Tue, 10 November 2009 Youth, it is often said, is wasted on the young. In the case of today's guest, I gotta disagree. He's only 33 years old and as an illustrator, educator and now, fine artist, he has the accomplishments behind him of a man twice his age. Impressive. I'm thinking we first became acquainted with the name Sterling Hundley while trolling the Richard Solomon website. You know how it goes—you see something that strikes you and say—"Okay, that person's style is pretty cool." His name came up again when we spoke to George Pratt on the show and that's when we really started our research (I make it sound much more studious than it was—really, it was just more trolling). I'm absolutely digging Sterling's work these days and I'll tell you why. As I get older, I become more a fanboy of artists who can bridge the chasm between the natural and the abstract. Those that can weave the two approaches together seamlessly. I'm sure it's not an easy feat since so few do it well (to me) and this guy rocks at it. As mentioned above, Hundley not only kills as an illustrator, has been published by everybody, has awards out the wazoo and just launched his first solo art exhibition, Emergent—but he shapes young minds, too. He's a professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University and he's one of the core teachers involved with Illustration Academy. At the Academy, he works alongside folks like Mark English, Anita Kunz, Gary Kelley and Chris Payne. Not bad company, huh? I won't call Sterling Hundley a wunderkind, but at the "crotchety" old age of 33, he's damn near done it all. Or has he? Comments[0] |
Mon, 27 July 2009 We never know what our conversations on this show are gonna turn out like. Some people are talkative, some not so much. The one thing we seem to be getting here lately though is genuine—and we love it. Greg Manchess was as genuine as they come, folks. If you're a fan of illustration, you already know his name and what his career consists of. Tons upon tons of high profile clients, book covers, posters, magazine illustrations, concept work for film, children's books, awards and a U.S. postage stamp. He's been everywhere and done everything, yet when we talked to him, he was resolute that he's still learning. Still on his journey. Hard work was also his mantra in the interview. Manchess isn't a big believer in gifts and 'God-given' talent. Put some blood, sweat and tears into it and then he says, you'll have something. In the exchange, we found out a couple things about him that we didn't know. One, he's essentially a ninja (our words, not his—and we're not kidding). And two, he says he's just now starting to create the kind of work he always wanted to—after 30 years of doing it. That's astounding! Dwight and I walked away from this one much fuller and richer than we were when we sat down. Greg was warm, honest and open—and kinda Zen at times, too (his words, not ours). In preparation for the interview, Dwight picked up on the Zen part and he was dead on—Greg doth wax poetic. We had an amazing time with the man and thank him much for coming on with us. He's originally from Kentucky and listening to him talk was like enjoying some Kentucky Bourbon on a warm, summer night. Hmm, maybe next time... **Big thanks to ConceptArt.org and Greg's agent, Richard Solomon. They, along with artist Bryan Beus, have been putting us together with some truly awesome talent. We appreciate it, guys. Picture provided by Irene Gallo. At the VERY end of this episode, we played a snippet of Norah Jones' Painter Song. We too think 'painting your reverie' is a worthy pursuit. Comments[0] |
Sat, 30 May 2009 Once again, we here at SiDEBAR must confess to being late to the party. We really just became acquainted with Brad Holland's work in the last three years or so. Well, actually for me (Swain), that's not accurate. You see, my father had a rather sizable Playboy collection and I used to sneak them out to ogle all the interesting artwork (never cared much for the articles). Anyway... Brad's been a 'creator of images' (that's a nice safe title) for almost four decades now and he's still going strong. In our opinion, his career and contributions to the art community are marked by several events. One, his work for the earlier referenced Playboy Magazine. A gig he got when he was in his 20's and his big break, some would say. Two, his terrific pieces published on the Op-Ed page of the NY Times in the mid '70s. The page's editor was the late Harrison Salisbury, a noted author himself and Pulitzer Prize winner. And three, his tireless efforts in the area of preserving creative copyrights for intellectual properties. Brad's one of the founding members of the Illustrators Partnership of America, and he's been a vocal opponent of things like the Orphan Works Bill from day one. Prolific is a word often given to describe Holland's output of art over the years, but it's horribly understating. A rough tally of his body of illustrations falls somewhere in the, ohh...7000 range! That's a good 'guestimate' from the man himself and a staggering one, to say the least. Our talk with him ended up being everything we strive for in a podcast—interesting, funny, informative, honest and insightful. If you hear Dwight and I being curiously silent during the conversation (it doesn't happen often, so cherish it), it's because we were listening. And absorbing. And digesting. You see, Brad's an extremely well read guy and we didn't even wanna pretend we could hang. We decided to adopt a boxer's philosophy—we stayed on our toes, but stayed out of the way! After all, it's not often that these two art nerds get to hear a fella like Brad Holland tell his story. We didn't wanna miss a thing. A great vid about Brad The BBALM **Our thanks to Brad for making some time to chat with us—it was surreal (he'll get that). Also, many thanks to Jason Manley at ConceptArt.org, Richard Solomon and Bryan Beus for their help in facilitating his appearance on the show. It was invaluable. Picture provided by Jonathan Twingley. Comments[0] |
Fri, 1 May 2009 We've been fortunate to have a few firsts on SiDEBAR and today's episode is no exception. Francis Vallejo is still technically a student at Ringling, but shows such incredible promise, we invited him on for a chat. He's a painter with a penchant for oils and he sights some pretty heavy weight influences: Norman Rockwell, Ilya Repin, Nicolai Fechin, Dean Cornwell, James Jean. We can't argue with his taste—at all! Francis came to our attention like so many others do. People started singing his praises and his name began popping up everywhere. We visited his site and after snooping a bit, we too, joined the chorus! This young man has skill and vision beyond his years. In our talk with him, he discusses his old stomping grounds in Detroit, his intense love of art and Hip Hop, a superstar teacher and mentor of his, George Pratt, and recent projects he's contributed to like Totoro and Microvisions. Graduation is in May, but before he jumps right into the professional ranks, looks like Vallejo will be studying abroad for a while—in Saint-Petersburg, Russia at the Repin Academy (wow, do your thing, sir)! We wish Francis the absolute best over in Saint-Pete and in all of his future endeavors. He's a cool kid who's star is certainly on the rise. **For this episode, we played snippets of the following songs: Lupe Fiasco's Superstar, Dead Prez' Hip Hop, Eminem's Stan, Kanye West's Through the Wire, Beanie Siegel's Rock the Mic and Ch-Check It Out by The Beastie Boys. Comments[0] |
Sat, 28 February 2009 JP's name has been comin' up on this show since literally day one. He's an accomplished artist and illustrator who's resume includes companies like Wizards of the Coast, Fantasy Flight Games, Bantam, Tor and Warner Books. Dwight got a chance to meet him at the ConceptArt Workshop in San Francisco, back in '05, and became an overnight fan. When he got back, D regaled me with tales of huge 3x5 foot canvases, live painting demos and lots of oohing and aahing! Needless to say, it was only gonna be a matter of time before we reached out to JP and extended the offer of a podcast chat—and here we are. While he has an extensive background in illustration, book covers to be precise, Targete's current title is Art Director at Ignition Florida. His job, he tells us, is to set the look and tone of a video game, then guide the visuals through all the various stages to completion. Outside of his AD position at Ignition, JP says he still picks up freelance gigs, but laments that there's only so much time in the day to get it all done (we feel you, sir). Also covered in our conversation is his relationship with his Dad, who's an architect, JP's days painting romance book covers (Fabio!), some stories about the life of an illustrator, and a description of the term he calls "Dark Fantasy". Our thanks to the man for takin' a minute to hang out with us. We had an excellent time! **Another thank you goes out to our buddy, Chuck Harper, for submitting some questions for JP through our message board. Go, Chuck! Comments[0] |
Wed, 24 December 2008  Let's see, what can we tell you about our friend, Frank Stockton? He lives in NYC, although he was born in California. He's a recent art school grad, but already has a huge list of high-profile clients. He just moved into his new place in Greenwich Village and he's friends with the equally amazing James Jean and Jillian Tamaki. Oh yeah, and he was sick as a dog the night Obama won (you'll have to hear him tell that story). I found Frank's site like I find many sites—trolling the Internet in the wee hours (kinda like I'm doing right now). He wrote an entry called "Growing Pains" that was linked on Drawn!, and it was all about inspiration and influences. Not just creative influences, but people who've influenced his perspective on the business of art as well (Charles Schultz, Walt Disney, Todd McFarlane). I immediately loved his work and found his words to be thoughtful and honest—so it was on! After a few polite back and forths, Frank kindly agreed to come on and chat with Dwight and I. In the interview, he talks about his background, attending Art Center in Passadena, comic books, his competitive nature, sex museums (yeah, you heard me), the election results and the eternal debate: art vs. commerce. And just to set the record straight, to us, he's the one and only Frank Stockton. It seems he comes from a long line of Stocktons and one of them wrote the famous short story, "The Lady, or the Tiger?". Go figger! **For this episode with Frank, we played snippets of Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" and "I Wanna Sex You Up" by the aptly named, Color Me Badd. Comments[0] |
Thu, 18 December 2008  Welcome back for Part II with writer and illustrator Mark Schultz—the man from PA! This time Mark, Dwight and I are joined in the interview by our friend and forum member, Atomic 99...sort of. We posted a note on the SiDEBAR msg board about Mark's upcoming appearance, and 99 dropped a bunch of hot questions for him. So today, in spirit, he holds down the forth mic! Topics covered in this second half are: black & white vs. color, writing prose for Flash: Stop Motion, rewriting scripts for Lucasfilm, art agents or the lack thereof, web presence (...or the lack thereof), "Hey guys, I can't hear you anymore!", Storms at Sea, Various Drawings #4 and small towns in rural Pennsylvania. There's more than that in this here podcast, but you'll have to tune in to hear it! Our sincerest thanks to Mark for chatting with us so long and being so gracious. Also, it would behoove you to pick up Storms and VD #4 when they come out—Mr. Schultz NEVER disappoints! **For this episode, we played a snippet of Jamie Cullum's All at Sea, and for two reasons: in honor of Mark's new project and us still being all over the place! Comments[0] |
Sun, 28 September 2008  The title of this interview is a reference to the man's first appearance on the show last year—an episode we lost! The audio crashed, the back-up was never found, it was ugly... But hey, today we've been given a second chance at greatness and greatness we deliver! Ragnar is not only one of our favorite creators, he's also one of our favorite people. A wonderfully knowledgeable guy, a student of his craft, a committed family man and often seen wearing...what? The colors in his palette! Do tell! Plus, he's just a super nice guy. His response to the aforementioned lost episode was, "No worries, I understand completely" (and just so you know, we were worried as hell). To us, as long as Steranko and Prince aren't in the room, he's the coolest guy around with one name. We met him in person for the first time at this year's ACE and for the convention, he brought with him a mucho smaller version of his Comic-Con set-up. It was all really quite neat. Books, prints, mugs, chimps, skate decks—again, just neat stuff. He sat in on about three panels that weekend and we thoroughly enjoyed his presence as a guest. Now, the work. Ragnar's done tons of work in animation, but will tell you himself that a good bit of it, you may never see. His clients over the years have included companies like Warner Bros, Disney, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. However, with the nature of animation and the film business in general, projects often start off one way and end up somewhere else by the time they finally come out. And that's especially true for Development, which is the area he's contributed to the most. What you can see though and plenty of it, are his own creations! Books like Chromaphile, Vernaculis, Kings of the Road and the newly released Symptomatica! All of them fantastic and all get the high SiDEBAR Seal-of-Approval (which means dick, but go buy 'em anyway, they're hot)! Our conversation stays pretty loose with Ragnar since we all sorta know each other, but we do get to some key items. Big City being one, Symptomatica being another, and the latters being his upcoming all-ages book and where he got his name. Beyond that, the rest is just filler—but it's some damn good filler (ha)! **For this episode, we played a snippet of Dead Kennedys "California Uber Alles" in honor of Dwight's timely reference. Comments[0] |
Sun, 21 September 2008  Artist. Writer. Illustrator. Painter. Legend. All of these in their own way describe Bernie Wrightson and his esteem amongst fandom and the art community at large. Not many artists have had the kind of impact and influence that he's had over the last 35 years. Friends of his like Mike Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith or Jeff Jones can maybe relate, but that's probably about it. Bernie was in our fair city recently as a guest of Dragon Con and spent his Labor Day weekend greeting fans, selling prints, signing things, and being an all-around wonderful guest. For me, even though he was super kind and gracious, it was still a little hard to not be intimidated. I started to think about, ohh...Swamp Thing and those incredible House of Mystery covers. Or The Studio and dare I say it—Frankenstein! I mean, c'mon...this was the first guy to draw Batman with the long ears, for Pete's sake! That's enough to bring the nervous fanboy out of anyone... Mrs. Wrightson (Liz we were told to call her) was our facilitator with the man and she too was just as nice as could be. Trust when I say, Bernie had droves of people lining up at his tables, but Liz still managed to carve out some time for the three of us to sit down. And for that, Dwight and I are grateful. Our chat was relatively short (for us, that is), but chocked full of interesting stories and tidbits. We realize Bernie gets asked to do things all the time and tried to honor the few minutes we had to spend with him. After all, he's given us so much over the years through his fantastic art and stories. And you know what? He's still givin'. Thanks, Bernie! Comments[0] |
Thu, 31 July 2008  Some people are born to do it all. Or at least it seems that way! They can do so many things well, it comes off more like destiny than determination. Artist and illustrator Stephan Martiniere is certainly perceived to be one of those people. In his 25 year career, he's had his hand in nearly everything—animation, illustration, comics, TV, film and he's currently the Creative Visual Director for Midway Games Chicago. So you can add video games to his resume too (yeah, yeah, I know that's not exactly everything, but it's damn close). Our introduction to this uber-talent's work came through very familiar channels. We're Spectrum guys and Stephan's work has been featured in the anthology several years in a row now. All of it awesome and most of it from his book covers for Tor Books (good lookin' out, Ms. Gallo). When you see the man's images, brace yourself, because you'll lose your mind—seriously! His dazzling city and spacescapes, and his far off worlds are so fantastic yet so familiar all at the same time. It may indeed be science fiction, but man, does it feel real to geeks like us! Speaking of real, the accolades he's received from industry peers is absolutely real. Spectrum, Hugo, Thea, Chesley and many others have all honored Martiniere over the years with awards for his artistic excellence. They all know he's the The conversation with him covers much, but just like the intro to this text, not everything. Dwight and I thought we had the best chance of not embarrassing ourselves by keeping it simple. So we got some stories from Stephan's art school days, a little concept design and illustration talk in there, nerded out on video games for a minute, and ended it with the good stuff. What is the good stuff, you ask? Hmm..? Well, you'll have to tune in and find out, now won't you? **For this episode with the gentleman artist, we played a snippet of Sting's Send Your Love. The lyric about sending your love into the distant dawn just seemed so appropriate. [Also, as is my luck (Swain), I was very sick while recording this and you can hear me gently hacking in the background—my apologies!] Comments[0] |
Sun, 18 May 2008  Marko Djurdjevic finally visited the esteemed SiDEBAR mics and it was all that with leftovers. Of course, like anything else worth having, it was not without a cost. Let us back up... When we started this show over a year ago, the very first podcast we made, praised and extolled the virtues of The Dreaded Marko (mispronouncing his last name, of course). We also used one of his X-Men First Class covers for the blog entry featuring his daring redesigns. I've (Swain) been enamored with the guy's style since he started doing covers exclusively for Marvel. Dwight's been a fan since he met him at the Concept Art Workshop in San Francisco back in 2005—wearing a beautiful hand-painted Elektra jacket, no less. The super abbreviated version of Marko's path is this: he was born in Germany, started drawing, got work at 17, posted on Concept Art.Org in his early twenties, and took the world by storm minutes later. With a few...umm, embellishments on our part, that pretty much sums it up. Check out the guy's handiwork and you'll be convinced like we were. X-Men First Class, Daredevil, Blade, Super Villain Team-Up, Marvel Illustrated, Wolverine Origins, Thunderbolts, Mystic Arcana, What If—the list literally goes on and on. Plus, tons of design stuff on Concept Art and they're all badass and all immaculately rendered by Mr. Djurdjevic. This man is the truth and YOU know it. He recently made the excursion into doing interior pencils for the new Thor series written by J. Michael Straczynski and the book is a solid hit. He was filling in for the talented Olivier Coipel and just knocked it out. OK, back to the cost. We tried several times in the past to reach the man, but to no avail. And all jokes aside, it wasn't him, it was us, going through the wrong channels (duuhh). Finally, after getting the accurate contact info straight from the source at the NY Comic Con (all thanks to the FANTASTICALLY TALENTED AND GRACIOUS, PAOLO RIVERA—PAINTER EXTRAORDINAIRE HIMSELF), we made it happen. Throw in three calling cards, six redials and bad sound coming out of Dwight's microphone, and you've got yourself one nice little Marko Djurdjevic interview. And we loved every minute of it! **For this episode with Marko, we played a small portion of Depeche Mode's I Feel You, because we do! Comments[2] |
Thu, 1 May 2008  The road to our conversation with the uber-talented James Jean was indeed a long one, but it was worth the wait. We contacted him some time ago through his site, http://www.jamesjean.com/, and got a polite response back that while he was interested in chatting, he was simply too busy. However...he would be in Atlanta in February visiting the Savannah College of Art and Design, and maybe we could do some podcasting then. Sounded like a plan! We stayed on top of it for a couple of months, got his cell number before he left Cali (Thanks, Gary) and showed up Thursday night for the start of SCAD-Atlanta's Comics & Illustration Forum. That evening, James and artists Yuko Shimizu, Andrew Robinson and Eric Canete sat in the round with about 150 people and shared their stories and professional insights. Dwight and I had a great time and afterwards, much schmoozing was had. The next day at noon, we met up with the man at SCAD and had a wonderful talk about his career and background, his time as a student at SVA, Fables and of course, art. We also touched on his participation in the West coast art event, Baby Tattooville and his upcoming 2009 gallery show in NYC. And yes, James does love art. And art history. And jazz. And pizza too (he eventually got sustenance from Rick Lovell, one of the event's organizers). The interview ran just under an hour and we couldn't have been happier with the outcome. Many thanks to SCAD for bringing these amazing artists to our city—it was terrific meeting them all. And a special shout of thanks to the "fairly reclusive Mr. Jean" for squeezing us into his hectic schedule—it was like that. **This episode of the show features a snippet of CocoRosie's Rainbowarrior in honor of life in the Brew. Comments[0] |
Sat, 19 April 2008 
What's up and welcome back for more with artist and illustrator, Celia Calle. This is Part II of a lengthy, but hilarious talk we had with her and it's chocked full of artsy goodness! In the conversation, Celia covers: going from fashion to illustration, life drawing class, being cruel to your schoolmates, ADs vs. Editors, Will Dennis and the SDCC, AMERICAN VIRGIN AND THOSE AWESOME COVERS, her opinion of the series in general, criticism of her palette, people jacking her images, more Wuthering Heights, "Why is there no book of your art available..?!", kissing Storm Troopers, why Darth Vader is hot (...he is?), the NYCC and more. Again, it was awesome having Miss Calle on the show and we can't wait to do it again—hope you dig it too! **On this episode, we played a snippet of The Kills' What New York Used to Be 'cause it's in heavy rotation in the Circle. Direct download: Ep._44_-_More_with_Cover_Girl_CELIA_CALLE.mp3 Category: Illustrators -- posted at: 6:57 AM Comments[0] |
Sat, 12 April 2008  Have you ever met someone who was exactly what you thought they'd be, only better? Well, that's just where we found ourselves on the roller coaster ride that was our interview with illustrator, Celia Calle. For months, we've been blown away by her American Virgin covers for Vertigo and her unique and individual style. We think comics is always best served by creative people bringing other elements into the medium and stirring up the mix. Celia does that ten fold! For those of you just being introduced to her work through AV...trust, she's really a big deal in the commercial art world with clients like ESPN Magazine, Calvin Klein, Nike and Gautier. Of course, you'd never know that by talking to her, she's much too chill a person to brag. Minutes into our conversation, we were smitten by her down-to-earth charm and humor, and she was our new best friend. Celia's personality is a lot like her art—playful, energetic and well, kinda sexy. But with that, she's also warm, thoughtful and has a real sincerity that comes from the heart. She's the best of many worlds, we suppose. As is our way, we went off the rails a bit just having some fun (there's maybe 25 minutes of hardcore art talk in the whole interview). But fear not, true believers, you can always go to CC's site and blog for the full skinny on this NY girl and what she's up to. Plus, this is only Part I of our talk with her, so hey—stay tuned! **Celia's interview features a small portion of Portishead's Strangers 'cause that's how we started out. Now, it's friends. Comments[0] |
Mon, 18 February 2008  Jon Foster joined the show for an interview in December of last year and we're proud to present Part II of that conversation. He and Dwight delve into their mutual experiences from the Concept Art Workshop in '05, Jon talks about teaching and being a late bloomer, and how maturity plays a large part in an artist's development. Then we shift gears into some personal stuff like dads vs. sons, fixing things and being the man, and couples working together. Finally, we end on Jon's comic book work, some geeky Star Wars and art questions, plus the back story behind his wonderful book of art, Revolution. Enjoy! http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Art-Jon-Foster/dp/1599290030 **A special thanks to Tim Underwood and the Fenners for helping us find the elusive Mr. Foster. Comments[0] |
Sun, 17 February 2008  If there were ever a church or religion established for illustration, Jon Foster would definitely be an apostle. He would bring the message of the heroic to the masses, push the believers to embrace the creatively divine and do so with a spirit of unrepentant zeal. If you could combine the rich, boldness of N.C. Wyeth with the energy and imagination of Frank Frazetta, you'd have Jon…maybe. Even that description of his art falls a little short to us. Let's just say he's one of the finest working in his field and is highly respected by his peers. After a month or so of serious stalking (our dedication knows no boundaries), we finally got in contact with him and Foster agreed to come on the show. Our conversation is, at times, all over the place, but we think it stands as a wonderful and intimate glimpse of the artist and the man. Rarely do you find his kind of talent matched with his kind of humility, but then again, Jon is rare. This is Part I of an interview that took place in late December of '07 and Jon was our last guest of the year. It was the best Christmas present ever…thanks, Jon! http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Art-Jon-Foster/dp/1599290030
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Wed, 26 September 2007  We won't attempt to cover his resume here because we don't have enough space. Just know that this man has done great things, he's an art legend and a modern master of illustration. He's our good friend, Drew Struzan and he was kind enough to spend some time with us. **Two things: This episode features a snippet of Carly Simon's Nobody Does It Better and it's very accurately applied. Also, I (Swain) was pretty sick while recording this and you don't even have to listen closely to hear me gently hacking in the background. Comments[2] |
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SiDEBAR - COMICS, ART & POP CULTURE The Siblings: Dwight and Swain
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