{"id":20609,"date":"2021-05-26T16:52:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T15:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=20609"},"modified":"2021-05-26T22:40:32","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T21:40:32","slug":"the-art-of-mike-hinge-1931-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2021\/05\/26\/the-art-of-mike-hinge-1931-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of Mike Hinge, 1931\u20132003"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hinge06.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Amazing Science Fiction, May 1972.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in March I ended my post on the psychedelia-derived art style that I think of as “the groovy look”<\/a> with the words “there’s a lot more to be found.” There is indeed, and I’d neglected to include anything in the post by Mike Hinge, a New Zealand-born illustrator whose covers for American SF magazines in the 1970s brought a splash of vivid colour to the groove-deprived world of science fiction. This was a rather belated development for staid titles like Amazing<\/em> and Analog<\/em> whose covers in the previous decade wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Gernsback era. Opening the door to someone like Mike Hinge, a graphic designer as well as a general illustrator, was probably a result of both magazines having undergone recent changes of editorship. Hinge approached SF art in the same way that Jim Steranko approached comic-book art in the late 1960s, importing trends that had been flourishing outside the medium. (And Steranko liked Hinge’s art enough to publish a portfolio of black-and-white drawings, The Mike Hinge Experience<\/em><\/a>, in 1973.) This kind of graphic style was increasingly outmoded by the mid-70s but some of Hinge’s compositions are audacious in context: the Algol<\/em> cover with one of his robots seen in a water reflection (and those ripples that defy perspective), the Analog<\/em> cover that works both vertically and horizontally.<\/p>\n

For this post I’ve favoured Hinge’s groovy look over other covers, especially those from the late 70s when his cover art shifted to a painted style which is less distinctive, and less interesting as a result. It’s the distinctive style that people still prefer today. There’s more to be seen at Tenth Letter of the Alphabet<\/a> and Onyx Cube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"hinge21.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Undated drawing (probably mid-60s).<\/em><\/p>\n

Something else you can always find more of is Aubrey Beardsley borrowings. Via Tenth Letter of the Alphabet<\/a> which has a couple more pieces in this style.<\/p>\n

\"hinge19.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wraparound cover for Witzend #6, Spring 1969. <\/em><\/p>\n

Witzend<\/em> was a magazine of comics, fantasy stories and related art published by Wallace Wood, a complete run of which may be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"hinge01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Amazing Science Fiction, November 1970.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge02.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Leaves of Time (1971).<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"hinge03.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Mission to the Stars (1971).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge04.jpg\"<\/p>\n

A Choice of Gods (1972).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge05.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Assignment in Tomorrow (1972).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge07.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Fantastic, October 1972.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge08.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Amazing Science Fiction, January 1973.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge09.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Shaggy Planet (1973).<\/em><\/p>\n

Ert\u00e9<\/a> goes SF? I might have said this was coincidence if it wasn’t for the Beardsley details seen above.<\/p>\n

\"hinge10.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Amazing Science Fiction, March 1973.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge11.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Amazing Science Fiction, August 1973.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge12.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Amazing Science Fiction, December 1974.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge13.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Algol, #24, Summer 1975.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge14.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Amazing Science Fiction, September 1975.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge15.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Analog Science Fiction\/Science Fact, April 1976.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge16.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future (1979).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge17.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Earth Unaware (1979).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge18.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Cosmic Eye (1979).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hinge20.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Heavy Metal, July 1979.<\/em><\/p>\n

…Rears Its Ugly Green Head<\/em> was a comic-strip collaboration between Hinge and Neal Adams published in Heavy Metal<\/em> magazine. Much of Hinge’s art had already been used as cover art elsewhere. Hinge took a similar approach for another Heavy Metal<\/em> strip, Object<\/em>, which reused some of his black-and-white magazine illustrations to create an SF story. Both strips may be seen in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The illustrators archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The groovy look<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazing Science Fiction, May 1972. Back in March I ended my post on the psychedelia-derived art style that I think of as “the groovy look” with the words “there’s a lot more to be found.” There is indeed, and I’d neglected to include anything in the post by Mike Hinge, a New Zealand-born illustrator whose … Continue reading “The art of Mike Hinge, 1931\u20132003”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: The art of Mike Hinge, 1931\u20132003","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,4,48,43,17,20],"tags":[94,7207,9424,1565,10195,11511],"class_list":["post-20609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-design","category-illustrators","category-magazines","category-psychedelia","category-science-fiction","tag-aubrey-beardsley","tag-erte","tag-heavy-metal-magazine","tag-jim-steranko","tag-mike-hinge","tag-wallace-wood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-5mp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}