Saturday, January 31, 2015

Playing with Fire, Illustratively [feedly]



----
Playing with Fire, Illustratively
// Brown Paper Bag

Matches, fire, smoke… that's the idea behind today's Friday roundup. There are a lot of neat matchbook designs out there, and it was my initial inspiration for this post. But, I wanted wanted to go beyond that and explore a few ways in which fire is shown/thought of in illustration. (This is by no means comprehensive.) Got a cool fire-themed illustration to show me? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter!

The post Playing with Fire, Illustratively appeared first on Brown Paper Bag.


----

Shared via my feedly reader


Sent from my iPad

Sunday, January 25, 2015

(ノ◥▶◀◤)ノ*:・゚✧ [feedly]



Sent from my iPad

Read The Very First Comic Book: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1837) [feedly]



----
Read The Very First Comic Book: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1837)
// Open Culture

Obadiah Oldbuck

Comic books, as any enthusiast of comics books won't hesitate to tell you, have a long and robust history, one that extends far wider and deeper than the 20th-century caped musclemen, carousing teenagers, and wisecracking animals so many associate with the medium. The scholarship on comic-book history — still a relatively young field, you understand — has more than once revised its conclusions on exactly how far back its roots go, but as of now, the earliest acknowledged comic book dates to 1837.

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, according to thecomicbooks.com's page on early comic-book history, "was done by Switzerland's Rudolphe Töpffer, who has been considered in Europe (and starting to become here in America) as the creator of the picture story. He created the comic strip in 1827," going on to create comic books "that were extremely successful and reprinted in many different languages; several of them had English versions in America in 1846. The books remained in print in America until 1877."

Oldbuck 2

Also known as Histoire de M. Vieux BoisLes amours de Mr. Vieux Bois, or simply Monsieur Vieuxbois, the original 1837 Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck earned Töpffer the designation of "the father of the modern comic" from no less an authority on the matter than Understanding Comics author Scott McCloud, who cites the series' pioneering use of bordered panels and "the interdependent combination of words and pictures." You can see for yourself at the web site of Dartmouth College's Library.

Alas, contemporary critics — and to an extent Töpffer himself, who considered it a work targeted at children and "the lower classes" — couldn't see the innovation in all this. They wrote off Obadiah Oldbuck's harrowing yet strangely lighthearted pictorial stories of failed courtship, dueling, attempted suicide, robbery, drag, elopement, ghosts, stray bullets, attack dogs, double-crossing, and the threat of execution as mere trifles by an otherwise capable artist. So the next time anyone gets on your case about reading comic books, just tell 'em they said the same thing about Obadiah Oldbuck. Then send them this way so they can figure out what you mean. You can read The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck in its totality here.

Oldbuck 3

Related Content:

Download Over 22,000 Golden & Silver Age Comic Books from the Comic Book Plus Archive

Download 15,000+ Free Golden Age Comics from the Digital Comic Museum

The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Heroes

Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture as well as the video series The City in Cinema and writes essays on cities, language, Asia, and men's style. He's at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

Read The Very First Comic Book: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1837) is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooksFree Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

The post Read The Very First Comic Book: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1837) appeared first on Open Culture.


----

Shared via my feedly reader


Sent from my iPad

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Walter Schnackenberg [feedly]



----
Walter Schnackenberg
// MONSTER BRAINS

Walter Schnackenberg - Die Rauschtranke, 1949 Walter Schnackenberg - Escaping over the roof (1955) Walter Schnackenberg - The decapitated girl and the bat (1949) Walter Schnackenberg - In the mountain gorge (1949) Walter Schnackenberg - Good and Evil (1948) Walter Schnackenberg - The stage performers (1958) Walter Schnackenberg - The curious dinosaur (1950) Walter Schnackenberg - "Lichtscheues Gesindel," 1950 Walter Schnackenberg - Surreal figures in a rocky landscape (1957) Walter Schnackenberg - Surreal figures over the pyramids (1957) Walter Schnackenberg - The embrace (1949) Walter Schnackenberg - "Modes," 1951 Walter Schnackenberg - "Unterwelt," 1951 Walter Schnackenberg - The sleepwalker (1956) Walter Schnackenberg - Death on the stage (1957) Walter Schnackenberg - Die Virtuosin, 1949 Walter Schnackenberg - A young girl exploring a river in a gorge (1949) Walter Schnackenberg - "Die Schere," 1950 Walter Schnackenberg - "Place Blanche," 1948 Walter Schnackenberg - "An der Bar," 1956 Walter Schnackenberg - Das Komitee (1958) Walter Schnackenberg - "Das Vergnugen," 1950 Walter Schnackenberg - Ein Karussell träumt (1950) Walter Schnackenberg - A surreal conversation (1948) Walter Schnackenberg - Die Krone der Schöpfung (1948) Walter Schnackenberg - Spinne mit Maulkorb (1958) "Born in Bad Lauterburg in 1880, Walter Schnackenberg found his vocation as a draughtsman and painter while still very young. At 19 he went to Munich, where he at first attended Heinrich Knirr's painting school before going on directly, like so many of his contemporaries, to study at the Franz von Stuck Academy. Drawing is Schnackenberg's strong point. His lively imagination made him particularly good at caricature. He drew for the celebrated magazines 'Jugend' and 'Simplizissimus'. His themes were theatre and the comic muse. Travelling extensively, Schnackenberg often went to Paris, where he was especially interested in the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. As a print-maker, Schnackenberg devoted himself mainly to poster art and his most mature work is in this genre. He was also well-known as a designer of stage scenery and costumes. With his evident preference for frivolous ladies, he was highly fashionable in his day. Schnackenberg does not have the acutely critical approach of a Grosz or a Hubbuch. Instead, his works resemble those of Jeanne Mammen, who devoted herself to portraying pert Berlin girls. During the late phase of his career, Schnackenberg introduced surreal elements into his work. People with bestial, mask-like faces were intended to symbolize the unsatisfied lusts and addictions of the petty bourgeois. Schnackenberg spent his last years in Rosenheim and died there in 1961." - quote source from a now defunct website devoted to the artist.

All artworks found thanks to Will Schofield at 50 Watts. See all of the original posts on Walter Schnackenberg from 50 Watts here.

----

Shared via my feedly reader


Sent from my iPad