Vispo: You Know Something? / My lethal weapon is my mind? Art knowledge is useless! / Jim Steranko art

 

You Know Something? RTomens, 2026

Yes, I know some things. At times I think I know less now than I did twenty years ago. Funny that, ain't it? Perhaps knowledge is overrated and ignorance really is bliss. I've met a few Clever People. They never impressed me. Knowledge can be intimidating, can't it? Anyway, like the supposedly fastest gun in the West, there's always someone who's actually faster or, in relation to knowledge, more knowledgeable. 

Men love to brandish knowledge as a weapon to 'defeat' other men. It's all we have instead of clubs. Some men still use clubs. Or their fists. We're always trying to outdo each other. Even the meekest of us take pleasure in Knowing More about something. To do this, you have to find someone who wants to discuss a subject but doesn't know much. You can then assume the role of 'teacher' and feel good about it.

There isn't much I can claim to know a lot about except, perhaps, Jazz. My position in this area though is not in the premier league...more third division. That said, knowing quite a bit about Jazz puts me in a specialist league anyway, so in relation to the average person I'm very knowledgeable. It would be more impressive to most people to demonstrate great knowledge of...biology? At least everyone can relate to the body. Most of us have one, except inhabitants of the spirit world. 

Art knowledge is useless, unless engaged in conversation with an art student, in which case I might say that having looked at and read hundreds of Art books I could teach them a thing or two. There I go, falling into a trap. They would shrug and make noises like a young person, totally dismissing my knowledge as old-fashioned nonsense because you don't need to know Art history to make art. You don't need to know Art to make art! Just make stuff! Or don't. Just think up stuff and present yourself, saying "All my Art is in my head." You'd get a top grade, I think.

Regulars will know I've been looking at a lot of comic books recently. Reading the stories isn't necessary. The great art in some of them is enough to more than satisfy...it actually thrills! It thrills me, anyway. The snobbery about comic art still prevails, I think. Not that it should be taken seriously either, necessarily. Considering the deadline pressure comic book artists were under in their heyday, what some of them drew is incredible. Here's a double page by one of the best, Jim Steranko, for Captain America (1969).

I don't know much about comics...but I know what I like!

Horror Comics of the 1950's - The EC Horror Library (Nostalgia Press Inc, 1971)

 

Nostalgia Press's Horror Comics of the 1950's was, in 1971, the first high quality collection of stories from EC comics. It's 'oversized', as you can see from the photo above, although not quite as large as Taschen would go with their XXL comics line. I own their XXL History of EC Comics book. It's ridiculous. So big it hardly fits in the flat. So stunning, too, when you open a page featuring art on that scale. 

Luckily I got this this Nostalgia Press book for a reasonable price from the US (where else?). It was cheaper than usual (they don't appear often) because of it's well-worn cover. Forget the cover, the contents are stunning - what colours! These colours zing in a different way to, say, modern Marvel omnibuses. That may be due to the nice, thick paper they were printed on. I know next to nothing about the dark arts of printing but this production looks special to me and to compare I have 90s reprints and contemporary ones. Note the Are You A Red Dupe? page, written at the height of the moral panic about comics in America. Ironically, it was in America, 'the land of the free', that comics were severely censored around this time (1954). Hope you enjoy a look at the book. 

Comic Book Crazy! / Comic Strip Vispo and the Art of Comics

 

Blame Savoy Books and Lord Horror comics, blame The Cramps and their Goo Goo Muck, blame Destroy All Monsters and their B-Movie monster music...blame my misspent youth drawing comic book style because I couldn't be bothered to study anatomy (at the age of eleven? Are you kidding?) but don't blame Whizzer and Chips. Of course I read comics as a kid. Wasn't the Beano Summer annual the most thrilling publication of the year (1970)? Wasn't 2000 AD a real kick? 

I wasn't living in 50s America otherwise I might have indulged in the four colour grime and gore that caused panic amongst parents and finally created the comics code which crushed the genre. So fast forward 50 years and I'm enjoying my own personal comic craze. As you can see by the photos, I've bought a few books. I haven't mentioned Jack Kirby yet, specifically, because I might write just about him in another post. 

Who mentioned Pop Art? Oh, Lichtenstein...him. He 'did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for soup', Art Spiegelman said. Loathed or loved by comic fans? The former, probably. I don't know many comic fans, except the friend I've previously mentioned; the one doing his best to reduce my bank account to zeros with what he laughingly calls his 'advice', which I suspect is actually his vicarious thrill of reliving his own voyage of comic discovery years ago, via me. 

I didn't buy a motorbike in my 'mid-life crisis' - ha-ha! I haven't had one. Or did I? What well-off boomers spend their money on is their business. I'm not well-off. Yes, it's all relative, wealth. Can I afford to buy books? How much can I afford to spend of my pension? What is money? Is a £60 Captain American omnibus really a 'good deal'? My friend says it is compared to buying the individual issues. Well yes, obviously, but it's still £60. 

Roy Thomas' The Marvel Age of Comics - 1961-1978 is the latest arrival. That's the big (size) one. I bought the smaller version a few weeks ago and love it so much that I had to go big...the artwork included is so...gorgeous? Sexy? (ha-ha). Exciting? Phenomenal? Because Taschen use the actual original comics as their source. They don't mess around. No digital recolouring for them! That's one of the controversial issues with comic collections. I'll discuss that in another post. Suffice to say, for now, that it's having the artwork in it's original printed form that makes this book such a thrill...the paper tones, the inking...the colours! 

 

Naturally(?) my comic craze has inspired me to create some art influenced by comics. Here's two of them. I'm pleased with the results and will probably make more. I have others ideas for exploring comics as a basis for art but for now, visual poetry is the main element. In a way, great comic strips were a form of visual poetry to begin with...the idea of storytelling in pictures...where the text is almost secondary to the visual ideas. 

Thanks for visiting! TTFN

RTomens, 2026

RTomens, 2026

Vispo/Print/Collage: Mind Control / Jack Kirby's 2001: A Space Odyssey

Mind Control, RTomens, 2026

A collage of previous work printed to form the face with the eyes done in ink. 

Talking of ink, Mike Royer did the work on Jack Kirby's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is 50 years old this year. I managed to pick up every issue recently. It has not, as far as I know, ever been included in a collection. Here's the second issue...

More info here

Vispo: Signs From Space / HP Lovecraft and Heavy Metal and Bathory / Graham 'Ghastly' Ingels - the horror!

Signs From Space, RTomens 2026

The title was possibly influenced by reading HP Lovecraft recently, so it became Signs From rather than The Colour Out Of...and as I said to my friend who works in the charity shop when discussing Lovecraft it's his very dryness, his sort of academic prose style that makes him so distinctive, not only that, of course, but, you know, the way he describes horror situations as if they are field reports by a scientist rather than a fictioneer bent on thrilling the reader - know what I mean? 

There's a playlist of Lovecraftian metal on Spotify. 

 

Staying metallic: this morning whilst working on a new piece I've been 'listening' to Under The Sign Of The Black Mark by Bathory who, as you know, made metal noise as good as anyone, probably better than most...but I'm no expert. Take this, Chariot Of Fire. And. What I like so much about it is the drum sound so rapid-fire as to become mechanical to the point of almost become Thrash Techno. Right? 

And what could be more logical than to follow that sonic representation of horror with a master illustrator, Graham Ingels and the superb Fantagraphics book, Doctor of Horror...a 'Ghastly' treat!

Sleep tight...and don't have nightmares!

Vispo/drawing: Adrift / Steve Ditko / Atomic Age ink

RTomens, 2026

This period of trying to combat RSI by not typing sees me using printer and pen instead. Here's the second made in two days. I've used ink pens for years but have been trying new ways recently. Adrift combines printed layers of old typed vispo pieces, inked according to whichever parts I was to highlight or cover completely. 

I've been inspired by a recent dive into the world of comics, specifically the Atomic Age (roughly 1946–1956). Not that I dare compare my efforts to the great inkers of those days. Flicking through PS Artbooks' Outer Space Vol 1 the other day I was struck by this Steve Ditko panel. I have a friend who's been collecting comics and comic books for decades; he's a very useful guide through what is a vast world and a challenging one regarding reprints (digital recolouring or not? Black and white purity for the artist's work? etc). Through his enthusiasm he's also doing his best to tally bankrupt me...and is almost succeeding...