Bob C Hardin

2016.07.10 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

I have had the pleasure of meeting Bob C Hardin a couple of times, each picking up a nice sketch in return.  I used to enjoy the old DC Comics war comics, especially Enemy Ace or any other story that involved World War I era biplanes. I was a Kickstarter backer of Epics  (from Marques, Hardin, Redvio and Ruiz), so when I saw an issue of Epics 2 on Hardin table and it had a biplane in battle, I had to ask for a sketch.

Bob's main focus in art is hot rods, and his story in Epics 2 takes his lead, Rat Rod Daddy's Daughter, from the Epics 1 story and puts her in a situation where she is traumatized over an ancient fighter plane piloted by the German Ace Baron Rittmeister von Kamphert attacking her father during World War II.  The cover of Epics 2 show the biplane in action against the pinned down American soldiers...

On the Eddie Rickenbacker cover Bob has drawn a different version of a battle in which Rickenbackers plane is attacking the crazed visage of von Kamphert.

Capt Eddie Rickenbacker was  a World War I ace with 26 victories, and was awarded the Medal of Honor..

signed copy of Epics 2

Mark Pignitore - Garbage Pail Kids

2016.08.27 Monsters and Robots, Somerset, NJ

Just as with Joe Simko's sketch, I was not aware of the Garbage Pail Kid that Mark had provided. When he saw the Pinocchio stamp he said he could draw something for that.  I had no idea the image had been created by Brent Engstrom on the card Lyin' Ryan

Again my lack of knowledge of the characters, made seeing this sketch a first time experience. I was thrilled with the sketch. My comment was "I didn't think I would find a use for the Pinocchio first day cover.." and I was thrilled with the outcome. I don't usually like going to an artist without knowledge of their background, but I found this experience made the discovery of the design more exciting...

Mark Pignitore has done over 100 Garbage Pail Kids illustrations, as well as sketch cards and illustrations for Mars Attacks, The Walking Dead, Adventure Time, Wacky Packages, Hollywood Zombies, and Cereal Killers.  He has also painted the cover for IDW's GPK comic book...

The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi, was published in 1883. Several countries have honored Collodi and his creation on postage stamps. Although many of the stamps issued are done so for the Disney version of the story, I have included some of my favorite non-Disney Pinocchio stamps..

Italy - 1954 -- Uruguay - 1981 -- San Marino - 1990

Joe Simko - Garbage Pail Kids

2016.08.27 Monsters and Robots, Somerset, NJ

I attended the Monsters and Robots show to obtain a few sketches from the Garbage Pail Kids' artists that were going to be in attendance... They were coming from the GPK Convention held in Las Vegas. Since I am not a collector of GPK, but an aware of the product I thought it would be great to pick up a few sketches...

As soon as I made my request of Joe Simko, he knew immediately what he was going to do. Since I do not know all of the characters, the sketch he provided of Haley's Vomit was a great surprise an pleasant surprise...

Joe Simko has contributed to Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky Packages. He is the author illustrator of the book Sweet Rot as well as creator of his own line of trading cards "Cereal Killers"
Simko also designs CD covers and posters for Rock bands...

The original concept of Haley's Vomit (also known as Inter Stella) card #318 from the 8th series, 1987, was created by Tom Bunk...

Just wanted to show 2 recent purchases, although not sketches, that have a space theme...

FDC Cover Center 1962 Christmas issue with Santa riding a rocket to the Moon. I still appreciate the simple 2 color design over the more modern full color all-over printed covers from today that hid the stamp and postmark. 

Georges Melies, was honored by France in  1961. Melies was a movie maker during the silent film age. One of his films was "A Trip to the Moon" 1902, which had strange and surreal imagery, most notably the rocket crashing into the eye of the moon..

This image was also used on a different version of the GPK's Haley Comet..

Melies vision is the primary inspiration behind the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Sleznik, published in 2007 and the movie adaptation Hugo, 2011. Both excellent...

Rags Morales - Batman

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Since 1989 Morales has trudged his way through the mean streets and jungles of suburban New Jersey to entertain the comicbookin' masses and tickle them into nerdgasms...

Count me as having a nerdgasm after seeing this pencil sketch of Batman. .. Rags is a graduate of the Kubert School.  He has since written for Acton Comics, provided pencils for Action Comics, Adventures of Superman, Archer & Armstrong, Batman Confidential, Black Condor, Blackest night, Bloodshot, Dungeons and Dragons, Hawkman, Sgt, Rock, First Wave, Green Lantern, and many other titles. He has inked Action Comics, Turok Dinosaur Hunter, New Avengers, Green Lantern, JSA Secret Files and many others..

Cover artist for Action Comics, Archer & Armstrong, Black Condor, Captain America, Winter Soldier, Superman, Nightwing, Larfleeze, Justice League and many others...

Morales has received awards, which include:
2004 Wizard Fan Award favorite mini-series: Identity Crisis
2005 Wizard Fan Award favorite one-shot: Countdown to Infinite Crisis
2004 Best mini-series Diamond Publishing: Identity Crisis
1977-78 St. Theresa Little League All-Star Team

Creees - Batman

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Creees, aka Hyungsun Lee, is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts, NYC.  Creees started honing his skills at age 3, growing up drawing characters form Dragonball Z and Batman. Creees draws because he feels it keeps him alive...

Creees is inspired by the talents of Jim Lee, Kenneth Rocafort, Klaus Janson (SVA), Matteo Scalera and Sean Murphy...

CreesArt - check out his Marvel X Pokemon art on Phoenix X Ho-oh, as well as his other Marvel and DC - Pokemon pieces...

Howie Noel - Louie the Lilac

2016.08.27 Monsters and Robots, Somerset, NJ

When I picked up this envelope, I knew I wanted to get a sketch of Milton Berle as Louie the Lilac, from the Batman TV series. I ran into an old friend Nick Mockoviac when I entered the Monsters and Robots show. I told him I was looking for the right person to provide a character sketch. He pointed to Howie Noel, whose booth we were standing in front of. Noel provided an excellent rendition of the Berle character.

The Batman TV series ran from 1966 - 1968, featuring many top names in villainous roles created just for the show. Louie the Lilac appeared in 1967, having cornered the flower market in Gotham, he planned on taking over the "flower generation"..  Milton Berle is considered the first major American TV star and was affectionately known as "Uncle Miltie"..

Berle stamp was part of a series honoring early stars of television. Berle starred in the Texaco Star Theatre (1948-1955)..

Howie Noel is an illustrator-caricturist, as well as the creator of the comic Tara Normal, Mr Scootles and Vincent: The Painter of Death. A graduate of Pratt Institute, Noel is the official cartoonist of TAPS Paramagazine...

Jenaro Pagan - Phantom of the Opera

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Jenaro Pagan has been an illustrator for over fifteen years, providing work for Headlocked Comics and Arcana Comics (colorist for Koni Konfidential and A Cat Named Haiku)..

Excellent version of the Phantom of the Opera...

Jenaro Pagan homepage

Sian Mandrake - Wolfman (Universal Monsters)

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Sian Mandrake is the daughter of Tom Mandrake and Jan Duursema, and is following in the family footsteps. A graduate of the Kubert school, Sian has done storyboards for the Indie movie Zombie Prom, Mars Attacks! sketch cards, the graphic novel Creepsville, as a colorist on John Carpenter's Asylum, X-Files, Convergence: Suicide Squad.

Sian is working on Chuck Dixon's "7 Deadly Sinners" and with Area 52 Studio as an artist, colorist and creator...

Sian has also worked as a colorist on Philip Lim's book "Kill the Night"...

On her Tumblr page Sian states " I draw lots of cats, vampires and bikers"... I guess it was no surprise she picked the Wolfman cover to draw her sketch...

Jack Mandrake - Captain America

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Jack Mandrake, is a comic artist on the rise.. The son of Tom Mandrake and Jan Duursema, brother of Sian Mandrake.. Jack attended his first comic convention as an artist, getting a feel for the family business..

Jack is currently in school to help fine tune his artistic skills. I feel fortunate to be in possession of Jack's first convention commission, Captain America.

Tom Mandrake - Firestorm

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Tom Mandrake is a comic book artist, who regularly collaborates with writer John Ostrander. Together they have worked on Grimjack (First Comics), Firestorm, the Spectre and Martian Manhunter (DC Comics) and are currently funding Kros: Hallowed Ground through Indiegogo, the story of Vampire Hunter Major Kros who wages war against Vampires at the Battle of Gettysburg...

Mandrake has worked on titles for DC Comics including Sgt. Rock, New Mutants, Batman, Mister Terrific, Justice League of America, Suicide Squad, Weird War Tales and many other titles...

For Marvel Comics, Mandrake worked on Exiles, GI joe, Star Wars, Punisher, Thor, X-Men and others...

The character of Firestorm, the Nuclear Man, was first created Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom in 1978. The character was created when a high school student and a Nobel-Prize winning physicist were caught in a nuclear accident, fusing them into Firestorm.. In 1986 Ostrander took over the duties of writing the series, changing the character into and Tom Mandrake would create a new look to match the change...

The Enrico Fermi first day cover was chosen for this sketch, because Fermi is created with the world's first nuclear reactor the Chicago Pile-1. He is known as the architect of the nuclear age, and was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity..

Jan Duursema - Aayla Secura

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Jan Duursema is an artist known for her work on Star Wars, for which she created the characters Denin and Vila from Naldar, the Twi'lek Jedi Aayla Secura and the Kiffar Jedi Quinlan Vos.  However her work goes far beyond the Star Wars Universe. 

Duursema's first published work appeared in Heavy Metal in July 1979, followed by Sgt. Rock art for DC Comics.   With writer Paul Kupperberg she co-created the character Arion, who first appeared in The Warlord #55, March 1982. The character of Arion would eventually have his own book Arion, Lord of Atlantis, which ran from 1982 - 1985...

Star Wars #92 from Marvel Comics, featured Duurema's first work for the franchise, which continued through the Dark Horse titles, including Star Wars: Darth Maul mini-series, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi..

Other titles that feature Duursema's work include: the Outsiders, Saga of the Swamp Thing, Hawkworld, Detective Comics, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek, X-Men, X-Factor, Spider-Man Unlimited, Elric and many others....

Aayla Secura is a Twi'lek Jedi appearing in Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars (TV series)...

Duursema is currently working on Hexar Dusk with John Ostrander, which is being funded through Indiegogo!!!

Josephine Lee - Bear Hug!

2016.07.09 Garden State Comic Fest, Morristown, NJ

Josephine Lee studied animation at Cal Arts for two years before obtaining her degree in interior design at SVA.

From her various sites on Twitch, instagram and from her website quirkytails.com:

"I draw, I doodle, I daydream. I eat, I laugh, I enjoy life.

I love designing an I love drawing

I decided it's ok for me to have everything I want. So, it's ok for me to design but still pursue art and I shall.

I shall draw, draw and draw...."

I was taken by the art Ms Lee presented at her table. Bight red ringed cheeks on animals. I asked for a sketch and Ms Lee looked through my selection of animal related first day covers. She chose the Polar Bear, because her friend loved polar bears. There is no better reason than this...

Check out her site at twitch, website, look for the Unicorn Man and Ox and the Village, as well as her other wonderful animals...

Olympics

1972 Winter Olympics...Eunice Alter JONAL ArtCovers...Although not a comic related cover, I would like to share a hand-painted cover from my collection...the 1972 Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo, Japan, the medallion commemorates the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics and the cachet features a rendering of a Greek athlete from the original Greek Olympiad...

JONAL ArtCovers were created by artist Eunice Alter and Jack Stuckart, editor of the newsletter SPAN, in the early 1970s. JONAL ArtCovers is an exceptional example of hand-painted PNC (philatelic and numismatic) first day cover. Each cover is researched and designed so that the coin, stamp and illustration are inter-related and celebrate an important event or person.

Mrs. Alter has had her covers exhibited at the Cardinal Spellman Philatelic Library, and her tribute to Arthur Fiedler is part of the permanent Arthur Fiedler Exhibit at the Boston Statehood Library...

After watching the Flash TV series, I had the What if? thought of a race between Flash, Quicksilver and Golden Age Flash.  I decided to adapt that idea to the above Olympics first day cover from 2004...