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I want to call attention to a couple recent essays by Norman Hathaway that I think are “must-reads” for illustration buffs.

First is an article, with images and video, about Doug Johnson, the Canadian illustrator, long based in NYC, who became famous in the 1970s for his exquisitely psychedelic and painterly airbrush technique. Includes are his covers for Judas Priest, Ike and Tina Turner, and a lot more.

And second is a fond remembrance of the great illustrator Peter Lloyd, who passed away last month. Lloyd is best known to comics fans as one of the designers of the film Tron, but he was a stellar image maker.

I’ve been fascinated with the coverage of Bernie Fuchs’ death, if only because it give him some much needed recognition while making room for the idea that he was ultimately eclipsed by the late 1960s and Push Pin. Together with the passing of Lloyd and Heinz Edelmann this summer I think there’s a lot to be said about different eras and styles of illustration. Each man represented the peak of a certain era and style, defining the look and feel of distinct segments of visual culture for a bunch of years. But more on that in a future post.

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Attention peoples:

Because I know Comics Comics is full of discerning readers of visual stuff, I want to point you all to a brand new PictureBox book: Overspray. Check out Norman’s blog about the subject of airbrush art. It’s a great, great read. For fans of imagery and illustration, this book is a must, in my humble opinion. It doesn’t fit into a NYC-centric vision of conceptual illustration or ephemera. But, perceived “depth” or “importance” in illustration has, for the last 30 odd years been calculated along the Steinberg/Push Pin conceptual illustration axis. I love this stuff, but there’s room for more. To me, what we’re dealing with when talking about the Overspray guys is astounding feats of image making. You sink into the images and explore their visual worlds. Things like Charlie’s Levi’s Splash image, or Lloyd’s Rod Stewart cover are unforgettably powerful IMAGES. They’re not tricked-out ideas, a la Glaser, but they are forceful and communicative. And the surfaces are compelling. Unlike so much concept-based illustration, these surfaces add a layer of meaning: the sheen, the sheer thickness of them gives them a life of their own. What they have is presence — something so much illustration lacks. This is more in the vein of contemporary work like Murakami or even Matthew Barney. Or, on a comics level, they harken to Richard Corben, Moebius, Macedo, and other late 70s/early 80s fantasy artists that we at CC love. Plus, there are some awesome images from Tron, which Peter Lloyd helped design. And, I think it could be argued that the Overspray work is more relevant to contemporary visual culture and 90% of the history of illustration. That’s not really an argument for its quality, but certainly if you take one look at magazines like XLR8R, galleries like Deitch Projects, artists like Jim Shaw, and on and on, you see that Overspray contains a huge chunk of stunningly relevant ideas. So, check it out! You’ll be very happy you did. Ok, promotion over.