My mom always asked me, can't you draw anything pretty? I've always veered to the grotesque. This little entry is an explanation for that and a reaction to Marty about over amped muscular character design.
Huge influence on me was buying (or stealing, my main klepto period was about this age) the book depicted back in 1966. In it are several artists doing the huge upper torso, dinky legs character types. Seeing this in the 8th or 9th grade steered me into a taste for alternative looking comix.
I was also a huge Frazetta fan and Creepy and Eerie were about to fire up their revival of ECish type of content. So while a lot of people were all about Marvel and DC, I was spending my coin on things like Cycletoons. In that was an artist named Hank Hinton who did Hogg Ryder. And his adventures with The Old Poop. I covered a lot of notebook paper with drawings of Hogg Ryder and choppers of my own invention. The paperback also included Hinton's work. The other scan you see with FratMan is Hinton (written by Joel Siegel?). Dinky legs, Big Torso.
Click the title to see Hinton's web page. It was cool to find this web page because I had done searches for him in the past and gotten nada. Wikipedia you get nothing. So it's kind of a kick to learn he's out there and right here in LA.
Go to my other Blog where I'll be posting more of the pages from this paperback. I got it on EBay about a year ago. It also features earliest example of Vaughn Bode and his lizards, early Gilbert Shelton Wonder Wart_Hog and some other crazy but not so good stuff. Kids in College in the mid sixties about to form all the "underground" comics.
Wow! I checked out the site... there's some really impressive work there. I love anything that has some of the feel of classic illustration. He has a really appealing style... I'm not sure that grotesque is the right word, but I'm not sure what word would be better.
ReplyDeleteMy Mom used to ask me that same question. One of the first things I got paid to draw was a dinosaur... I called my Mom right away to tell here that my mis-spent youth wasn't so mis-spent after all.
I'm glad you like the work Rick. it's more than a little like your own. Quite a bit of hatch and crosshatch. That great John Tenniel influence. About the only hit you get googling Hank Hinton is an oop book of Tolkien poetry called Oliphaunt. Hinton doing the illustrations. Goes for about 130 bucks in the oop online specialty stes. In dates back to about '89. I'm intrigued by his business model for his web page. An honor system for really nice editorial type clip art?
ReplyDeleteJoe Shoopack did a similar thing a few years back. He had a catalogue of editorial drawings that he had accumulated over the years and had kept the rights to. He printed it up and sent it out to newspapers across the country and asked for a small payment for the use of the art. You would have to ask him how well it turned out, but converting something that that into a website is a pretty interesting idea.
ReplyDeleteEl, this is a great post. Thanks for sharing this. I hope you didn't take my attack on the big-shoulders little-head personally. YOUR drawings I love. And you get that appealing cartooniness to 'em.
ReplyDeleteI just read this--I will check out the links soon. Right now we're in AZ visiting an ailing grandfather.
I didn't consider it an attack . It just made me reflective.. And not even particularly self conscious about this tendency of mine to do a lot of this type of character.. Thought it worth sharing some of the influence likely to have caused it.
ReplyDeleteHope the grandfather is alright. I'm too old to have a living grandparent. I remember all of the fondly. Even the crazy one. Kidding. They were quite sane. Ozark salt of the earth.