The Voord

I fell asleep through most of this week's episode (seriously). I was up very early this morning to catch a flight back to the UK from Germany. From the bits I saw, it kinda looked ker-rubbish. Not too sure I want to give the episode another go, when I feel less fatigued, so unless I start reading some positive feedback (from non-sycophantic Whovian types), I doubt that I will. More thoughts, please?

Actually, Bruce gives customers the option of having recreated logos and captioned materials done by way of paste-ups (I guess, to make the illusion look even more realistic). I thought about that option but decided flawless recreations without the need for paste-ups was fine for my needs.

On a separate note, I've had Bruce McCorkindale recreate for me a number of 1960s Marvel covers. Bruce wisely chooses to print-out (directly onto the artboards) logo and captioned materials (which he tweaks in ink, if need be). Yeah, I know that these things are no substitute for the real thing (if they even exist), but they do make for nice (affordable) substitutes . . .

One of the few recreated covers, by one of the original artists, that really worked for me was Chic Stone's Fantastic Four 27. Stone did the sensible thing and used stats of the logo and captioned materials - which look absolutely fine (infinitely better than shaky attempts at lettering). From the collection of John Sisson (if he's here, I hope he doesn't mind me posting his CAF image?):

Slight improvement with this week's episode. Not as bad as I was expecting it to be and it was a refreshing change to have some deeper character interaction. The 'writers' (I suspect Chibnall may have had an uncredited hand in the episode) are obviously familiar with Star Trek's 'City on the Edge of Forever', with a splash of the Soul Hunters from Babylon 5 thrown-in for good measure. Not great, but watchable.

Recently back from the framers . . . Reynold Brown's 1956 movie poster painting for 'Behind the High Wall'.

Social commentary and history have always featured in Dr Who storylines over the many years it's been aired. Prior to this current season, such politically-inspired storylines have (mostly) been more subtle, allowing the viewer to reach his or her own conclusion after working out the underlying message for themselves. I definitely think the aforementioned social messages in this season (so far) have been heavy-handed and overtly preachy . . . it's as if the production team wants to force-feed us their latest diatribe. What should be an hour's worth of escapist entertainment has morphed into something else that leaves me a little cold. I've been looking in on several different Dr Who FB groups in recent weeks and have noticed that there IS a lot of mixed reactions to this new direction the show has headed. Lots of people still love the series and don't see the fuss (easily pleased?), though considerable numbers ARE recognizing that there is an underlying problem.

Based on the image of Romita's ASM # 40 painted recreation being posted here, I do think that he's done a really nice job. Some of the lettering looks a little shaky in parts, which underlines my long-held belief that artists can seldom pull this one off (lettering being a real skill in itself). You can see the shakiness of the lettering on the additional image of the Sub-Mariner cover showcased in aokartman's post, which detract from an otherwise fairly-decent recreation.

Link to my CAF (for full write-ups, larger scans, additional images, etc.): https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=1865 Other three RB artworks I now own:

Reynold Brown is my all-time-favourite Movie Poster artist. He is more well known for his Horror and Science-Fiction stuff of the 1950s and 60s (which commands high prices). I'm just happy to now own four of his paintings when (going back a few months) I thought just one example would be a big stretch for me! My FB group has been very successful for networking, as I'm sure will be the case with your own FB Game Art group.

The Sun newspaper (UK) is a dreadful rag, and is rightly boycotted by millions in my country, but this link was sent to me by a friend and is worth a read: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/7666311/doctor-who-ratings-fall-pc-plots/ Worth scrolling down to the bottom of the page to read the feedback to the article.

Nice page. Must have been a real bummer to discover it was snapped-up so quickly.

I purchased Reynold Brown's movie poster painting for BEHIND THE HIGH WALL (1956) in recent times. The painting had minor condition issues, but nothing that couldn't be corrected. As bought, the painting had areas of (noticeable) dirt along the left-hand yellow border . . . two photographic paste-ups were missing . . . and a small area of yellow paint had lifted away when the bottom photo was removed from the art. Carefully using an eraser, most of the surface dirt came away from the yellow border easily enough. For the small area of missing yellow paint (to the immediate left of where the bottom photo was once situated), I mixed a near-as-dammit match of acrylic paint and used an airbrush to re-colour (I've been painting for a long, long time, so do have experience in such matters). Next my print-maker friend in Los Angeles, Lloyd Braddy, acquired for me a printed poster of the movie advertising campaign (surprisingly available on eBay for $20). Lloyd scanned the two photo elements and reduced them in size to match the original painting (illustrated at a smaller scale to the printed poster). The two photographic recreations were printed out onto heavy card by Lloyd and once forwarded to me I used a recommended archival paste to lightly affix them to the art. Not exactly a major piece of restoration, but I do think the end-result shows a marked improvement. Here's a selection of photographs showing the project in progress from beginning to end . . .

I'd like to say episode 5 was rubbish but, really, it wasn't that good . . .

Okay, thanks.

Hey, Jason Any pages from 'Demon With a Glass Hand'? If so, I'm interested, thanks. Terry Doyle

Unpublished X-MEN Persian Rug cover . . .

What about it? We're talking Persian rugs! *** *** Not to be confused with prayer mats . . .

Steve Donnelly tried that one on with me. Should have known better than to enquire but he'd approached me looking for a trade. I'd asked after a John Romita junior cover that he possessed which Steve had got Romita senior to sign many years later at a convention, claiming the signature was proof that the father had inked the artwork. He hadn't (all signs pointed towards another inker, as agreed by a variety of different sources). Not only was he misrepresenting the cover's inker but he'd also duped a different (higher-regarded) artist to sign the artwork to quite deliberately push up the price. SD also has a number of Giordano/Trapani 'Nukla' pages which he claims are all ghosted by Steve Ditko. The title ran for four issues, with the last one being penciled by Ditko. That was good enough for SD to claim that Ditko had a hand in ALL of those issues. How do I feel about SD as a seller? I don't think my low opinion has ever changed.

The Iron Maiden piece listed as being included in Drawn and Quartered.

Fred Taraba currently has three Charles Addams originals for sale, including an 'Addams Family'. Pricey, which is to be expected.

'Arachnids in the UK' . . . Not much of a story with a thinly-veiled bit of Trump-bashing. Did I like it? Not much. Some improvements on characterizations of the Doctor and her companions but Chibnall continues to prove himself (at least to me) as someone incapable of scripting a half-decent teleplay. I like good, interesting, thought-provoking ideas in a science-fiction show. I'm not getting them here.

Krigstein illustrated some other EC stories with the same technique as 'Master race' (maybe not with the same impact, but 'Master Race' certainly wasn't a one-off in terms of the artist's approach to storytelling). 'In the Bag' and 'The Catacombs' spring immediately to mind . . .

That's exceptional . . . and an exception to the rule. Generally, I sorely doubt that unpublished story art (especially if only in pencil stage) would ever eclipse published works. The only times I think such art would come close (or perhaps better) if it was along the lines of the (suspected) Ditko 'Dr Strange' stories never delivered to Marvel . . . or maybe rejected 1960s Marvel covers by some of the heavyweight talents (if fully-inked with logos and captioned-materials present). The rejected Kirby X-Men # 10 cover springs to mind. In the case of the OP, I doubt that this would apply to the artwork he shows.

Wow, that's fantastic . . . I love Persian rugs!