Artist and teacher Glen Orbik passed away yesterday after a battle with cancer,. He was either 51 or 52 (Wikipedia says he was born in 1963.) Orbik was well known for his modern-day pulp-styled covers, and some striking work on several Marvel, DC and Vertigo titles, including the original run of Howard Chaykin’s American Century.
Orbik was well regarded as a teacher at the California Art Institute, where he himself went to school, studying under Fred Fixler. I have a big soft spot for pulp art and I was always a fan. Orbik’s covers were throwbacks to a less subtle era, but added elegance. You can find much more of his work at his website.
For those of us who use it, Orbik has also provided the cover illustrations for the ComicBase collection-management software for the past several years. And the covers for the Hard Case Fiction crime novel line. Draw! Magazine featured a great with him, going into his process in detail, a while back (I don’t remember what issue number) — I’m not an artist myself (the ability to draw stick figures would be a step up for me) but the Orbik interview went into a level of detail that was perfect for my Aspergian mind.
” including the original run of Howard Chaykin’s American Century.”
So “John Van Fleet” is a pen name for Glen Orbik??
I loved his Hard Case Crime paperback covers. Here’s a tribute on their website, with a gallery of his covers:
http://www.hardcasecrime.com/events.shtml
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