Summer Blockbusters

For the May Art Poll By Bob, I went floral in honor of those great post-April showers May flowers and asked, “Which of these beautiful bouquets would you pick for your garden of earthly delights?” In an Art Poll by Bob first, Gustav Klimt’s Country Garden with Sunflowers (1905-1906) beat out Vincent van Gogh’s Irises, Sait-Rémy (1889) 24 to 21, marking the first time that Vincent's not come out on top. Monet’s Monet's Garden, the Irises (1900) came in third with 16 votes and Frida Kahlo’s Flower of Life (1944) came in fourth with 9. Emil Nolde’s Flower Garden (1908) finished fifth with 7 votes, while Paul Gauguin’s Sunflowers (1901), Paul Klee’s Heroic Roses (1938), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Roses (1890) all tied for sixth with 5 votes each. Eugène Delacroix’s Bouquet of Flowers (1849-1850) brought up the rear with 3 votes. Thanks to all 95 people who stopped to smell the flowers and voted.

With June’s arrival, I can’t help but think of Summer, and Summer Blockbusters. In recent years, there’s been no source of blockbuster material as reliable as comic book superheroes such as Batman, fighting a villain named, of course, Blockbuster (created by Carmine Infantino, but the Detective Comics #349 of March 1966 cover art above is by Joe Kubert). I admit that I still haven’t “outgrown” my fascination with superheroes. Part of me is still that little boy coloring in his Batman coloring book, which included Blockbuster smashing through walls, etc., and wishing I could draw like those incredible artists. So, for the June 2009 Art Poll By Bob, I ask, “Which of these great comic artist’s work would you want to see on the big screen?”:

Neal Adams. Batman versus Ra’s al Ghul (1971).

Dave Cockrum. X-Men (1975).

Jack Cole. Plastic Man (1941).

Steve Ditko. Doctor Strange (1960s).

Frank Frazetta. Conan the Barbarian (1970s).

Jack Kirby. Captain America (1976).

Joe Kubert. Hawkman.

Todd McFarlane. Spider-Man (1990).

John Romita, Sr. Spider-Man (1967).

Joe Shuster. Superman (1938).

I know that not everyone in my audience is a comic book fan such as myself, but I hope that everyone can take a second look at recognize just what kind of draftsmanship and creativity went into these images. Jack Cole’s Plasticman is a study in abstract art all by himself! I could go on and on about each of these artists and what memories they stir up inside me, but I’ll let the works speak for themselves. So, don your capes, put on your masks, get some popcorn, and vote for these blockbusters of the imagination!

Flesh for Fantasy

When William Blake calls you an influence, you know your art is unique. Henry Fuseli, born Johann Heinrich Füssli on February 7, 1741 in Zurich, Switzerland, left his greatest impression on the art world of England. Fuseli’s best-known painting, The Nightmare (above, from 1781), contains all the typical hallmarks of the Fuseli style—macabre, nightmarish subject matter; wonderfully rich colors and textures; and almost Michelangelo-esquely expressive nudes or near-nudes. The woman in The Nightmare wears a dress so shear that she might as well be nude. Fuseli remains significant today not only because of the psychological impact and beautiful technique of the works but also for his place in the early days of the Romantic art movement that would sweep across nineteenth-century Europe and echo through Western art ever since. Friend to figures such as pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (whose portrait he painted), her husband, writer and philosopher William Godwin, scientist Joseph Priestley, philosopher Erasmus Darwin, and essayist Thomas Paine, Fuseli helped stage the nightmare of European royalty that Romanticism became in its revolutionary form.

A friend with a much greater appreciation of the fantasy art world recently clued me onto amazing artists such as Michael Parkes and Jeffrey Catherine Jones, whom my friend called “a feminine Frank Frazetta.” I remember buying Conan the Barbarian magazines as a kid and staring at the incredible Frazetta fantasy art (and not just because of Red Sonja). In many ways, Fuseli is the Frazetta of his time, illustrating many classic works of fiction in an imaginative style beyond the works themselves. Working in England, Fuseli couldn’t avoid illustrating the works of William Shakespeare and contributed to a famous Shakespeare Gallery of the time. Fuseli later opened his own gallery featuring his illustrations of John Milton, which were just as amazing as his Shakespeare-inspired paintings but not as commercially successful. I’ve always been drawn to Fuseli’s depictions of Homer’s Iliad, such as Sleep and Death Carrying Away Sarpedon of Lycia (above, from 1803). Sarpedon, a mortal son of Zeus, dies while fighting for the Trojans at the hands of Patroclus. Zeus morns the death of his son and showers the Trojans with bloody raindrops as his tears before asking Sleep and Death to carry Sarpedon’s corpse away. If the Iliad is the original sword and sorcerer tale, then Fuseli is the original Frazetta. The amazing foreshortening of Sarpedon’s lifeless leg brings to mind the finest of the Renaissance draftsmen.

Death and the afterlife may have held a special significance for Fuseli. Before becoming a painter, Fuseli studied to become a priest, even taking orders before having to flee his native Switzerland and become a nomadic writer and artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds, ironically Blake’s antithesis, recognized Fuseli’s talent early on and encouraged him to study art full time, which led Fuseli to make a pilgrimage to Italy and learn from the works of the Renaissance masters. In works such as The Apotheosis of Penelope Boothby (above, from 1792), we see the Renaissance religious sensibility translated by Fuseli into the late Romantic idiom. The angel could easily have fallen from a sixteenth century altarpiece, but the woman clearly rises from the late eighteenth century. Fuseli channels his religious fervor into artistic fervor, making a god of imagery to generate a fantasy of a better place in a world that sometimes seemed godless. I don’t know how strong a believer Fuseli was, but I believe in the power of his images to build entire worlds that seem strangely possible.

Tripping Down Under

When James Gleeson, Australia’s leading Surrealist painter died just last month at 92 years of age, on October 20th, he left behind a long legacy of artistic achievement as well as art scholarship. Born November 21, 1915, Gleeson traveled through Europe from 1947 through 1949 drinking in the lessons of not only the Old Masters but also newer artists such as Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico and Max Ernst. Gleeson’s We Inhabit the Corrosive Littoral of Habit (above, from 1940) shows the influence of Dali by copying the Spanish Surrealist’s technique of ripping away parts of the figure to reveal a hollowness inside, like chocolate Easter bunnies. Gleeson believes that habit, namely the rational autopilot we all use on a daily basis, corrodes our imagination the way that the ocean erodes the littoral or shoreline. Coming from Australia, an island nation surrounded by corroding seas, Gleeson sought to break out from those confining boundaries both physically and imaginatively through the use of Surrealism. Coming in the second wave of Surrealism, however, Gleeson benefitted from the psychedelic sixties in a way that his older models could not.

Many of Gleeson’s titles sound like they would make great titles for a Pink Floyd song or album. I can hear David Gilmour’s guitar work on Sky Technotronics (above) right now. The colors that Gleeson used and the way he modeled them are truly “tripping.” Beneath that trippy exterior, however, Gleeson studied hard the ideas of Carl Jung, specifically the collective unconscious. Whereas earlier Surrealists tended to lean heavier towards Sigmund Freud’s more sex-driven psychology, Gleeson taps Jung’s collective unconscious in a freer, more interesting way. However, Gleeson does bring up sexuality in his art. You can see here a collection of more of Gleeson’s work, including startlingly frank male nudes through which Gleeson asserted his homosexuality in a fine arts setting. Gleeson truly allowed his fantasy life free rein in all his works. By using the surrealist technique of decalcomania, in which paint is pressed on to the surface of the canvas using a piece of paper and allowed to go where it wishes, Gleeson allowed his materials to let go and, therefore, freed himself to let go and follow the “accidents” wherever they led.


Of course, Gleeson’s art can’t be considered a complete “accident.” Too much thought and imagination goes into a work such as Keeper of Used Shadows (above, from 1986). Again, the title alone draws you into the work. At first glance, Gleeson’s Keeper of Used Shadows resembles the fantasy art of someone like Frank Frazetta, but Gleeson’s deep knowledge of art history elevates it beyond pure science fiction and fantasy. Gleeson actually painted a series of works he called “psychoscapes” in which he attempted to paint liquid, solid, and air coming together to symbolize the unconscious and conscious parts of the human mind uniting. You can say that Gleeson asked for the impossible, but he made it possible, at least in his art. Gleeson’s appreciation for art history instilled in him the desire to create new ways of seeing appropriate to modern human existence, just as the old ways served the olden days. As they used to say in the Sixties, “Feed your head.” James Gleeson’s art gives us more than enough to chew on.

Group Effort

Growing up and reading superhero comics as a kid, certain artists jumped out at me—Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Frank Frazetta, and others. Something with those artists just clicked with my sense of art at the time. As an adult, I find myself remembering artists that I took in unconsciously rising to the surface of my mind, such as Dave Cockrum. Born November 11, 1943, Cockrum’s work on the X-Men, such as his Giant Size X-Men #1 cover (above, from 1975), revitalized a dying title for Marvel Comics. Cockrum created the look for such characters as Storm, Nightcrawler, and Colossus and helped make the X-Men the lucrative cultural phenomenon they are today. Alas, as seemingly with all the great comics creators, Cockrum saw little of the money generated by his creations. When illness struck in 2004, Cockrum desperately needed help, which came in the form of friends Clifford Meth, Neil Adams, and other comic industry movers and shakers. Their efforts shamed Marvel Comics into acknowledging Cockrum’s contribution to the X-Men franchise and resulted in monetary compensation that helped Dave and his family in his final years. The man who excelled at creating groups of superheroes found himself on the receiving end of kindness from fans and peers on a superheroic scale.

Although Cockrum’s work on X-Men and earlier on The Legion of Super-Heroes brought him the most attention, Dave’s occasional work on other Marvel Comics titles showed his versatility and dramatic sense of composition as well. In the cover to Daredevil #143 (above, from 1977), Cockrum shows the hero dramatically plummeting from a rooftop as a lion threatens to maul him. The plunging verticals of the composition give the picture an amazing sense of movement. The foreshortening of Daredevil’s hand as he reaches outside the picture plane for his billy club rivals similar effects used by Jack Kirby. Cockrum certainly fell under the influence of Kirby, as did so many artists of the 1970s, but you sense more influence than mimicking in Cockrum’s work. As a young man, Cockrum wrote insightful letters to the publisher of the Fantastic Four commenting on creations of Kirby such as the Inhumans. Years later, Cockrum found himself designing covers for that same title, a dream literally come true.


As a kid, I was a sucker for superhero teams—not just the biggies, like the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the Justice League of America, but hastily cobbled together groups such as The Defenders, The Invaders, and The Champions. Cockrum did his best to save what was a shaky union with art such as that on the cover of Champions #13 (above, from 1977). “Hercules! Black Widow! Angel! Ghost Rider! Iceman!” the covers breathlessly promised. I ate it up. The Champions lasted all of 17 issues, but I probably read more than half of them. Looking at the covers Dave Cockrum did for The Champions and other second-line titles, I find myself traveling back through time and remembering such books like old friends. As I said before, Cockrum’s talent seemed best suited to group efforts, usually sprawling compositions full of flailing limbs and laser blasts—a modernized version of a Baroque fresco of mythological figures duking it out. Dave Cockrum’s talent also inspired the group effort that rescued his best work from being lost in the wake of corporate maneuvering. Sometimes the good guys actually do win.

UPDATE: Clifford Meth has asked me to pass on the following announcement:

"On behalf of Dave Cockrum's widow Paty, I am in the process of grading hundreds of comics from Dave's personal collection collection. This includes Silver and Golden Age books, as well as many of Dave's personal file copies. Contact me at cliffmeth@aol.com if you're seriously interested."

If you're a comics fan, please consider helping out one of the great comics artists and getting a piece of history in the bargain.