talk about my own comics there's a lot of talk about Bamse. (The childrens comic book I work as an editor for.)
Nowdays I'm not allowed to talk to any journalist about my work on Bamse.
But that's another story...





PS. A summary about myself for those interested can be found HERE. And if you use the "My artwork" label you can find some drawings I've done...

Earl Oliver Hurst 1946 - part III

And here are the final Hurst pages. I hope at least someone interested in classic illustration enjoyed them. :)

Earl Oliver Hurst originals

Before continuing with the two final pages by Hurst from the Forty Illustrators-book I want to share my original Hurst art with you.

The first time I saw a Hurst piece was on Shane Glines old website. (This must have been 8-9 years ago or so. Shanes site was also the place where I saw the artwork of Russell Patterson for the first time. Both artists blew me away. And so did the artwork of Shane himself I must add. Check out his cartoonretro.com if you havn't already) Soon thereafter I purchased an original Collier's color preliminary on eBay and quickly bought two more from the same seller.



I havn't been able to track down any finished version of the yellow one. (This prelim. was published in the "Art of" book in 2005.) But the one with the couple painting the ship was made into a finished cover painting. Never seen it in print but the original was sold by Illustration House long ago.

My fourth original Hurst is this Saturday Home Magazine cover painting that I bought from Shane. It should be noted that the signature to the left is not made by Hurst himself. A part of the original signature is visible in the right bottom corner of the original art. I guess this change was made before the cover was printed so that he signature wouldn't be cropped on the printed cover.

To end this post is a Hurst prelim that I don't own myself.

This was printed on a flyer from Stuart NG books many years ago. (I hope the owner don't mind me posting it here.) It looks like it might be from the same session as my yellow cover. In that case Hurst might have been toying around with the title "A Great Catch". But that's just a guess.

Earl Oliver Hurst 1946 - part II

Here are two more pages. The rest will follow this weekend.


It's early morning here in Sweden and I'm soon off to work. Actually I should be on my way now...

Earl Oliver Hurst 1946 - part I

Here are the first three pages of the Earl Oliver Hurst entry in "Forty Illustrators and how they Work" by Ernest W. Watson from 1946.
The rest will follow soon!:)

Kalle Anka & C:o 1938 (!)

If you are a Swede you are familiar with the classic Kalle Anka & C:o (Donald Duck & Co.) logotype that appeared on the very first issue in September 1948. If you havn't seen it, this is what it looked like:

Now, Thomas Storn at Svenskt Seriearkiv (Swedish Comic Archive) made a find some time ago. A theatrical ad from December 1938. Ten years before the first issue of KA & C:o but with a very, very similar logo!!!


Anyone seen an earlier version or knows the history behind it? Anyone seen it used between 1939-1948? Please let me know!

And fans of Fethry Duck, Al Hubbard and Dick Kinney shouldn't miss David Gersteins post on the first Fethry story "The Health Nut". There are some rare script pages by Kinney like the one below to be found there.:) Go check it out!

Floyd Gottfredson dailies 1942

Some pure gold from 1942. The introduction to "The Black Crow Mystery" by Floyd Gottfredson, Dick Shaw and Bill Wright.
Just see how smooth the action lines flows and how well posed the characters are.
Download and save for inspiration. :)




PS. See previous entries on Gottfredson (And the uncut version of the Black Crow Mystery!) by using the Labels function.

Bamses äventyr #21

The new issue of "Bamses äventyr" is in the stores now.
And it's got a cover by Gerben Valkema!
Gerben is mostly known for his covers to the Dutch Donald Duck weekly and the comic strip Elsje.
I'm happy that he agreed to take a break in his busy schedule to do this cover for us! :)

/Joakim.

91:an on the cover

Here in Sweden one of the most popular of the "traditional" comic characters is "91:an". A Swedish solider that debuted in 1932. At first only as a weekly page in the magazine "Allt för Alla" and when that folded the page moved to another magazine: "Levande Livet". But since 1956 he's got his own comic book.

Here are two rare examples of covers from "Levande Livet" featuring 91:an. The first one is from 1945 and in addition to the cover I've also scanned the competition that ran in that issue. Artwork by the creator of 91:an: Rudolf Petersson.


The second cover is from 1957. In addition to 91:an we also see Åsa-Nisse on this Easter cover. Åsa-Nisse is also one of those old Swedish comic characters that has survived at least 50 years, and is still beeing produced today. The cover artist is Gösta Gummesson.

The last issue of BAMSE

This issue will be the last issue of BAMSE published in Norway. So if you live in Norway you better grab a copy. Though it will still be published in Sweden and in Finland every three weeks. (In case you don't know I work as an editor at the Swedish BAMSE office where stories are beeing produced. ) Times are tough in the comics biz. But I hope they will get better... I really do...

Carl Barks tablet

[Edit: The image is, of course, taken from the Golden Helmet cover. Thanks, Francesco! I've probably seen that cover so many times I've become "blind" to it. You see, I have a copy of it on my fridge... This is really embarrasing... :)]
I recently bought this Mickey Mouse club drawing tablet on eBay. The cover is by Carl Barks and the image of Donald Duck looks familar, but I just can't pin-point where I've seen it before. Maybe as a logo for Taliaferro DD strips reprinted in WDC?

Any Donaldist out there who knows wich story this image is taken from?
Or was this a drawing made especially for this tablet and later re-used in WDC as a logo for the Taliaferro strips?

Now I just gotta draw some neat ducks in that tablet... ;)

Random roughs etc

Some random sketches and a pen and ink drawing done for the drawing jam over at drawingboard.org

Dixie Dugan 1932 - samples

Thanks to Fortunato I now know that a lot of Dixie Dugans adventures can be found here. Unfortunately they seem to be missing most of the sept 1932 strips...
But still, it's a great place if you want to read the strip.
Just to show you some samples of Dixie Dugan (if you havn't seen the strip before) here are a few promotional pieces I downloaded from the site and some dailies from sept and october 1932. Enjoy!











And here's one of my original Dixie Dugan dailies that I posted on this blog in 2007.
(This one is from Sept 15 and the other I got is from Sept 8.)

PS. This is post #500 since I started this blog. I'm happy that so many people from all over the world are visiting it. Thanks!

Working on the Ba-Ba book

Today I'm working on the compilation of the Ba-Ba book that is scheduled for a september release. All the original dailies are scanned and I'm now trying to sort through the supplementary bonus material. Got loads of clipped strips and Rinaldo's sketchbooks, foreign publications etc.
It takes time but it's fun to do. Just to give you a glimpse of it here are a few photos of what's on my living room table. :)