Sunday, November 15, 2009

Steranko Effect






I've not been adding content to my blog at all, this has to be obvious. I've spent the week angry, like maybe kits a brain tumor angry. In no real order, I've had a dark squiggly cloud over my head because of these things. Carrie "Shut the Fuck Up Already" Prejean's book, $27.95 at just under 200 pages. And my agent thinks a memoir about myself won't sell. Maybe I need boob implants and start making solo sex tapes, the latter being no problem whatsoever. And don't get me started on Sarah "I'm the Anti-Christ" Palin. Yes, I'm still on my list. Cell phones. Who the Geronimo H. Baldheaded Christmas is everybody talking to, any why? Black helicopters, again going by after dark so I can't take their photos, the bastards. My weight hitting 170, that's right, I weigh 170 pounds, for the first time in my life. My cousin in Kentucky dying today, her son keeping her at home brain-dead for 27 days even though she had a DNR. Her organs are wasted now, no one can get them. One more blind guy who stays blind. These fucking "Obama-phone" emails I keep getting, a program first passed by Jeb "My Brother Is a Fucktard" Bush, and the person who started the email cannot even spell Google correctly. Yow, I've had a lot boiling in my head, huh? Can't help that FoxNews is on pretty much 24/7 in my house and I've come to realize how many closet racists I know. So on to fun stuff.

Jim Steranko and Jack Kirby were insane with their artistic output. Steranko was the first artist to just go balls out nuts with angles and crazy, beatnik-hippie designs. I recall one story title spelled out in the receding waves on a beach. Neal Adams did homage in a Deadman comic, if you look close at the purple wisps it read "Hey, A Steranko Effect." Good on ya, Neal. And the thing most people remember about Kirby, if you take a random poll, is the way the characters leap off the page, squarish hands and fingers grabbing out. And so when I was screwing around with the FX on my webcam, I decided to give myself Kirby Fingers. Ah, the anger recedes as I talk of artists of olden times. I'll be fine until I hit the streets tomorrow and almost get rundown by some asshole in a Suburban talking on their cell about tonight's episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES.

7 comments:

James Robert Smith said...

I remember when the Steranko stuff first hit the stands. I was in my dad's bookstore in the Plaza Shopping Center in Atlanta. I was just standing there looking at one of his covers. I didn't know what to think. It was just so damned cool.

At eight years old, I'd try to hold my hands like Ditko drew them. FUCK! Fuck that!

Then I'd hold them the way Kirby drew them. Cool! I can effin' do that! So I'd hold out my hand like Ben Grimm (only with four fingers instead o' three). Or like Sgt. Fury (without the Howlin' Commandos). Yeah, baby.

James Robert Smith said...

PS: I would totally buy a memoir by you.

Rich Chwedyk said...

Memoir! Memoir!

I have that Nick Fury number. Love Steranko's work. All this reminds me why I loved comics so much as a kid.

Our neighborhoods, Wayne, were great negative engines, draining all imagination and brightness and energy from our world. The only way a few bright beams of sunlight could sneak in was through the magazine and comic book racks at the local Rexall. I treasure all these "brilliant corners."

At Windycon I saw a beautiful volume of Ditko's early monster stories for CDC, lovingly repro'ed, though some of the pages were off-register -- but I even loved the off-register images. It made the book all the more "real."

JSaM said...

Wayne, I love Steranko and Kerby from way back, and the comment about being awe"Struck" by a Desperate Hwves'afficianado is totally dark and one I agree with. Oh, BTW what is the reference of your blog title?

G. W. Ferguson said...

(JSam will remember this)

Steranko's influence popped up in all sorts of unexpected places. Lenny Lipton's Independent Filmmaking, about the only accessible book available on the subject in the Sixties and early Seventies, used an entire page from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. to illustrate storyboarding. At the time (high school), I found that delightfully subversive. 'Course, the whole book was delightfully subversive.

Charles Gramlich said...

Nick Fury hell. Wayne Fury sounds more like it.

G. W. Ferguson said...

"Wayne Fury, Agent of C.H.A.O.S." Sounds like a good memoir title to me!