Monday, February 4, 2008

Sky Doll


A little while ago Marvel Comics announced that they entered into an agreement with Sobeil Productions in France to produce English language versions of some of Sobeil's popular comic albums. This is exciting news to me. SKY DOLL will be the first book released. I have the French version of the books and I just look at the pretty pictures. I found out that Heavy Metal did an English version in their magazine and I picked it up. I thought I got most of the story from just the pictures, until I read the translation and learned I missed a lot of the subtleties. I hope Marvel prints the books in the same format that the French do, larger than our graphic novels. I know I will be buying them again.

I first discovered SKY DOLL by accident. While bouncing around from artist site to artist site, I came across a site for SKY DOLL. It was barely functional but the art on the first page caught my attention. I waited for a long time to find out what the site was about. I don't think it was ever finished. But then I found the books through Stuart Ng Books. They have so many great books and so many artists I had never heard of. So I dropped a small fortune on a stack of various European graphic novels and have been addicted ever since. Check out the Stuart Ng site for yourself. Tell them I sent you. Won't mean anything I'm sure, but I have always wanted to say that.

5 comments:

Gary M. Peiffer said...

Gene,

It's great that a professional like you gets excited about other work that is out there. Is it the Sky Doll artist that you like or the character? Maybe both? Not sure who the artist is, but sounds like Stuart Ng is the place to go to find out!

I am not familiar with this character, but your illustration shows the fun quality of the character!

Thanks,

Gary

Gene Gonzales said...

Gary

I'm constantly inspired by other peoples work. In my studio I am surrounded by a wide variety of artwork on my walls. Dean Yeagle, George Papp, Curt Swan, Dan DeCarlo, Chris Sprouse and Jonathan Winters work is on the walls right now.

I was drawn (no pun intended) by the art but the story is really quite interesting. The three album storyline involves religion, sex, and politics. All together! I mean, how can you not be intrigued by that? :)

Royce Thrower said...

Wow. Your wall sounds like a "Who's Who" in Royce's favorites.

Swan is my all time favorite. Love Dean and Dan's stuff and of course who didn't just love Jonathan Winters' work in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World." Especially te scene where he tears the garage apart. Brilliant!

Wait. We are talking about the same Mr. Winters? Right? LOL

Gene Gonzales said...

Royce - As you know I am a big Curt Swan fan too. As for the Winters piece, yep, same guy. I used to know Mr. Winters back in the early 1980s. I was a manager of a very high end liquor store in Toluca Lake, California. (42 stores in the chain) All the studios (WB, Universal, CBS, NBC, etc.) were our customers. I met a lot of celebs in movies/TV/Music. Winters used to come in and buy his cigars there. He sometimes showed up before I opened the store for business and I would let him in and shoot the breeze. Sometimes he entertained the customers if lines were backed up during the holidays. Great guy! When I was leaving the store for another job, he did a sketch for me of a soldier standing in the swamp tossing a live grenade in his hand asking if he could have a liberty now. :)

Royce Thrower said...

I would LOVE to see a scan of that piece Gene. (If you have one and don't mind sharing..) Don't know much of his artwork but have always been a HUGE Jonathan Winters fan. Must have been a blast meeting the celebs. I would have imagined that many would have others do their shopping for them. But hey, what do I know?