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This is a selfishly “not comics” post, but I must plug a couple of things. Well, first, please note that, technology permitting, on Sunday I’ll post the delightful conversation with David Mazzucchelli. Now, the plugs:

Tonight in NYC!

Designer/photographer/filmmaker Aubrey (Hipgnosis) Powell is making a rare U.S. appearance in celebration of the release of For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosis (PictureBox).

Artbook at X and PictureBox invite you to join AUBREY POWELL for an event in honor of

FOR THE LOVE OF VINYL:
The Album Art of Hipgnosis

with a slide show presentation followed by a book signing.

FRIDAY JULY 17
6 PM – 8 PM

ARTBOOK AT X
548 West 22nd Street
New York City

About HIPGNOSIS and FOR THE LOVE OF VINYL

Formed in 1968, Hipgnosis was the biggest and best design firm for the biggest and best bands of the classic rock era, creating iconic imagery for the likes of Pink IFloyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, 10cc, Yes, Peter Gabriel, Black Sabbath, Paul McCartney, Syd Barrett and Styx, among others.

For the Love of Vinyl is the first book to document their output in detail, focusing on over 60 package designs – from cover to label – written about in entertaining detail by the men who created them.

AND!

Please check ye ol’ PictureBox Auctions ebay moniker, as well as PictureBox Gallery. I’m working with the owners of some rather remarkable collections of comics, illustration and, yes, original movie poster art. So there’s all kinds of stuff going up for sale including originals by Milton Glaser, Victor Moscoso (ending today!), Gahan Wilson, and much much more.

There’ll be regular updates….

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A few odds and ends here. I’m sure I’m the last person to know this, but wow, Dark Horse is releasing the first volume of the Jesse Marsh Tarzan series now! His work has an incredible arc to it, from early drawings that look carved from stone to mid-period, more fluid pen lines, to his last scratchy, near-abstract images that Russ Manning claimed was due to his declining eyesight. He was a great artist, and the Tarzan work is among my favorite work of his. There’s a great Jesse Marsh web site here from which I stole the gorgeous image above. Marsh will be in the second Art Out of Time, which I should be working on instead of doing this.

Also, been thinking about Victor Moscoso lately for another project, and friend Norman pointed out an amazing series of animated shorts Moscoso made sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. What I love about these is how it takes him out of psychedelia and suddenly he seems wonderfully in line with drawers like Milton Glaser and Heinz Edelmann. He had the same transformative impulses and shared with Edelmann a pen line of such urgency and clarity that it’s impossible to look away. It’s a sharpness — a tiny bit of grumpiness. Moscoso was certainly the best colorist and overall designer of his S.F. (and perhaps North America in general) contemporaries, but people sometime forget about that wicked penline. The thing that stood out for me the most in the recent Crumb show in Philadelphia was, in fact, the original jam pages Moscoso worked on. Where everyone else looks like they’re carefully cartooning a gag, Moscoso’s marks come on like brush-fire — just decimating the very formidable competition. Just brutal and immediate and delineating modern-psych design forms. Anyhow, enjoy these little films. I don’t know much about them but maybe someone can fill us in in the comments.

EDIT: Someone just did.