A design for life | Jon Savage on the history of the Smiley symbol: Watchmen, Acid House and beyond.
Category: {comics}
Comics
Buccaneers #2
Continuing from yesterday’s post, these nameless characters were sketches for a proposed comic strip that writer Jamie Delano and I were planning in the mid-Nineties. We had a feeling that the long-neglected pirate genre was due for a revival and talked about a revisionist take on buccaneering which would dispense with the Robert Newton antics and steer closer to the brutal reality. Among the touchstones there was On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, the anarchist pirate community in Cities of the Red Night by William Burroughs and the ferocious scalp-hunters in Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece, Blood Meridian. There was also talk of throwing some voodoo into the mix, hence the veve tattoos. It wasn’t to be, of course. Little of my work has ever resembled mainstream comics fare and Jamie’s publishers, DC Comics, had already been underwhelmed by the detailed style I was using in the Lovecraft and Lord Horror comics. When I tried presenting them with some trial pages in a more open style I was told that they’d been expecting to see more of my detailed line work…
We had a couple of other characters planned, including a tattooed islander inspired by Queequeg from Moby Dick, but the samples here are the best of the sketches. The shark- or whale-jaw false leg was my own invention and something I’m fairly sure I’ve not seen before. I’ve no idea whether such a thing is workable but it was a nice touch.
Designs on Doctor Dee
Some work news. I finished this CD design last year but, as is often the case with these things, it’s taken a while to make its way into the world. This was the final piece of the Mindscape of Alan Moore project and it’s probably the last thing I’ll do which makes use of the famous Sigillum Dei Aemeth of Doctor John Dee (1527–1608), wax versions of which can be seen in the British Museum. Alan Moore is a great Dee aficionado and since the sigil appears in the DeZ Vylenz documentary it made sense to use it for the DVD package and interface. This led in turn to a new poster design for the film (below) and—eventually—the soundtrack CD. The latter should be shipping shortly from Shadowsnake Films.
Lastly, and also design-related, the New York Times this week had a short piece about designer Barney Bubbles based around Paul Gorman’s Reasons to be Cheerful book. My quote about Barney’s Hawkwind work being “cosmic Art Nouveau” was borrowed from the book’s text and the piece features one of those slideshow selections the NYT does so well. Once again it’s great to see how Paul’s book is stimulating new interest and appraisal of work which was neglected for far too long.
DVD menu.
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New things for December
Lord Horror (1997).
Time for an end of year news round up.
• As mentioned earlier, issue 11 of US horror magazine Penny Blood features a look at Savoy Books and David Britton’s Lord Horror mythos. The magazine is now on sale and includes comments from Savoy’s Michael Butterworth and myself.
• I was interviewed last month by Creative Review, the UK’s leading design mag, as their January 2009 issue includes a feature on Barney Bubbles. This is also now on sale although I’ve yet to see a copy so I don’t know how much of what I was saying made the cut. I did finish by calling Barney B a “true pop artist” and I see they’ve used those words as their sub-heading so that may be one contribution.
• Back in the USA, book chain Barnes & Noble have licensed my 2004 Cthulhu Rising picture for an HP Lovecraft reprint. Not sure when that’s appearing yet. The same picture (which is also my most popular print) was licensed earlier by a Romanian publisher for (surprise) a Lovecraft collection. I’m told that volume will be published in May 2009.
• Finally, the recent Steampunk design which Modofly are now selling on their laser-etched Moleskin books will be appearing shortly in a surprise location. More about that later. I’ll probably be doing some prints and CafePress stuff with this picture eventually but for now Modofly has the monopoly.
Posting here may be rather sparse over the next couple of weeks since I’m very busy work-wise just now. So don’t be surprised if there’s a long run of picture-only posts. December and early January are often slack and moneyless so it’s good to be busy.