Redartz: Hello, folks! Recently a comment by Tom (Anonymous) regarding his use of cut-up comics grabbed my attention. He spoke of using trimmed comics as decorative raw material. He's not alone in this creative re-use of our beloved comics. No doubt many of you have done similar things; whether it was covering your school notebook with comic panels or making your own posters. You may have even tried writing and drawing your own comics, who knows ? But the love of comics can certainly inspire us to play around with them in ways far beyond just reading them. What stories do you have of your comic-inspired endeavors? To get the action rolling, Martinex1 has shared a couple tales and some very cool images, and I have a few to toss in as well...
Martinex1: Many years ago, around holiday time my wife locked off one of the spare
bedrooms that we were converting to a TV room and posted a note "Do not
open until Christmas!" When the time came and we opened the door, I
was happily surprised to see that she had commissioned a local artist to
paint a handful of my favorite Marvel characters bursting through the
wall. Since then, one of my boys has taken over the room but it
remains a topic of conversation with most people curious about Bug,
Stingray, and Union Jack.
Comics have been a part of my life since early childhood, and when I was
much younger I toyed with the idea of getting into the comics field or
into animation. But life had a different path for me so over the past
30 years I have been working in the food industry. However, over more
recent years as a hobby I have been creating and designing my own
characters and stories. I've commissioned various pieces of art using
my characters. And I have accumulated dozens of sequential pages
partnering with artist, Greg Woronchak. He is fantastic and has
contributed so much to my plots and scripts through his work. Together
we have put together enough material for about six complete full-length
issues (and various pages for a dozen more) of The Clock Strike Club.
It is a slow process and goes in fits and spurts. I've learned a lot
about the process and someday hope to publish, but it has really been an
enjoyable experiment. It is funny that this is how I stumbled onto
the Bronze Age Babies site; I wanted to model my comics after the
classic late 70's look and named my imaginary comic line Bronze Agency
Comics and during a search arrived here.
Shown here are some of my
favorite pages and art from Greg, a colored page from colorist Liezl
Buenaventura, and a mock cover I had commissioned quite some time
ago from MC Wyman (an artist who worked on titles like the Avengers and
Planet of the Apes).
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| Artist: Greg Woronchak |
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| Artist: Greg Woronchak, colors by Liezl Buenaventura |
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| Artist: MC Wyman |
Redartz: Not long after I started collecting (and being obsessed with) comics, I came into possession of several Silver Age comics in very rough condition. As a matter of fact, they weren't even complete. A friend from Junior High had a brother who worked at a gas station, and he provided a white metal sign; perfect for making a durable poster. Some Elmer's glue and a few judicious cuts out of the covers, and there it was. Sorry for the fuzzy image, those 1970's polaroids weren't exactly high-def. You might recognize the Surfer from Tales to Astonish 93, and Daredevil (and Doctor Doom) from Daredevil 37.
A few years later, in High School, I started taking art classes. One unique opportunity our school provided was for interested art students to paint murals (subject matter open, within bounds of reason) on the school walls and hallways. One previous painter had made a nice life-size depiction of Spider-Man (near the Spanish classroom, if memory serves). Therefore, I thought it appropriate to add Spidey's primary foe on the adjacent wall. The goblin glider's too big, I know.
Sadly, that building burned down some years ago, and all those student murals were lost as well...
Finally, last Christmas I put this little ornament together. In my flea market excursions, I sometimes buy boxes of comics of which some are basically unfit even for reading. As in the metal poster above, I cut up these comics and use a little "Mod Podge" , and bingo! You have a Comic Collage Christmas. Actually, this works well for many uses: made my wife a storage box covered with fun comic panels. I've seen bookshelves and long boxes covered this way, as well...
OK, you've seen some of our work. Now break out the scissors, pencils , paints, memories,and comic books , and have some fun. Then share your results, past and present!