Sienkiewicz
He was my favourite comic artist for a long time. But he doesn't work much in the field anymore, so its easy to forget about him. I always liked his actual sequential storytelling stuff the best, especially when he was really finding himself and bursting through the form as he went. His later Moon Knight, New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin were like nothing else anyone was doing in comics in the 80s. Real love-it-or-hate-it stuff, and the only painted comics I can really stomach. For me, hes a genius, pure and simple. Here are some of his covers and a poster for a Hughes Bros documentary about pimps:
Labels: comics
posted by David N at 12:49 am
9 Comments:
I have that Return of the Jedi annual. In English. It's a badass cover.
I can't read Elektra Assassin, though. It's too spazzy. People standing on giant handguns and a man with a cardboard cut-out face? Can't crack what's going on when I flick through it.
Bob Peak kinda reminds me of Bill Sienkiewicz, but without all the madness. Perhaps I should do a blog on Bob Peak, as he fucking rules.
How we're talking!
The only painted comic artist I like, to the point even where I don't really like his pen and ink shit.
Maaan Daredevil: Love And War is my favourite DD comic and one of the best looking things Marvel have ever put out. I've just been rereading his Hendrix comic again recently too. Superb.
Elektra Assasin, despite looking great, is actually one of my least favourite comics of his.
I allways wonder whether he does Hiphop album covers because he's into the music or because they're into him. I think he's done 4 now. Maybe more.
Have you ever seen the film poster he did for a (I assume) non-existent movie starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Dustin Diamond? Insane. That and his Bobby Digital cover are like beautiful, next level tributes to Robert McGinnis.
Can't forget his erm, Dazzler cover tribute oto the Thriller video and that he's surely the only comic artist to have painted a picture of Holloway Prison.
Shit Big Numbers would have been good... He smoked that whole budget? That's a lot of weed.
Bobby Digital!!
I knew this stuff looked kinda familiar. My old flatmate had that cd when it came out along with all the other Wu-Tang stuff, the cover of that thing is awesome.
As a comic dunderhead I haven't read any of his stuff, but I did have the Empire Strikes Back annual, no idea if he did the cover or not. All I remember vividly is the AT-ATs.
I very nearly put that Dazzler cover on here but went for the ROM one instead coz ROM needs more love, as do all SpaceKnights. You know this, Oz.
I love Elektra Assassin. I bought 1 issue (issue 3) at a sale-of-work in a big bunch of Marvel comics (20p for about 30, mostly Master of Kung Fu with Gene Day art - beautiful stuff) in the late 80s when I was 13, maybe, not having read the Miller Daredevils with her in. And though I couldn't really follow it and didn't like the art, even, there was something about it. Like I could feel its power. I used to stare at it a lot, trying to work it out.
When I read the whole thing a few years later, I loved it. I read an interview with Miler where he said Sienkiewicz more or less ignored his script in places and even he didn't always know what was going on, he just had to go with the art because it was so inspired. That feeling that Sienkiewicz just flicks paint at a page then turns it into something beautiful. Genius.
Big Numbers is the holy grail, even for Moore fans, no? Like thinking about what would've happened if Leone had made his Stalingrad film. You can find the script online though, if you're bothered. Not the same without the art, obviously...
I think Big Numbers is the one Alan Moore comic (maybe there's more?) where the artist does the Jack Kirby thing of taking a great script and making it unrecognisably better. I don't think i want to read the script without the art.
I really like the touches Kevin Nowlan adds to Jack B Quick. Thats probably the next best art Moore has worked with. For me.
Hold on, I think Big Numbers is within reach of where I'm sitting.... ...they weren't, they were on the REALLY awkwardly sized books shelf next to 300. Maaan its good.
I'm really glad you did this post cos it's got me pulling out all kinds of things like this.
I'll probably get my record-blog thing up and running soon and then I'll do a post on Scienkiewicz album covers.
Now I don't know whether to re-read Big Numbers or whether it will just frustrate me...
Man, I've never read it. Just flicked through it back in the day. If I ever see you again, at a leaving do (mine, hopefully) or in Berwick street or whatever, you must give me a loan of it. So carry it around with you all the time from now on, please. Just in case.
Cheers.
Peak is a definite influence on Sienkiewicz. I remember seeing Peak's stuff for the first time and being a bit shocked. But then imitating peak has been a natural progression for Sienkiewicz toward something altogether his own, much like his early Neal Adams riffs.
Elektra Assassin and Stray Toasters are both total visual feasts, like the best junk food ever, and some of the best examples of his totally indulging his bugfuck crazy style, which he does seem to have toned back ever since. Maybe he reserves that kind of thing for fine arts these days, but it would be nice for him to go down that path with comics again.
I remember when he began pushing the style on New Mutants with the introduction of Warlock, and the whole Demon Bear storyline. Man, that was something else for a kid who was lapping up Shooter-era Marvel titles.
And it was his covers for Dazzler that got me reading that title. Well, that's my story anyway...
I enjoyed Big Numbers, but I can understand why he was probably a bit frustrated with it as a project. The storytelling was so intricate and tight, and the setting so mundane, that it must've started to feel like a bit of an artistic straight-jacket.
And Rom ALWAYS needs love.
Shit I don't have a copy of Stray Toasters any more. How did that happen?
I was sure I had the softback version somewhere...
So David I'm now carrying a 9"x9" comic book around with me wherever I go. In my ten inch wide breast pocket. Next to my two-litre hipflask.
You on last.fm?
Yeah, playlist-link thingys on the blog page under the archives...
Post a Comment
<< Home