Bringing Fantasy To Life: Ray Harryhausen 1920 - 2013

The godfather of fantasy special effects passed away today at the age of 92.  Ray Harryhausen, master animator and fantasy visionary, brought to life creatures and realms that are now taken for granted with today's easily created computer generated effects.  His screen creations, going back decades, have left impressions on everyone who saw them.  The creatures he created are iconic Hollywood.  Everything from undersea beasts, to marauding skeletons, to Medusa herself were brought to life with painstakingly minute movements and photographed a single frame at a time.  It would be hard not to say that he had an influence on the creators of the original Role-playing games as many of us imagined our initial battles with skeletons and ogres looking like a Harryhausen epic.  Another iconic fantasy creator has passed and will be missed but his imagination will always live on.

 

The Sword of Shannara Comic Strip '78

Back in 1978 there was a syndicated comic strip called "Bestseller Showcase". It featured illustrated versions of the best selling novels of the time. One story they featured was Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara.

The time period is interesting because Holmes' Basic Dungeons and Dragons was just coming out and D&D was just beginning to create some buzz among the hobby shops. Was it a coincidence that the editor of the strip at that time chose to go with a high fantasy story about elves, dwarves and dark lords just at the beginnings of what would be a rebirth of a fantasy genre ushered in by a strange fantasy role-playing game? It's also interesting to note that this is the same year that Bakshi's Lord of the Rings animated film came out.

The strip is drawn by classic illustrator Gray Morrow. It's also interesting to notice the character designs have that early D&D/Holmes feel to it, no doubt inspired by the book's original cover art, before fantasy become more polished in the mid to late 80's.


Say what you will about Brooks' story, I would have loved to have seen this strip at the time. I had just gotten into the Holmes Blue Book, was reading the Conan books and collecting the Marvel comics and just watched and begin reading The Lord of the Rings and seeing this type of fantasy in comic strip in the newspaper would have just been another thing I would have obsessed about (and lowered my math grades even more!).



More about the artist Gray Morrow

Fire and Ice: Behind the scenes

I've always been a huge Ralph Bakshi fan. I've even loved his contentious use of rotoscope to animate his movies which he used in Hey Good Looking, Wizards, LOTR, Fire and Ice and American Pop.

One of my least favorite of his fantasy films of his surprisingly is Fire and Ice. One would think that gathering together Bakshi, Frank Frazetta and Roy Thomas would produce one hell of a fantastic fantasy drama, after-all, these three creators are seen by some to be the top in the genre at the time. Frazetta's artwork being transferred to the screen is a blast to watch but that doesn't save the plodding stereotypical fantasy story.

Teegra, anyone?

Regardless, seeing how Bakshi works his magic is quite thrilling. I've always loved the process of classic hand drawn animation but Bakshi took it one level further. Having to shoot the entire movie in live action and then illustrating it to later embed into a fantasy world has always seemed like a grand mystery. The video clip below shows Bakshi's rotoscoping process and it's quite amazing to watch:



It's interesting to note that his use of rotoscope was looked down upon by traditional animators. However, with today's use of motion capture to animate modern CGI creations like the creatures in Avatar and Gollum from Peter Jackson's LOTR, Bakshi can be thought of as a forerunner to modern-day special affects.

Still from the live action shooting of Bakshi's Lord of the Rings

Fantasy Artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones 1944-2011

We lost another artist of fantasy today. Jeffrey Catherine Jones was best know for her ACE fantasy covers such as Fritz Leiber's Fafhard and the Grey Mouser series as well as being a member of The Studio with Barry Windsor Smith, Bernie Wrightson and Michael Kaluta.

"Legendary fantasy artist JEFFREY CATHERINE JONES passed away today, Thursday May 19, 2011 at 4:00 am surrounded by family. Jeffrey suffered from severe emphysema and bronchitis as well as hardening of the arteries around the heart. Jeffrey's dear friend Robert Wiener reported that there was a no resuscitation order as Jeffrey was weak from being severely under weight and had no reserves with which to fight"

Jones' artwork will live on....





To view more of Jeff's fantastic work please visit the Jeffery Jones web site.

Jeff Jones spotlight at Muddy Colors

Fantasy Image Dump

Doing a little digital cleaning and I had these lying around on my HD. Apparently I had pulled these to be used for some long forgotten posts. Inspirations? Probably....

Enjoy....

Sequentially D&D 1982

I dug these up the other day - one of my first attempts at doing some comic pages back in 1982 (freshman in high-school if I recall). Being, at the time, an 'aspiring' comic illustrator and avid role-player, I thought I'd blend my two passions together and came up with my Dungeons & Dragons comic pages (without a doubt inspired by TSR's comic book ads of the same era). I drew these two pages and began a third which was never finished it. I remember that in Dwarf falls down a pit and is separated from the party.



I find it fun that I used the Caves of Chaos as the setting with the typical fighter, dwarf, magic-user party. I actually copied these and handed them out to friends in my class who seemed to actually like it. It was at a time when the Moldvay basic set was just coming out and many kids (many of whom wouldn't normally even think about something like a FRPG) were curious about the game that is causing all the rage.

I'm happy to say that over the years my illustration skills have improved (at least I hope they have!).

These Are Our Worlds Too...

I think artist extraordinaire Wally Wood, in summing up what is in 'His World', encompasses pretty much what we all feel our pulp fantasy worlds to be...

Wally Wood: My World

Click on the comic pages to enlarge and read. Great Stuff!

Al Williamson March 21, 1931 ~ June 13, 2010

Al Williamson passed away yesterday Sunday June 13th.

A fantastic fantasy comic artist who began working for EC comics at the age of 21 was influenced by Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon and taken under Frank Frazetta's wing. He had a very grand cinematic style and brought a sense of realism to all things fantastic. Below are some samples of his fine work. He will be missed.





I highly recommend visiting the Golden Age of comics to see some more of Williamson's fantastic work:

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/

Frank Frazetta...

There's a fantastic write-up about the late Frank Frazetta over at The Secret Sun written by Christopher Knowles. It's a great read and something that I highly recommend.

Fantasy Illustrations

Once again, over at Golden Age Comic Book Stories, there's some great fantasy art by Stephen Fabian. Apparently from a book entitled The Dream of X by William Hope Hodgson there's some inspiring illustrations some of which I'll be using to flesh out the Isle of Dagon.

updated: corrected author and artist credit.

Astropia

The other day I received a comment from one Astropia. As per usual when someone new makes their presence known, I click on their link to learn more about this person, who they are, where they're from and what might've brought them to The Warlock's Home Brew.

Astropia turned out to be quite interesting. At first I wasn't sure if this was an actual RPG or Movie or TV Show or combination thereof, but whatever it was it looked very interesting. I mean, gangsters, RPGs, Comic Shops, and live fantasy action! How can I not share this with all of you? Apparently it's one of the top grossing films from Iceland.



Astropia


UPDATE: Here's some more information about this film as well as some other tid-bits.
INDB
Heroes v.s. Astropia
I guess it's not so hard to find in these days of the interwebs

Fantasy Friday

What can I say about Jeff Jones. His fantasy art speaks for itself.

Starting with his black and white illustrations for the likes of Creepy and other black and white horror comics, he later moved on to the paperback book cover market, even rivaling Frazetta's savage fantasy.

In the mid-seventies he founded the Studio along with Berni Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith and Michael Kaluta.





And just 'cuz....


Check out more of Jeff Jones' Sci Fi and Fantasy art visit his website www.jeffreyjones-art.com