A writer with class is who influences me.

April 15, 2015April 15, 2015 Ronovan #BeWoW #BeWow, Influence, Inspiration, Motivation, Neil Gaiman, Writing

A lot of people influence us in many ways. Some are good ways, some bad. These days I hope I’ve gotten past allowing people to be bad influences. At some point you know better. Then if you are honest with yourself, the only influence on you is you because you should be mature enough to know what to allow into your world of decision making and judgment making or not.

Who have I allowed into my world to be a good source to draw upon?

I suppose it all depends on what aspect of my life I am considering. I’ve been doing a lot of research on artists and writers in the world of what I call Graphic Literature. I have found one that has shown to me he is a class act.

His writing is world class. He can write any form from the comic book to the novel and sell millions of copies of either. But that talent is not what I look at for inspiration.

I’ve watched several videos of him speaking in different venues and audience situations. And in every instance he remains a class act. He is always helpful and engaging with the audience. He never acts as though he is anything special, although he must know his talent is or he would not do it.

His sense of humor in various social media is entertaining and he likes to poke fun at himself at times.

His most famous comic creation is a title his boss told him one day to go and create a new version of this comic with this name anyway you like.

Sandman made Neil Gaiman a sensation. He has not stopped since that day. No matter the number of sales, the amount of fame, he stays the same. When meeting a comic book legend who created Spider-Man, a man named Steve Ditko, he came out of the building like a fan boy in awe and giddy. It was the coolest thing I had seen.

Talent? Yes, but others have talent. Gaiman has class.

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Denmark, Superman and Valhalla? Okay. #AtoZChallenge

April 4, 2015April 3, 2015 Ronovan A to Z Challenge-Comic Creators Around the World A to Z Challenge, Comic Books, Denmark, Grindel, Henning Kure, Neil Gaiman, Peter Madsen, Peter Snejbjerg Nielsen, Rune T. Kidde, Sandman, Superman, Teddy Kristiansen

All links open in this page for the convenience of screen readers of the blind and the visually impaired.

If you are participating in the challenge, if you will put a link to your post for today in a comment below I will make sure to visit you and my readers can too. There are so many out there I know I am missing some of my friends. I’ll keep putting this message in each day just in case.

Denmark. Never thought about comics from there before. But now I know. Several for you to read about today. From those who gave comics a rebirth in the country in the 1970s to the more recent crop of creators, I give you a taste of them all today.

Peter Madsen

Peter Madsen was born in 1958 and is partly responsible for the rebirth of the comic book industry in Denmark. He is primarily known for his work on the albums of the comic Valhalla. Madsen was not alone in the new wave of comics Denmark in the 1970s. He had help from editor Henning Kure and fellow cartoonist Rune T. Kidde. Valhalla is so popular, the books were turned into an animated film which Madsen do-directed.

But Madsen would not have been involved with Valhalla and who knows where he might have ended up if not for, editor and writer Henning Kure.

Henning Kure

Henning Kure–Here is the translation of his wikipedia page. (born 11 December 1953 in Hoptrup) is a Danish comics creator, writer, editor and mythologist. Worked as editor for Inter Press in 1974-1988, where he greatly influenced the development of comics in Denmark. From 1995-2009 he was manuscript editor at Egmont producing series for Disney’s Donald Duck Jumbo books, which he himself has supplied scripts.

Initiator and one of the driving forces behind Valhalla comic, which he has both worked as an editor and writer. The seventh volume as lead author. Kure also helped to translate the series into an animated feature films.

Kures children’s book Troll story also appeared as a picture book in collaboration with Rune T. Kidde and drafter of Valhalla series, Peter Madsen. The TV series Trol Therein is based on the universe and characters from his Troll story.

Kure also work as a story-doctor for several Danish writers, including Jussi Adler-Olsen.

As a mythologist and self-taught Norse philologist, Kure has researched and developed several new interpretations of Norse mythology, which include described in scientific articles and in the academic paper In the beginning was the scream. Conceptual thought in the Old Norse myth of creation.

Rune T. Kidde

Rune Torstein Kidde was born in 1957 and of all the creators today he was perhaps the most maddeningly creative one, with a sad twist for an artist. He’s been mentioned above in the previous two creators’ entries. I will give some of his other works. Part of what I found interesting with Kidde was his editing. He edited The Phantom and Beetle Bailey. He also worked with Mort Walker as well as Will Eisner, of course. Walker is an of course because of Beetle Bailey.

I mentioned a sad twist to Kidde’s career. He lost his eyesight in 1990. You would think he might have slowed down. Through instruction to friends who were artists he kept working in illustrating, but even greater was his work in radio for children’s programming as well as writing books of poetry, prose, biographies and family histories. Also he was an accomplished folk singer and musician and even had a role as an actor. He passed away in 2013.

Peter Snejbjerg Nielsen

Peter Snejbjerg Nielsen was born in 1983 and is a freelance artist who currently resides in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied at Kolding Kunsthåndværkerskole, which translates to Kolding School of Design, located in Kolding, Denmark.

His career began in 1986 with Rune Fleischer, writer and artist. What some of us may know him from are things like Hellblazer with writer Garth Ennis and The Books of Magic, all at Vertigo Comics. Also Animal Man, Starman and Adventure Comics at DC Comics.

You may notice how Nielsen uses the style of drawing in comics called ligne claire or clear line that I have mentioned before pioneered by Hergé of Belgium. It’s not so much the style but there is the lack of hatching. Many artists have gone the way of a more painting feel to their works which would do away with the hatching technique. There is a certain fluid style and feel to Nielsen’s work that I do like. But when in something like Batman, I do like the hatching style to give a grittier feel.

Teddy Kristiansen

Teddy Kristiansen is an Eisner Award winning painter/artist most known here in the United States for his work on The Sandman Midnight Theatre by Neil Gaiman, as well as his award winning Superman graphic novel with writer Steve Seagle, It’s A Bird through DC/Vertigo.

He has also done work for Dark Horse on Grendel Tales and did an English translation of The Red Diary through Image Comics. I like the contrasting styles we see between Nielsen and Kristiansen. With the artists from Argentina, with their being so close and even teacher and student you have similarities. Here you have two very different approaches.

Next we have the letter E. Who will they be? Where will they be from? I have no idea at this moment.

Click below for Croatia. Or you can just clink this title-Croatia brings us Chess and Comics. Who knew that first one?

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How Argentina brought us Frank Miller’s Sin City and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. #AtoZChallenge

April 1, 2015April 3, 2015 Ronovan A to Z Challenge-Comic Creators Around the World A to Z Blogging Challenge, Alberto Breccia, Bill Sienkiewicz, Comic Books, Dave McKean, Elektra, Frank Miller, Hugo Pratt, José Antonio Muñoz, Mort Cinder, Neil Gaiman, Sandman, Sin City

All links open in this page for the convenience of screen readers of the blind and the visually impaired.

When agreeing to the A to Z Blogging Challenge I had no idea I would be rushed to the Emergency Room days before the beginning.

I thought about tossing the Challenge. But he words tossing lacks a certain appeal at the moment. Then I thought what more of a challenge is there when you are in recovery that may take several weeks to several months, than to do some extra blogging?

Challenge accepted. Bring it.

I decided I would blog for me in these particular articles. I wanted to write about something I enjoy and learn a little of its history and greater spread than just North America.

The Subject?

Comic Book Creators from Around the World from A to Z.

Today you will learn about creators from Argentina from as early as 1939 who have influences on movies from today.

Comic Book may leave some of you thinking of funny books. No, these range from yes, funny books, but also serial stories from magazines to Graphic Novels.

Alberto Breccia and José Antonio Muñoz of Argentina have an influence upon comic books, and even film unlike anyone would ever imagine.

Alberto Breccia

Even though Alberto Breccia was born in Uruguay in 1919, he moved to Argentina at the age of three. Just like the diehard, true old style creators he didn’t start out with a commercial art degree. No, he moved to the slaughterhouse district of Buenos Aires where you had petty criminals mixed with the tango. Self taught he submitted his work to magazines for free while working with his father in tripe packing plant. Then in 1939 he turned pro drawing everything asked of it.

Forced to create to the direction of bosses he would not breakout and show his true talent that would become an influence on others until 1957’s Sherlock Time on which he worked with fellow Argentinian, Héctor German Oesterheld.

Along with Hugo Pratt, he created the Pan-American School of Art.

Click here to see images of Breccia’s Dracula where he works in color.

Perramus won Breccia the Amnesty International award for best work for Human Rights in 1989. You can click here to see images. The work was done as partly a dedication to his friend Oesterheld who disappeared in late 1977 and probably murdered in 1978 under the oppression of dictators that had taken the country.

Why do I speak of him? A couple of reasons: Mort Cinder, and the art techniques Breccia used. Mort Cinder is one of the most important comic book to ever have been created in Argentina. Having read about it, wow.

The art: He plays with texture, mixing collage, acrylic and watercolor. We see the same style used by Bill Sienkiewicz (New Mutants, Elektra Assassin) and Dave McKean (Sandman) yes, as in partner to Neil Gaiman.

Alberto Breccia has a direct influence on our next creator, as a teacher.

José Antonio Muñoz

José Antonio Muñoz was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1942 and studied under Alberto Breccia and Hugo Pratt at the Pan-American School of Art. While in Argentina he worked with such influences as Francisco Solano Lòpez and Héctor German Oesterheld.

Muñoz did not stay in Argentina. In 1972 he moved to Spain. While in Europe he formed partnership with Carlos Sampayo and they began the series Alack Sinner. His work has had a strong influence Dave McKean and Frank Miller for parts of Sin City. Yes, the comic the movie Sin City was based upon. Click here to view more of his art work.

Alberto Breccia