Stan Lee: The Human Torch
Posted: January 22, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Entertainment | Tags: Comics, design, drawing, Illustration, Lettering, Stan Lee, The Human Torch, vintage Leave a comment‘Bizarre Life: The Art of Elmer Batters and Eric Stanton’: Benedikt Taschen Puts Racy Artwork on Sale at New Gallery
Posted: April 12, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Entertainment | Tags: Action figure, Amazing Fantasy, Benedikt Taschen, Beverly Boulevard, Comic book, Dian Hanson, Eric Stanton, Jack Kirby, Macrinus, Marvel Universe, Spider-Man, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Taschen Leave a commentChris Gardner writes: The new Taschen Gallery on Beverly Boulevard currently features nudity and fetishism in photos and comics from two late underground artists.
“Over the years, we got requests all the time to buy their works. We wanted to do a great show first, because that’s what I owe these true artists and pioneers. Their life stories, by the way, are 100 percent Hollywood drama — a mix of Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, Ed Wood and, of course, Pulp Fiction.”
“Bizarre Life: The Art of Elmer Batters and Eric Stanton,” the gallery’s second show since opening in December, is on view with more than 200 works, some for sale from the private collection of head honcho Benedikt Taschen, who tells THR that he’s parting with the racy pieces out of respect….(read more)
Embrace Your Fantasies: Bizarre Life – The Art of Elmer Batters & Eric Stanton
If not for the moral chaos of World War II, Eric Stanton and Elmer Batters might have sublimated their indecent obsessions and spent lives illustrating catalogs, or photographing weddings. But after the clarifying effect of near death, each embraced his difference, and returned home to hack a heroic creative path through contemptuous and villainous publishers, multiple arrests, loss of family, and occasionally, freedom, to be who he had to be.
TASCHEN Gallery announces the opening of Bizarre Life – The Art of Elmer Batters & Eric Stanton, a controversial and essential exhibit that traces the artistic struggle of these two pioneers of fetish art, from the gritty post-war streets of Times Square to their position today as cultural icons.
Eric Stanton known as The Rembrandt of Pulp Culture, was an inspiration for artists such as Richard Lindner, Allen Jones and Helmut Newton. He created thrilling panel stories and colorful pulp fiction covers of voluptuous, demanding women overpowering uppity males. Today, his work is defined as female empowerment, and as caricature of female-dominance fantasy – a dichotomy that delights contemporary culture, but initially forced him into abusive underworld partnerships in a pre-feminist society averse to female strength. “A woman has to be strong. The bigger the better,” was his motto.
Elmer Batters was dubbed the Dean of Leg Art for his unique approach to photographing women’s legs and feet, but while his work brought solace to legions of foot fetishists, the courts called it dangerously perverse and hounded him his whole life. “I felt that people almost saw me as un-American for not mooning over large mammaries,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »
Behold: The Stan Lee Action Figure
Posted: April 2, 2015 Filed under: Comics, Entertainment | Tags: Amazing Fantasy, Hulk (film), Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Marvel Comics, Marvel Universe, Spider-Man, Spider-Man (film), Stan Lee, Steve Ditko Leave a commentThe Marvel Universe Co-Creator will be Immortalized in this Nightmare-Inducing Limited-Edition Action Figure
Graeme McMillan reports: He’s the only person to have appeared in all of the Marvel movies to date, so it was only a matter of time before Stan Lee received his own amazingly lifelike action figure. But for all the completists out there who want their own scale version of the co-creator of the Marvel Universe, be warned: There will be only 1,000 available.
The Lee figure is being advertised as the “First-Ever 1:6 Figure” of the writer and celebrity, who worked with artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko to create characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men in the early 1960s. Read the rest of this entry »
ALEX SCHOMBURG (American, 1905-1998) Flying Saucer Landing, Fantastic Universe Magazine Cover, July 1954
Posted: March 15, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics | Tags: 1950s, Alex Schomburg, design, Golden Age Comics, Illustration, Magazines, Marvel, Millis, New York City, Norman Rockwell Museum, pulp fiction, Science fiction, Stan Lee, The Saturday Evening Post, vintage Leave a commentSchomburg, Alex: Alex Schomburg (American, 1905-1998): is perhaps most celebrated by comic book fans for his action-packed superhero and airbrushed “good girl” covers done during the Golden Age. In addition to his comic book art, Schomburg is also remembered for his stellar science fiction scenes, done for pulps, digests, magazines, and children’s books. In later years Schomburg re-created some of his most famous comic book covers as finely detailed paintings. Former Marvel writer, editor, and publisher San Lee has said, “I’ve always felt that Alex Schomburg was to comic books what Norman Rockwell was to the Saturday Evening Post. He was totally unique, with an amazing distinctive style. You could never mistake a Schomburg cover for any other artist’s”
Captain America #138, June 1971: Stan Lee, Tony Mortellaro, & John Romita Sr.
Posted: March 6, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics | Tags: 1970s, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Comic Books, Costume, design, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, Illustration, Jack Kirby, John Romita Sr, Lettering, Marvel Comics, Spider-Man, Spiderman, Stan Lee, typography, vintage Leave a comment
Captain America #138 (June 1971)
Art John Romita Sr. & John Romita Sr
Words by Stan Lee
‘It’s True, I Tell You, It’s True!‘
Posted: January 28, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics | Tags: Cartoon, Comics, graphics, Illustration, Lettering, Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, vintage 1 CommentComic Books’ True Origin Story: ‘The Art of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’
Posted: December 6, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Entertainment | Tags: All-New X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Hulk (film), Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Joe Simon, Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, Wolverine and the X-Men (TV series) 1 CommentEmil Lendof, Rich Goldstein write:
Joe Simon was the first guy Jack Kirby ever met who wasn’t from New York City (he came from Syracuse), but together they created most of the famous comic book characters that remain standard bearers for the industry including (but not limited to): Captain America, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Silver Surfer, Sandman, The X-Men, Thor. Kirby was the lightning-fast illustrator who dropped out of Pratt after two weeks, Simon the businessman who made sure the pair got a square deal (a mother from Kirby’s neighborhood was afraid life as an artist would land a boy “in a beret in Greenwich Village, talking to loose women”). Read the rest of this entry »
Comic Panel: Captain America ‘Tales of Suspense’ #92 August 1967
Posted: November 16, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Captain America, design, Illustration, Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, Superhero, Tales of Suspense, typography 1 CommentTALES OF SUSPENSE #92 (August 1967)
Jack Kirby (pencils) & Joe Sinnott (inks)
Words by Stan Lee
Disney Declined Stan Lee’s Original ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, Dismissing it as ‘Too Vulgar’
Posted: September 2, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Entertainment, U.S. News | Tags: Atlanta, Dragon*Con, Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy, Gunn, Jackson Pollock, James Gunn, Marvel Comics, Stan Lee Leave a commentATLANTA, Sept. 2 (UPI) — Despite appearing on screen flirting with young woman so aggressively a talking raccoon calls him a “prevert,” Stan Lee‘s original cameo in Disney and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was dubbed so racy by Disney it was completely cut.
“One of the losing battles regarded Stan Lee’s original cameo in the film. Originally, Gunn had planned to have Lee in one of the Collector’s exhibits.”
Appearing on a panel at science fiction and fantasy convention Dragon Con in Atlanta, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn discussed the future of the surprise hit franchise that recently passed Captain America: Winter Soldier as 2014’s top grossing film.
“[Gunn] couldn’t believe he was able to get the line referencing Jackson Pollock into the film.”
— Evan Valentine
While telling antidotes about the film’s laundry list of cameo’s, Easter eggs and in-jokes, Gunn recounted the original plan for former Marvel chairman Stan Lee’s brief appearance. Read the rest of this entry »
Vintage Comic Panel of the Day: IRON MAN
Posted: April 25, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics | Tags: Art Simek, Comics, design, Don Heck, Illustration, Iron Man, Larry Lieber, Marvel, Stan Lee, typography 2 CommentsVintage Comic Panel of the Day: The Martian Problem
Posted: January 31, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Art, Cartoon, Comics, Ditko, Illustration, Paperback, pulp fiction, Science fiction, Stan Lee, vintage 2 CommentsJohnny Depp as Doctor Strange?
Posted: January 14, 2014 Filed under: Comics, Entertainment | Tags: Doctor Strange, Johnny Depp, Kevin Feige, Marvel, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko Leave a commentDepp May Join Marvel’s Superhero Universe
Marc Graser reports: It was only a matter of time before Marvel Studios started courting Johnny Depp to play one of its superheroes.
Sources have told Latino Review that the Mouse House’s main man is in very early discussions with Marvel to take on the role of eccentric magician Steven Strange in “Doctor Strange,” which the company has long been developing as a solo pic to join the ranks of its “Iron Man,” “Thor” and “Captain America” franchises. “Ant-Man” is another character it hopes to launch in 2015 as a standalone franchise around one of the comicbook company’s heroes.
While it makes sense that Marvel would want to have a conversation with Depp over how it could launch a new franchise with the thesp, sources tell Variety that such talks have yet to take place and any possibility of such a pairing is premature.