Illustration'05 #2

ILLUSTRATION’05 THE JOURNAL OF CONTEMPOR ARY ILLUSTR ATION

$9.00 US / $11.00 CAN

05 CONTENTS: 2 A Letter from the Editor

4

4 C.F. Payne: Art Under the Circumstances

by Brian M. Kane 28

The Paperback Art of Sergio Giovine

46

Leslie Cabarga: Drawing Upon the Past

by Gary Lovisi

28

by Jandos Rothstein

60 New Technology

46

62 New & Notable 64 Exhibitions and Events ON THE COVER: C.F. Payne’s illustration for “The Best and Worst of Cincinnati,” Cincinnati Magazine , 13 x 16 inches, mixed media

60 www.illo.us

05 ISSUE TWO This issue has been a long time coming, but at last it is finished and in your hands.

I hope that it’s been worth the wait—and I pray that issue three will come out in a much more timely fashion!

The response to our first issue has been tremendous. Judging from the outpouring of interest from readers and new subscribers, the field has been hungry for this sort of magazine for a long time. I hope that this second issue, and the many more I have in store for you, will satisfy your cravings. I only wish I could produce more issues more often! With the help and support of a few more advertisers, I am confident that we will reach that goal.

That being said, I want to remind everyone that this is a very small magazine.

This is not produced by 20 people, or a committee of advisors, or a focus group.

It’s basically me sitting in front of a computer and collaborating with a handful of freelance writers. In many ways this is a fanzine with very high production values, made purely out of our love for the art of illustration. While it would be nice to sell 100,000 copies, my goal is not for ILLUSTRATION to be the Communication Arts of the illustration field. My goal is to produce a beautiful and inspirational magazine featuring in-depth stories and interviews with some of my favorite artists—the best and most talented illustrators working in the field today. With any luck, a lot of you will want to come along for the ride. I’ve been waiting all of my life to see a magazine like this, so I am confident that more than a few of you will want to be on board.

That being said, I would also like to invite you to get involved in helping to spread the word about this magazine. If you are a student, encourage your school to subscribe. Mention us to your local librarian. Ask your local newsstand to carry the magazine. Everything you can do to spread the word is invaluable to us.

Many thanks to all of the contributors, advertisers, and subscribers out there who are helping to make this magazine a success. Your enthusiasm is appreciated!

Sincerely,

Daniel Zimmer, Publisher

ILLUSTRATION ’05 Issue Two, Fall 2005. © 2005 by ILLUSTRATION ’05 (ISSN 1555-9866) All text and artwork is © the respective creators or publishers. None of the material in this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of ILLUSTRATION ’05, or the respective copyright holders. All of the images utilized herein are reproduced for historical and scholarly purposes only. Every effort has been made to provide factually accurate information. ILLUSTRATION ’05 is published four times per year.

Single copies may be purchased for $9 postage paid in the U.S. Four-issue subscriptions are available for $36 postage paid in the U.S. Make checks or money orders payable to ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE. For advertising information and rates please contact Daniel Zimmer at 314-577-6768, or email Dan@illo.us. Our address is: ILLUSTRATION ’05, 3640 Russell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63110. We cannot accept orders over the telephone.

4 Illustration’05

C. F. Payne, 2005

C.F. Payne: art under the circumstances

by Brian M. Kane

C

hristopher Fox Payne, better known to the public simply as C.F. Payne, is every professional artist’s nightmare. Even though he just turned 50, if he were to quit painting today he would still be remembered as one of the greatest and most influential illustrators of his generation. Payne is passionate about art, friendly, affable, and easy to talk to; intelligent and highly creative; has the respect of both his fans and his peers; has a great love of baseball, music, and film; and he has always been one of the fastest artists working in the field.

Payne’s client list is a virtual ‘who’s who’ of the publishing industry, consisting of Time, Esquire, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, Penthouse, Worth, Boys’ Life, Forbes, Kiplinger, Money, MAD, The Dallas Times Herald, National Geographic, Der Spiegel, the U.S. Postal Service, and several children’s book publishers. His cover for AARP of Jack Nicholson last year graced the fronts of New York City Metro buses. Chris’ work has received recognition from Communication Arts, Step-By-Step, Print Magazine, How Magazine, the Society of Publication Designers, and the Society of Illustrators, which has awarded him both Gold and Silver medals, as well as the prestigious Hamilton King Award for 1995.

Payne’s illustrations have been exhibited in many college and art school galleries as well as The National Portrait Gallery. He has participated in a show of illustration with five other illustrators at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, and a one-man show at the Cincinnati Art Museum. He was the president of the Art Directors Club of Cincinnati in 1996, and the chairman of the 38th Society of Illustrators Annual Competition. In 1999 he became part of the founding board for the first national Illustrators Conference in Santa

Fe, New Mexico. Chris is the chairman of the Museum Committee of the Society of Illustrators of New York, and serves on the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America—a nonprofit organization developed to educate illustrators about business, copyright, and licensing issues. He is also a founder of The Illustration Growers of America, a non-profit committee charged with the responsibilities of creating an ad campaign to promote commissioned illustration, giving individual illustrators a promotional voice to compete against stock art in the marketplace. (www.illustrationgrowers.org) While some artists keep their methods and techniques to themselves like secret ingredients in a special recipe, Payne demonstrates the subtle nuances of his craft willingly. He has taught at the Brookhaven Community College, Dallas, Texas; East Texas State University, Commerce, Texas; Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; The Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, Ohio; and summer graduate degree sessions at Syracuse University in New York.

Recently Payne was named chair of the illustration department at The Columbus College of Art & Design, the school that he commutes to from his home in Cincinnati two-and-a-half hours away where he lives with his wife, Paula, and his sons, Trevor and Evan.

Payne’s style transcends standard preconceptions of the traditional caricature. His portraits have a classical, painterly quality that lends a twisted believability to the realism of his subjects. These portrait chargés (charged or heightened portraits) are so realistic that they appear more true to the person’s features and personality than any photo could ever capture. Add to this Chris’ wit, creativity, and impeccable sense of design, and you get a work of art that almost breathes with a life of its own. Truly he is every professional artist’s nightmare.

Thank God he can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound too!

Unpublished portrait of Andrew Wyeth. Private commission by the Wyeth family as a present for Andrew, 13 x 16.5 inches, mixed media

Illustration’05 7

Packaging illustration for Edi’s Dreamery Ice Cream, 12 x 28 inches, mixed media. AD Kit Hinrichs for Pentagram

’05: Let’s start out at the beginning—where you grew up, your high school years, and what got you interested in art.

C. F. Payne: I was born and raised in Cincinnati. I went to Wyoming High School, which is the alma mater of Bob McGinnis.

Art is something I did as long as I can remember. I remember the pictures that I drew before I was in kindergarten. As a young kid one of my favorite books was Mike Mulligan. I called it “Steam Shovel Mike.” Next door to where I was growing up they were building some houses and I would draw the bulldozers and the backhoes. Also at that age I was into TV shows like Roy Rogers. I had a Roy Rogers children’s book and I’d always try to draw him. I never drew Trigger—I was never into horses because I was into cowboys. Then in second grade there was the dinosaur craze. Those figures were based off of Rudolph Zollinger’s and Charles Knight’s mural paintings. So I did a lot of drawings of dinosaurs and cavemen. Later on, television shows like Combat came along and I began drawing pictures influenced

by World War II. At that time I was also building a lot of airplane models and drawing them. I built Corsairs, and Hellcats—I loved the Douglas Dauntless dive-bomber. In fifth grade I was into MAD magazine with Jack Davis and Mort Drucker, as well as comic books drawn by Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, and the other Silver Age artists. ’05: I didn’t think you were that interested in Kirby.

CFP: I was never as wrapped up in the story line as some of the other guys. If the drawing was lousy I wasn’t going to read it. It also had to be well-drawn like Sgt. Rock. I loved Sgt.Rock. ’05: But not the early Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos?

CFP: I just thought Joe Kubert’s drawings of Sgt. Rock were great.

You can’t get much better than Joe Kubert. I can’t remember who drew the G.I. Combat with the Sherman tank stories. ’05: That was probably Russ Heath.

CFP: I loved the Sherman tank stories! I loved Spider-Man by Steve Ditko much more than [John] Romita’s because he took the character of Peter Parker and made him pretty. Ditko’s Peter Parker as a nerd—he looked like a regular guy. I always thought his people had a strange look to them, maybe not as well-crafted, but they did have more personality. As a kid I enjoyed sports and I wanted to be good at sports and I wanted to be popular, but I wasn’t. I had all the same

Unpublished illustration for Sports Illustrated, 11 x 15.5 inches, mixed media

insecurities of any other kid so I related to that character of Peter Parker—I didn’t relate to Romita’s version. Within two issues of Spider-Man being done by Romita I quit buying it and I moved on to Daredevil. I loved the way Gene Colon drew Daredevil. ’05: He had a very fluid style.

CFP: Yeah. I thought John Buscema was great. Same with [Jim] Steranko and Gil Kane on Green Lantern—I thought Green Lantern was beautifully drawn, but I didn’t read Batman because I didn’t care for [Carmine] Infantino’s style. So I went through that phase where I was drawing comics all the time. And I made up my own comics, my own characters, and I’d send my drawings off to Stan Lee and I’d get my rejection letters back—you know, the whole nine yards. In high school I started seeing more illustration in The Saturday Evening Post and Sports Illustrated, so I began drawing football players and a lot of figures in action. My interest in athletics and the comic books made me want to learn more about anatomy. I found Fritz Schider’s book, An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists, in my high school library. I believe I took that book out for a year-and-a-half and did everything I could with it. I drew constantly; pictures of the human body with the flexor muscles in one color and the extender muscles in another color. I got into a little bit of trouble because I took a Playboy and tried to draw the muscles on the girl, ’cause that’s where I could see a nude body.

So there’d be a nude woman and I would draw the muscles underneath—and I’d try to trace them. So here would be the flexor muscles here, and here would be the extender muscles. Of course now I was bringing Playboys to school and that’s not so good! But that’s how I learned anatomy. ’05: Tell me about your college years.

CFP: It was in college that I found out that there was a distinction between museum artwork and illustration. They’d say “illustration is low art” and “Rockwell is not to be admired,” so I’d get into arguments with my instructors. Many of the kids in college grew up with the same comic books and art that I did. They liked the Rockwell stuff when they were young, but when these teachers came and told them it was “garbage,” they bought it. I was one of those who refused to buy it.

One day in the graphics classes I was talking to John Maggard

Illustration’05 9

about Carmine Infantino. He loved Infantino, but I didn’t. Then the conversation turned to how we both liked Steve Ditko. So I started hanging out and taking classes with the graphics guys. We didn’t have a specific illustration class at Miami at that time, just the graphic design class. Our teacher, Joe Cox, was a member of the Art Director’s Club in Dayton. From time to time we would go up there to hear a variety of speakers like Alan Cober. After Cober’s presentation I said to Mr. Cox, “That’s what I want to do! I don’t want to do package design. I don’t want to do annual report design—I want to do illustration.” It was in my senior year, my last semester, and Mr. Cox said, “Okay, all your assignments will be illustration assignments.”

Alan Cober also talked about The Illustrators Workshop, the first one in Tarrytown, New York. I told Alan, “I’m coming. I don’t know how I’m going to get there or where I’m going to get the money, but I’m going to be there.” He said, “Great, I’ll look forward to seeing you.” I sold my guitar, my stereo, my comic book collection, my coin collection—I sold just about everything I had and then I borrowed some of the money from my father. It cost $2,500, which was a good chunk of money back then. ’05: How long were you there?

CFP: About three or four weeks, so we were there a long time. Later on I believe the workshop ended up being only a two-week program.

There weren’t a lot of kids just out of college there—mainly there were a lot of professionals. I remember Richard Newton, a very good illustrator, was there. I still see Bill Vann’s work but he was one of the real stars there because you could see he was a seasoned pro. He did beautiful work. Each one of his assignments was just top drawer and they blew everybody away. We had some others who were interesting characters—David Griffin from Texas was there, a couple artists from Hallmark were there, some Canadians were there, so it was a big group. As I recall there were maybe about 30 or 40 students. It was a great experience.

“Mystery Island,” D-Magazine, 1983. 12 x 15 inches. AD: Fred Woodward

10 Illustration’05

I became good friends with Alan Cober. For some reason Alan and I hit it off really well. [Robert] Peak kind of took a liking to me. Peak was an interesting guy. He was always coming and going. He would come in while I was working on an assignment and make suggestions so I’d literally stay up all night, starting all over, doing what he told me to do. The next day I’d show it to him and he’d say, “Yeah that’s much better. But you know what? If you want to try this it will make it better...” and I’d stay up all night and I’d work on that one. I think he kind of enjoyed that from me, in the sense that I wouldn’t just erase something and make a little change—I’d do the whole thing completely over again. ’05: You were taking what he said to heart and implementing it instead of ignoring it. It takes a lot of suppression of your own ego to do that.

CFP: I was a student, I was young, and I was really hungry. A lot of the other guys were seasoned pros. I don’t think they were coming in with the idea of redefining themselves as much as just sharpening what they already had. I had nothing to come in with other than being a fairly good college student. I only had that one semester where I had completed four illustration assignments. To these guys I was raw. I remember the last assignment was for Psychology Today.

When it came to the critique, Mark English said, “You know this could be a really nice piece. It’s a good idea. I wish you would put more detail in the face.” To which Peak said, “No, I think the face is fine.” To which [Fred] Otnes said, “No, Bob, I think he needs to finish the face.” Then [Bob] Heindel said, “No, no, I like it the way it works.” And then [Bernie] Fuchs said, “You know, I agree with Mark and Fred on this, he needs to finish the face.” Lastly Cober said, “No, it works just fine.” The next thing you know I have six artists who are the major players of our industry arguing amongst themselves over whether I should finish the face or not. Finally they just looked at me and said, “Do whatever you want.”

Illustrator’s Workshop assignment for Psychology Today, 1976

If you have enjoyed this magazine, you will love our other publication…

ILLUSTRATION is a beautiful, educational, and scholarly journal devoted to the study of American illustration art. Published quarterly and printed in full color, each 80-page issue features the highest quality printing, photography and color reproductions available. For those with an interest in popular culture, commercial art and design, publishing history, or the collecting of original art, ILLUSTRATION is an indispensable resource—and the best source for new information on the illustrators of the past.

Limited numbers of selected back issues are still available for purchase at the original cover price of $9.00, U.S. postage paid. 4-issue quarterly subscriptions are available in the U.S. for $36.00.

All orders are shipped in durable, reinforced mailing envelopes to ensure safe arrival.

Issues shown may be sold out. Check online to be sure! ❑ YES, SEND ME ISSUES 15 – 18 for $36.00 postpaid.

MAIL TO:

ISSUE #14: J.W. Scott, A. Leslie Ross

ISSUE #1

Haddon H. Sundblom, James Avati, Jack Faragasso

48 PAGES - $20.00

, Film Fun, more! $9.00

ISSUE #10

ISSUE #11

ISSUE #12

ISSUE #13

Raphael DeSoto, Mitchell Hooks, Tom Gill, Jack Lane, and more!

Robert Bonfils, Larry Admire, Men’s Adventure Art, and more!

R.G. Harris, Harry Anderson, Bill Campbell, and more!

W.T. Benda, Alex Schomburg, Lee Brown Coye, and more!

80 PAGES - $9.00

80 PAGES - $9.00

80 PAGES - $9.00

80 PAGES - $20.00

All listed prices are postage paid. 4-issue subscriptions are $36.00. Send check or money order payable to: Illustration Magazine 3640 Russell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63110 314-577-6768 EMAIL: DAN@ILLO.US

OR D E R O N L I N E a t W W W . I LL U S TRAT I O N – M AGAZ I N E . C O M

12 Illustration’05

Portrait of George Lucas, Rolling Stone, 13 x 15 inches. AD: Fred Woodward

Portrait of Steven Spielberg, Time, 12 x 15 inches, mixed media. AD: Arthur Hochstein

’05: So what did you do?

CFP: Remember Peak telling me to do this or that? I’d worked four nights in a row redoing it every single time. I was totally spent. I just said, “I’m going to bed.” I was tired. I was just too exhausted. I got up the next morning for the final critique and Psychology Today’s art director, Neil Schaffer goes through the whole room critiquing everybody’s work. Finally he comes to my piece and says, “This is the best idea here and I’d love to use this piece, only I just wish you’d finished the face. (Laughs) So I can’t use it.” To which Cober came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, gave it a little squeeze, leaned over, and said, “Don’t worry, you got the most important thing right.” If Schaffer would have used my piece they would have printed it in the magazine and I would have been paid $500 or $1,000, which at that time would have been fantastic. So, of course I was crestfallen that I didn’t get the piece in the magazine, because I didn’t get paid for it. ’05: Why didn’t you just say, “We’ve been debating that since yesterday. I’ve actually reworked this piece several times, so if you’ll give me a couple hours I can finish the face before you leave?”

CFP: Because he’d already selected what he wanted. ’05: Do you remember who got the job?

CFP: I can see his face but I can’t remember his name. Most of the other artists were professional illustrators, and some of them are people who are still currently working in the industry and are very good and talented illustrators. ’05: What was the favorite part of your experience at Tarrytown?

CFP: Because we were there three to four weeks we had time to sit down and have some really good one-on-ones. I had an absolutely wonderful conversation with Bob Peak about his early years as an artist. He told me about how important his wife was to his career as a young artist and about his working and struggling and having to eat mustard-and-sardine sandwiches to save money. So here’s Bob Peak,

who’s doing Apocalypse Now and Rollerball and getting $100,000 for a series of illustrations for a movie, talking about his struggles.

I had a wonderful conversation with Alan Cober when we were driving back from a drawing excursion. It was just he and I and one other student in the car. Cober asked me, “What do you want to do in illustration?” I said, “Mr. Cober”—I couldn’t call him “Alan.” All the artists would say call me by my first name, but I was 20 years old; how am I going to sit there and call Bob Peak “Bob?” You know, it’s “Mister Peak.” “Just call me Bob?” You can’t do this, God does not tell the boy to call him by his first name. I couldn’t do that. How am I supposed to call Bernie Fuchs, “Berrrrrrrrnieee?” I was a kid. I was totally intimidated by these guys. Anyway, I said, “Mr. Cober, I see you have a beautiful home, family, wife, studio, and car—it’s all gorgeous stuff. Right now, I’d like to have the job that’s on your drawing table.” ’05: Good answer.

CFP: I figured that if I got the work the rest would take care of itself. ’05: What type of medium were you using at that time?

CFP: I was all over the map. I was trying watercolor, pen-and-ink, collaging—I had no sense of direction. Then Mark English would come in and do this demonstration and in 40 minutes he would create magic and I had to try it. I went to my room and said, “Okay, so he did this, and he’d throw this wash on, and he’d do this, then he’d do that,” and then you’d look at it and it’s garbage. And then you go, “How’d he do that? I did it just exactly how he did.” So I’d try it again and it was garbage. Then you’d see Bernie Fuchs, though he didn’t really do a demo for us, he’d have a piece in progress that was partially done, and he’d explain what he did. So I would try that method and it’d be garbage. And you go, “What’s going on here? I can’t do this stuff. I just followed his instructions so thoroughly?”

It wasn’t until afterwards, and this is one of those things that I

Portrait of Jack Nicholson, Rolling Stone, 11.5 x 16 inches, mixed media. AD: Fred Woodward

Illustration’05 13

Portrait of Johnny Carson, Cable TV Guide, 12 x 15 inches, mixed media

Portrait of David Letterman, Time, 12.5 x 16 inches. AD: Arthur Hochstein

remembered those guys saying that, “Don’t worry about how much you learn here now; you’ll find out what you’ve learned down the road.” It was after I left the workshop that the light bulb went off in my head and all of a sudden it’s “wait a minute, these guys have been illustrating for twenty years! Since when is a dumb-ass college student supposed to see one demonstration and believe he can paint like Bernie Fuchs?” So I dumped all that stuff and stopped worrying about how Mark English or Bernie Fuchs painted. I then started looking at their work, studying it, tried to see who they were influenced by, to learn from those people. I’d ask, “What was Bernie Fuchs painting like when he was 24 years old?” Fuchs worked for the car manufacturers doing brochures back when illustrators were in Detroit. Fuchs’ early work looked as if Austin Briggs had influenced him. Then I would find out that he was a contemporary of Al Parker and Jon Witcomb and that those guys were influenced by The Golden Age. By studying the history of illustration it allows you not to be overwhelmed by one illustrator’s technique. Eventually the stuff of Mort Drucker, Steve Ditko, Norman Rockwell, Mark English, Wilson McLean, Bernie Fuchs—all of that stuff that I looked at and studied churned up and made me who I am. My artwork is a product of all of that and more. ’05: After Tarrytown you went to Akron. What did you do there?

CFP: I worked at the art studio/agency of Hesselbart and Mitten/ Arocom. I was hired as an illustrator. I was there from the fall of 1976 to December 1978. ’05: What stood out as the most important thing for you during your time there?

CFP: How obviously green I was. The main thing I learned was the

role of an illustrator: meeting deadlines, how to conduct yourself professionally, when to pick your battles. I learned that people want to work with talented, gifted individuals whom they can “work” with. ’05: What prompted the move to Chicago?

CFP: When I was working in Akron I actually almost did leave for a job in Cleveland. The owner of the agency, Bob Mitten, brought me into the office and said, “Why do you want to leave?” I said, “Well, I just need more of a challenge. Right now I don’t see what I’m doing here growing into anything, and this place offered me a job up in Cleveland.” And he said, “Look, if you’re going from Akron to Cleveland, that’s just a lateral move. If you get a bigger job in Chicago, that I‘ll understand, I wouldn’t stop you from that because that’s a step up, but there’s no value in making a lateral move.” So he asked, “What did they offer you?” I told him I couldn’t tell him because I didn’t want to turn it into a bidding war. Then he said, “Let me make you an offer. If you stay here another year and then you get another offer and you want to go then fine, go—but if you’re going to do it, my advice is go from Akron to Chicago or Akron to New York. Whatever step you make it should be a step up, never a side step or a step back.” ’05: It was great advice.

CFP: It really was and it was a plain and honest and straightforward thing. Eventually the time came when I really did think it was time to move on. I had been there almost two-and-a-half years, and so around September of ’79, I literally quit the job. I didn’t have a job in Chicago; I boxed up all my stuff in a U-Haul truck, drove up to Chicago, and parked it in the hotel parking lot and interviewed with

14 Illustration’05

“Eleanor Roosevelt,” The New York Times Book Review, 12.5 x 15 inches. AD: Steven Heller Winner of the Silver Medal, Editorial, Society of Illustrators Annual 42

three or four studios. I got two job offers and took one of them with Higgins, Hegner & Genevese. I started there the next week, so I found an apartment, moved my stuff in, and then drove the truck to the UHaul place and started working. It was at that time that Paula and I decided to get married. She was living in Cincinnati. ’05: You had met her in college?

CFP: Actually I’d known Paula since high school. She’d gone to a different school but I’ve known her since we were both 16. We dated in college then went our separate ways for a little while then we got back together again and decided, when I was living in Akron, to get married. After we got married on March 29, 1980, she came up to Chicago. Paula was an audiologist at the time but there weren’t many jobs for audiologists in Chicago, so six months later she got a job offer in Dallas and we moved. ’05: Okay, that’s why you moved to Dallas.

CFP: We knew we were going to do something. Paula didn’t enjoy Chicago at all and I was not happy with the work I was doing. I found the work to be just uninspired. I found that I was sitting on my hands too much—they weren’t keeping me busy. After Paula got her job I walked in and spoke to one of the principals at the agency, who thought I was coming in to ask for a raise, and gave him my two weeks notice. (Laughs) He said, “Can’t you at least just let me make you an offer?” and I said, “Well, you can make me an offer but I’m not going to take it because I’m moving.” So he made me an offer and I turned it down and then one of the other principals came in and said, “What the hell are you going to Dallas for? There’s nothing in Dallas. You can stand on a milk crate in Texas and see one end of the state to the other.” I said, “This is Chicago, Illinois, where are the

“Vladimir Putin,” Reader’s Digest, 12 x 15.5 inches. AD: Vicki Nightengale

mountains here?” (Laughs) You can stand on a milk crate in Illinois and see from one end of the state to the other. What’s the difference?

One’s a little hotter; one’s a little colder.

So once again I got the U-Haul, loaded it up, drove it to work on my last day, parked the truck there with my stuff, quit, walked out, got in the truck, and drove to Dallas. I left at 5 p.m. and got in to Dallas around 10 the next morning. It was 1980, and that August they had something like 20 days where the temperature never got below 100 degrees, and we moved there two or three weeks after the heat wave. ’05: So you were in Dallas for seven years?

CFP: Yes, about seven years. Dallas was great! Texas is great! There is something about the entrepreneurial spirit that flourishes in Texas.

For a young upcoming artist like I was, it’s incredible. In Chicago artists were more reserved and protective of their work and less willing to share how they did their art. I couldn’t believe the contrast between the two markets. In Texas everybody was just so gracious and supportive. They were all just out there working with this entrepreneurial spirit like everyone else.

I met a lot of good people in Texas. Great friends, great artists, and that’s where I got my start as a freelancer. You have a lot of great artists down there. You have Don Punchatz, Jack Unruh, Bart Forbes— you can’t ask for three better illustrators. I got to know Don fairly well, but I got to know Jack and Bart much more. Bart and I got along exceptionally well because he went to high school in Cincinnati. He was a big Cincinnati Reds fan and we had that connection. Likewise Jack is such a warm and gracious person. He’s infectious—you can’t help but love him. They are all good people and great artists. Fred Woodward was an art director in Dallas and I got to meet and work

Illustration’05 15

16 Illustration’05

“Little George Fountleroy,” Mother Jones, 12 x 15 inches, mixed media. AD: Kerry Tremain

with him before he moved on to become “Fred Woodward.” Texas was a great experience. ’05: Then your move in 1987, back to Cincinnati, was prompted mainly because of your family?

CFP: Yeah, it really was. We thought it’d really be good for the kids to know a little bit about their family. I had started working with my representative, Richard Solomon, and it became less and less critical that I live in the Dallas area because my work was coming from different parts of the country. So it really was a way to let the kids be closer to our families in our hometown. ’05: Now this was a pivotal time in your career because it was when your career as a freelancer really took off. Tell me about the Nancy Reagan/Ronald Reagan/Henry VIII piece and how that changed your life.

CFP: There is some history to that. I got to know Fred Woodward in Dallas, Texas. I went to show him my portfolio when he was with D magazine. My portfolio was filled with work I’d done in Chicago.

It was very competent, studio work; so montage illustration was a dominant portion of the portfolio. I went to show (Fred) my work, because everybody was telling me, “You have to go see this art director.” As I’m showing it to him you could tell by the look in his eyes and the body language that he didn’t like it one bit. He was bored stiff and all I could do was sit and watch him as he slowly turned a page, turned a page, closed the book, handed it back, and said, “Thank you.” And that was it.

As I was walking out of the office I’m thinking, “What’s going on? People have told me that I’m pretty good.” I expected him to at least say, “Not bad, do this, do that”—something—not absolutely nothing. So I’m walking back to my car and as I’m getting closer I’m getting madder and I’m thinking, “If you don’t like my work, fine,

“George W. Bush,” Weekly Standard, 12.5 x 15.5 inches. AD: Lev Nisnevich

tell me you don’t like my work, just tell me something.” So I turned around, didn’t even open the car door, and headed back to meet with him again and tell him, “The least you could have done was tell me something.” And I just about got to the door of D magazine and I think, “Wait a minute, I made the appointment, he doesn’t owe me anything. I imposed my work on him. There was nothing he was obligated to do.” So I got into my car and drove to a studio where a group of young artists were working.

In the studio was Steve Pietzsch (pronounced Peach), Jose Cruz, Sean Early, Louis Escobedo, and Mike Pressly. So I went to Steve and I said, “What’s wrong? What happened? Everyone told me I had to see this guy.” Steve looked at my portfolio and said, “Well, your work—it’s mainly montage stuff. Look around—now this is the stuff that you should be looking at.” So I started looking at Sean Early’s work. Sean was just a brilliant, brilliant young artist from Dallas who died way too young. I started looking at his pictures and each one was an illustration—a narrative piece with an idea. Sean was more avant-garde, Steve was more of a traditionalist, but they were all doing pictures with ideas and content. I thought, “What have I been doing?” I started over by giving myself assignments and I worked for about six months creating all new pictures until I had something different. Then I went back to show my portfolio to Fred and he said, “You’ve really changed your work.” And I would say in no more than a month I got my first assignment from Fred and I started working with him on a regular basis.

It was while I was in Dallas that I got a reputation for being fast.

I’d get these jobs where the art directors would say, “Chris, we’re in a jam. Something didn’t work and we need to get an image by tomorrow.” They would call me at three o’clock in the afternoon and I’d stay up all night to get it done. After Fred Woodward moved to Texas

“Nancy Reagan,” Regardie’s, 1987. 12.5 x 16 inches, mixed media. AD: Fred Woodward

Illustration’05 17

“Ted Koppel,” The Washington Post, 11 x 11 inches, mixed media. Unpublished

“Pete Rose,” Whittle Communications, 12 x 12 inches, mixed media. Unpublished

Monthly he developed a single illustrated page called “Western Art.” He had all kinds of artists like Jose Cruz doing a single piece of art for the page. It was an open assignment as long as the image had a Western theme. He once contacted 20 artists and had them all “draw” the cowboy from the well-known art school ad. He had Brad Holland, Alan Cober, Sean Early, Jose, and many others—but he didn’t call me.

Meanwhile, he continued to call me and say, “Someone screwed up can you help us out?” Now in those days I’d stay up all night and in the morning I’d take the artwork down to the Greyhound bus station, put it on the first bus out of Dallas to Austin and someone would pick it up at the bus station there. Finally, I decided to do my own Western art piece. I sent it to him, he liked it, and he ran it.

Later on when Fred went to Rolling Stone, he was teaching at S.B.A. and he invited me to his class. After I told the students this story he said, “Wow, you’re right, that is the way it happened. Whenever I show the piece I say how I assigned it to you but you’re right. After you sent me that piece my attitude and my opinion towards your work and you as an artist changed.” He had indeed put me in a niche as an artist where I was the “Maytag repairman” of artists. So when he needed something fast he’d call me, but when he wanted “art” he’d call other artists. He once told me he knew that no matter what job he sent me, no matter the deadline, he knew I would send him something he could run and I would never embarrass him. But in the Western art piece I had changed his perception of me as an artist. So, when he went to Regardie’s, which is what that Nancy Reagan piece was done for, he started his own page of art called “Altered Egos,” and I was the first person he called. One of the things I point out to students when I tell this story is that they have got to take the initiative to want to do well, and you have to have an inner competitiveness to push yourself. I didn’t realize what [Fred] was thinking about me. I didn’t know that he had this preconceived attitude about me and my work, but I noticed what kind of work these other people were getting and I wanted that work—so I went after it. I created something on my own—I took the initiative that it would be accepted.

So Fred called me to do the job for Regardie’s and I remember it took me four drawings before I got the Nancy Reagan the way I wanted it—doing the distortions and getting them right. I remember that the Ron Reagan came real fast but for some reason the Nancy

Reagan was a little bit of a hard one for me. I did the piece and it was right about the time I was moving to Cincinnati because when the thing ran, the publisher liked it so much he wanted to buy it. At that time I needed $2,000 for moving expenses, so I told him it cost $2,000. About two weeks later Fred called me and asked if he could buy it and I said, “Oh, Fred, I’m so sorry, I already sold it to Bill Regardie. I needed the moving expenses money.”

It was just one of those things. When the Nancy Reagan piece ran people started seeing it and I began getting calls from more and more publications. Fred then went to Rolling Stone where I did a picture for him of Buddy Holly looking in an optometrist’s window at the now-famous black-rimmed glasses. About that same time the Nancy Reagan piece was accepted in Communication Arts. They ran it as a full page, then things really started to take off. All of a sudden People magazine called and talked to my wife Paula. When I got home she told me People magazine called and she said, “Guess how much they want to pay you?” So I guessed and she said, “No, guess again.” So I guessed lower and she said, “No, you’re going in the wrong direction.” (Laughs) So I said, “You’re kidding? Wow!” So I guessed more and she said, “No, more.” So this went on a couple times and it was this insane amount, considering where I was coming from. Paula just looked at me and said, “Do you know how many bed pans I have to clean to make that kind of money?”

The job deadline was so tight that I had to literally hand-deliver it myself. I had to take the plane to New York and bring my mini studio supplies so that if there were any changes I could do them right there. Sure enough, they asked for some changes. I worked on it until 4 or 5 a.m., caught a few hours sleep, dropped it off that morning, and they said, “Looks great.” They called for a cab, and I got on a plane and came home. While I was in the offices I’d asked the art director why they’d called me, and she explained that they originally wanted David Levine to do the artwork, but he gave them a price that was—from my experience at that time as a little punk— I couldn’t believe the number. The other thing was that Levine had the restriction that there would be absolutely no changes. Of course my rep and I thought we were negotiating this fee that was just so beyond what we were used to getting. We thought they were just handing us a pot of gold, and then we find out that I’m doing the art for less than half

18 Illustration’05

“Tall in the Saddle,” Texas Monthly, 12 x 15.5 inches, mixed media. AD: Fred Woodward

Illustration’05 19

“Goin’ South,” Gentlemen’s Quarterly, 16 x 18 inches, mixed media

20 Illustration’05

“Same Ol’ Song and Dance,” Rolling Stone, 13 x 16.5 inches. AD: Fred Woodward

of what David Levine wanted. It’s one of those things where now I’m going, “Good Lord, I stiffed David Levine.” I didn’t have the credibility and I still don’t have the credibility of a David Levine. This is one of the best artists of the second half of the 20th Century—he’s historical and he earned that place. It was one of those weird things. ’05: What was the piece?

CFP: It was for the year-end issue. It was a black-and-white, doublepage spread of all the people who had a really lousy year. It was the year that the garbage barge was shuttling up and down the east coast because it had nowhere to dump the garbage, so it had the garbage barge, Bobby Knight, Boris Yeltsin, Sean Penn, anybody who had bad press that year.

From November to mid-February I went from working in relative obscurity to working for major publications. I couldn’t help thinking, “What the hell’s going on here? How is my work being perceived differently?” I think what happens is that it’s like the old “bird on a wire” thing. It’s really, really hard to get the first one to fly but once one takes off they all do. Plus the fact that Fred Woodward has a tremendous reputation as an art director and Rolling Stone had a marvelous reputation, so if Rolling Stone was willing to use me it gave other art directors the confidence to use me too.

Shortly after the People assignment I was working for Esquire, GQ, and Sports Illustrated doing three assignments at once when I got a call from Time magazine and they wanted me to do a cover. By then I had already done a couple spot illustrations for them. I couldn’t believe it, but I had to say no because I had too much work. I remember hanging up the phone on the wall and banging my head on the receiver saying, “What have I just done?” They called me back and I had to turn it down a second time. Shortly after that I was in New York on business and went to Time to meet with Billy Powers, one of the art directors who had given me some spot illustrations. He introduced me to the covers art director, Arthur Hochstein. Arthur said,

“Democrats in L.A.,” Weekly Standard, 12.5 x 16.5 inches. AD: Lev Nisnevich

“Oh, hi Chris. You do know that we have a three strikes and you’re out policy?” (Laughs) And I’m going, “No, you don’t understand. I’ve got to make sure that if I accept a job I’ve got to be able to do it right.”

And Arthur’s saying, “I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. Don’t worry about it—we understand.” In the end I think they appreciated the fact that if I felt I couldn’t give the job the right amount of time and energy I wasn’t going to do it. So the third time they called me was for a cover on Bill Clinton. That was my first Time cover. ’05: You’ve been doing the back covers of Reader’s Digest for several months now and they’ve certainly increased your visibility. They are very strong story-driven pieces out of a Rockwellian school of thought. As a young artist, Norman Rockwell had to have been a big influence on you—maybe not in technique or style, but certainly in how he could illustrate a narrative.

CFP: I remember looking at Norman Rockwell’s work when I was in junior high school through 11th grade. In all my study I never rejected Rockwell. Who could imagine the work of Rockwell and his influence would come back and hit me full circle to where now I’m given these wonderful assignments for Reader’s Digest? ’05: “Slice of life” art.

CFP: Yes, they have an American slice-of-life theme. You just can’t run away from the impact of Rockwell, though. I’m doing everything I can to not let him influence me. I have to take my look at contemporary culture and give it my best shot. Rockwell set such a standard, not only with the storytelling but also with his craftsmanship. If I don’t do my very best people will just not accept it. It cannot be mediocre because they’ve already got this torchbearer who set a standard. ’05: Do you think Rockwell went through the same thing with Leyendecker?

CFP: But Leyendecker was not so much of a storyteller. They were more iconic images, and he didn’t do the full narratives.

Illustration’05 21

“Extra Innings,” Reader’s Digest, 12 x 16 inches, mixed media. AD: Hannu Laakso

22 Illustration’05

“Word Power,” Reader’s Digest, 12 x 16 inches, mixed media. AD: Hannu Laakso

“Table for Two,” Reader’s Digest, 12 x 16 inches, mixed media. AD: Hannu Laakso

’05: I meant that Rockwell was following in the footsteps of the standard bearer of the magazine because, for Rockwell, Leyendecker was at one time the be-all and end-all of illustration.

CFP: Right, and for that reason I can’t look at today’s culture and say, “How would Rockwell tell this story?” I can’t do that. All I can do is make my own observations of today’s culture and respond to them. ’05: You don’t want to editorialize or make propaganda.

CFP: I want the viewer to allow their own life experiences to help them determine what they want to see in the picture. ’05: In recent years you did two Time magazine covers, one with your son Evan on it, and the other with your mother-in-law and Evan on it, and you did an Atlantic Monthly cover with Trevor holding the fishing pole. Besides those pieces, do you attach any sentimental value to your work, or is it just “work for hire?” What emotional impact do they have for you personally?

CFP: I don’t know if it’s time, or what it is, but when you do things like Reader’s Digest or something as whimsical as MAD magazine, or The New York Times, the one thing I’ve noticed is that the topography of the illustration business has changed and I find now that I feel such a higher level of responsibility in doing the work. I never felt I had pressure in doing the artwork—when I was actually, physically doing it—the only pressure I ever felt was when I wasn’t doing it; when something was taking me away from the board. But when I was doing the last Time cover, all of a sudden this new “thing” kind of cropped up (and that was) how few covers Time now commissions.

I know Arthur Hochstein would love to use a lot more illustrations, I really do believe that, but I don’t believe that the editors have faith in illustration or feel that it’s relevant to the virtues of the maga-

zine. So when the opportunity comes you feel like, “This has GOT to be great.” because if it’s not they’ll just say, “See, we don’t need illustration.” All of a sudden I’m no longer illustrating for my own career—now I’m illustrating for the betterment of my entire profession. It’s weird.

I’m illustrating these Reader’s Digests now. Potentially, these things are seen by 20-30 million people because it’s printed in something like 14 languages. I’m sure my images aren’t on the back of the Chinese version. (Laughs) But the point is that having your work seen by 20-30 million people, the responsibility that artwork has for that magazine is huge. If I start thinking about that too much, all of a sudden I feel a pressure that I never used to feel before. If I can’t make this succeed, if each picture is not a terrific picture, I feel like I’m not just letting myself down but I’m also letting my peers down. The way this industry has evolved, you’re not seeing illustrations on the covers of magazines the way you used to and it’s unfortunate. ’05: Recently you’ve been named as chair of the illustration department at The Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio.

Now I know you’ve been teaching there for several years, but how did the chairmanship come about?

CFP: Walter King had been chair of the department for a long time.

He had wanted to devote more time to his artwork. I’m still learning about this new position. First I wanted to know how we could make it work with me living in Cincinnati and the college being in Columbus. In talking with Dean Richard Ashenbrand, Stewart McKissick, and Walter, we’ve been working out the details. I don’t want people to think that the department chair is nothing more than a figurehead, and everybody else does all the work.

Illustration’05 23

“More Tom Foolery,” Entertainment Weekly, mixed media, 12 x 7 inches Winner of the Gold Medal, Editorial, Society of Illustrators Annual 39

“Dylan is The Godfather of Rock,” Rolling Stone, 13 x 16 inches. AD: Fred Woodward

I teach because I like to teach. I enjoy the process of teaching and I’m involved with other associations that deal with issues of illustration because I care about illustration. If I’m going to be in this business of trying to teach illustration, I’d like to also be part of the process of trying to shape a program that gives young people their best opportunity to prepare themselves for the real world. ’05: It’s all in the basics of how well they’re prepared to take on the work that’s out there.

CFP: That’s the way it’s got to be, yeah. There are going to be the traditional things that I believe are pertinent in anyone’s development.

For example, you have to be able to draw. It doesn’t matter if they’re drawing with a mouse or a brush or a pencil; when you go into the business world to compete as an illustrator, you have to be able to draw. After you graduate and enter the market, no one has the time to teach you how to draw. People will gravitate to and appreciate those who can draw well. So, whatever the medium, having the ability to draw will serve you well.

One advantage we have at CCAD is that many of our faculty are working artists. Our faculty is out there creating all the time. The fact that much of my work has high visibility doesn’t make it more credible—it just happened to be seen by more people. ’05: What’s the biggest hurdle you see for young illustrators? The current economy’s certainly not helping stimulate traditional illustration markets.

CFP: There have been decreases in the traditional markets, but there are other markets where illustrators can succeed. The dilemma is that the non-traditional markets can be less predictable. The payoffs are less clear and the ability for the artists to maintain the ownership or

24 Illustration’05

authorship of their work is being constantly challenged. One of the biggest obstacles illustrators are facing, for that matter all artists are facing, is that oftentimes they are being forced to give up ownership of their work. If, to get a job, they have to give up the copyrights for their original creations, they also forfeit any long-term security those creations may offer them because now someone else owns them. ’05: And there’s nothing that can be done about it because there is no longer any way to protect your intellectual properties.

CFP: Right. That’s going to be one of the toughest things for young people, because they’re going to be graduating from school and have college loans and bills to pay, and they need the work. There’s only going to be so much work available to them and there really isn’t a means available to them to protect themselves from this type of thing. The companies that deal with these things will have them sign contracts that will be long-lasting contracts. There are contracts out there where people will ask you not only for the work that you do for them at that moment but the contract will grant them rights to own all the work you do for them from that point on. Some contracts will even grant them the rights to work that you’ve done for them in the past. ’05: Like Condé Nast?

CFP: Let’s put it this way… I won’t sign the Condé Nast contract. I’m not sure if the recent Condé Nast contract has a grandfather clause in it, but one of their recent contracts has a clause that if you did a work for one of their publications, then they own the rights for any work that you do for any of their other publications. So if you do something for Cosmopolitan, that contract carries over into Travel and Leisure—you don’t have a separate contract for that magazine.

Portrait of Neil Young, The New York Times Book Review, 13 x 16 inches, mixed media. AD: Steven Heller

Illustration’05 25

Portrait of Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stone, 13 x 15.5 inches, mixed media. AD: Fred Woodward

Portrait of Busta Rhymes, Rolling Stone, 9 x 14 inches, mixed media. AD: Fred Woodward

Illustration’05 27

28 Illustration’05

Portrait of Mario Cuomo, The Washington Post, 11 x 14 inches, mixed media

It’s tough if you’re just starting out. They may waive the contract for some artists who are well established, but younger artists who don’t have the leverage will be forced to sign the contract. As time goes on and the older illustrators retire or die, they’ll start to build up a very large library of images. Once you’ve built up a library over a 30-year period and you combine it with their photo library, you have a library that can serve a multitude of functions. You can either sell that library to a stock house or you can keep it, hire a couple staff artists, and just utilize that body of work because you have the copyright and ownership of it all. It becomes a form of clip art where they can collage, montage, or create all kinds of artwork based on that body of work and they’ll never have to pay anybody for the right to use it.

That means that you can eliminate the need for illustrators entirely.

Unfortunately, the model for this has already been established with photography. Some photographers have sold entire catalogs, thousands of photos, much of it royalty-free. So now, using Photoshop, you can cut and paste and you’ve eliminated the need for a photographer. Some artists are not that affected, such as illustrators doing social commentary based on public figures. If someone wants a picture of Ken Lay of Enron begging on a street corner, it’s hard to find a stock photo of that—so I’ll get that call. But there is so much visual content available that it makes it tough.

Now graphic designers are being pressured by budget issues. Some are now beginning to use stock or Photoshop to create images. So the people who are supposed to be your peers in the business have now become your competitors. I don’t expect designers to look after my interests, but I would expect their professional trade associations to somehow work better for artist’s interests. Right now many illustrators are concerned about what’s going on with the business environment in our industry. Whether folks at the A.I.G.A. want to unload

Portrait of Tom Wolfe, The New York Times Book Review, 13 x 16 inches, mixed media

this or not, illustrators and photographers are also under the canopy of the graphic artists industry. For them to abdicate this responsibility is unfortunate.

If illustrators are part of the graphics industry, then our issues should be of concern to everyone in the graphic arts industry.

Turning your back on an entire segment of your industry—ignoring the business concerns of the people who provide you the visual content—is irresponsible. I’m not saying graphic designers need to plant a billboard that says “Stock is Evil”; I just want an open forum discussion about what is going on in this industry—the effects to the buyer, to the end user, to the culture, and to the artists who produce the work that the designers use. Right now the stock houses are so well capitalized that they are just throwing money at these folks. It appears the money is just too good to pass up.

That’s why you have something like The New York Art Director’s Club giving Getty Images the “Pillar of the Industry” Award. I thought those type of awards were reserved for lifetime achievements. How do you become a “Pillar of the Industry” in such a short amount of time? I mean, Jack Unruh has been illustrating brilliantly for 40 years but he’s not a “real” illustrator to these guys, he’s not a “Pillar of the Industry.”

Amazingly, at the Vancouver A.I.G.A. conference, among the invited speakers were two vice presidents from Getty Images. They didn’t invite any photographers or illustrators—the only representation for anyone doing visual content was from a stock house. Yet who was a major sponsor, and a major sponsor amounts to about $25,000? Getty Images! And who provided the images for their website promotion? Getty Images! They just purchased instant credibility, instant validation, instant prestige. All of a sudden an artist of Brad Holland’s stature who was, I think, a board member of A.I.G.A.,

Janet Reno and Bill Gates, unpublished illustration for TIME, 12 x 15 inches, mixed media. AD: Arthur Hochstein

Illustration’05 29

Micawber by John Lithgow. Designer: David Gale

“Triple Self-Portrait,” from Micawber, 11 x 13 inches, mixed media

who’s had a 40-year career in the business of image making, who’s work has been seen throughout the world, who has taken on a roll of being a major advocate for illustrators and the field of illustration, and the A.I.G.A. won’t even give him a forum. Where was a different point of view? ’05: He didn’t have the 25 grand.

CFP: I have to admit the silence is deafening. The trade publications are filled with page after page after page of full-page advertising by these corporate stock houses—little wonder why there’s not a word being said. One entire issue of Step Inside Design was nothing but a review of around 27 stock agencies and royalty-free companies. It was like a LIFE magazine of “What’s new from Dodge?” or “What’s new from Chrysler?” or “What’s new from Chevrolet?” It was “What’s new for the graphic designer in cheap visual content?”

What are going to be the social and cultural impacts to our society when we convince ourselves that reusing old, existing images is the best we can do? What happened to the idea of an original thought?

Where is the concept of a designer or an art director taking a blank piece of paper, having an idea, and creating something new? Brand new! Working with another artist, having an original vision, an original thought? Now it’s go to this site, cut that out, go to this site, copy it to the computer, stretch this, plunk that, push a button, send it out, bill it, and start on the next one. All I’m asking is: “Why can’t we talk about it?” ’05: Because the stock houses are paying the bills.

CFP: Exactly! Ultimately I do believe the stock houses want to dominate our industry. They have already started down this road. There are (computer) programs with graphic design templates. There may be a day where these corporations will be selling the design templates, the photos, and the illustrations under one roof. It’s literally the WalMarting of this industry, and the guys who are accepting the money

from the stock houses are eventually going to get bit too. If you want to produce anything with design, photography, or illustration, you’ll have to go to the employment office and get your union card. ’05: Is there an end-run around them?

CFP: I believe the best way to deal with them is to compete. We have to prove that original art is superior. It can be tailor-made to fit a client’s needs. And I believe an artist-friendly licensing agency would give us the clout to compete. ’05: I want to get back to your art and talk about some of your experiences. Who is your favorite person in the industry to illustrate for?

CFP: I loved working with Fred Woodward. He gave me so many wonderful opportunities. Steven Heller, the art director for the New York Times Book Review. It’s really strange—I don’t think I’ve done any turkeys for him. I did Joe Kennedy, Sr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, Nat King Cole, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and a very nice Tom Wolfe. I just did an Alexander Hamilton for him and I was pleased with how it came out. Of course, this Reader’s Digest series has been a real blessing. I am very proud of the work we are doing there. ’05: What about your children’s books? How is John Lithgow to work with?

CFP: Absolutely delightful guy. He’d developed a symphonic piece to help young people become interested in music. After he’d completed it someone said, “This would make a great children’s book.” So that’s how The Remarkable Farkle McBride got started. I had done a cover for Lithgow’s Singing in the Bathtub CD, so he already knew who I was. ’05: You’ve illustrated eight children’s books and are currently working on your ninth. Do you find it harder to work on a multiple image project rather than a single image one?

CFP: Early on it was really intimidating. People are creatures of habit

30 Illustration’05

“Southpaw,” Dellas Graphics, Syracuse, NY, 12.5 x 16.5 inches, mixed media. AD: Jim Burke

Illustration’05 31

Shoeless Joe and Black Betsy by Phil Bildner

Casey at the Bat by Ernest L. Thayer

and for 18 years I’d been a one-illustration artist. Now it’s 20 pictures.

Just from an organizational point of view it was hard not to mention that there has to be a sense of cohesiveness. Bless the publisher’s hearts they were all gracious and terrific to work with. I’ve gotten better and now I’m able to contribute more. ’05: What’s the shortest deadline you’ve ever had for a major client?

CFP: It was a 1994 Time cover. It was during the summer while I was teaching at Murray Tinkelman’s graduate program at Syracuse. It was a weeklong session from Monday through Friday. Normal conditions with Time magazine would be that I’d get a call on a Wednesday for an assignment, and the artwork would have to be in New York on Friday. Well, it was Friday, I went to lunch, and when I stopped by my room the person at the hotel told me I had a message, and it said, “Arthur Hochstein—Please call immediately.” So I was walking with Peter Fiore and he asked about the note and I told him it was from Arthur. He said, “Well, are you going to call?” and I said, “No, it’s Friday, there’s nothing he can offer me. It’s obviously a job for next week. I’ll just call him later on.” Then Peter said, “It says you’d better call immediately. When we got back up to the office I think you should call him.” So we got to the office and I called Arthur and he said, “Can you do a job?” I said, “Sure, when we get done with school I’m driving back to Cincinnati and I’ll get on it right away on Monday.” He said, “No, no, no, no, no. I need the artwork for tomorrow, Saturday.” (Laughs) And of course I said to him, “Arthur, how did you find me?” And he said in this little sadistic voice, “Ve haf vays. Ve haf vaaaaaaays.” So I said, “I’m up in Syracuse, I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” To which he said, “Hear me out first, you might be able to do this—it’s about the baseball strike.” I thought, “Oh, okay.” Now when I go to Syracuse each year I do a demonstration, so I bring my supplies up there and I have a mini studio. Virtually the whole time I’m there I do portraits of old baseball players, and I have pictures of old baseball players. So I thought, “Okay, I’ll listen,” and I said, “Well, what do you want me to do?” Arthur told me he wanted a picture of a baseball

32 Illustration’05

umpire with a catcher and a batter, and as the pitch is coming in the umpire’s hollering, “Strike!” So I said to Arthur, “If you want to say that then what you need to do is have the umpire yelling ‘Strike!’ but the catcher and batter should be missing. Since the players are on strike they shouldn’t even be in the picture.”

As we talked he’s describing and I’m sketching on the back of the little message sheet. It was a little drawing about 1½ inch tall by 1 inch wide. So I went and blew it up about 200% and faxed it to him.

About 3:30 that afternoon I got a phone call from Arthur saying, “This looks good. Let’s do it.” Now I’m thinking, “Oh God! Now how am I going to do this?!” ’05: Tonight!

CFP: Yeah, I have to paint a TIME cover tonight! I asked him, “How am I going to get this to you?” and he said, “We’ll arrange for a courier to pick it up, take it to the airport, and get it to us.” So I said, “Okay.” I hung up the phone and thought, “Wait a minute… I did my demonstration, I used my piece of illustration board—I need to get some illustration board!” So we got in the car, drove to an art supply store, and got some illustration board. I had a Polaroid camera, I photographed a student, I photographed Bunny Carter’s* face going “Strike!” because I figured if there’s anybody who can make the facial expression of an umpire shouting “Strike!” it’s the mother of a pitcher; her son pitched for Stanford’s baseball team. So she gave me the perfect “Strike!” Then I started drawing it just as class ended. The session was over and everybody, the students, the rest of faculty, all went out for a picnic and a party. I went up to my hotel room and started on this doggone thing and just painted away. * “Bunny” Carter, AKA Alice A. Carter, is an award-winning illustrator and professor in the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University. She is the author of The Red Rose Girls and The Art of National Geographic. ’05: What time was that?

CFP: It was probably around six. At 11:30 p.m. there was a knock at my door. It was Bunny with all of the students. They had pizza, beer,

“Stee-rike,” cover illustration for Time, 12.5 x 16.5 inches, mixed media. AD: Arthur Hochstein

Illustration’05 33

Poster for the Society of Illustrators, 12 x 16 inches, mixed media

34 Illustration’05

Florida Citrus Growers ad, mixed media, 16 x 13 inches Winner of the Silver Medal, Advertising, Society of Illustrators Annual 39

Friends at 75 years old, Entertainment Weekly, mixed media, 13 x 16 inches

and Jagermeister… and I’m going “Oh, God.” As it turned out, they just wanted to see how it was coming and bring me some food. ’05: By that time how much was done?

CFP: It had come a long way. ’05: I’ve seen you—you work really fast.

CFP: Yeah, pretty quick. So I had some pizza and one beer and I had pictures taken with Bunny and Alex Bostick, one of the students there, and there were four or five of us, and we all had a brush and we were standing around the painting and it looked like we were all working on it at the same time.

I called Time magazine and said, “You can send a courier here about 3:30 in the morning to the hotel. I continued working and I literally finished it at about 3:15. So I called a number to confirm the courier and he soon arrived at the hotel lobby and I asked him, “Do you have a receipt for the art?” and he looked at me and said, “A receipt?” and I said, “Yeah, a receipt.” And he said, “No, I really don’t have anything.” I just looked at him and said, “I’m giving this to a total stranger? I don’t know who you are.” This wasn’t FedEx, he wasn’t in a uniform, so I had him call his superior and we talked. I got a piece of paper with their names on it, gave him the artwork, and went upstairs to bed around 4 a.m.. I got a 10 o’clock wakeup call, loaded my stuff in my car, and drove back to Cincinnati, and low-and-behold, Monday it’s on the cover of Time magazine. Gotta love it. It was wild.

This is what drives me nuts about stock. We were able to tailormake a very specific image to tell a very specific story to an audience.

You take a hoop, set it on fire, put it at any height, and an illustrator will do everything they can to jump right through it. It’s not just me; it’s illustrators performing miracles daily. You can’t tell me that stock is better. You can pile all the images of a stock house as high as you like but they still won’t be better than one original thought. ’05: At times I’ve heard you define modern illustration as “art under the circumstances.” Would you please elaborate?

CFP: Fine art tends to place fewer restraints, fewer restrictions on artists, while illustration, by its nature, is a vehicle of communication. The root of the word illustration is “to make clear.” What we do as illustrators is to produce artwork intended for use by people for people. The reality of modern illustration is that we live in a competitive, fast-paced world with increased demands and shorter deadlines. “Circumstances” can dictate the success of the illustrator and how “clearly” their art is understood. Not everything I do is perfect, but it’s as “perfect” as I can do based on the circumstances—the constraints—of that particular assignment. The one thing that has stayed consistent is that illustration was and is “popular art”—the art of the people. It is a reflection of our culture. When historians want to understand a time—a culture—they will look to illustration rather than fine art to understand the people. Because of that, it truly is a relevant and meaningful art form. ’05: All things being equal, if you didn’t have to pay a bill for the rest of your life, if you didn’t ever have to worry about money again, what type of art would you do?

CFP: I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s an interesting question because there are friends of mine, like Mark English who is doing some incredible landscapes, and his son, John, who is doing some marvelous work on his own, and there’s part of me that sees what they’re doing and has some envy in what they’re doing, but then I sit down and wonder, “What would I want to paint?” I don’t have this yearning to create a new body of work. The one thing I love about illustration is that it’s constantly dealing with today’s culture—it’s a mirror of our world. I still like being an illustrator. ’05 Interview © C.F. Payne and Brian M. Kane, September 22, 2004 Brian M. Kane is the author of Hal Foster—Prince of Illustrators, and the upcoming James Bama: American Realist. He is also hard at work on a monograph on the legendary illustrator Bob Peak.

Illustration’05 35

Portrait of Tim, watercolor on paper

36 Illustration’05

Sergio Giovine, 2005

THE PAPERBACK ART OF

Sergio Giovine

by Gary Lovisi The name Sergio Giovine probably doesn’t ring a bell with you.

But if you’ve heard of Jake Logan or The Gunsmith, or if you have seen either of these long-running Western paperback series in the bookstore, then you’ve seen examples of Sergio’s work. Since 1982 he has painted hundreds of paperback covers in numerous genres, and while he may not be a household name, he has been producing paperback cover art for more than 20 years.

In the following article, interview, and appreciation, Sergio was kind enough to answer specific questions about himself and his work as well as talk about the current Western and Young Adult cover art fields. These are areas in which he has worked for many years, concentrating on two Western paperback series—The Gunsmith books

by J.R. Roberts (pseudonym of mystery author Robert Randisi), an incredibly lengthy series of over 250 books; and the Slocum Series by Jake Logan, another series of over 300 books!

For many hundreds of these covers, Sergio’s work was rendered traditionally on canvas in oil paint. Since 2000, though, Sergio—like many other illustrators—has given up paint and canvas, and he now creates all his “paintings” digitally on a computer. It is a growing trend in the business and a fundamental change in the way many paperback cover illustrations are produced.

THE BEGINNING Sergio Giovine is 45 years old and was born in Jersey City, and raised in Hoboken. Sergio says, “My twin brother and I were always considered the class artists in school—we were both born with the talent. At one time in elementary school in Hoboken a competition occurred between my brother and myself. We were rivals in the

second grade competing for the best artist capable of decorating the classroom wall.

“Eventually, my brother would lose interest in art and our interests diverged. I continued to paint and draw, toying with the idea of becoming an artist, but I didn’t take it seriously until I discovered the paintings of Norman Rockwell in a bookstore. One day at age 13, when looking over the art books in the only bookstore in Hoboken, I discovered the book Norman Rockwell Illustrator by Arthur L. Guptill. I was immediately captivated by his work and the work of his contemporaries who illustrated for the Saturday Evening Post. I had no idea that there was such a thing as illustration as a potential career.

I decided that illustration was what I wanted to do.”

The Western Paintings Sergio Giovine began painting covers for paperback books in 1982 when he came out of art school—Parsons School of Design. “I only began illustrating the Gunsmith series periodically in 1982. My first Jake Logan cover was, I believe, on book #65. I didn’t competely take over both of the series until 1985 or 1986. In fact, I’ve just completed the cover for Jake Logan book #300 and for Gunsmith book #266. I have also done some individual Westerns for other publishers, but none of these have been in a continuing series.”

Sergio says about his early days and work as an illustrator, “It was a great time to be an aspiring illustrator. I was right out of school and trying to make inroads into the publishing industry.”

Sergio got his first assignment by painting and submitting two very retro pulp paintings to publishers as examples of his potential. The publishers loved them and saw his talent. Unpublished, one was a

Illustration’05 37

Two sample illustrations from Sergio Giovine’s early portfolio, inspired by Raphael DeSoto and the pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s. Oil on canvas

stunning recreation of a pulp crime masterpiece by Raphael DeSoto.

The other was a pulp-inspired piece of a Kim Bassinger-like girl glancing behind her shoulder at a menacing guy about to pull a gun on her. The original samples no longer exist, but Sergio recreated these two paintings about five years ago. (The DeSoto-inspired painting will become the cover for a future issue of Hardboiled magazine published by Gryphon Books.)

“I eventually found an artist’s rep, and he handed me a Western manuscript and two sample paintings done by some other illustrators.

He indicated that no other artists in his stable wanted to do these Western covers. They were considered low-brow, pulp jobs. In the early 1980s, everyone wanted high-profile Romance assignments which received considerably more money and attention. So, being the hungry artist that I was, I grabbed the jobs—not believing at the time that these series of books would last as long as they have. I continue to do them to this day. However, I’ve done them digitally for the last three years.”

In the mid-1980s Sergio was asked by the art director to move away from the pulp style and make the paintings more realistic. He says, “I believe these two paintings (done for Jake Logan #172, and another titled West Texas Plunder) best illustrates the style that exemplified the pulp style of the 40s mixed with the realism that was required on paperbacks in the 80s and 90s. It was a middle ground that required me to paint quickly using less oil paint. The Westerns were done in half a month, the other half of the month I worked on children’s trade paperbacks.

Talking about some of his Gunsmith paintings, Sergio says, “The Gunsmith is the more interesting of the Western series because the author introduces horror and supernatural themes into the books on occasion.”

One of the paintings Sergio did for this series is The Gaslight Ripper that appeared on book #213. This oil on canvas measures 22” by 28” inches in size, and was painted about five years ago. In it we have a collage of three images: a cowboy and a lady in romantic embrace, a female singer in a dance hall, and the “ripper” of the novel attacking a woman in an alley with his hand at her throat. Effective images that each tell a story about the book and its characters.

Sergio’s very first Western assignment was also a Gunsmith painting, entitled Navaho Devil, which was on book #1 in March 1982. This canvas in oil also measures 22” by 25” inches in size. Here we see a group of five smaller images that come together to form a design for the book cover. In the foreground is a cowboy and a lady in a passionate embrace; behind them are various Western scenes including an Indian dancer. Together they blend to form an effective cover.

When I asked him how much freedom in design he had in paintings these Westerns, Sergio replied, “With the Logan and Gunsmith westerns, very little. I’m required to work around the design format of the profile of the Gunsmith and the portrait of Jake Logan. The design of the covers also requires me to include a romantic clinch of the main character and woman featured in the story.”

When I asked if this was his concept or the art

Sergio’s first cover for the Jake Logan series

38 Illustration’05

The Gunsmith #52

Jake Logan #292

The Gunsmith #213

Jake Logan #295

Cover art for Jake Logan #295, created digitally

Illustration’05 39

Ghost Girl, digital

40 Illustration’05

Karate Club #1

Karate Club #3

Karate Club #6

The Adventures of Callie Ann #4

Double-Yuck Magic

Cricket and the Crackerbox Kid

directors, he said, “Definitely the art department’s design. It’s changed little over the years. In the original format the illustration ended in a large white border at its base where type would be placed. On two occasions the art director wanted a different portrait used for the Jake Logan books. The original model used for the cover of the book was Steve Holland, who was also used as the model for the Doc Savage series (Bantam Books). By the late 80s he was getting too old for the covers.”

The Creation Process: Regarding how much time they allowed him for an assignment, Sergio said, “I’m required to submit the finished art work of both books on the 17th of each month. A sketch is submitted at the

beginning of each cover for approval. These days I rarely hear from the art department. I submit my sketch and go to finish without waiting to hear for approval. When I paint the images I paint very quickly. The actual painting time would be from 5 to 8 days. Doing them in Photoshop requires half that time.”

When asked how he creates his images, he replied, “I skip through the manuscript looking for a scene that best describes the plot of the book. Sometimes just the title of the book would suffice. If the title says “Stagecoach Robbery in Aberline,” guess what I’m putting on the cover. Once settling on an action scene for the cover of the book, I work from reference material or photographs taken by me and a photographer. Professional models have been used and photographed dressed in cowboy clothes wielding old Western firearms. I’ve

Illustration’05 41

The Upstairs Room, oil on canvas

42 Illustration’05

Inception, digital

Avi, digital

assembled a collection of clothes and replica guns over the years.”

When I asked Sergio how many book covers he has done I was quite amazed by his answer and the extent of his work over the 80s and 90s in various genres. He said, “Of the Westerns, approximately 480. Four hundred of them have been painted in oils. The remaining Western illustrations have been created digitally. In addition, I’ve painted approximately one hundred children’s trade paperbacks, primarily for Avon Books and Penguin Books, but also for other clients including Dell, Scholastic, Harper Collins, Random House, as well as Christian publishing companies Crossway Books and Bethany House. My working method for the children illustrations was very similar. A fact sheet was provided giving me a description of the characters and the plot line of the story. The models I used where from a children’s acting school here in San Francisco. I found working with kids who had some acting experience were the best in performing the scene required. They would play out the scenes that were decided by me and the art director once the composition of the illustration was approved in a pencil sketch. The working method described has been used by countless illustrators over the years. It hasn’t changed much since the days of Norman Rockwell and his contemporaries.”

When I asked if he kept all his work, Sergio replied, “Yes and no.

All of my assignments have been returned to me from the publishers.

Some paintings have been sold on eBay. Others given as gifts to friends and others donated as charitable contributions. Once, I received a letter from an author who praised my artwork on the cover of her book. I sent her the painting as a thank you. Most of all my paintings

are available for sale. There are some sentimental favorites, such as the painting done for The Upstairs Room, which I wouldn’t give up.

They’re framed and hanging up at home and at my studio.”

Computer Generated Art Sergio also spoke about modern book cover painting and the use of computers in generating art today: “Much of the description about the working process is from artists who worked in the 50s and the 60s and that hasn’t changed until the advent of the computer. I also used photographed models and friends when collecting reference material (i.e. photos) for a painting. I’ve also considered what I’ve done to be assignments—jobs—and not fine art which will emotionally move viewers and change the world. I think that 19th Century French salon painters and their contemporaries operated with those intentions in mind. I believe art served a very different purpose then, it educated, entertained, and revolutionized society. I think motion pictures serve that function today.”

Asking him about the crossover from painting to digital, and what was lost or gained, Sergio explains, “I found the experience of learning the new medium not difficult at all. I took a crash course in Photoshop here in San Francisco, and within weeks I managed to complete and submit my first digital illustration. What I did discover is what plagues everyone who uses the computer. When the hardware crashes, it can be a big problem. In my first year, two of my computers had to be replaced because of hardware problems which couldn’t be repaired.

Illustration’05 43

Keno, oil on canvas

44 Illustration’05

Summer’s End, digital

“But the graphic applications have made my work efficient and have saved me money in art supplies and shipping costs. Years ago I did a job for Avon Books. It was for a children’s paperback assignment that called for an eight-year old boy sitting on top of a pile of bottle caps.

The painting was no fun at all, it was arduous and time consuming having to paint that huge pile of bottle caps. What took me days to accomplish then could be done today in a matter of hours using the computer.

“However, the experience of working in front of a computer monitor places a barrier between the artist, and the artistic expression of painting. The physical act of mixing paint on a palette with a brush or knife and stroking it across a pliable canvas is a gratifying experience that I miss. Not always, but at certain times I’ve loved the experience of having painted, celebrating that experience by framing those handful of paintings and displaying my enjoyment of a job well done. Pushing a mouse around and punching keys on a keyboard is a poor substitute, but it is an effective means of creating commerce.

I send today’s assignments over the Internet, there’s never anything tangible of my work until I see the image on the cover of a book in a book store. For me the new technology has diminished one of the principal joys of being an illustrator.” ’05

Lady Elizbeth’s Escape, digital

Gary Lovisi is the editor of Paperback Parade, a magazine devoted to all aspects of the collectable paperback hobby, and is the publisher of Gryphon Books. He has written previous articles in Illustration on Robert Maguire and Mitchell Hooks. You may find out more, or contact him at: www.Gryphonbooks.com Sergio Giovine sells his original paperback cover paintings and fine artwork on eBay. You may contact him via email at: sgiovine@sbcglobal.net Girls and Cats, oil on canvas

Illustration’05 45

1. Photos. After deciding on a rough composition, I gather photos from a variety of sources.

Many of the photos I have collected over the years are black and white, but all of my current photos are taken in color, as this is easily modified in software.

The black and white photos are tinted using the Brush tool and Color Mode in Photoshop.

2. COMPOSITION. I clip the selected photos and bring them into a single document in Photoshop. I use the Masking and Lasso tools to make selections and drag and drop the images into the document. I use the Transformation tool to adjust the size of my selections until I reach the desired scale of each item. I arrange the images into my final composition.

46 Illustration’05

3. adjustments. I start work on the background landscape. I need to expand the landscape to fill the space, so I duplicate portions of the shrubs and bushes in the photo and add them to the background. The additional landscape is flipped horizontally using the Transformation tool, and parts erased permitting the original landscape to be blended with the addition.

The two layers are then merged.

The same is done with the sky, and the middle ground of the black and white photo of the farmhouse. Sections of the middle ground are duplicated, increased in size, and the additional layers combined.

4. THE TYPE BOX. The foreground layer is darkened using the Brightness & Contrast con-

trol to accommodate the type that will appear on the book cover. The type box that is created is softened using the Gaussian Blur, Smart Blur filters and the Blur tool. The original head of Jake Logan in the clinch is replaced with a photo of a younger model and merged.

Drop shadows are created for the two characters of the gunmen in the illustration.

6. MOUNTAINS. I make adjustments to the color of the mountains behind the portrait of Logan by eliminating the amount of black and red in the Selective Color dialog box. I also use the Dodge tool to lighten the shadows in the mountains and then begin painting using the Airbrush tool and Color Mode setting in my palette. I con-

tinue to change the shape of the mountains by adding selected sections of the mountains hidden behind the portrait, copying and pasting the additions to the right of Jake’s head. Some layers are merged to decrease the file size and make it more manageable.

7. COLOR. I color tint all of the black and white photos using the Paint Brush tool at 100% Opacity in Color Mode setting.

When the tinting is completed, I soften the selected areas in the images using the Blur tool at 50% pressure, gradually achieving a softer and less photographic look in the elements that compose my Illustration. I continue to refine the painted images alternating between the Airbrush and Paint Brush tools.

Stark shadows in a number of areas in the figures are lightened using the Dodge tool. The Smart Blur filter is also used to create a painterly quality.

8. FINISHING TOUCHES. I decide the cliff and trees above the farmhouse are too large in size and importance, so I eliminate most of the trees that rise above the building. Another female character is introduced into the painting behind the gunmen. I continue to paint all of the elements in the illustration using the Paintbrush tool, selecting the soft round pixel brushes in a Normal Mode setting at approximately 56 Opacity. I blend the images using the Blur tool, and merge the Layers once the painting is competed. n

STEP-BY-STEP:

Jake Logan #271

Illustration’05 47

Drawing Upon the Past

by Jandos Rothstein

T

here was a time when illustrator Leslie Cabarga might have been called a Renaissance Man. He is, after all, not just an illustrator facile in several historical styles. He is also an accomplished type designer; a graphic artist specializing in logos; and an author of more than 20 volumes. Throw in an interest in animation, add the administration of a successful business, and you have the bullet points.

We tend not to use terms like Renaissance Man any more—blame the computer. Cabarga’s various passions, which once required a smelly painting studio, a quiet study, a noisy foundry, a movie studio—and the time to travel between them—have converged into a small box and a glowing screen. Just because the tool is the same does not mean the skill sets are equally interchangeable. Cabarga’s illustrations are a joyous romp through the kitsch styles of the middle of the last century. His type designs range from bold and brash to subtle and beautiful, and he writes knowingly and clearly over a range of subjects—biographies and art how-to’s—though he promises something more socio-political one of these days.

Cabarga for his part rejects the “R” man handle. “It’s not something I cultivate to impress people, it’s something I can’t help; I have too many interests. People see the many books I’ve written and all my other works and they don’t consider that they were done over 30 years, so there was time! But I’ve also spent most of my time working, because I have to. I still have a backlog of projects a mile long. Having a family slows the production considerably, but I owe them my time, and don’t want to have them grow up orphans and me miss them growing up. Also I get to inculcate them with all my radical ideas!”

48 Illustration’05

If Cabarga’s work dances around the early animation and commercial styles of the 20s, the clip art aesthetic of the 20s–50s with a little bit of socialist realism and Pop Art thrown in once in a while, the common link is the visual melting pot of the late 1960s—and the birth of the underground comix movement which coincided with Cabarga’s youth in New York.

“My father worked for as a designer for Will Eisner’s firm, American Visuals, when it was producing PS Magazine for the US Army. PS used a comic format to explain preventive maintenance to soldiers, but it wasn’t entirely comics. (Recently I ended up following in my father’s footsteps—in yet another way—by designing technical instructions. I bought a table saw, and the instructions were so lousy I got the company to hire me to redo their manual. A woodworker friend of mine said it was the only manual he’d ever seen where everything is actually explained.)

“When I was 12 my father brought home some pages for PS magazine and hired me to do the color separations for $12 a month, which seemed like a fortune! From then on, I spent weekends cutting amberlith.”

As for many young artists and designers, even these modest contributions to a printed piece were enough to draw him in deeper. “Oh yes, I felt pride in seeing the issues [of PS] that I’d done the color seps for. And it really set the tone for my workaholic life: friends would come over wanting to play and I’d say, ‘Sorry, I have to work.’ I spent the next 25 years or so missing parties and going out because I had deadlines. These days I have fewer deadlines, but nobody invites me to parties much anymore!

Donkey Kong, 1986

Illustration’05 49

Dope Comix, 1978. Cover by Cabarga, interior by other artists. Cel vinyl on acetate overlay, airbrushed background

50 Illustration’05

“Johnny Jones in At the Dentist”, The National Lampoon, 1975.

As a child Cabarga was haunted by a book he’d seen by dentist Weston Price who had traveled the world comparing the teeth of uncivilized tribesmen to those of their civilized brothers and cousins who had begun eating processed foods that wreaked havoc upon their teeth. This eventually resulted in the comic strip above. Cabarga is currently working with the Price-Pottenger Foundation to restore Weston Price’s original photographs.

Illustration’05 51

© KFS

© KFS

Two of the 45 Betty Boop greeting cards illustrated by Cabarga for Paper Moon Graphics throughout the 1980s

“Back then, I was living with my parents near Freehold, New Jersey.

My father commuted to work every day to Eisner’s in Manhattan.

During my Freshman year in high school, I saw R. Crumb’s Head Comix book published by Viking, and it really turned my head around—as it did for so many others. I said, “Oh my God, there’s an alternative to drawing superheroes in tights!” So I began doing underground-style comics complete with gratuitous sex, violence and racism, as Crumb did, though his was more contextual to his life experiences. I somehow discovered the Gothic Blimp Works, an all-underground comic newspaper and even subscribed. My parents were very liberal and this kind of thing didn’t faze them. They were on their way to becoming full-fledged hippies. Anyway, during my Freshman year I published Fungus magazine (starring Johnny Fungus) and sold this little 16-page magazine with my comics and eclectic designs for 50¢ to kids in my school.

“Shockingly, though Fungus had racism and even full frontal nudity, the principal of the school seemed more impressed than distressed, and nobody challenged me on my first entrepreneurial effort.

“Around 1968, I met Kim Deitch, son of legendary animator Gene Deitch, at Phil Seuling’s NY comic convention, and showed him [Fungus]. Kim was editor of The Gothic Blimp Works, which was published by the East Village Other, the chief underground newspaper in New York. He was impressed partly that I knew how to cut color separations and so my first published comic occupied one page of the 8-page four-color signature in Blimp Works. Of course, it was a stupid comic—I was 14—but technically it was on a par with most of the other contributions. My father called up Kim Deitch to ask what line screen I needed to work with and Kim started sweating because he

52 Illustration’05

thought my father was going to bawl him out for corrupting me.

“By then, I had failed all my Freshman classes because I just didn’t give a shit, and so was essentially left back and had to retake all those classes in my Sophomore year. As a published cartoonist in BlimpWorks—and also EVO and Rat—I was beginning the career I’d always planned on and I didn’t care about school at all. However, my mother found me an out: She heard of an alternative school in Manhattan that had been started by ex-High school students including John Avedon, photographer Richard Avedon’s son. She arranged to have me transferred to this school and so I essentially dropped out of high school at 15. The alternative school I transferred to broke up very shortly thereafter. So I began hanging out in New York, staying at the homes of some brilliant kids my age who had been part of that school. I art directed their underground newspaper and worked for Brill & Waldstein, a small ad agency that was art directing Screw magazine (which I was too young to even buy legally). They paid me $75 per week and I thought I was the richest guy in the world! And, as I said, I was doing exactly what I wanted to do. But imagine letting a 14- and 15-year-old run around New York City by himself. I would never let my kids do that, nowadays.

“After a few years of this, I packed up and headed for San Francisco because all the other NY underground comic artists had done the same. But my career in comics was short-lived, because I had already started writing a biography of Max Fleischer, creator of Betty Boop.

“I was 17 when I moved to San Francisco in July 1972. My first responsibility then was to continue the research I had begun in New York on the Fleischer story. I, of course, didn’t know how to write, but I bought books on the subject and that’s how I learned. Reading books is how I’ve learned everything I know. You can pay for a class,

Illustration for a Manhattan cable guide, 1981. Cel vinyl on acetate overlay, airbrushed background

Illustration’05 53

Scrappy, an illustration for Columbia Pictures, 2002. Illustrator and Photoshop

or you can just buy a few books. Also, I’ve learned from every editor that’s ever corrected my writing. I paid attention! That has helped me enormously. For the next few years I did a few comics here and there and basically starved, which I found amusing, since I grew up middle class and had never wanted for food in my life. I gradually gave up comics because I came to realize I wasn’t much of a story teller; The art director of the East Village Other had once suggested that what I needed was to be hit over the head and shanghaied to China, then spend two years trying to work my way home to America. This, he thought, would provide me with the experiences I’d need to have something to write about in my comics. But later, when I switched to illustration, I always felt that each picture should tell a story and indeed, I think many of my illos kind of have some scenario­—some small little situation that the viewer can sort of figure out—going on in them.

“In 1975 graphic designer Mike Salisbury hired me to do some freelance paste-up for City Magazine, a new San Francisco-based magazine published by Francis Ford Coppola. Within 2 hours he promoted me to designing a section of the magazine each week. I also did regular illustrations for the magazine, so that was really my start in illustration as opposed to comics. I started to hit up all the few magazines in San Francisco at the time—Rolling Stone being notable among them—for illustration work.

“I met [cartoonist] Trina Robbins in New York City when she was living with Kim Deitch. They had a daughter and by the time I got to San Francisco, shortly after they migrated there, they had split up and I got involved with Trina. At 18 I took over the fatherhood of their daughter, Casey Robbins, a relationship I’ve maintained to this day—though Trina and I broke up after six years.

54 Illustration’05

“In 1978, I visited New York and met illustrator Doug Taylor who told me he was making $60,000 per year. That was all I needed to hear. I soon moved to New York and within a couple of years was making 60 grand myself. New York was just a hundred times larger market than San Francisco, where there was essentially no work. So I was working constantly and by the time ten years had gone by of this same thing—a different deadline almost every day—I kind of got sick of it. I began to wonder about the meaning of life, so to speak.

So, if you ask ‘what do I do now; where do I get my jobs from?’ the answer is that I still live hand to mouth like every freelance illustrator, but I find that when you’ve been in business a long time, you’ve made enough contacts and done enough work that somebody is always going to call you up to do something and you keep busy.

“These days I do illustration, as well as logos, but I also do books, brochures and other graphic design. Book and font royalties (I’ve got about 40 fonts and about 6 of them are serious breadwinners) add a decent chunk to my income and allow me to be more choosy about the jobs I take. I wouldn’t turn anything down that was wellpaying, but I’m more interested these days in interesting jobs for nice people—even if they’re smaller jobs—than I am in actively pursuing commercial clients. That’s what I got sick of years back. I wouldn’t say I actively promote myself. A friend of mine (who’s rich) says, ‘Invest in yourself.’ When I do an illustration for somebody, I’m investing in them and their product. When I write books; and especially when I self-publish them, as I have done in a few cases, I’m investing in myself. So I’m more into writing my books these days, which incidentally allow me to express my ideas and sense of humor, along with being educational.”

The National Lampoon, 1978

The “Esky” character was revived by Cabarga for Esquire in the 1980s

Roller Roaches, 1982. Cel vinyl on acetate overlay, airbrushed background

Illustration’05 55

Time, 1981

Fortune cover presentation rough, airbrush

56 Illustration’05

Time, 1980

Fortune, 1984

Cerveza Tecate advertisement, 1982. Airbrush

A CHAMELEON AT WORK If the hurricane of creativity that forms around Cabarga has given him an engaged, and broadly successful career, it has also made his illustration work harder to identify and categorize than many more successful but no more gifted illustrators. And this breadth is not just stylistic but also in point of view. Unlike most illustrators whose fame evolves from dogged adherence to a single artistic approach—repetition is reputation, as the saying goes—Cabarga is truly a chameleon. If one looks closely, one may find evidence of the same hand in some of his most divergent pieces, but rarely the same mind.

A picture of the Empire State Building, rendered for a book jacket, and a train for a Manhattan Transfer cover are rendered in perfect Art Deco style, one imagines the colors being pulled, one at a time, off litho stones. A Business Week cover that plays off Russian Constructivism to discuss Capitalism in the former Soviet country, as does a Newsweek cover for the 2000 Olympics which uses a slightly watered-down version for an article on an enterprise meant to unify the world in peaceful games. For a Fortune cover on industrial espionage, Cabarga works in a modified 1950s clip art style. He’s even gone punk for a Plasmatics album cover.

For Cabarga, clearly as much as what he

chooses to draw, the style itself is the message and the topic—he loses himself in the psyche of the eras he works in. It is only natural that the 50s, the era of the company man, be used to discuss industrial ethics; a modified Soviet style be used to address the world-cooperation that the USSR advocated, if by more objectionable means. And art deco be used for the Jazzera Empire state building and Manhattan Transfer—though for the band it is a bit of a misdirection. Their lineage traces more honestly to 50s than the Jazz age.

What Cabarga draws is often mundane— the espionage story uses a peek though a key hole; and fast trains and tall buildings were common enough in Art Deco work—but his facility with style takes these concepts out of the range of the ordinary.

Pastiche gives Cabarga’s work a surprisingly rich and subtle subtext. While it is unlikely that the typical viewer, untrained in art or design history can consciously “read” all of these choices, they do effect perception.

Viewers, cast as they are on a sea of cultural detritus, can follow the currents even if they don’t always know their sources.

Business Week, 1994

Illustration’05 57

Crime and Puzzlement 2, 1987. Airbrush

True Life Adventure sketch, colored pencil

58 Illustration’05

Tender Murderers, 2004. Photoshop

True Life Adventure, 1985. Airbrush and gouache

Manhattan Transfer, airbrush

For his part Cabarga is willing to be the chameleon. “Different art directors have tended to respond to a specific style that I do and reject the others. So, for example, early on in my career, when I was doing quite regular work for Rolling Stone in a cartoony style, The New York Times Book Review, designed by the great Steve Heller, only wanted my faux woodcut style. One of the cardinal rules in illustration has always been ‘don’t confuse the art director; stick with one identifiable style.’ But I’ve always broken that rule and I think I got away with it because I do each style well enough that it doesn’t seem as if I’m dabbling....”

Still, it seems unfortunate that Cabarga feels he can’t put as much of himself into his drawing as his writing “An illustrator is a whore, certainly, because you’re just illustrating subjects you’re hired for.

And generally, those who hire you have money and they’re not into controversy. But personally, I’m the most radical person on the planet. I’ve discovered that virtually everything we believe is a distortion—from pasteurized milk (the calcium is unassimilable) to flouride (it’s highly toxic to teeth and bodies) to vaccines, and almost all standard dental procedures.”

“I had one—only one—experience, in all my years as an illustrator that kind of hinted at the nature of corporate ‘conspiracies.’ I did an illustration for Esquire showing Esky shooting holes in a deer with an assault rifle (I actually drilled holes through the illustration board over the deer, just for fun). I mean, my concept came from the article which was about assault weapons. But the publisher had me redraw the piece because they were afraid of a negative reaction from the NRA. So, it showed me that, whereas this was not evidence of a conscious conspiracy, there is consensus and cooperation between like-minded conservative entities, and I think that’s why it’s hard to prove actual conspiracy. I always say, that whereas General Motors would love to cut Ford’s corporate throat, when it comes to wanting to prevent laws requiring lower emissions standards, GM and Ford are on the same side. Were we talking about illustration?

“I’ve been putting down notes for years now on at least five books, only one of them about graphics. They are on such subjects as stupid drivers, alternative health and dentistry, exposing the falsehoods of

Manhattan Transfer, airbrush

Leon McAuliffe, airbrush

the world, and women and sex. Saying this makes me sound like some idiot blogger spitting out stupid opinions over the web, but eventually, when some of these books get published, they will prove to be credible, and frankly, when I die I intend to be remembered for these written works even though I am still fascinated by graphics. Right now I’m working on another book on the subject of logos called The Secret Life of Logos that gets into the nitty gritty, or behind the scenes of logo creation.” ’05 Jandos Rothstein is a professor of graphic design at George Mason University, and Design Director of Governing Magazine.

For more information about Leslie Cabarga’s work, please visit his website at: www.lesliecabarga.com and www.flashfonts.com

Illustration’05 59

A Man of Letters

Eric Gill, the renowned British type designer and stone cutter once said that “a letter is not a picture of a thing, it is a thing.”

By this he meant that the individual letter, no matter how lovely, fails if it is merely recognizable. It must function as part of a system of pieces that work together as smoothly and predictably as Tinker Toys. The important unit is not the individual letter (which type designers control), but the word, the sentence and the paragraph—which a type designer can anticipate but not fully predict.

A letter must be distinct enough to contribute to a unique font of type, but must be anonymous enough that it doesn’t call undue attention to itself (letters that are too hauntingly beautiful distract from reading).

It’s a daunting task for anyone, but it seems especially counter to the methods that make for a strong illustration—and indeed, most illustrators don’t make particularly good type designers. To be sure, many illustrators are excellent letterers, but this is a different thing entirely.

Lettered text can reflect meaning—getting wobbly if a character is drunk, dripping blood to reflect murderous anger, turning green with envy. Typefaces must be distinct, yet anonymous.

It is perhaps Cabarga’s ability to lose himself—in a particular era of illustration, in a half-finished manuscript—that allows him to find his way in the subtle discipline and shifting historical contexts that define modern type design.

While Flashfonts, Cabarga’s design and typography wing, has its share of failed experiments (like any other independent foundry) many of his designs represents typography at its best— provocative and useful fonts. My two favorites are Central Station and Angle.

Most text fonts are based on forms that date to originals designed between roughly 1500 and 1800—or at least that’s the theory. Every age, in addition to producing a few memorable original faces, redesigns the classics to meet the tastes and the technologies of it’s own time.

Central Station imagines an old style font such as Garamond, seen through the aesthetic biases of the 1930s.

Angle also looks to the 30s, but to the Frakturinspired sans serifs that were used in German and Eastern European design. Like a Ford Explorer, Angle is bold and bulky but agile. The models for this font usually didn’t have a lower case—the letters are so bold that smaller details get squeezed out—but Angle has one. Cabarga pulls off some fast pen work to keep the minescules both in-character and legible.—JR

60 Illustration’05

A Man of WORDS

“The only thing that frustrates me is— theoretically—I have access to all the wisdom in the world, so why aren’t I rich?” asks Leslie Cabarga, who’s literary journeys include numerous forays into illustration, color, and design, but also includes Talks with Trees: A Plant Psychic’s Interviews with Vegetables, Flowers and Trees.

Cabarga, whose usual rap is as full of bluster as everyone else in the art field, takes on a decidedly quieter and more reverential tone as we discuss his spiritual beliefs, which began around 1985 when he met a man capable of channeling spirits, and who revealed to Cabarga, among other things, that he was similarly gifted.

Over the years, Cabarga became increasingly atuned to human spirit voices. Talks, published in 1997, emerged from the realization that plants also have spirits and and are open to communication; it contains more than 30 dialogs with trees, garlic, and a mourning tulip, among other flora.

But Talks is by no means Cabarga’s only remarkable book. I am not naturally attracted to “How-To’s,” but The Logo, Font and Lettering Bible rises above the genre. Simultaneously written and designed by Cabarga, the integration of words and images shows—and pays off on every page of this sumptuous volume. A long time user of bezier curves, Bible still managed to teach me a thing or two about their proper use, and is chock-a-block with useful tips and fascinating factoids about letter forms, glyphs, and illustration, along with some excellent work

by Cabarga and others. It also has some valuable business information for beginning freelancers.

Also falling into the “How-To” catagory are Cabarga’s books on color combinations and theory. Though he modestly dismisses his own color handling as “decorative,” his work, as well as several volumes about effective color combinations, reveal a more nuanced and richer approach to hue, value, and intensity. While the Designer’s Guide to Color series is published by North Light Books, the first two volumes are available in CD-ROM form from Cabarga’s own Iconoclassics Publishing.

Another of Cabarga’s more interesting forays into publishing concerns his book on the history of Max Fleisher’s animation studio, The Fleisher Story. In it’s day, the Fleisher Studio was second only to the Disney Studio, and in some cases the popularity of some of their characters was said to surpass Disney (Popeye the Sailor.) Thus far, Cabarga’s book is the only history of the studio yet written. —JR

Illustration’05 61

NEW TECHNOLOGY

MODO

Luxology, llc os x and Windows regular price $895 introductory price $695 www.modo3d.com

I was very excited to learn about a new modeling package that is sure to be of interest to all serious 3D designers, animators and illustrators. The software is called modo, and it is being billed as “the fastest, most advanced subdivision surface modeling environment available.” While I have not had time to fully review this package, the many demo videos on the website (www.modo3d.com) had me drooling at the possiblities. Finally it looks like someone has built a modeler centered around the needs of artists rather than engineers.

(Though modo looks suited to the needs of either camp.) As a former user of numerous 3D apps myself, everything from Strata 3D and Vidi Presenter Professional, to Lightwave 3D, Ray Dream Designer, and Carrera, I am always intrigued when something new comes along to revolutionize the modeling world. From the looks of things, the toolset here is tremendous, and the preview version I played with on my dual-processor G5 was blindingly fast. Having never seen the program before, I was up and making basic models in minutes in the intuitive workspace. “modo allows 3D modelers to create without obstacles,” said Brad Peebler, president of Luxology. “By developing modo with the input of many of the world’s premier artists, we’ve come up with a product that is more like an extension of the artist’s imagination than a simple tool. modo simply doesn’t get in the way.” “modo creates a new standard by which all digital content creation software will be measured,” said Jake Carvey of Spin Off Studios.

“From innovative and intuitive modeling tools, to an outstanding, fully customizable interface, modo delivers unprecedented modeling performance in a tight package.”

A few examples of the tools available in modo include: Sketch Bevel; Edge Bevel (With Rounding); Element Move (With Distance Falloff); Loop Slice / Slice Selected; Morph Tool; Bridge Tool; NGons; Edge Weights; Single-

62 Illustration’05

Click Macro Recording; In-depth Scripting (PERL or LUA interfaces); and Toolpipe – enabling new levels of interactive control in falloffs.

Aside from the unique toolset, modo integrates well with existing workflows and various computer platforms. It has been designed to work easily with other leading applications and is fluent in several CG languages. Some of these features include: Full Support of Blend Shapes (Endomorphs); Control, customize and share modo settings at the studio or user level with layerable XML config files; Transparent File I/O—the file format loaded is the file format saved; Viewport navigation and keyboard customization to match your current host application. Even cooler, a modo purchase includes both Mac OSX and Windows 2000/XP versions on the same disc, so you can run the software on either platform. Approximately 98% of the source code is platform independent so that both Mac and Windows versions were developed with almost 100% concurrency—they are virtually identical in feature set.

In addition to extensive written and online-PDF documentation, modo offers in-line help for virtually every button on the screen.

Also available are over 2 hours of video clips accessible directly within modo, as well as tutorial models, and free support.

Minimum System Requirements: Minimum 512MB RAM; Minimum 100MB available hard disk space OpenGL®-enabled graphics card; Monitor resolution 1024 x 768 or greater DVD-ROM drive (for support materials); Internet connection required for activation Microsoft® Windows 2000 or Windows XP Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD AthlonTM processor Mac® OS X 10.2.8; Macintosh® G3, G4 or G5 processor

Xtream path

cvalley, inc MAC and Windows $139.00 www.cvalley.com

Cyberpad

adesso, inc pc only $199.00 www.adesso.com

The CyberPad is a relatively low cost stand-alone device with internal storage capability that digitally captures and stores everything you write or draw with ink on ordinary 8.5 x 11 inch paper. The digital notepad works with an electronic inking pen that feels and works as well as any other normal pen. You can write or draw naturally on any sheet of paper, and the pad captures and stores your every line at 1024 LPI resolution. Even if the thickness of papers laid on the pad are 3/4” thick, your handwritten notes can still be captured and stored in the built-in memory (32MB, about 150 digital pages), or on an optional SD memory card. And by connecting the pad to your PC or notebook via the USB port, you can use it to draw on the computer screen as you would with any other tablet.

What I like about this device is the fusion of the real and the virtual.

Rather than drawing on a brightly lit monitor surface, you are instead drawing directly onto real paper. Not only do you have a real sketch that you can file away, you instantly have a digital version that you can email, or bring into another image editor for further work. Eliminating the cost of a large LCD screen brings this device down to a very reasonable price, ideal for toting along on a subway ride or plane trip.

(And if you forget it somewhere or leave it on a park bench, it won’t be the end of the world.) The fact that this is not a full blown laptop also means that battery life is much longer. You get 20 hours of writing time out of four AAA batteries, and 68 hours of standby time. The pen battery will last around 15 months, and there’s an LED indicator to let you know when you’re running low on power.

One of the greatest things about a digital sketch pad like this is handwriting recognition. It’s so much easier to search through pages of notes by keyword. (Try doing that with your paper sketchbook!)

Given the convenience and size of this pad, plus the low price and the wow factor, it’s hard to find a reason NOT to own one!

Xtream Path is an exciting new plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that adds 36 useful new tools and filters for manipulating paths and segments. Unlike a lot of plug-ins out there, these filters and tools aren’t goofy, nonsensical bells and whistles that you would never use. These are truly great tools that I could see implementing into my own work immediately (always a good selling point!) Some of the new functionality Xtreme Path brings to Illustrator is so “nuts-and-bolts” and makes so much sense, it’s hard to believe that Adobe hasn’t added this stuff into the program years ago. For anyone who works with Illustrator on a daily basis, you will see what I’m talking about as soon as you visit the CValley website. (www.CValley.com. A number of videos are available showing the tools in action. See below.) Many of these functions will be incredibly useful for any serious user.

I don’t have a lot of space to get into the nitty gritty details, but I would like to mention a few of the more interesting functions here.

My favorite tools are related to path modification. Traditionally, you would edit paths using control points and direction lines. Xtream Path enables you to click anywhere on a path and drag to make adjustments to the segment. You can edit paths intuitively by pointing directly to the place you want to edit rather than fiddling around with direction lines and control points. Cool!

My favorite function is copying and pasting path information. In the past, if you wanted to match two curves to one another, the best you could do is eyeball it, comparing them side by side. Now you can obtain the numerical information of a line’s length and direction by simply clicking on the segment. Using the Numeric Edit tool, you can easily repeat the same Bezier curve on a different segment by copying and pasting the curve data. Amazing, and long overdue. (I wanted to see this in Illustration 7, for crying out loud!) I love this plug-in! ’05

System Requirements: Windows XP / 2000; Pentium III or equivalent or higher 128MB of RAM or higher; 32MB of Hard Disk Space Available USB port

Illustration’05 63

NEW & NOTABLE VINYL WILL KILL

by Jeremy 232 pages, fc $39.95 SOFTCOVER/BOX KIT IdN HONG KONG, 2004

This fascinating and fun package is a must-have item for anyone with an interest in the “designer toy” movement, the toys often referred to as urban vinyls.

Through a series of exclusive interviews with the best toy designers in the world, this book investigates the entire process of creating a figure—from the designer’s concept and rough drawings, to the sculture and production of the toy, to the final marketing of the finished product to specialized dealers around the world. Far from the mass produced products you might find in the discount stores, these toys are more like limited edition sculptures.

(With price tags to match! These toys are not cheap.) Many illustrators have made the leap into toy design, and such esteemed artists as Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Daniel Clowes, Todd Schorr and others have produced limited edition figures in the past few years.

The 232 page book is packaged in a toy box concept, and comes with a large fold out poster covered with reproductions of scores of toys, and 36 web cards with web addresses to the 44 designers profiled in the book.

spectrum 12: The best in contemporary fantastic art edited by cathy & arnie fenner 208 pages, FC $39.95 hardcover $29.95 softcover underwood books, 2005

Every year, the Spectrum annuals from Cathy and Arnie Fenner get bigger and better, and this year is no exception. This is the premier venue for fantasy and science-fiction art, and each volume is a lavishly illustrated resource, bringing together the best pieces of fantastic illustration produced during the past year. Drawing from books, comics, magazines, art galleries, advertisements, and portfolios, each Spectrum represents a who’s who in fantastic art today. With a wider reach than any of the previous editions, Spectrum 12 features 350 works by artists from around the world—Germany, England, the Netherlands, Korea, Australia, Japan, Canada, France, the United States, and more. Divided into seven categories, including one each devoted to comics and graphic novels, the featured illustrations expand the boundaries of the imagination and explore new realms of creativity. Among the artists included are Michael Whelan, Anita Kunz, Gris Grimly, Justin Sweet, Brad Holland, Greg Ruth, Lawrence Northey, Arthur Suydam, Brom, Carlos Huante, Kinuko Craft, David Bowers, and H.R. Giger. A handy index provides contact information for each artist. For more information, visit www.

SpectrumFantasticArt.com

64 Illustration’05

MARK SCHULTZ: VARIOUS DRAWINGS VOLUME 1 BY mark schultz 48 pages, BW $19.95 SOFTcover / $29.95 hardcover FLESK PUBLICATIONS, 2005

Widely known for his lush and meticulous line art, Mark Schultz has been a major creative force in the comic field for over 20 years.

He has been the recipient of numerous industry awards, and his most well-known creation—the award-winning comic book Xenozoic Tales—was adapted for television as the animated series Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. In addition to his own works, Mark has scripted or illustrated many other popular characters, including Superman, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Prince Valiant and the characters of Robert E. Howard.

While there have been numerous reprintings of his comics, sketches and other works throughout the years, few of these volumes have come close to matching Flesk Publication’s brilliant new collection, Mark Schultz: Various Drawings Volume 1. Building upon the success and beauty of his previous books on Joseph Clement Coll, and Franklin Booth, John Fleskes continues his line with another stunning new publication. Great care has been taken to reproduce Schultz’s original drawings as faithfully as possible, and the rigorous attention to detail shows on every page. The reproductions are so clear they almost look like original drawings. 49 preliminary sketches and numerous finished brush and ink pieces are showcased, most full page, to reveal Schultz’s complete mastery of his medium. Fans of Hannah Dundee and Schultz’s gorgeous women will be delighted with the new pieces created especially for this book. Previously unpublished images from Xenozoic Tales fill much of the volume, along with private commissions, a previously unpublished cover for SubHuman, an oversized gatefold of a breathtaking adventure scene, and some amazing pieces from his most recent projects.

geoff hunt: portrait of a marine artist DIRECTED BY chip croft & anneka banton 60 minutes, full color $29.95 DVD SEA-TV, 2004

Artist Geoff Hunt is known to millions for his book cover paintings.

His illustrations for all 21 of Patrick O’Brian’s historical novels about the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars have brought him worldwide acclaim, and have served to launch an entirely new career as a fine artist. This wonderful new documentary enters the studio of Geoff Hunt, and explores the story from the artist’s point of view— how he was chosen to paint all of the book covers, and how he works out the details of his meticulously researched paintings.

It isn’t often that we’re able to watch over the shoulder of a famous illustrator as he creates a painting, but in this video we are treated to just such a demonstration as Hunt works out the details of an elaborate nautical compositon before our very eyes. His attention to every detail is awe inspiring, and this DVD is a must for anyone interested in watching a world class painter at work.

APHRODISIA: Art of the Female Form edited by craig elliott 180 pages, fc $28.95 softcover aristata publishing, 2005

While there have been many books published in the last few years devoted to classic pin-up artists such as Alberto Vargas, George Petty, and Gil Elvgren, the modern masters of pin up have been somewhat neglected (outside of a few scattered monographs on Olivia or Greg Horn.) Aphrodisia is a new collection that seeks to rectify this situation by focusing entirely on contemporary pin up artists. This is the first book for editor Craig Elliot, who is a ten year veteran of the animation industry. While it remains to be seen whether this book is the first of a series of annual volumes (a la the Spectrum books) I think it would be a great idea, as there seems to be no end of illustrators with an interest in rendering the female form, and no end to the number of fans who want to see it!

Beautiful and imaginative paintings, sculptures and computer generated imagery of women were chosen from over 1200 entries by a jury of some of today’s leading artists. The jurors included: illustrator Joe Chiodo, sculptor Spencer Davis, artist & film designer Craig Elliott, artist and art promoter Frank Frazetta Jr., artist Greg Hildebrandt, and publisher & bookseller Bud Plant. While the content is decidedly mixed in quality, there are many hundreds of beautifully reproduced images featured here, and you’re sure to find something to arouse your interst. ’05

Illustration’05 65

EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS 25th Anniversary—The Original Art November 2, 2005 through November 23, 2005 The Society of Illustrators, New York “Celebrating the Fine Art of Children’s Book Illustrations.”

This juried exhibition will again present the exciting market of children’s literature. Over 150 original works selected from the books themselves will be on display. This is the only retrospective of the original art for this field held each year.

For more information, call: 1-212-838-2560 The Original Art Lecture Series: November 2, 2005:

Then and Now—25 Years of The Original Art Exhibition Leonard Marcus, Connie Rockman, Pat Cummings and Martha Rago. Moderator: Dilys Evans November 9, 2005:

Children’s Literature and Book Museums Jerry Mallett, Mazza Museum, Nicholas Clark, and the Eric Carle Museum November 16, 2005:

“Would I get published today?”

Etienne Delessert, David Macaulay, Arthur Levine, Scholastic Books November 30, 2005:

“Educational Publishing—An Unseen Market” Mela Bolinao—HK Portfolio The Masters Series: Heinz Edelmann Through December 3, 2005 The School of Visual Arts Museum The School of Visual Arts (SVA) this year honors Heinz Edelmann, one of the leading art directors, illustrators and designers of our time, with its Masters Series Award and retrospective exhibition. Every year, SVA bestows the award to a groundbreaking visual artist, designer, photographer or illustrator who, over the course of his/her career, has been recognized as a great visual communicator.

The exhibition will include over 100 posters, screen prints, magazine spreads, book designs, animations and comic books spanning Heinz Edelmann’s prolific career. His work is internationally known, and he has been actively working in Germany, England and the Netherlands since the late ’50s, doing design, illustration, advertising and animation. Unlike many designers working today, Edelmann has never made a clear distinction between the role of the designer and the role of the illustrator, and the majority of his designs for books, magazines and posters use his own illustrations. He was always a solo operation with no assistants, and was able to create a new technique or style for each job, depending upon its needs. “I was always a one-man band” says Edelmann, “I was my own art director, illustrator, designer and paster-uper and I also swept the floor and made the coffee.”

For more information, visit: www.schoolofvisualarts.edu

66 Illustration’05

B LO GS : DRAWN! http://www.drawn.ca/ Drawn! is a collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY http://www.illustrationfriday.com A topic is posted every Friday and participants have all week to come up with their own illustrated interpretation.

CARTOON MODERN http://cartoonmodern.blogsome.com Dedicated to the design of cartoons from the 1950s.

CO MP ETITIO NS: Communication Arts Illustration Annual Deadline: March 13, 2006 Fee: $25 to $50 http://www.commarts.com The best work in drawing, painting, collage, electronic, sequential and three-dimensional illustration.

For more information, call: 1-650-326-1648 HOW’s 19th Annual Self-Promotion Competition What’s eligible: Promotional pieces created from January 1, 2005 through March 20, 2006.

Deadline: March 20, 2006 Fee: $30 for single entry; $50 for campaign entry; $20 for student single entry; $30 for student campaign http://www.howdesign.com For more information, call: 1-513-531-2690, ext. 1328 Please send me notification of any illustration shows or exhibitions, interesting links, blogs, etc., and I will attempt to post them in this section. Send your e-mails to: Dan@illo.us

IN THE NEXT ISSUE…

MITCH O’CONNELL

MARK SCHULTZ

NATHAN JUREVICIUS

The “Art” of Mitch O’Connell by Daniel Zimmer The 3D World of Henk Dawson by Daniel Zimmer The Comic Art of Mark Schultz by John Fleskes The Art of Nathan Jurevicius by Daniel Zimmer …and much more!