Month: May 2020

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Ironlak Artists (part I)

My artistic roots was tied to the graffiti world at an early age. I’ll be posting some of my favorite graff artists and group profiles that I’ve gravitated to for their amazing creativity and style. Ironlak paint was one of the first aerosol paint that I began working with after years of not doing graffiti art. Back in the early 80s-90s all we had was Krylon, Zylonite and other craft spray paint brands. There weren’t as many colors back then and it was fairly wet and would drip most of the time. It was years of practice and improving our spray technique that taught us how to use them well and to have the patience to wait for layers to dry before spraying more on a huge art piece. With these new paints from Ironlak there’s so much more color variety and it is fast drying paint. You can finish mural a lot faster with these modern art spray paints.

Ewok & Pose (AWR/MSK/The Seventh Letter)

Does (Loveletters)

Yard Masters

 

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Spider-Man to Spawn

Todd McFarlane:Spider-Man

 

Todd McFarlane: Spider-Man

Todd McFarlane was balsy enough to step forward during his time at Marvel Comics by making the likes of Spider-Man and Mary Jane look contemporary.  He didn’t understand why artists drew Spider-Man the same way for many years without updating his looks.  He felt that since they were in the 1990’s that Spider-Man too should like like he was in the 1990’s. He never knew why he was getting some much praise for doing it as it wasn’t such a crazy idea.  Anyone could’ve done it and at anytime.

He felt that all he was doing was the same thing that Steve Jobs did for Apple Inc.  It was all about timing and making things sexier.  Todd said he just did the same moves.  He didn’t care that the editors would get mad at him.  Several executives didn’t like that he was daring and did wild things to Spider-Man that no-one else did in the past.

He’d draw Spider-Man with bigger eyes, spinning spaghetti webs, with a darker costume, and popping out of panels.  He was a rebel comic artist from Canada that was making waves.  He would then exaggerate the look of Batman’s cape and escapes the grasp Marvel to start a new venture with Image Comics.  

Todd McFarlane would then introduce Spawn and the whole world goes wild.  

Todd McFarlane : Spawn

 

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Image Comics: The Start

In the early 90s, I remember collecting every single comic that came out of Image Comics.  The best artists from Marvel had pulled away to create their own publishing company.  It was founded in 1992 by several high-profile illustrators as a venue for creator-owned properties, in which comic creators could publish material of their own creation without giving up the copyrights of their properties.

A few friends of mine that included Les Fujimoto, Ryan Lee, and my cousin Stanley Manuel would go down to Jelly’s Hawaii across from Pearl Ridge Shopping Center to see what the latest comic releases were from Image.  We collected other things too like baseball and football collectible cards, but comics was always a section that we’d visit before exiting the store.

Image Comics:YoungbloodImage Comics: Spawn

Image Comics: WildC.A.T.S

Image Comics was also a huge source for reference of many BBS ANSI screens drawn during that time.   The Underground Scene was at it’s peak and ANSI art packs would release regularly month after month.

Twenty plus years later, I still find myself collecting comics with my kids and sharing stories of how I watched the progression of comics that stemmed from the original super hero artworks of Marvel and DC Comics.

I found this enlightening 5 part History of Image Comic on YouTube and it’s amazing how brave and brilliant these artists were to rival the companies that they were once employed.