Vintage Science Books

While the world is busy falling in love with Superman again (and really, what's not to love about the new Superman??), I am reminded of some of the original books that made me want to fly to the stars myself when I was a kid.  I recently came across some old hardbound and paperback "How & Why Wonder Books" that I used to read all the time when I was in my single digits.  These books made kids like me want to study the sciences. I wonder if kids these days really get to explore the world with something other than a computer game, but I digress.  I love the futuristic take on the illustrations... especially where a lot of these were created well before we actually landed on the moon, or before we ever sent Viking, Pioneer, and Voyager out to get close up pictures of the planets.  I could say it a hundred times, I was definitely a child of the space age, and I suppose I always will be :-)

I have also been collecting vintage Golden Guides recently, which are probably the better known books for their illustrations.  I'll post more about those at a later date.

Boys Ahoy!!

I'm excited to be producing artwork for a non-Ursamen entity.  I'm a founding member of the new Leather boys of New England (Leather b.o.N.E.) and we are throwing our first bar party in a couple weeks at the Providence Eagle for the Friday night of Providence Pride weekend.  A couple weeks ago, we finally nailed the title as "Boys Ahoy!" but there wasn't any kind of imagery out there that I wanted to see in the poster, so I figured a "Hairyer Parts Comics" image needed to be created.  This cartoon is one part Gil Kane, one part Norman Rockwell, and one part Leji Matsumoto.... the end result is probably about 90% where I wanted it to be, but when time is of the essence, there can be no retakes.  It's the first cartoon I've done for somebody other than the Northeast Ursamen, and for those not following me on Facebook, I figured it was worth it to help get the word out about the event as well.  We will be doing a 50/50 and live demos.  The block outside the Eagle will be closed to traffic so that you can take your drinks outside.  It should be a great time!!  http://www.facebook.com/events/459799817439843/

Peanuts, The Art of Charles M. Schultz

In my previous post about my first exposure to cartooning ("How To Draw Cartoons"), I mentioned Charles M . Schultz as an early influence of mine, and I must say, I have not said enough about him.  In as much as I was a consumer of his work, I really studied it too.  I think I must have read every book of his comic strips in our elementary school library.  I was also quite taken by the idea that all his characters had a similar look and feel.  His character designs basically had interchangeable parts.  All you had to do was change the hair and the clothes, and suddenly you had another member of the Peanuts gang.  As an adult now, I understand that the drawings are but one component of the overall character... just watch, or even just listen to, any Peanuts holiday special to get the idea.  But in any case, some of my earliest characters were directly inspired by the Charlie Brown characters.  For this reason alone, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Schultz and his work.

A few years back, I stumbled upon a stunning art book whose title is also the name of this post. The book features incredible close-up photography of the actual printed comic strips, so that you can see the half-tone dots that are a by product of the printing process used to render Schultz's ink work.  Many of the pages show tape marks as they were photographs of scrapbook pages full of strips clipped from newspapers.  Scattered throughout the volume are photographs of toys and other memorabilia.  The overall effect is one of a gigantic collage that is enjoyable to explore.  The book shows Schultz's work in a much more intimate way than it had probably ever been presented before.  It's worth noting that the book is designed by Chip Kidd, a world famous book designer.  In as much as I find Schultz's cartoons inspiring, I must say I also find Kidd's books to be as much inspiring if not more.  They make you want to design your own books in such a compelling way so that people will WANT to read them.  I think I'm quite a ways off from doing that, but the direction is there.  Of course, when I just want to feel like a kid again, I reach for this book.  It's been a welcome and well used member of my collection.

The book cover... this just screams of Chip Kidd's style.

We actually saw this wall at the Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa on our honeynoo in 2003.

The Gemini II Recovery, Recovered

Recently, I've found myself saying frequently that I'm very much a child of the space age, and here is one of the reasons why.  When we were kids, my dad would break out his slide collection every once in a while and give us a show.  More often than not, we would be treated to photos my dad took when he was in the navy in the 1960's.  I fondly recall seeing images of the Gemini II landing, which his aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Lake Champlain, recovered.  I mean, I was the crazy kid to get up early in the 1980's to see space shuttle launches, so I guess I figured every kid had a dad who got to be there when space capsules splashed down, right?  I know now that these are really special memories, and I was a lucky kid to have been this close to the space race. For me, it was just a part of life to dream about going to space... I know I did.  I was the kid that was going to land on Mars, apparently.

When my dad retired and moved to North Carolina recently, he asked me to hang on to his photos and slides until he could transport them himself.  Well, I did what any normal kid would do some 30 years later... I went rumaging thru the archives until I could find those Gemini II images... and I did.  My dad recently turned 70, and I scanned a few of the slides to be incorporated in a photo display that my younger sister put together.  Below are the best of these images.  I will have them professionally scanned someday, bur for now, 1600 dpi scanning from my own scanner will have to do.  They have a bit of an Instagrammy, ghostly quality... but if nothing else, they are historic and simply must be shared.  These haven't really been seen by anyone in decades.  So here for you are some recovered images of the recovery of Gemini II, as seen thru the lens and the eyes of a navy meterologist, who happens to have the same name as me :-)

 

P.S. I've been told that somewhere in the collection are a few snapshots of the astronauts themselves.  Looks like I have more digging to do...  When I find them, I will post them on this blog.

Revision:  I was advised by said retired meteorologist, that these were in fact Gemini II, an unmanned mission.  U.S.S. Lake Champlain also picked up Gemini V which carried Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad.  I've revised this blog post to correct the mission, which I had previously described as Gemini V.  These images are in fact from Gemini II.  More to come, once I do some more digging. (6/6/2015)

Oracle vs. Iron Man 3

One of the rare instances where work and pleasure overlap very well together!!  This is quite literally, a cell phone snapshot of what I found at oracle.com this week when I logged in for work.  I have to admit, I cracked right up with the cameo of Larry Ellison in one of the previous movies, AND, I got to see the Iron Man suits in person at Oracle Openworld about 3 years ago in San Francisco... the overlaps and cross sponsorships are fun and brilliant.  All this being said, I can't wait to see Iron Man 3... DC needs to learn something from Marvel I mean Disney, because these movies Marvel is putting out are really top notch and first class, and wonderful for comic fans like me.

Watching Superman II Tonight

Tonight we are watching Superman II. After the horrific events in Boston this week, its time for something fun.

Kellogg's PEP Comic Buttons

So I recently dusted off my old 1945  Superman radio show CD's and gave them a listen the other night.  They're delightfully goofy in all the right places, but the one part that sticks out in a rather odd way are the incessant ads for Kellogg's PEP, "that super-delicious cereal", which sponsored the show.  If you listen to the show and don't get the message that there's a free button in every package, then you must be deaf.  I decided to Google PEP and the buttons to see what they looked like.  They're actually kinda cool.  Most have white backgrounds, and they come in two general types.  The first few sets feature military insignia and war planes.  The second group feature pretty much every comic character featured in the press at the time... Superman, Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, and a lot of others that I don't know but probably should.  They're so simple but they make me want to mint my own buttons with my own characters on them!!  In any case, you can bet I'll be scouring the flea markets this spring for these little gems.  "They sure are a honey!"