Here’s an interview I did when I first started doing Flash Gordon way back in 1996.
The pic is from a few years into my tenure,
and trying out the “artist goatee” look on for size.
Interview by Jerry Craft
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Tag: Flash Gordon
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Sally Forth – Hometown Reference
When a scene in Sally Forth calls for a specific locale (grocery store, movie theater, etcetera) I’ll often use spots around my hometown of Minneapolis for reference. Take the following…
Excerpt from Francesco Marciuliano’s script for 9/22/2016.
Scene: Exterior. Sidewalk. Right Outside Comic Book Store. Hilary and Faye exit the comic book store. Each has a bag showing a comic book purchase.
For the comic book shop I chose Comic Book College.
It holds a little nostalgia for me as it used to be called Comic City back in the day (and was located one store down from where it is now). For those interested in the history, check out the College of Comic Book Knowledge.
The two guys approaching the comic book store in the first panel are fellow Joe Kubert School classmates Brian Bilter and Mark McMurray.
They’ve snuck into the strip before – it usually happens when I’m not paying close enough attention.
Mark even went so far as to crash a Flash Gordon strip I did back in the day (when he had longer hair).
More on that at joikmeister.livejournal.com
Unabashed plug time!
If Sally Forth isn’t in your local paper you can check it out online at SallyForth.com, or get a subscription at…
A yearlong subscription to all of King Features’ comics (new and vintage) plus ten years worth of archives for every single strip is a pittance at $19.99 a year. Unsure? Try a 7 day trial subscription for free.
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Uncle Whit and Aunt Pat
You end up using a lot of friends and family as reference when drawing comics. Take the following Flash Gordon page from October 31, 1999.
Quick story synopsis: Ming’s attempts to conquer the Earth by means of a gigantic space portal in Boston linking Earth to Mongo has failed, but Flash and Dale are now literally worlds apart – Flash on Mongo and Dale on Earth. Lisa (a woman who befriended Flash) is one of the few on Earth left who knows what really happened…
Click on image to see larger.
Lisa’s character is based on a friend my wife went to school with who’s name is also Lisa.
The elderly couple are my Uncle Whit and Aunt Pat (they have since both passed away). This page was an homage to them as they always supported my comic art career. An artist herself, two of my Aunt Pat’s pieces of sculpture were chosen for juried exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My Uncle Whit was a poet and educator.
They faithfully picked up the Boston Herald each Sunday to see my work on Flash Gordon. This even though they subscribed to the much more “respectable” Boston Globe – my Aunt told me stories of my Uncle Whit sneaking out at first light on Sunday morning to go out and grab a copy, being careful not to be seen.
My Aunt Pat’s support of my comics/art career went farther back than that though. When I was a kid and my local Minneapolis paper stopped running the Spider-Man newspaper strip (which I had been diligently clipping out every day) she clipped them from her Boston paper and sent them to me every week for the next two years.
(More about that at this link.)
And even though she came from a Fine arts background, my Aunt Pat never differentiated to me between “high art” and the “low art” in regards to comic art (that I got later from teachers at the local art college). She just kept faithfully sending them to me so I wouldn’t miss out on any of the John Romita comic art I loved so much.
Best support I could have gotten and I’ll always be grateful for it.
Note: To see more of my Flash Gordon work, just go to FlashGordon.com
Today’s Flash Gordon strip (11/9/2014) originally ran on July 21, 2002.
The guest artist was Mr. Monster’s own Michael T. Gilbert.
Click on image to see larger.
Not enough you say?
Okay – next up is a Flash Gordon/Mr. Monster mash-up
Michael and I did for an article Michael wrote in Alter Ego #20
A Flash Gordon commission piece via Comic Art Fans
And last, but not least, here’s Mr. Gilbert with his
Comic-Con International 2014 Inkpot Award.
No better way to end it than that…
One of the highlights of doing Flash Gordon was the opportunity to work with Al Williamson (1931-2010).
Al worked on two Sunday pages during my tenure. This first page ran on November 7, 1999. The layout and partial pencils are by Al, the finished inks are by me.
This next page is dated July 8, 2001 and is all Al. It’s also the last Flash Gordon piece he did that saw print.
Backstory on the November 7th strip:
During the summer of 1998 I was working on staff as a colorist at King Features Syndicate. King was gearing up to move from the building it had occupied for decades and I got a tip that a number of old files were being thrown out. I was told by my editor that if I was up for it I could go through the dumpsters and keep whatever I wanted. The files that were being trashed mostly consisted of decades old paperwork and proof sheets from a myriad of projects/collections that spanned back for years and years.
Rooting through the dumpster I eventually came upon a a lost treasure – proof sheets of Al Williamson’s work on Flash Gordon from the old 1960’s King Comics. I could not believe my luck. Now this was around the time that Marvel was withholding artwork from Jack Kirby. That being the case I got Williamson’s contact info from our Comics Editor Tom Daning (who had worked with Al two years prior) and after making copies for myself I sent off the proof sheets.
About a week later, much to my surprise, I got a call from Al. He thanked me, then told me how all the artwork from that first issue of Flash Gordon he had drawn had been stolen years ago. He had sent it in to the publisher and after it saw print all the artwork went “missing” and was never returned to him. He greatly appreciated receiving the package of proof sheets from out of the blue – so much so in fact that he invited me out to his studio.
I am still in awe of the original artwork I saw that day. His own and also of great pen and ink masters he admired from his personal collection; Alex Raymond, Hal Foster and much, much more…
Since I was the hired hand on Flash Gordon at the time, I inquired whether or not he would be interested in doing artwork for a Flash Sunday page. Granted, I knew he hadn’t had the best working conditions/relations with King in the past, so I was unsure if he’d be up for it. As he was under deadline inking a Star Wars movie adaptation at the time he politely declined and I left it at that.
Skip ahead a year…
Al would call me from time to time just to check in on how work was going and how the family was doing. By the fall of 1999 I decided to inquire again if he would be interested in doing a Flash page. At this time he said he’d be up for it, but he had two conditions.
1: That he’d have plenty of lead time.
2: Under no circumstance would he accept payment.
He wasn’t able to finish the page due to other deadline commitments, but he did provide a beautiful layout. What follows is the inking study he worked up on tracing paper.
Williamson’s method of working up a page starts with an inked rough (to size). First laid out in pencil, Williamson then goes over it with ink to start tightening it up. He explained that comic pages he does the whole job on (pencils and inks) he literally ends up inking the page twice.
I believe he later changed the figure of Dale because it was derivative of a drawing he had done shortly before this for another project.
Al blocked in partial pencils onto Bristol, then sent me the tracing paper so I could see what he intended. Due to time constraints he wasn’t able to pencil the inset characters.
And here’s my inks.
I can’t say enough about how great a guy Al Williamson was, not just as an artist but as a mentor and friend.
For more on Al Williamson’s work on Flash (including these pages) I highly recommend Flesk publications’ Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon. The book includes an essay by Mark Schultz, and the art is beautifully shot from the originals whenever possible.
If Flash Gordon isn’t in your local paper, you can check it out online at…
A yearlong subscription to all of King Features’ comics (new and vintage) plus two years worth of archives for every single strip is a pittance at $19.99 a year.
Unsure? Try a 7 day trial subscription for free.