Todd Klein's Blog, page 147

And Then I Read: THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND by Diana Wynne Jones

Cover art by Walter Velez.

The title of this book suggests it’s a parody of the “Rough Guide” travel books, but inside it’s more of an encyclopedia of people, magical beings, places, elements, hazards and so forth you might meet on the book’s suggested tours of Fantasyland. In this way, it’s almost a cross between a Dungeon-master’s guide, a Berlitz phrase guide, and a humorous encyclopedia with lots of in-jokes for those who enjoy reading fantasy. Many references are fairly obscure, but if you’ve read Tolkien, you’ll get a lot of it. The problem is that, as in trying to read an actual encyclopedia, there’s no plot. It’s amusing at times, certainly, but you can only read so many entries at a time. It took me several weeks to get to them all, even though the author is a favorite. There’s a fair amount of repetition and cross-referencing, and by the end of the book you have a pretty complete idea of what the tours it describes would be like, but I’d rather have read a book telling the tale of one of the tours, and having the “Tough Guide” used by the characters, as seen on the cover. Some entries are quite entertaining, others are predictable. One of my favorites is on Horses:

“Horses are of a breed unique to Fantasyland. They are capable of galloping full-tilt all day without a rest. Sometimes they do not require food or water. They never cast shoes, go lame, or put their hooves down holes, except when the Management deems it necessary, as when the forces of the Dark Lord are only half an hour behind. They never otherwise stumble. Nor do they ever make life difficult for Tourists by biting or kicking their riders or one another. They never resist being mounted or blow out so that their girths slip, or do any of the other things that make horses so chancy in this world…”

And so it goes on to the conclusion that these horses are actually bred from plants!

Fun stuff, but not as much fun as a real Diana Wynne Jones novel. Mildly recommended.

Pulled From My Files #82: THE PROWLER Logo

This and all images © Marvel.

In 1994 I was asked by Marvel to design a logo for their character The Prowler. I didn’t know much about the character, so I stuck with logo styles that Marvel had liked in the recent past, and there were lots of them in 1994. My first marker sketch, above, has notes from suggestions made by the editor or editors. “Bolder” overall, and widen the inner spaces in the openings of the P and R’s.

A second marker sketch from the original batch. If there were more, I no longer have them. This one might be a little easier to read because of the rounded shapes and heavier outline. The “claws” on the R’s suggest something feline, like a cat-burglar perhaps.

A new marker sketch was made based on version 1 with the editor’s notes addressed. This was okayed with the addition of the word THE at top left in the same style.

Here’s a photocopy of the final logo in ink on Denril plastic vellum.

It appeared on a four issue mini-series with the first issue dated Nov. 1994. I think it works okay. If I’d seen the character, I might have tried something spookier, but perhaps that wasn’t what they wanted. Note that they put THE on the left and stacked. I would have designed the letters to be the same width if I knew they would do that.

I also discovered the 2017 six-issue series with a logo clearly based on mine, but making the right legs of the R’s curved. Not a bad idea, but they seem cramped and too thin to me. I also would have made the center stroke of the E larger. Still, it does the job, and it’s an interesting evolution of my idea.

More of these when I have time.

And Then I Read: THE GILDED AGE by Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner

Title page found online, I read an ebook version. This was Twain’s first novel. He’d written many short stories before it, and two non-fiction books about travel, “The Innocents Abroad,” and “Roughing It.” Warner, a fellow writer, and Twain were friends and neighbors, and their wives challenged them to produce a novel better than what the women were able to find in the bookstores of their day in Hartford, CT. Twain wrote the first 11 chapters, which focus on the the Hawkins family of rural Tennessee and their friend and mentor, Colonel Beriah Sellers. Warner wrote the next 12 chapters which follow two New York City men from well-to-do families, Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly. The many later chapters were a tag-team effort, and a collaboration at the end. All these characters have one desire: to make it rich quickly in the American midwest, still essentially frontier territory in the years after the Civil War. Sellers is a dreamer and a schemer, leading the gullible Hawkins family on a move westward from Tennessee across the Mississippi into Missouri, where one scheme after another fails to work.

Along the way, the Hawkins family adds and adopts two orphans. One of them, Laura, grows into a woman of intelligence and beauty, and the latter half of the book often focuses on her, with and without the two New York Men, Philip and Henry. Those two get involved in a land surveying project in Missouri and soon meet up with Colonel Sellers and the Hawkins group. Later, Sellers, Laura, and the two men end up in Washington DC trying to get legislation passed that will have the U.S. Government purchasing land they own, or benefitting them in other ways. Laura is an excellent schemer in this area until she is derailed by the appearance of her former husband, George Selby, a man who had treated her very badly, and now arrives in Washington with a new wife. A melodramatic murder ensues.

This book has lots of social and political satire, and reveals the truth that politics has always been a corrupt game. One early effort by Colonel Sellers to get a federal grant for a railroad project in his home area involves lots of wrangling and “selling” by Sellers, Laura Hawkins and their friend Senator Dilworthy. They finally get half a million dollars for the project, a fortune in those days. But as they find out, once payoffs are made to all the congressmen who voted for the money, their staffs, and so on, Sellers and cohorts find they actually owe their new railroad company $10,000 each. While it has serious moments, there’s also a good deal of humor and romance on hand. Colonel Sellers and Laura Hawkins are the standout characters, the former being a sly con-man, the latter a charming con-woman.

It’s a long book, and at times did not entertain me as much as other Twain works I’ve read. The standout chapter in the early Twain ones is a steam boat race on the Mississippi with a disastrous conclusion that jumps off the page with excitement and thrills. Clearly this was an area that Twain was good at and would return to. I’m not a fan of politics, so the political satire dragged for me, though the characters got me through. It’s certainly an interesting look at a period of American history I hadn’t known much about, a time for big dreams and big schemes that often failed to come true.

Mildly recommended.

And Then I Read: THE FLASH #34

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Joshua Williamson & Michael Moreci, art by Pop Mhan, colors by Ivan Plascencia, letters by Steve Wands.

Speedster Meena, once a S.T.A.R. Labs scientist, is back, after Barry Allen and Wally West were sure she was dead. Her story is that somehow she was absorbed into the speed force, and she’s returned to help Barry with the Negative Speed Force put into him by Reverse-Flash. They and Wally work together to study and try to remove it. Barry and Meena’s one-time romance seems to be back on the table. Then things happen to change it up again.

Recommended.

Pulled From My Files #81: NEW MUTANTS, NIGHTCAT

This and all images © Marvel.

Some time in the early 1990s (I think) I was asked by Marvel to submit designs for a NEW MUTANTS logo. I’m not sure if it was for a proposed revamp or relaunch or special. In any case, they were not used. I have only two of the original four sketches. This one gets a little too cute with the reversing out of the block letters from the scratchy NEW, and would have been difficult to color.

This one is a more standard block letter approach, nothing particularly interesting going on, but it gets the job done. That’s all I have on this one.

In 1991 I was asked by Marvel to design a logo for NIGHTCAT. This was a pop-singer/crime fighter planned as a crossover between Marvel and a record company, and used to cross-promote an actual singer, sort of what they did with DAZZLER, but this time with a person already in place on the music end. I think the cat-head symbol was given to me, something the character would use on her costume or some other way. I have three out of five marker sketches.

Another variation on the same theme with the cat-head symbol smaller, but actually more readable.

This final existing sketch was the one chosen, and features a claw-mark gash in the background that could be held in a color. Though I’m missing two sketches, I think this one is a lot more interesting and energetic than the other two, and it has pointy claw shapes, too, which Marvel was big on then.

I don’t have a copy of the final logo, which would have been rendered in ink on plastic vellum, but here’s the printed cover of the only issue with a great painting by Joe Jusko. Looks pretty good to me. I don’t think the book or the singer went anywhere with the concept, though it shows promise here.

More when I have time.

And Then I Read: HAL JORDAN & THE GL CORPS #31

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Robert Venditti, art by Patrick Zircher, colors by Jason Wright, letters by Dave Sharpe.

The crossover with Superman seemed to be pitting them against the giant-headed villain Hector Hammond, but as we see in this issue, he’s actually in need of help from them instead, after being attacked by aliens who take over his mental abilities. They create the illusion of a perfect family life for Hal Jordan here on Earth, one that he finds comforting. Superman seems to have been played in a similar way, though we don’t get to see it. A fun combination of the two powerful heroes with a wistful coda for Hal before he’s summoned to the next interplanetary emergency.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERNS #31

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Sam Humphries, art by Ronan Cliquet, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Dave Sharpe.

Simon and Jessica have been sent ten billion years into the past, where they are facing off against Volthoom, the First Lantern, and his ring of every color in the emotional spectrum. Beside them are the first seven members of the Green Lantern Corps, but even with all their willpower and teamwork, Volthoom is proving tough to subdue. He wants to go back to his home planet even further in the past, but the rainbow powers of his ring are driving him mad, and making him an extremely dangerous foe. When the Guardians show up, things get even more interesting. And back in our time, in the Vault of Shadows, Rami the rogue Guardian has an emotional reunion with the last of the original seven Green Lanterns.

I’ve really enjoyed this storyline incorporating elements of early GL history, much of it new to me, and this final issue of it is excellent. Recommended.

2018 Easter eggs

We continued our yearly tradition of coloring Easter eggs at Ellen’s sister Ann’s on Friday, though we had less time for it than most years because of other family activities. Here are the results. The dyers are Ann Greene, Dave Greene, Tim W., Ellen Klein, Ina Van Vooren and myself. There were about two dozen hard-boiled eggs, and we each did three or four. We usually do judging in various categories. This year we sent photos to Zack Greene in Savannah, and he did the judging, but unfortunately I don’t have those results handy, or an exact record of who did which eggs. I do know that Tim’s three eggs all won awards, and others were won by Dave, Ann, Ina and Ellen. I did not win any this year, which is certainly okay.

We have dyeing techniques that have been developed over many years. Some use here involve rubber bands, cut out masking tape in various shapes, lines made with clear wax crayons, and a few made with regular crayons. It’s aways fun to do, and you end with with eggs you can eat, also a good thing.

The dyes were all regular Paas dyes this year except the red, where we added some red food coloring and extra white vinegar to make it darker. A close-up of one of my eggs using a clear wax crayon and many layers of dipping. The surface of the egg makes for cool textures and color combinations. This egg is in the second row right end on the first picture above, and is not as impressive from further away.  Last year’s psanky egg dyeing, a completely different process, was one we didn’t have time for this year, but you can find in HERE. Perhaps next year we will try that again.

And Then I Read: THE FLASH #32

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Joshua Williamson, art by Christian Duce, colors by Ivan Plascencia, letters by Steve Wands.

Barry Allen has teamed with young Wally West when in action as The Flash, having found that Wally’s speed force powers help to control his own new negative speed force powers, allowing the two of them to fight crime effectively together. When not in costume, things are awkward, as Barry and Iris West have split and are not speaking. Meanwhile, Barry has to report to the maximum security prison in Central City harbor, Iron Heights, where he and his crime lab partner Kristen have been assigned to work. Kristen feels she’s been sent there unfairly, and is not happy with Barry either. Inside the prison are many of the costumed criminals The Flash put there, making his position all the more precarious. Once in the prison, Warden Wolfe makes it clear he has little time for the crime lab staff, and little interest in their concerns about the harsh way he is running the prison. Outside of Central City, a mysterious new crime lord has been encroaching on the territory of existing crime lord Copperhead, and she’s trying to find him by torturing one of the rival’s men with her venemous snakes. On the final page we have the return of another speedster not seen for a while.

The change of scene and company for Barry Allen makes for interesting reading. Recommended.

Pulled From My Files #80: MERCY Logo

This and all images © DC Entertainment.

In 1990 Disney pulled their comics license from Arizona publisher Gladstone Comics and began creating comics using their characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse themselves for the first time in their history. In 1991 I received a call from comics editor Art Young, who I had worked with at DC on their pre-Vertigo titles such as SWAMP THING. Art had been hired by Disney to put together a line of mature-reader titles similar to what he’d worked on at DC, and he wanted me to design some logos for him, which I was happy to do. First I designed a logo for the overall line, Touchmark, which I’ve written about HERE.

Then I designed logos for the three initial Touchmark titles. After a year or so, Disney pulled the plug on the project, probably because they saw it didn’t fit well with the rest of their output, comics and otherwise. In 1993, Art Young brought the projects to DC, who published them in the now-active Vertigo line. Two, ENIGMA and SEBASTIAN O used the logos I’d already designed. The third, MERCY, used a new typeset logo. This post shows the logo designs I did for the project, the first two are above. I felt the story by J.M. DeMatteis and Paul Johnson would look good with a calligraphic logo style, and that’s where I started.

Two more similar approaches, with version 3 being a different approach to the style of version 2.

These designs move away from the calligraphic look, perhaps at Art Young’s suggestion. Version 5 is a more standard serif type look, but with my own style points like the unconnected loop of the R and long lower right stroke. Version 6 is a more typical comics look with block letters.

The choice was version 5 with a much heavier drop shadow, and that was accepted as the final design. I don’t have a copy of the final logo, but it was just like this.

When the book came out from Vertigo, it had a type logo that is somewhat similar to my design, but much narrower and taller. It works fine, though I would have moved it away from the figure.

Other articles like this can be found in the “Pulled From My Files” topic on the right column of this blog, and on the LOGO LINKS page. More when I have time.