dr_hermes (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dr_hermes) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} scans_daily,@ 2009-04-05 19:12:00 |
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From 2004, here's Frank Brunner's VAMPIRELLA AND MARY MARVEL AT THE GATES OF HELL. It's true that writers can slant a fight any way they want, powering characters up and down blatantly, so that you can have Ant-Man beat up Galactus ("I'll order my ants to crawl inside his armor and distract him, so I can step on his foot..."). Still, I'd say this would more likely to end with Vampirella getting backhanded so hard she'd start crying like a teething toddler.
At first glance, I didn't warm up to Brunner's style. I first saw his work on DR STRANGE (when Steve Englehart was writing it), HOWARD THE DUCK and some CONAN and RED SONJA stuff. It looked like Frank Frazetta-lite, to be honest. But the more I checked it out, the more I was impressed by his sense of depth, and his feeling for texture. (Not every comics artist really pays attention to that.) A lot of his art seems a bit uninspired -- of course, that's true of nearly every commercial artist working for a living -- but when he's on his game, Frank Brunner is amazing. There's a gloss and shine to his work that gives it a timeless look.(Below is THE QUEEN OF PENTACLES from 1980, part of a series of prints he did, all luscious in their detail and flowing line.)
"What If.. Conan was EMO?"
A while back, I tried to re-read the early Elric stories by Michael Moorcock (from a mid-1960s paperback, not as they have been edited and revised over the years). Wow. Didn't work. They are so full of agita and self-reproach and anguish that I suspect it's best to read them between say, 11 and 18. A lot of fantasy stories are like that, they have immense power if the reader is battling through puberty but seem a bit overwrought if you try to get into them later in life.
And here is our mystery guest for this lovely Sunday in early Spring. He is not the only artist in his family, that's the oblique clue. Oh, and the photo is from 1974.
At first glance, I didn't warm up to Brunner's style. I first saw his work on DR STRANGE (when Steve Englehart was writing it), HOWARD THE DUCK and some CONAN and RED SONJA stuff. It looked like Frank Frazetta-lite, to be honest. But the more I checked it out, the more I was impressed by his sense of depth, and his feeling for texture. (Not every comics artist really pays attention to that.) A lot of his art seems a bit uninspired -- of course, that's true of nearly every commercial artist working for a living -- but when he's on his game, Frank Brunner is amazing. There's a gloss and shine to his work that gives it a timeless look.(Below is THE QUEEN OF PENTACLES from 1980, part of a series of prints he did, all luscious in their detail and flowing line.)
"What If.. Conan was EMO?"
A while back, I tried to re-read the early Elric stories by Michael Moorcock (from a mid-1960s paperback, not as they have been edited and revised over the years). Wow. Didn't work. They are so full of agita and self-reproach and anguish that I suspect it's best to read them between say, 11 and 18. A lot of fantasy stories are like that, they have immense power if the reader is battling through puberty but seem a bit overwrought if you try to get into them later in life.
And here is our mystery guest for this lovely Sunday in early Spring. He is not the only artist in his family, that's the oblique clue. Oh, and the photo is from 1974.