after the Australian love from Jason Paulos, the Black Beetle gets more international love today, this time from Panagiotis Mitsobonos, Athens, Greece :D
Panagiotis is a Pulp Sunday friend and he was kind enough to take some time off his schedule to do a tribute to the Black Beetle. That, of course, makes me feel again like a proud dad :) Love the Ted McKeever vibe of it, almost a chalked graffiti on the walls of a Colt City alley, reminding the crooks that THE BLACK BEETLE IS ALWAYS WATCHING! :D
I couldn't make time to do the next page of KARA BOCEK but I did find time to do this quick Xmas-sy card so we all can get a bit of Black Beetle spirit for the holiday :) Have a Wonderful Christmas, everyone, and I will see you next week with a new Kara Bocek page!
I bet you have never seen Zorro riding THIS Tornado ;) (again, click on the image for IMAX version ;))
Just one more reason to not miss issue 18 coming out today in the stores. Matt came up with a structure similiar to issue 15, with tales of the Fox told (and quite filtered) by a bunch of peones around a campfire. Campfire tales, that is, allowing me to have MUCH fun drawing it. Thank you, Matt :)
Below the back cover for issue 17 that teased on the tales you will find in #18. Hope you guys enjoy the read :)
And here's page 4, with quite some action! :D As usual, hit me back with feedback: a;ways love to hear your thoughts on this.
Next page is gonna be a little quieter: I need some rest ;) I'll try to post it by Xmas but if I can't make it, I will see you all after Xmas: have a wonderful Holiday with your families and friends :)
As suspected (and kinda planned) here's some more Capitan Cold concepts. :) It also helped that Frosty the Snowman was on last night and pushed me to do the above pencil sketch while watching a bit of tv ;) I threw some colors on it before going to bed last night - you can see the original pencils too when you click on the image.
To stick with the Xmas spirit, I am thinking to turn the Bear from "baddie" to "buddie" :) What you guys think? Do you like the idea of this duo swashbackling their way in the North Pole, circa 1625 A.D.? :D Now I am thinking about some new fiends to introduce in the story...
Happy Holidays, Francesco
p.s. Kara Bocek New Page Tomorrow: Be There or Be Square! :)
Some days you just can't get rid of the Black Beetle... ;)
This is definitely a good week for the Black Beetle: so much love coming his way that he almost blushed. But then he remembered that's not something his enemies wanna see from him ;)
Today's homage is from a pulp afecionado and long time friend of Pulp Sunday: Kyle Latino. His "get rid of a bomb" gag is just hilarious: always loved those big bowl-shaped bomb in cartoons and old silent movies (and in the 60s Batman series ;)) Great fun stuff, and beutifully rendered with some old school inking: thank you so much, Kyle :D If you haven't yet, please check out Kyle's pulp goodness at his site.
And stay tuned for page 4 of Kara Bocek coming this Sunday: things will get kinda "busy" ;)
we are only a week away from Xmas so I thought it was a good time to post the card I did this year for the holidays: "CAPITAN COLD"! My wife and I liked this guy (and the evil polar bear foes ;)) so much that we are planning to develop it a little more, so stay tuned on that.
Meanwhile I wish you all - and your families and friends - a wonderful Holiday Season and a deliciously Pulpish 2010, full of good things for you (and hopefully Pulp Sunday and Black Beetle are part of those things).
Speaking of the Black Beetle, I am working on page 4 of "KARA BOCEK" which will be up this Sunday, soon followed by page 5 before taking a so much needed holiday break.
Cheers to you all, my friends, and thanks for making this such a cool place :)
Feeling like a proud dad right now, for all the love my baby (if we can call a grow up asskicking pulpish hero a baby ;)) is receiving :)
After the sweet tributes from Simon and Evan in the last few days, I got up today to find another awesome fanart of our favorite masked hero, this time from the skillfull hands of Thomas Boatwright, talented co-creator and artist of horror little gems like the Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo and Cemetery Blues. You can check more of Thomas' work and coming projects here.
Thank you, Thomas, I really appreciate you taking time to draw Black Beetle :)
(part 3 being Simon's realistic take at our pulp masked hero I posted a couple of days ago). This morning I woke up to find this beutiful rendition of the Black Beetle by the supertalented - and all around swell guy - Evan "Doc" Shaner.
Evan was already kind enough to send me, some time ago, a beutiful drawing depicting The Shadow, Green Hornet, and the Spider, a pulp trinity if you wish ;), (and he drew a Zorro on the envelope to make it even sweeter), so I was super happy to see him taking a stab at BB and the Kara Bocek's trio of baddies. You can see more of Evan's beutiful work here.
No, as much as I wish it was an actual news, there is still no movie development attached to BB, not yet anyway ;)
Some time ago my good friend and pulp afecionado Simon Pimpernel (everyone should visit his wonderful pulp blog, if you are not doing it already) asked me who would I cast if a real movie about the Black Beetle was to be made. I replied a young Kirk Douglas would have been perfect for the role. Well this morning Simon surprised me with this fanart photo manipulation, which looks like a real still from some '40s movie :) I thanked him and asked permission to dress it up as movie poster and post it in here. Permission granted so here it is :)
Thanks again, Simon, it looks AWESOME. Now if I can only time-travel and get young Kirk to sign for the movie...
Hope you guys dig it. If you do, feel free to spread the word and let everyone know about this little Black Beetle tale :) And expect some more FUN on page 3 this coming Sunday :)
Inspired by today's Google homepage, a quick tribute to one of the heroes of my childhood and the reason why I love spinach so much ;)
Created by Elzie Crisler Segar in 1929 as a side character for the daily strip The Thimble Theatre, Popeye conquered the American readers first, and the world wide readers right after, becoming an icon of popular culture and one of the most recognizable characters in the world. With him, Segar has written some of the most unforgettable pages of the comics history, rich of surrelaism, humanity, adventure, humor, poetry.
Little trivia: the spinach appear rarely in the daily strips, while they become an important element of the cartoon animated version.
If you dig it a lot and want more than just a page a week, I will steal a few more hours to my sleep and will try to make 2 pages a week, let's say Sundays and Wednesays? Lemme know :) Meanwhile I hope you enjoy the intro :)
Couldn't help to post some more of the strip/page that will be up tomorrow. Working on dialogues/captions today. Hope you guys are as excited as I am :) Click on the image for larger view.
I am sharing these with you all as they come along. Please meet Aziz Haktan (on the left) and Ihsan Bey (on the right). Aziz is the owner of an Antiques shop in Constantinople, and he has a special item Black Beetle is interested in. Ihsan... well, he is one of the bad guys of this story, but you have to wait to see how bad he is ;) This is gonna be FUN :D
So let's get this December started, shall we? :D Planning to bring the PULP/NOIR back to Pulp Sunday after the Horror October and SciFi November. That means also more Black Beetle tales! :)
We left Black Beetle in his free-fall from an 18 story building in the prologue of "NO WAY OUT", remember? Well, as mentioned that story has developed to be a 6 issue mini and you will be able to see what happen next hopefully in 2010 (really pushing things around to make the mini hit the stores next year).
Meanwhile, since I can't keep BB away from Pulp SUnday, I decided to do a short web-tale of our beloved hero. "KARA BOCEK" will be set a few years before "NO WAY OUT" and will introduce some of the elements that will be part of the BB bigger arcs later. The change of settings is not just temporal but also geographical as we are now in Constantinople (today's Istanbul), Turkey and not in Colt City. Expect Casablanca vibes in this ;)
Just worked on this "lobby card" (inspired by a pulp movie ;)) and the couple of concepts you see in this post (introducing Elsa Vogel) and now I need to layout the whole story in the next few days so I can have Sunday strips going on Pulp Sunday for the whole month. Hope you guys dig the poster & the concept and will be on board for this ride. And please, let me hear from you because if it's just me and BB it's half fun :)
I did promise you that I was going back to take a more "realistic" stab at these guys for the 1953 classic "War of the WOrlds", didn't I? ;) Well, the last thing I want to happen is that people say I don't keep my promises :)
I went a bit more elaborated (in terms of composition) on this for two reasons: 1) it's a clear tribute to my previous vintage videogame take, with the aliens coming down from the sky; 2) it's the last Sunday of November, so this is the closing tribute for this Alien month. But fear not, since I am not nearly done with the Watchers from Outer Space, so... expect more in the future and in the meanwhile watch the skies. ;)
... although his name is untranslatable to any Earth language, it would sound something like Zontar.
Hello, Pulp Friends,
We leave the pseudo tukey-alien of yesterday (hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving) for a more "real" (HAHA!) alien today: ZONTAR, The Thing From Venus! :D When you make a low budget remake of the low budget movie "It Conquered the World" (1956, directed by Roger Corman), what you get is a B-movie square :D Hope you dig my "take" on Zontar and looking at it now, the skeleton of yesterday, minus waddle, could be Zontar's skeleton ;)
A silly little sequence sparkled by my recent offerings to Pulp Sunday and to my sketchblog ;) It's pretty clear who is gonna win this match ;) Hope you get a laugh or two from it like I did :D
Moon monsters launch attack against Earth! How can science meet the menace of astral assassins? New Science Fiction Thrills!
Hello, Pulp Friends,
Today's offering, "Robot Monster", directed by Phil Tucker in 1953, is in the same category of "Plan 9 From Outer Space": CULT movies! :D Speaking of Plan 9, I should feature it in here as well - definitely ;) Meanwhile I leave you with Ro-Man, our helemted primate from the moon and with my wish to draw a full book, one day, with this guy. I would LOVE to do that :)
just wanted to share this little B-Day card I did last night for Mr Guy Davis, extraordinaire and uber-talented artist of BPRD and of his creator owned "The Marquis". The title says Pt.1 becuase I do plan to do a more wide and action oriented shot of the Marquis at a certain point :)
Buon Compleanno, Guy, and thanks for giving us all those beautifully rendered nightmares :D
1953 seemed to be the golden year for sci-fi and alien invasions. After "Invaders From Mars" and "War of the Worlds", from the same year, we deal today with the monstrous aliens of "It Came From Outer Space" ("Destinazione... Terra!" in its Italian release), written by Ray Bradbury and directed by Jack Arnold.
Monstrous aliens, I said, but in this case first impressions can be deceiving. Stranded in the Arizona desert, the monstrous, but pacific, crew of an alien ship xenomorphically take the aspect of the local people so they can fix the ship without alarming anyone and leave to go back home. A classic indeed :)
I couldn't help, considering today's date, to do another Friday the 13th piece, and to make it fit in Pulp Sunday, I dressed it up like those '50s Dell covers.
Hope you guys dig it and hope you all have a Happy Friday the 13th! :D
We take a little break from the Aliens to introduce Beardy Hornsworth, Occult Detective :D I had to draw this after seeing the SuperTalentedWriter and VeryGoodFriend Jason Aaron posting this Halloween mugshot of him on his blog I think Beardy Hornsworth should totally have its own title, don't you agree? Of course I would be delighted to illustrate it if Jason makes that happen ;)
There is anything to add about this movie? I hope not becuase I am short on time ;) I just hope you guys dig the more "different" approach of this week tribute ;) Planning to do a more "realistic" portrait of these bad guys later this week.
I feel like I have been neglecting this blog a bit, after the "busy" Halloween month in October - I just have a few deadlines I need to take care so I have been focusing on "work" lately ;) As matter of fact I haven't had chance yet to watch the "V" series premiere, even if I DVRed it so maybe this weekend I will fix that.
Meanwhile here's a classic for our Alien November: "Invaders From Mars" (or "Gli Invasori SPaziali" in its italian release), directed in 1953 by William Cameron Menzies and remade later in the 80s.
Quick Synopsis: A kid witnesses a starship landing on Earth and disappearing undergorund. He tries to warn everyone about this but only a doctor believes him. Shot in 3D, this movie is the proof that you can accomplish a lot with really good ideas, even if the budget is tight. Paranoid, obsessive, unforgettable.
as mentioned yesterday, this November will be dedicated to all those aliens out(er) there who try to conquer Earth (or let's say we prefer them evil ;)) The occasion is the premiere of the new "V" series on ABC, a series I very much look forward to, being a big fan of the 1980s first version with Marc Singer and Michael Ironside (among others).
To start, a little Vultus Premens Belua, found in a bestiarium from 1204 and in a series of successful movies in recent years ;) Stay tuned for more "Watchers form Outer Space"!
That was a fun month, wasn't it? :D Thank you all for following this blog during the Halloween period. I hope you guys are still there when I will be unlocking the doors to the... Watchers form Outer Space! (starting tomorrow!)
Last Hammerin' Fears of the month but not last Hammerin' Fears of Pulp SUnday: there are still many great HAMMER movies to tribute, and these were too much fun to work on too :)
Today we have a personal favorite, a movie I was big fan of since I watched it the first time as a kid (and watched it over and over again since then): The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires! Martial arts with fangs! Come'on, you can't beat that fun, can you? :) It's close to midnight and I need to put this up so I will leave you with the synopsis of the movie and a little trailer (titled 7 Brothers Meet Dracula for the American market I think) and, of course, my little tribute to this classic :) Can't believe this Halloween month is almost over :(
Buona Visione and have a Pulp Friday evening everyone! :)
Cheers, Francesco
Synopsis: Professor Van Helsing (Cushing) had been asked to help against the tyranny of skeletal creatures that are responsible for terror and death amongst the peasants in rural China. He is the only person qualified to deal with the cause of these phenomena, for the undead are controlled by the most diabolical force of all.... Count Dracula (Forbes-Robertson). But he is not alone- to aid him comes a mystical brotherhood of seven martial arts warriors.
The other reason is that, while October was dedicated to the horror, November will be all about classic sci-fi and aliens, thanks to the premiere, on Nov 3rd, of the new version of "V" on ABC. I did an ALIEN month in December 2008, so, about a year later, it's time to see more "Watchers" invading Pulp Sunday. Hope you guys will tune in for some extra-terrestrial Pulp :)
The Twilight Zone is back! And William Shatner is back too!! This time he is dealing with what I think is the fattest gremlin I have ever seen. I had some hard time to make this guy look scary, even if I would be indeed helluva scared like Shatner if I was sitting in the airplane and this guy is messing with one of the engines ;)
Fun facts: 1) I like that the overhead lugguge compartments are open (a shelf, practically): airplanes must have been really smooth at that time. :D 2) I like that the signal says to not smoke during take off and landing, instead of the modern "do not use electronic devices during take-off and landing": times have really changed ;) 3) Finally, I like that if you need a gun to shoot a gremlin, the guy behind you just happens to have one on his belt (while taking a nap ;))
Written by Richard Matheson and directed by Richard Donner.
Let's see if I manage to do 50 tributes to The Twilight Zone in the weeks/months ahead: that would be a nice way to celebrate the 50th year anniversary :)
I usually don't like reposting artwork that has been already shown earlier on this blog, but since my PC crashed and put me behind on my schedule, I didn't have time to draw today's Hammer tribute so... here's a classic from Hammer horrors: Peter Cushing as Doctor Victor Frankenstein (as featuered in the Mad Doctors Week a few months back).
In the original classic trilogy with Karloff (as the creature) and Clive (as the Doctor), the focus of the stories was the monster who gets out of control and overpowers his creator. Things change in the '50s thanks to the famous Hammer Films. Movies like "The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957) and "The Revenge of Frankenstein" (1958) - both directed by Terence Fisher - swap the roles between the two main characters. Now the focus is on the mad doctor Victor Frankenstein instead of the creature. He is the real monster, the cold and evil dandy with no scruples. The Creature he created is the victim escaping the lab and the morbose screenings of the so called "science".
Peter Cushing played the mad doctor Frankenstein in these 2 movies and in 3 more movies, 2 directed again by Terence Fisher (1967 and 1969) and one by Freddie Francis (1964), so I thought it would be perfect for this gallery, even more than Colin CLive. Below is the original trailer for "The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957), directed by Trence Fisher and Sarring Peter Cushing as the Doctor, Chistopher Lee as the Creature, and Robert Urquhart.
Hopefully I will manage to get the Vault of Fear piece done for Sunday so I will see you soon (insert maniacal laugh here ;))
I thought this is the perfect month to give you all a sneak peek at the back cover of Zorro #17 (that will be out in a few weeks), anticipating what comes next in Zorro #18.
It's not truly Pulp Horror if we don't throw a classic Curse Of The Mummy into the mix ;) Hope you guys are enjoying this series: it's a particularly busy month for me, work wise, but these are too much fun to do that I am doing all I can to squeeze the time in for it :)
