Courtesy of Paul Di Filippo, two interesting avant-garde short films from the legendary Ed Emshwiller:

Sunstone (1979)

Thanatopsis (1962)

Emshwiller didn’t do too much work with actual comics (as far as I know), and was better known for his magazine illustrations and film-making, but he was a strong early influence on the great Bill Griffith:

Griffith took solace in his developing friendship with one Levittown neighbor, the illustrator Ed Emshwiller, who designed covers for many science-fiction and mystery books and magazines. “He didn’t point me to cartooning, but he pointed me into art in general and showed me a way of understanding how within one artist, there could exist this pop culture impulse and a fine art impulse,” Griffith told Gary Groth. Emshwiller recruited Griffith’s parents as models on several occasions, but Griffith was most proud when he himself appeared on the cover of the September 1957 issue of Original Science Fiction. Emshwiller depicted the 13-year-old Griffith riding a rocket ship to the moon as his father yelled at him from a video screen.

There’s more from Griffith on Emsh (who inspired his 1978 strip, “Is There Life After Levittown?”) here.

Labels: animation, Bill Griffith, Ed Emshwiller, illustration, video