Categotry Archives: Artists

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Will Eisner

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Categories: Artists, Education, Military, Writers/Editors

weisner.jpgWilliam Erwin Eisner, an innovative artist and writer who created the popular newspaper comic “The Spirit,” died on Jan. 3 of complications from quadruple bypass heart surgery. He was 87.
Born to Jewish immigrants, the native New Yorker began publishing artwork in his high school newspaper. He made his first professional sale in 1936 to WOW What a Magazine! Although WOW folded after four issues, the job put him in contact with editor/artist Samuel “Jerry” Iger. Together they formed the Eisner-Iger studio, and began creating comic strips for syndication in American newspapers.
Their comic book outfit employed many artists and writers who later became legends in the comic book industry, including Bob Kane (“Batman”), Jack Kirby (“Fantastic Four,” “X-Men”), Lou Fine (“Wilton of the West,” “The Count of Monte Cristo”) and Jack Cole (“Plastic Man”). For six years, Eisner mentored Jules Feiffer, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for editorial cartooning.
Eisner left the outfit in 1939 to work for the Quality Comics Group. A year later, he created ”The Spirit,” a comic strip produced as a newspaper supplement and designed to appeal to older audiences. The main character, Denny Colt, was a coroner until a mad scientist buried him alive. Although Colt didn’t have any superpowers, he escaped from his near-death experience and became a masked detective who solved crimes in the fictional Central City. “The Spirit” also featured a young black boy named Ebony White, one of the first recurring black characters in a mainstream cartoon.
Eisner was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. While the military kept him busy drawing comics about a soldier named Joe Dope (who taught the troops how to maintain their Jeeps and weapons), other artists filled in on “The Spirit.” Eisner returned to the weekly series after the war, and continued writing/illustrating The Spirit’s adventures until 1952. For the next 25 years, he ran the American Visual Corporation, a publisher of educational comics for the military.
Although many considered the “funny books” to be a cheap form of entertainment, Eisner viewed comics as “sequential art.” He revolutionized the industry by emphasizing characters’ emotions and addressing subjects once considered taboo, such as graft, domestic abuse and poverty. Eisner was credited with producing the first modern graphic novel when he published ”A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories” in paperback format in 1978.
Eisner also wrote two influential art books (“Comics and Sequential Art,” “Graphic Storytelling”) and taught cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He received numerous honors during his seven-decade career, including four Best Artist awards from the National Cartoonists Society and the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1987, the comics industry named one of its most prestigious awards in his honor.
“The Spirit,” which has been reprinted several times since its original run, is currently being published in multivolume collections by DC Comics. Eisner’s final graphic novel, “The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” will be released in May.
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Frank Kelly Freas

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Categories: Artists

kfreas.jpgFrank Kelly Freas, an award-winning illustrator, died on Jan. 2. Cause of death was not released. He was 82.
Freas was born in New York, but raised in Canada. He conducted photo reconnaissance for the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and drew pinup girls on the noses of bombers. After the war, he worked at an advertising agency and attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
In 1950, a friend encouraged Freas to submit a class assignment to Weird Tales magazine. When the editor, Dorothy McIlwraith, used the illustration of Pan dancing in the moonlight for her November cover, his career as a science fiction/fantasy artist took off.
Each assignment involved a process of studying, dreaming, drawing and painting. Freas would read each story assignment three times — once as a reader, once with a sketchpad and once to add specific details. A die-hard science fiction fan as well, he knew the genre well enough to incorporate background concepts and imaginative speculation within his illustrations.
For nearly half a century, Freas painted covers for Astounding Science Fiction Magazine and Analog Science Fiction and Fact. He illustrated stories by legends in the field, including Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K. LeGuin, Frederik Pohl and A.E. Van Vogt. The prolific artist painted 58 covers for Laser Books and 90 for Ace, and drew MAD Magazine covers from 1958 to 1962.
He wrote and illustrated the books “The Astounding Fifties: A Selection From Astounding Science Fiction Magazine,” “Frank Kelly Freas: The Art of Science Fiction,” “Frank Kelly Freas: A Separate Star” and “Frank Kelly Freas: As He Sees It.”
Outside of the genre, Freas drew over 500 portraits for the “Franciscan Book of Saints,” and illustrated the cover of the Queen album, “News of the World.” An official NASA mission artist, Freas also designed the crew patch for the Skylab I astronauts. His inspiring space exploration posters hang in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
Freas received numerous honors, including 10 Hugo Awards, three Chesley Awards, five Locus Poll Awards, a Skylark Award and a Retro Hugo. In 2000, Freas was elected a fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists. He is survived by his wife Laura Brodian Freas, an artist and the host of a Los Angeles classical music program, two children and six grandchildren.
• Watch a Short Documentary With Freas

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Harry Lampert

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Categories: Artists, Writers/Editors

In collaboration with writer Gardner Fox, Harry Lampert created the first incarnation of The Flash.
Inspired by Hermes, the fleet-footed messenger of the Greek gods, Lambert drew the DC Comics superhero wearing a metal helmet with wings on it. The Golden Age Flash was born out of a lab experiment with hard water fumes and heralded in print as the “fastest man alive.” In 1940, “Flash Comics #1” sold for only 10 cents; a copy in very good condition is now worth thousands.
Lambert dedicated much of his life to art. The native New Yorker was just a teenager when he began drawing professionally. At 24, he inked Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons at the Max Fleischer animation studio. Although Lambert eventually drew other comic book characters, such as The King and Red, White and Blue, his favorite illustrations were the gag cartoons he sold to Time, Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post.
From 1947 to 1951, Lambert taught at the New York School of Visual Arts. He later founded the Lambert Agency, a New York advertising firm that produced ads for Hanes Hosiery and Seagram.
Lambert retired from cartooning in 1976 and moved down to Florida. There he became a bridge instructor and the author of four gaming books. A former president of the American Bridge Teachers Association, he received the ABTA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.
Lampert died on Nov. 13 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 88.

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Theo van Gogh

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Categories: Artists, Media

Theo van Gogh, a controversial Dutch filmmaker, was murdered on Nov. 2 in Amsterdam. He was 47.
Born in Holland, van Gogh was the great grandson of Theo van Gogh, the famous Paris art dealer and brother of painter Vincent van Gogh. Theo van Gogh was only 24 when he directed the award-winning black and white film “Luger” in 1982. Nearly two dozen movies followed, including “1-900,” which won the special jury prize and the critics’ prize at the 1994 Holland Film Festival, and “Cool!” which earned him a 2004 Golden Calf Award for directing. He also directed the TV miniseries, “Najib and Julia,” a retelling of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” featuring a Dutch girl hockey player and a Moroccan pizza delivery boy.
Van Gogh made headlines last summer for directing a short TV movie critical of some elements of the Islamic faith. When “Submission” aired on Dutch television in August, it caused a furor in the Muslim community in the Netherlands. The English-language film told the fictional story of four Muslim women who are forced into arranged marriages, then raped and beaten by their families. The screenplay was penned by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch parliament and a former Muslim. She’s currently under police protection.
Van Gogh wrote columns about the Islamic faith which appeared on his Website and in the Dutch newspaper Metro, and published “Allah Knows Better,” a book that claims Muslim clerics hate women. He reportedly received death threats for airing his views, but refused to be silenced by his detractors. His next film, “06-05,” about the 2002 assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, was scheduled to debut on the Internet next month.
Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death on Tuesday morning while cycling in Oosterpark. The killer left a note on his body, the contents of which were not disclosed. A short time later, authorities engaged in a shootout with a 26-year-old man suspected of the filmmaker’s slaying. Police then arrested the gunman, who suffered a minor injury in the firefight. His identity was not released.
On Tuesday evening, thousands of people gathered in the streets of Amsterdam to pay homage to van Gogh. Mourners banged pots and pans and blew horns and whistles in support of his right to exercise freedom of speech.
• Watch “Submission”
[Update – July 26, 2005: Mohammed Bouyeri, a 27-year-old radical Islamist, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Bouyeri said he acted out of religious conviction, and vowed to do the same again if given the chance. The Dutch court ruled the slaying “a terrorist act.”]
[Update – March 26, 2007: Friends and fans of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh unveiled a memorial sculpture on March 18. The sculpture, created by Jeroen Henneman and titled “The Scream,” depicts Van Gogh screaming near the spot where he was murdered in 2004 by an Islamic extremist.]

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Richard Avedon

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Categories: Artists

Richard Avedon, a man The New York Times named “the world’s most famous photographer,” died on Oct. 1 after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 81.
The New York native once dreamed of becoming a poet, but photography was his destiny. Avedon dropped out of high school to run errands for a photographic company then enlisted in the Merchant Marine. He served with the photography branch and spent most of his service in Brooklyn taking thousands of ID pictures of servicemen.
In 1944, Avedon returned to civilian life and landed his first job as a professional photographer for Bonwit Teller department stores. His talent for creating enticing fashion shots earned him a staff position at Harper’s Bazaar, where he remained for two decades. He later worked for Vogue and The New Yorker.
Although Avedon’s fashion prints turned Suzy Parker, Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell into supermodels, it was his portraiture that enthralled editors and infuriated critics. His sharply focused black-and-white images offered unsparing views of everyone from Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol to the Chicago Seven and the Dali Lama. Even ordinary citizens took on “the Avedon look” when he captured them on film.
During the course of his illustrious five-decade career, Avedon’s images appeared in 12 books, including “An Autobiography.” In 1958, he was named one of the world’s 10 finest photographers by Popular Photography magazine. He was also one of the world’s highest paid shooters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., both staged major Avedon retrospectives. And in 2003, he received a National Arts Award for lifetime achievement.
His final project for The New Yorker was a photo spread called “On Democracy.” For months, Avedon traveled the country taking pictures of delegates, politicians and voters. The photographs are scheduled to run before the election in November.
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