Flesk Publications will be exhibiting at Big Wow ComicFest! (Formally known as Super-Con.) The event will be held at the San Jose Convention Center this weekend, May 21-22, 2011. Our booth number is 305. We will be sharing a booth with Stuart Ng Books.
Mark Schultz will be a guest at the show. He will have original art for sale as well as be available to sign your items. This is his only Bay Area appearance this year.
Jim Silke will also be a guest of the show. We will have copies of his new book Jim Silke’s Jungle Girls that you can get personalized. Silke will also have prints, books and original art for sale.
We will be premiering two new Flesk titles at the show. They are Mark Schultz Various Drawings Volume Five (Deluxe signed hardbound $34.95 and softbound $19.95) and Al Williamson Archives Volume Two (softbound $19.95). We will be honoring the pre-order price of $29.95 for the new Schultz deluxe edition at the show. This price is good until June 1. Plus we just received fresh copies of the previously sold out Xenozoic book by Mark Schultz. These three titles will arrive in the stores in mid-June. In addition we will have the Flesk exclusive Mark Schultz: Blue Book, a 16-page signed sketchbook for only $10.00.
Flesk will have a wide variety of all of the books we publish as well as free promotional material for upcoming titles such as Naughty and Nice: The Good Girl Art of Bruce Timm and The Art of Craig Elliott.
We look forward to seeing those who can make the show! If you are unable to attend you can visit the Flesk online store to order any of the items mentioned in this newsletter.
Full details and sample pages for all Flesk Publications titles and our most recent news can be found on our website. Additional information can be read on publisher John Fleskes’ blog. Flesk books can be purchased on our online store. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
Wesley St. Clair and Victor Williamson. Photo courtesy The Kubert School.
Congratulations to Wesley St. Claire who is the recipient of the inaugural Al Williamson Memorial Scholarship $1000 Award for a worthy second year student going into the third year at The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon & Graphic Art. The scholarship is sponsored by the family & friends of Al Williamson. The award was presented by Al Williamson’s son, Victor, on Friday May 13th, 2011.
The following press release regarding the Al Williamson Memorial Scholarship was provided by Mike Chen from The Kubert School. You will find full details about the scholarship and information on how you can contribute for next year. Also be sure to read the scholarship winners for all categories further down.
Wesley St. Clair, Joe Kubert and Victor Williamson. Photo courtesy The Kubert School.
Al Williamson Memorial Scholarship Details
Dover, NJ (May 13, 2011) – The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon & Graphic Art, Inc., announces a new art scholarship for its students.
The friends and family of Al Williamson have established the scholarship in the famed illustrator’s name in 2010. They made this decision due to Al’s longstanding friendship with various Kubert School alumni as well with the school’s founder, Joe Kubert.
This $1000 scholarship award is offered only to a current 2nd Year student going into his or her 3rd Year at the Kubert School. Funding for the ongoing scholarship is based on contributions from the many admirers of Al’s artwork. Contributions can be sent directly to the Kubert School. Please make out checks to “The Joe Kubert School”, but add the notation that it is intended for the “Al Williamson Scholarship Fund”.
The scholarship joins several others offered at the Kubert School including the DC Comics Scholarship and those set up to honor artists such as Norman Maurer, Dave Simons and Dave Cockrum.
The winner must be in good standing with the Kubert School, show exceptional promise, be committed to a career in illustration and/or comic book art, and prove financial need. It is open to American citizens as well as foreign students. There can only be one winner of this award per school year.
Applicants must submit three (3) pieces of artwork. The choice of subject matter and media are left to the applicant’s discretion.
Originals for submission will not be accepted. Hardcopies or photocopies only are acceptable. They must be 11” x 17” each. CD-ROMs are unacceptable. Artwork will not be returned to the applicants.
Applicants must include their name and contact info on each piece. This information must be legible.
The Williamson family will select the winner. At least one runner-up will also be selected by the Williamson’s in case the 1st place winner is unable to accept the award.
The name of the winner will be announced at a private ceremony for its students and staff held at the Kubert School on May 13. Victor Williamson, Al’s son, will present the award.
Legendary cartoonist Joe Kubert (Hawkman, Sgt. Rock) founded the Kubert School in 1976 with his wife, Muriel. Since then he and his faculty of professional artists have trained hundreds of cartoonists, illustrators, animators and graphic designers. Joe continues to run the school to this day with his sons Adam (Wolverine, Spider-Man) and Andy (Batman, Green Lantern), also respected artists in the comic book industry.
Alfonso “Al” Williamson was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and illustrator specializing in adventure, Western and science-fiction/fantasy. His most notable works include his science-fiction/heroic fantasy art for EC Comics in the 1950s, on titles including Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.
In the 1960s, he gained recognition for the Flash Gordon comic-book series, based on the original comic strip created and illustrated by his idol Alex Raymond. Al spent most of the 1970s working on Raymond’s Secret Agent X-9 strip. The following decade, he became known for his work adapting Star Wars films to comic books and newspaper strips. From the mid-1980s to 2003, he was primarily active as an inker on such superhero titles such as Superman, Daredevil, and Spider-Man.
Al Williamson was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2000.
For further info, please contact Mike Chen at the Kubert School, 37 Myrtle Avenue, Dover, NJ 07801. The phone number is 973-361-1327 and the e-mail address is mchen@kubertschool.edu. The school’s website is www.kubertschool.edu.
2011 KUBERT SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS
Axiologix Scholarship for Artistic Excellence
One (1) $500 Award for a worthy 1st Year Student going into the 2nd Year at JKS and…
One (1) $500 Award for a worthy 2nd Year Student going into the 3rd Year at JKS.
Sponsored by Axiologix Education™ of Egg Harbor, NJ.
Presenting the award for Axiologix Education is their CEO/President/Chairman, John Daglas.
And the winners are… Carly Frank for the 1st Year, and Mike Morrocco for the 2nd Year
Dave Cockrum Memorial Scholarship
One (1) $1000 Award for a worthy 2nd Year Student going into the 3rd Year at JKS.
Sponsored by the family & friends of Dave Cockrum.
Presenting the award for the Cockrum family is Clifford Meth, writer and editor.
And the winner is… Brigid Allanson
A Wave Blue World Scholarships
Two (2) $1000 Awards for worthy 1st Year Students going into the 2nd Year at JKS.
Sponsored by A Wave Blue World™ of NYC.
Presenting the awards is Tyler Chin-Tanner, JKS alumnus and publisher of A Wave Blue World.
And the winners are… Kristoffer Sorensen and Max Fuchs
Dave Simons Memorial Scholarship
One (1) $1000 Award for a worthy 2nd Year Student going into the 3rd Year at JKS
Sponsored by the Inkwell Awards.
And the winner is… Angela Fernot
Al Williamson Memorial Scholarship
One (1) $1000 Award for a worthy 2nd Year Student going into the 3rd Year at JKS
Sponsored by the family & friends of Al Williamson.
Presenting the award for the Williamson family is Victor Williamson, Al’s son.
And the winner is… Wesley St. Claire
Dave Monahan Memorial Scholarship
One (1) $2000 Award for a worthy 2nd Year Student going into the 3rd Year at JKS.
Sponsored by the family and friends of Kubert School alumnus, Dave Monahan.
Presenting the award for the Monahan family is Mark Monahan, Dave’s brother.
And the winner is… Nathan Chaffin
Norman Maurer Memorial Scholarship
One (1) $2000 Award for a worthy 1st Year Student going into the 2nd Year at JKS.
Sponsored by the family & friends of Norman Maurer.
And the winner is… Fred Lupus
DC Comics Scholarship
One (1) $5000 Award for a worthy 2nd Year Student going into the 3rd Year at JKS; sponsored by DC Entertainment
And the winner is… Henrik Jonsson
Congratulations to all of the scholarship winners! These scholarships go a long way to helping these students. I encourage you to donate to one of them.
This year marked our sixth year setting up at WonderCon in San Francisco on April 1-3, 2011. Plenty of guests, artists and stars converged at this enjoyable show to make it well worth the trip. Each year continues to grow in terms of attendance. Saturday was especially thick with people. The San Diego Comic-Con crowd comparisons were on many tongues. Friday still remains a somewhat calmer day where a person can still navigate through the show room without the body-to-body traffic.
Bruce Timm signing a fans Green Lantern shirt at the Flesk Publications booth at WonderCon. Photo by Josh Ford.
Bruce Timm was kind enough to stop by and sign at our booth on Friday. We had promotional postcards that he was signing for our upcoming book, Naughty and Nice: The Good Girl Art of Bruce Timm. At the last minute I decided to print twice as many cards as I thought I needed. It turned out to be a good idea as we went through twice as many as I initially predicted.
If you are anxiously awaiting the Bruce Timm book details on our website please be patient. The reason why the information is not posted yet is because we are still going through all of the material for the book to determine the final imagery and page count. At the moment there is over 250 images selected with around 250 pages planned. This could grow.
At our Flesk booth we showcased our entire line of books for people to view. We also had promotional postcards for our upcoming releases The Art of Craig Elliott, Mark Schultz Various Drawings Volume Five and Al Williamson Archives Volume Two. Again, I was delighted and surprised at how many free postcards were passed out—more than twice the amount taken compared to last year.
William Stout was set up right next to us.Craig Elliott at his booth just down the aisle from us at WonderCon.
Craig Elliott, Jim Silke and William Stout were all at the show. It was a pleasure to get to spend some time with all of them. Besides being available for autographs they all had originals for sale.
James Walker II helping at the Flesk Publications booth.
This year I had the help from regular James Walker II and newcomer Josh Ford at our booth. I go way back with these guys and am always appreciative to have the help from friends at the shows. Thanks guys!
Our pal Mary Ray at the Stuart Ng Books booth.
The next show Flesk Publications will be exhibiting at is the Big-Wow! ComicFest in San Jose. Mark Schultz will be a guest. He couldn’t make WonderCon this year due to his teaching at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I’m thrilled he is able to squeeze in the Big-Wow! ComicFest show into his schedule. We will be premiering his new fifth volume of Various Drawings at the show!
Hijinx owner Neil Farris welcoming people to Free Comic Book Day at his store on May 7, 2011.
This Saturday from 11:00AM to 2:00PM I will be at Hijinx Comics in San Jose, CA for Free Comic Book Day. I’ll have a variety of books for sale and free promotional material. I plan on bringing some dinged books at a reduced price. This is a terrific way to sample our books!
Alex Sheikman will also be there at the same time. Alex is the artist of Robotika published by Archaia. Alex also did the artwork for the Dark Crystal free comic book that will be available on Saturday. He will also be showing originals for his upcoming Dark Crystal graphic novel.
Hijinx Comics will be offering a store-wide sale. Plus, there will be coupons available for the Thor movie at Camera Cinemas in Los Gatos and other interesting things for all.
Hijinx is located in the Willow Glen area of San Jose. This shop carries a wide variety of superhero and independent comics and graphic novels.
There’s a new interview with Petar Meseldžija on the Drawn Today podcast. Aaron Miller and Mark Harchar speak with Petar in a conversational manner regarding a range of subjects. Follow the link below to listen.
On another topic, I’ve had a number of people ask me if I know how to get a copy of Petar’s 364-page Dutch sketchbook titled Source of Imagination. Stuart Ng books was recently able to acquire some from the Dutch publisher. You can order it direct from the Stuart Ng Books website.
The Three Fates by Nate Furman. Selected for Inclusion Into Spectrum 18.
I read a comment on a recent blog post of mine by artist Nate Furman. He praised the likes of Gary Gianni, Franklin Booth and Joseph Clement Coll as inspirations. This was followed by an email to me from Nate. He shared his art, technique and idols with me as well as told me a little about himself. I was impressed by both his creativity and passion, especially after reading his guest blog on the Muddy Colors site. I had not been familiar with Nate before, but I was moved by his energy and glad he introduced himself. (And it helped that he stroked my ego by praising our books.)
I invited Nate to share some samples of his art and some insight about himself for my blog. Without further ado, I turn this over to Nate Furman:
As a tiny child I discovered Al Williamson’s Star Wars strip. I could not put into words the genius of his gestural drawing, weight placement, masterful line work or his black spotting but… I knew he was good! It made me pick up a ball point pen and start making my own creations.
Much later I found Wrightson’s Frankenstein, a worn and road weary copy in a small comics shop, the white cover glowed amongst a sea of four-color covers. That book burned into my brain and I understood the word ‘Illustrator’ for what it should and could be.
When I began my career working on Conan the rpg I met artist Chris Quillams, I told him what a big fan I was of Bernie’s work, how much I Ioved doing pen-and-ink, he mentioned two names to me, Joseph Clement Coll and Franklin Booth. Those particular artists changed the way I saw line work forever. And then I discovered Flesk Publications, This fellow John was bringing all my heroes (and introducing me to new ones) to life in high quality installments! Life comes full circle sometimes.
I wanted (and hope I am) part of this illustrative legacy. After years of studying the artists of “Flesk” I was sitting around one day and all the info in my brain became something… An idea. No one I knew of in the digital field was following the complexity of line work that was the trademark of these artists (proudly carried down from the distant Demi-gods Dore and Durer), what if someone decided to tackle this style in a digital format? Would it work? And how much effort would be needed to pull it off? And if you upped the resolution and dropped your brush size to almost nothing, how many lines could you work with and cause to interact with each other? Could this be a new thing created from the old techniques that I so love?
All these questions went through my mind. So far the reaction from other artists has been amazing and the reaction from the public has been slow but positive.
Please view some samples and judge for yourself if I am on the right track.
To view my process just goto www.muddycolors.blogspot.com and do a search for “Nate Furman tutorial.” To see a bunch more of my works please check out my blog (updated several times a week) www.furmanportfolio.blogspot.com.
A big thanks to John Flesk.
Cheers all,
Nate Furman
Thanks, Nate! See below for a direct link to Nate’s blog and his posting on Muddy Colors. You can see much larger versions of his art to better see the details on his blog.
