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Deep in the grubby sump of one of those so-called ‘Social Media’ sites, there is a clump of aging comics fanboys called The Really Very Serious Alan Moore Scholars’ Group, known to its sad and lonely adherents as TRVSAMSG. When they’re not annotating everything in sight, or calling down ancient evils on the heads of […]

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A powerful looking Ron Ely, star of the TV’s “Tarzan”(1966-1968) and “Doc Savage: Man of Bronze” (1975) spellbound his audience at WonderCon Friday, relating his fight with a wild tiger.  According to Ely, “The Script read: Tarzan sees tiger, Tarzan fights tiger, Tarzan and tiger walkaway in opposite directions with mutual respect.” Instead of firing the writer and walking off the set as would likely happen these days, the actor concerned himself with how to achieve the scene. Contacting the San Diego Zoo, Ely and his producer’s were able persuade Zoo officials to detour a recently captured tiger from India to the set of “Tarzan” in Burbank.  Gaining the big cat’s trust by his attending every feeding,  Ely and the Tarzan production crew took precautions to insure no one would be hurt.  By forbidding a gun on the set, Ely was also insuring the tiger’s safety.

“When we were set to film I hit him on the nose and he gave me a look like ‘Is that the best you got?’ I hit him again and he ignored me. There was only one other thing I knew to do to rouse him–if I turned my back.” Sure enough, the tiger went flying over Ely’s head to pounce and they wrestled. “To a tiger, its just play,” Ely said with equanimity.  Much to Ely’s own astonishment, the scene came off as written.

You can enjoy Warner Bros. Archive Collection of “Tarzan” and “Doc Savage” available at http://www.wbshop.com/category/wbshop_brands/warner+archive.do.

Also being released by WarnerBros. Archive Collection: “Bomba, the Jungle Boy” (1949) and “The Adventures of Superboy, Season 3″ In coming months there will be additional releases of other Boomer generation Televison shows.  One such is “Maya,” starring Jay North.  The star of “Dennis the Menace”, now a teen, searches the jungles of India for his missing father aboard an Elephant named Maya. The show was a milestone for TV at its time in that it was filmed on location in India.

I think I'm on a roll?

I FEEL like I'm on a roll.

I just recently discovered that CHICKEN DANCE made it into the Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators in New York. Now, it's not the first time I've been in the show, but I have to be honest with you, I was truly bitter when I learned that THE GHOSTS OF LUCKLESS GULCH was excluded from last years show. With that said, if OH NO doesn't make it into next year's Original Art Show I will feel truly jaded.

A while back I blogged about this great book my parents got for me while they were in Thailand. It was a book about old movie posters. Stuff like this...

I just loved the rough painterly feel of old pulp retro posters. OH NO was one of those projects that I felt lended itself to that feel so I modeled it after an old 1960's Japanese Monster Movie Poster such as this...

and especially these...

See the influences? I hope it translates well into a children's book...

(click on all images to see a larger version)

I'll walk you through a few details....

First of all, the jacket as a whole may look a little busy, but if you look at it as parts of a whole then it makes more sense.

Here's the cover...

I thought the single image of a girl standing in front of a city in carnage would stand out on a bookshelf. Then upon closer inspection you would notice that in her glasses you can see the reflection of a giant robot and a giant frog preparing to fight. The art director and I decided that the paper should be matte (or satin finish) and that the glasses would be spot glossed to give it that reflective feel. 

The back of the book continues on with the whole retro feel. The robot is a dominant shape in the background which is predominantly red/orange. I also gave him a speech bubble where the book bar code would be placed as if the robot were talking and I included a 'Presented in Retrovision' and 'Color by Colorflux' ads which were later removed before printing. Also note the rough painted edge over the white border. The large signwritten in Japanese literally translates to "OH NO" in Japanese. For the longest time I was trying to convince the folks at Hyperion to include Japanese in the title and in the text. We ended up settling on a middle ground.

The about the author/illustrator section is also part of the whole retro feel of the jacket. Here is an image of the author, Mac Barnett and I running away from the monster (in classic sci-fi poster form). I added an eye patch to myself as an homage to to some of the old mad scientist villains you would see in the Bond movies and so forth. It almost rings synonymous with the goatee in Star Trek that automatically signified Spock as being evil. It was as if to say a prerequisite to being evil in the 60's was that you had to have lost an eye. Oh those silly 60's...

But wait that's not all... Take off the jacket and turn it over. What's this? A door poster?!

The art director and editor were awesome enough to let me include a movie poster that kids can hang up on their wall. It comes complete with tag lines and movie credits which include the names of the art director and editor as well. 

BUT WAIT DAN! HOLD ON! If my kid hangs this book poster on his door then he's gonna have a book with no jacket on it. What good is that?!

Ah, never fear. The hardcover is decorated, as well, as you can see here...

It's supposed to be the science notebook of the girl in the book. The coffee stains were supposed to be tinted to more of a chocolate milk sort of feel but I think it failed. There was originally more stuff on it to begin with but Mac and the editor felt it was best to simplify it and keep it minimal.

OK. I'll concede on that one...

Dark Roasted Blend has posted a great look at some of the masters of Science Fiction pulp illustration. The piece here is by Donald Newton.