Visions: the Art of Arthur Suydam

Visions: The Art of Arthur Suydam
Dark Horse Books, February 1994

'Visions' (128 pp) is a sturdy chunk of an art book, measuring 12 " x 12" and printing on quality paper stock.

 [It's too big to fit on my scanner bed, so I can only provide excerpts of its pages]

If you were a dedicated Heavy Metal reader during its early years (i.e. 1977 - 1980), then you know that Arthur Suydam (pr. Soo-DAM) was an integral part of the artistic landscape of that magazine. Strips like 'Food for the Children', 'Lulea', and 'Mama's Place' remain as memorable nowadays as they did back then.

During the 80s, Suydam's contributions expanded to Epic Illustrated and its comic book line, where he published his 'Cholly and Flytrap' series. Suydam also contributed to Neal Adam's Continuity Comics.

Starting in the early 90s, Suydam became a standout cover artist for a variety of publishers, among them Dark Horse comics, whose series 'Aliens: Genocide' featured dramatic color paintings by Suydam. 

On into the 2000s, Suydam became associated with the covers for the best-selling Marvel Zombies imprint. He is a major draw at comics conventions, although some of his appearances at these functions have elicited controversy from other presenters..........?! Not being an attendee at Comic Cons myself, and thus not entirely understanding the atmosphere at such places, I refrain from interjecting any editorial comments of my own.

'Visions' Suydam's artwork up till 1992. Its four chapters cover Paintings, Children's Books, Drawings, and Comics.

'Paintings' provides color reproductions of Suydam's art for the Dark Horse 'Aliens: Genocide' and 'Aliens 3' series, as well as covers he produced for Continuity Comics and DC.

'Children's Books' deals with color and black and white illustrations Suydam was commissioned to create in 1988 for editions of The Wind in the Willows and Brer Rabbit by Kipling Press. (While the Brer Rabbit book apparently was published, I had difficulty finding a record of The Wind in the Willows book ever being issued).

The chapter on 'Drawings' is the briefest in the book and offers up some pen-and-ink studies of barbarians and nubile women.

The final chapter, 'Comics', is the best in the book, providing full-page and half-page reproductions of selected panels from Suydam's work on 'Mudwogs' and 'Cholly and Flytrap'. The meticulous craftsmanship that defines Suydam's approach to illustration is evident when looking at these enlarged panels.

The only weakness in 'Visions: The Art of Arthur Suydam' is the narrative, written by Franz Henkel. While this narrative does offer some small bits of information about when and where the presented artwork appeared, most of it consists of pretentious exposition, using a prose style better suited to academic journals than an art book. 

For example, in the text below, second-to-last sentence, Henkel uses the word 'bricoleur'; according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, this word is:

one who putters about, from the French bricoler

Another weakness of 'Visions' is that it doesn't provide any information about Suydam's technique. Usually an art overview of this type gives at least some details about how the artist creates his compositions. Whether the absence of such information in 'Visions' is the result of a decision by Suydam to keep his artistic techniques to himself, or a decision by the book's creators to avoid any mention of techniques, is unclear.  

[I should mention the other Suydam art book that has been published to date: The Fantastic Art of Arthur Suydam, released by Vanguard in 2005. I haven't read this book, but it gets mixed reviews at amazon.]

Summing up, whether you are a Suydam fan, or someone who appreciates modern American illustration, then 'Visions: The Art of Arthur Suydam' may be worth picking up. The book's large format and high quality reproductions are definite pluses, as well as the fact that used copies in good condition are available for under $20.

Book Review: Damnation Alley

Book Review: 'Damnation Alley' by Roger Zelazny

5 / 5 Stars

‘Damnation Alley’ first appeared in 1967 in Galaxy digest as a novella; Zelazny later expanded it into a novel for publication in 1969. This Berkley Books paperback (157 pp), with a cover illustration by Paul Lehr, was released in June, 1970.

I remember reading the novel back when it first came out and finding it something of a novelty…..and a welcome novelty, at that. For in 1970 the New Wave movement was well emplaced in sf, and straightforward adventure novels like ‘Damnation Alley’ were rare.

The novel was of course made into a 1977 movie which is not regarded as one of the finest moments in sf cinema. But 47 years after it was first published, the novel still is engaging and readable.

The plot is straightforward: 100 years or so following World War Three, most of the interior of the USA is a wasteland populated by mutated animals – including gila monsters the size of small trucks. Zones of radiation left from nuke detonations mean certain death for those who lack the necessary shielding. The atmosphere has been altered, and storms of lethal ferocity regularly scour the landscapes, rendering air travel impossible.

An outbreak of bubonic plague in Boston threatens to depopulate the entire city; the only hope of succor is the depots of ‘Haffikine antiserum’ in the possession of Los Angeles. An ex-Hells Angel and ex-felon, with the appropriate name of Hell Tanner, is offered a deal: a Pardon for all of his offences, provided he delivers the antiserum to Boston – by driving across the country on the route known as Damnation Alley.

No one ever has made the complete Alley drive and survived. But Tanner is equipped with the latest in technology: a Super Car with eight all-terrain wheels, automated viewscreens, and a pleasing arsenal of rockets, machine guns, and flamethrowers.

Hell Tanner sets out on the Alley run…….but in case he decides to change his mind and break for freedom rather than Boston, two other cars are travelling right behind him……….with orders to kill Tanner the moment he tries to deviate from his mission…..

Although Zelazny may have considered ‘Damnation Alley’ as a less ‘artistic’ novel than his other works of the time, looking back on it from nearly 50 years later, it arguably broke new ground in the adventure novel genre. Its use of an antihero represents a break from the standard sf traditions of the time. The setting of a diseased and blasted landscape, filled with perpetual dangers, remains imaginative. 

Zelazny’s openly cynical approach to the aftermath of the Apocalypse, one that refuses to adopt the standard humanistic approach of self-salvation arising from the ashes, was influential in sci-fi culture. For example, in 1978, 2000 AD magazine ran a lengthy Judge Dredd story, 'The Cursed Earth', that was heavily influenced by 'Damnation', although it worked in passages of mordant humor that quite were lacking in Zelazny's novel. 

That’s not to say that ‘Damnation’ is a perfect novel. Zelazny couldn’t quite resist the urge to insert several New Wave prose segments into his novel. These take the form of prose poems, some of which are two pages on length, and are barely coherent. I can’t imagine any modern-day readers responding well to these affectations.

Still, when all is said and done, in my opinion, ‘Damnation Alley’ remains one of the best sf novels to be published in the 1960s, and, along with Jack of Shadows, one of Zelazny’s better works.

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time
edited by David Larkin
Bantam/Peacock Press, September 1976

'Once Upon A Time' was published in September 1976 by Bantam Books under its Peacock Press imprint, which specialized in trade paperbacks devoted to art and illustration. The editor of the Peacock Press was David Larkin. 

Although Bantam discontinued the Peacock Press line in 1977, Larkin had continued success in working with other publishers, releasing a number of well-received illustrated fantasy books such as Faeries (1978), Giants (1980) and Castles (1984).

The Forgotten Temple by Alan Lee

'Once Upon A Time' is a collection of 44 plates, all composed from 1975 - 1976, on fantasy and folklore themes. Most of the featured artists are British, and, with the exception of Ian Miller, most of them were not well known outside their field.

Of all the illustrations in the book, only Pauline Ellisons' paintings for the Bantam Book paperback editions of Leguin's A Wizard of Earthsea are likely to be recognized by modern readers.

Earthsea Trilogy (panel) by Pauline Ellison

To be fair, while most of the entries in 'Once Upon A Time' have the simplistic style associated with illustrations for children's books (or in some cases imitate the styles of 19th century artists such as Arthur Rackham), in 1976, children's books were the only real market for what we now consider 'fantasy' art.

Daffy Daggles by Chris McEwan

It's also important to remember that back in the mid 70s, abstract art dominated the curricula at art schools. Realistic art, including illustration, was considered outmoded, and few (if any) faculty were willing to provide instruction in the subject. Those students who sought training in realistic art often had to fend for themselves; when it came to trying to earn a living providing such art to commercial markets, the situation was even more difficult.

The Sword of Thrac (unpublished illustration) by Brian Froud

Nowadays, fantasy and sf fans take for granted that they can walk into any Barnes and Noble and see significant shelf space set aside for art collections such as the Spectrum series. But fifty years ago, back in 1976, you were lucky if your local Waldenbooks or Coles or Brentanos carried a Tolkien calendar or two......and maybe a Frank Frazetta calendar, too......and that was pretty much it for fantasy art books.

Lord of the Dragons (unpublished illustration) by Frank Bellamy

Summing up,'Once Upon A Time' is best regarded as a pioneering effort to bring fantasy art out of its status as a children's medium, and into some degree of acceptance as a legitimate artistic endeavor in its own right. By offering the public a reasonably priced collection of genre art, it paved the way for the success the field enjoys today.

The Dreaded Bombax Bird by Wayne Anderson

Painting for The Witch's Hat by Tony Meeuwissen

Painting for The Witch's Hat by Tony Meeuwissen

The Weapon by Pepe Moreno

The Weapon
By Pepe Moreno
Epic Illustrated (Marvel) February 1982

An effort at a new means of chemical warfare goes awry in this offbeat comic from Pepe Moreno.

Book Review: The Bone Forest

Book Review: 'The Bone Forest' by Robert Holdstock

3 / 5 Stars

‘The Bone Forest’ (247 pp) was published by Avon Books in September 1992. The cover art is by Tom Canty.

Other than the title novelette, the stories in this collection were first published in magazines and digests over the interval from 1976 – 1989.

All of the stories deal with Holdstock’s major literary theme, one in which the religious and sociocultural foundations of the Paleolithic tribes residing in prehistoric Britain are perceptible to those modern-day individuals blessed - if that's the right word - with the proper psychic temperament. Proximity to patches of primeval woodlands – such as Mythago Wood - assists in recovering these deeply submerged ancestral memories.

My summaries of the contents:

The Bone Forest: this is a prequel to Holdstock’s 1984 novel ‘Mythago Wood.’ It is set in 1935, at Oak Lodge, the house adjacent to Ryhope Wood (the ‘Mythago Wood’ of the novel). The lead character is George Huxley, head of the household and father to two sons: Steven Huxley (the protagonist of ‘Mythago Wood’) and Christian Huxley. George Huxley has been investigating Ryhope Wood and its strange character; in so doing, he compromises the power of a woodland entity, with disturbing consequences.

Holdstock’s work often suffers from over-writing, and this novelette is particularly afflicted – the plot simply gets muddier with each succeeding chapter, and the narrative’s resolution is contrived and unconvincing. But it does stay true to the sensibility of how life was lived in the forests of ancient Britain, and in so doing will call to mind the TV show ‘Naked and Afraid’ and its sweaty, grubby, dirty, thorn-punctured, bug-bitten channeling of Paleolithic-era survival.

Thorn: in a medieval-era Welsh village, a mason named Thomas Wyatt is recruited by an ancient forest spirit, and directed to desecrate a Christian church. This tale effectively mingles horror and fantasy.

The Shapechanger: in a village in Britain in 731 AD, a shaman must deal with ghosts inhabiting a nearby ruin; there is a psychic connection with a young boy in modern Britain.

The Boy Who Jumped the Rapids: in prehistoric Britain, a young boy befriends a stranger who carries an enigmatic totem.

Time of the Tree: abstract tale of a man who psychically recapitulates the Post-Ice Age natural history of Britain.

Magic Man: a ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’ -style tale with an undertone of horror. One-Eye the painter discovers that the events he draws on the wall of his cave can take on a strange life of their own.

Scarrowfell: in a modern British village, preparations are underway for the yearly festival. Ginny, a young orphan, discovers some unsettling truths about the paganism that lies beneath the Christian veneer of the festival rites.

The Time Beyond Age: Martin and Yvonne are the subjects of an unusual experiment: they are to have their lifespans accelerated, and be raised in a sterile environment, to see how old humans actually can become when environmental hazards are eliminated. The premise is interesting, but the story is mainly an exploration of the psychological and emotional responses among the observing scientists, and suffers from an inconclusive ending.

Summing up, if you are a fan of Holdstock’s deliberately-paced writing style, and his focus on the exploration of ‘inner space’, then ‘The Bone Forest’ is worth getting. Those wanting less introspection and more action will probably find it unrewarding.

Iron Man: Crash

Iron Man: Crash
by Mike Saenz and Bill Bates
Marvel Comics Graphic Novel, 1988

'Iron Man: Crash' (72 pp) was published as a Marvel Graphic Novel in 1988. Along with the 65 pp graphic novel, there is a 7 page afterward featuring an essay from author Saenz, and descriptions of the computing procedures and software used to create the comic. 

Mike Saenz introduced the first computer-drawn comic book, the black and white Shatter, in February 1985 for First Comics. Shatter was composed using a MacIntosh PC. With the advent of the Mac II in 1987, Saenz was interested in using it to compose a more elaborate work, particularly in terms of deploying a full range of color, and arranged with Marvel editor Archie Goodwin to create 'Iron Man: Crash'.

'Crash' is set late in the 20th century. Tony Stark is 74 years old, but maintains a youthful physiology and appearance thanks to a regimen of anti-aging drugs. Stark Industries remains one of the world's top technology companies, and a major player in the international arms trade. 

Tony Stark intends to market his latest 'Iron Man' style technology - a sophisticated armor suite called the SAV - for use in industrial applications. Among the potential licensees is a Japanese conglomerate called ESON; Stark's decision to sell the SAV technology to ESON is not well received by Nick Fury, still the driving force at SHIELD, and a man wary of giving the Japanese an advantage in the highly competitive global technology market.

Stark's liberal stance is tested when, on a business trip to Japan to negotiate with ESON executives, he is attacked by unknown assailants.

Rather than taking Nick Fury's advice and flee Japan, Tony Stark decides that he will investigate the attack on his own - as Iron Man. And his newest suit of armor is more than a fighting machine......it possesses an array of devices that allow Stark access to the unique realm of Cyberspace......... 

'Iron Man: Crash' is one of the projects that sounded good in the planning, but failed in the execution. 

Even by the standards of the time, the artwork not very impressive. Most of the content of the novel was composed using the Mac II's graphics software (QuickDraw) and is necessarily low-res. 

A few panels feature more high-res imagery composed using Adobe Illustrator, as well as some CAD images of the Heli-carrier and vertibirds composed using Pro 3D. Regardless of the method used to draw the images, they all have a static, awkward quality that translates rather poorly into the inherently dynamic format of the comic book. 

A major drawback to 'Crash' is Saenz's writing. Many panels in the first part of the book are crammed with strings of pretentious 'tech' gobbledygook that's a chore to wade through.

The essay on 'The Making of Crash' that Saenz provides in the book's afterward also suffers from being less about informing the reader of the creative process and more about Saenz positioning himself as a sort of Tech Guru to the ignorant masses.

Given that Saenz' other major PC project during the mid-80s was the game MacPlaymate, which let the user place a Hand Icon onto certain regions of the anatomy of a rasterized drawing of a reclining nude woman (I'm not making this up - see screenshot below), this attitude seems more than a little pompous........

(For another review of 'Crash', see this link.)

The verdict ? 'Iron Man: Crash' is best regarded as an artifact from the pop culture of the late 80s, rather than a groundbreaking addition to the comic book / graphic novel canon. 

The PC-generated graphic novel 'Batman: Digital Justice', which was authored by Pepe Moreno, and came out in 1990, is better example of what artists were capable of doing at the dawn of the digital comics era.

New York 1999

New York 1999
cover art by Giuseppe Festino

This 1983 German paperback version of Make Room ! Make Room ! by Harry Harrison features one of the more striking cover illustrations I've yet seen for the novel.

Book Review: Rememory

Book Review: 'Rememory' by John Betancourt

3 / 5 Stars

‘Rememory’ (197 pp) was published in October, 1990 by Questar / Popular Library. The striking cover illustration is by Paul Youll.

[John Gregory Betancourt first began publishing sf novels in the 1980s; since the early 90s he has focused on writing series novels for the Star Trek, Hercules, and Amber licensed properties, among others.]

‘Rememory’ is a second-generation cyberpunk novel, one which uses many of the tropes of the initial William Gibson novels, as well as the movie ‘Bladerunner’. For example, the story takes place about one hundred years from now, in the East Coast megalopolis called the Sprawl. The main mode of personal transportation are flyers, and the federal government is at best a remote entity, whose functions often are carried out by private corporations – who have their own agendas.

In ‘Rememory’, advances in plastic surgery and body augmentation have let segments of the population transform themselves into ‘animen’, humans with the physical forms and features of animals. The first-person narrator, Slash, and his partners Hangman and Jeffy all are ‘catmen’, who reside in the catmen-only neighborhood of Fishtown. There, they and all the other catmen engage in a peculiar sort of permanent cosplay, one marked by the single-minded adoption of feline behaviors and mannerisms.

As the novel opens Slash, Hangman, and Jeffy – who are petty criminals - are looking to steal a shipment of goods from their hated animen rivals, the dogmen. The heist goes off as planned, but what Slash has stolen is no ordinary loot, but rather, a pair of super-sophisticated electronic devices called a ‘polyacteural encode / decoders’, or PEDs. When implanted in the user’s brain, the PEDs allow him or her to permanently record anything they have witnessed. These 'rememories' are read to a minidisc, which can be removed from the PED and accessed via computer.

Slash realizes that being in possession of the PEDs will draw the sort of attention that often ends badly for street-level hustlers, and looks to close a deal with his favorite fence. 

But the very act of fencing the PEDs alerts the Sprawl underground, and Slash learns that there are rememories on the stolen PEDs that the public is not meant to see………and soon Slash, Hangman, and Jeffy discover that they are have drawn the attention of one of the most powerful corporations in the nation………a corporation that is entirely at ease with using violence to retrieve its lost belongings…..

While derivative, ‘Rememory’ is a competently written second-gen cyberpunk novel. I can’t say it has the imaginative character of other second-gen novels, like George Alec Effinger’s ‘When Gravity Fails’ (1986). But if you’re looking for a readable cyberpunk story with a fast-moving plot, a suitably noir-ish atmosphere, and an ending that avoids being contrived or pat, then ‘Rememory’ is worth picking up.

True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK

True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK
Edited by George Khoury
TooMorrows Publishing, Raleigh, USA July 2004

'True Brit' (200 pp) from the American publishing company TooMorrows (which specializes in books on comics and graphic art) is, unfortunately, out of print. 

Copies in reasonable condition can be found at affordable prices at your usual online retailers. TooMorrows does offer a digital version / pdf for sale; this has color illustrations throughout (the printed version is entirely in black and white, save for a short insert of color pages).

'True Brit', with its pages packed with illustrations and crammed with tiny-font text, is one of those books made for the fans of both comic books and their artists. The book profiles 21 artists, spanning an era from ca. 1940 to 2003.

David Roach leads off the contents with a chapter on 'The History of British Comic Art'; this is indispensable reading for anyone wanting to understand how comic strips and comic books are formatted and distributed in the UK market, a process considerably different from that in place in the US. It provides a good overview of the evolution of comics in the UK from their introduction in the 19th century on up to the early 21st century.

The ensuing profiles cover both the Greats of UK comics, such as Frank Bellamy, Frank Hampson, and Sydney Jordan, as well as those artists - Brian Bolland, Alan Davis, Bryan Hitch, etc. - who began working for British publishers in the late 70s / early 90s, and then went on to fame and fortune providing work for US publishers like Marvel and DC.

The interviews make for interesting reading. Practically all of the interviewees display traditional English rectitude and self-effacement, along with the dry humor common to Brits. 

One thing that emerges quite clearly from the interviews is that the UK publishers were (and are) not very friendly towards their talent. Workplace benefits common to the US - such as allowing artists to retain possession of their original art - were rare in the UK. 

According to Brian Bolland, among the reasons he left IPC to work for the US publishers: 

For one thing the page rate was better; we got our own name printed - you know, we got credit - and we got our artwork back. All stuff we didn't get at home (i.e., the UK). We'd get reprint fees, royalties probably. We didn't get any of this at home here....we were all becoming aware that in American comics you had certain legal rights which were honored by the publishers.....it seemed like a very attractive proposition. 

One fault I have with 'True Brit' is book's formatting; it takes some getting used to, as it adopts a number of awkward layouts for both the text and the illustrations............ 

Some of the profiled artists are ones unfamiliar to me, such as Leo Baxendale, Hunt Emerson, and Ken Reid. These were artists who focused on humor strips, and their work was aimed both at the newspaper-based readership, and comic books for children, which historically has represented a significant portion of the market in the UK.

Given that many of those artists considered as being 'new' back in 2004, when the book was published, have now entered into retirement (or semi-retirement) the main value of 'True Brit' for American audiences is to familiarize them with the work of these British artists during the 90s and early 2000s. 

While it's a given that most American comic book fans will be acquainted with Kevin O'Neil's work on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, there is a lot of outstanding work for other titles in both the UK and the US that is showcased here and will undoubtedly lead readers to seek out............for me, it was the 1982 - 1983 DC series Camelot 3000, featuring artwork by Brian Bolland.

Summing up, if you are a fan of British comics and British artists, then getting a copy of 'True Brit' is well worth the effort. Don't be at all surprised if some of the works described in this book pique your interest and lead you to seek comics that you may have been unaware of.......