Art

You might wonder why the first city to stage a major fine art retrospective on the whole career of Jack Kirby is Lucerne in Switzerland. Since Kirby died in 1994, there have been several modest exhibits, including a small display I curated in 1994 at the Cartoon Art Trust in London, as well as the Masters of Comic Art show which began in Los Angeles and included Kirby as one of the fifteen creators spotlighted. ... Of course the idea of an exhibit of Jack Kirby art is enticing enough; but it includes such personal effects as copies of his letters home to wife Roz from the front in WWII: ...Left him enlightened, somewhat calmer but his problem like some problems was laid in the lap of time which is the only other substitute for John J.

Let's end the week on a big UP note with the art of Kris Mukai, whose work we first spotted in this Comics from MoCCA slideshow,...

Speaking of the obscure characters of pulp writer Robert E. Howard who managed to churn out a jillion characters before taking his own life at the age of 31, his Texan character Breckenridge Elkins is getting adapted as a webcomic by Gary Chaloner ( Red Kelo, John Law) and Cayetano Garza. Elkins was one of Howard's more successful character during his lifetime, and the comic has a nice rugged look.

Cartoonists were showing off their upcoming books covers EVERYWHERE this week. Here's the cover of the first collection of Dylan Meconis's historical yet mystical webcomic, Family Man . And here's a photo of Meredith Gran's first Octopus Pie collection from Villard, coming in June. The book is shown with a cup of coffee for both scale and inspiration.

Via Super I.T.C.H The Deadly Upas Tree of Wall Street by Joseph Keppler, from Puck Magazine August 30, 1882. Click for larger version.

In the spirit of cleaning out our email in-box, here is some promo art that came in yesterday that may be of some interest to Beat readers, including THE CRUSADES, MORNING GLORY ACADEMY, HAWKS OF OUTREMER, FCBD IRON MAN/THOR, DARKWING DUCK and SECRET PROJECT ROBOT.

Jamie S. Rich's sketchbook might say yes. The above is by Mike Allred, proving that many Mike Allred characters have a family resemblance to Audrey Hepburn.

Waitaminnit! That Slaterman23 is quite the busy bee -- he's also designed a Lost: The Animated Series poster. Click for larger image! Looking at...

Via Jill Pantozzi , yet more fan designed vintage style posters for comics stuff, this time various superheroes, via Slaterman23.

Jim Rugg writes to tell us he'll be debuting a new mini comic at SPACE tomorrow, and -- as befits one of our most POPULAR categories here on The Beat -- gave us an exclusive peek:

As he mentioned on his C2E2 panel, Chris Ware recently finished a cover for Fortune magazine, only to see it killed, perhaps because of...

Cartoon Brew, the respected animation blog, ran the promo art for the new Looney Tunes show we mentioned yesterday day, and the reaction can...