Northwest Florida Arts Association
Artist Spotlight
Spawn Creator Todd McFarlane
Nov 17th
I had a discussion today with a friend of mine about Spiderman, one of my favorite comic characters. That got me thinking about who was the best Spiderman artist. Who made the character more interesting than the actual story. Has to be Todd McFarlane.
McFarlane joined Marvel Comics in 1984. He took over the drawing duties of The Amazing Spiderman book in 1988. He also drew the first 16 issues of the spin-off comic Spiderman starting in 1990.
While at the top of the heap as an artist in the comic book world, Todd decided to form his own publishing company with six other top artists. This group of artists left Marvel Comics and formed Image Comics. Through Image Comics, each artist had total creative control of their own characters. McFarlane’s character Spawn debuted in 1992.
There’s more to his career than just comic books. McFarlane has branched out into producing movies, directing music videos, animation, designing hockey jerseys, and designing toys for his own toy company. For a cool retrospective on his comics career checkout
Todd McFarlane: A Retrospective.
Todd McFarlane’s website
spawn.com.
Philippe Halsman
Nov 14th
Salvidor Dali
Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) arrived in the United States, fleeing Hitler’s invasion of France, in 1940. His friend Albert Einstein helped him get a US visa. Two years later Halsman was photographing covers for Life Magazine. He ended up with 101 covers to his credit, the most of any photographer.
Philippe Halsman by Yale Joel
Some of Halsman's Life Magazine covers.
Alfred Hitchcock
In 1952, after finishing his assignment, Halsman started to ask his subjects to jump. And so started his science of jumpology. Halsman himself described his newly invented science as “when you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so the real person appears.”
Bridgette Bardot
Marilyn Monroe
His book, Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book, published in 1959, is a must read.
Artist Spotlight: Alberto Seveso
Nov 12th
Alberto Seveso
Alberto Seveso is a graphic designer and illustrator from Italy who has simply created a fantastic style by mixing colourful vectors with black and white photos known as “sperm shaping”.
His work is very unique and is one of thew digital artists I truly respect. His originality in a genre filled with copycats is very refreshing and shows there are still many styles “traditional” artists have never seen or imagined.
Check out his website at
http://www.burdu976.com/
He is still a very active graphic designer, always pushing the limits of his work.
Below are some of my personal favorite works of his.
