I did not intrinsically create it, nor instigate its presentation. It was brought to my attention by a High School friend on Facebook. A spontaneous response to seeing the album photographs in Time for Time. As evident, photos were not staged for this purpose. But a natural impression of spontaneous imagery.

I've belabored over presenting it. Still do. It will likely raise some eyebrows well above tolerance levels. However, what it suggests is of an intriguing nature. And not by my own doing. Keeping it private seems unfair to the legacy my life's work promotes. Unfair to curious readers. And a wasted opportunity to advance causes implicit in my work. So, at the risk of undue scorn, or bewilderment from the wonderful, here's a first in comics and art histories: The Primordial Fine Art Swipe File.

Michelangelo

William Blake

At birth.

Congratultions to the happy new Mom - and Dad Moshe, and especially to the new grandmom Elana who accompanied the birth and nurtures the young couple in Ofra.

So follow us... and bring along our Twittering friends.

Clifford Meth on Twitter
Michael Netzer on Twitter

Once again, Bryan Talbot points the way with a gripping trailer for his new comics creation, Grandville. A steampunk fantasy adventure graphic novel due out this October 2009. Colour filling and trailer directed by Jordan Smith.

Original version at Facebook Comic Con | at this link. Register @ Facebook to view.
Soundtrack music: ELP/Works/Pirates.

Received from veteran illustrator & cartoonist David Chelsea:

Dear Michael,

I have distressing news.

Last November, cartoonist S. Clay Wilson suffered a severe brain injury in a fall. He spent a week in intensive care and faces a long recovery. Even with insurance, Wilson’s medical expenses are beyond his ability to pay and have made him and his family paupers.

I’d like your help to raise money for S. Clay Wilson’s medical expenses.

S. Clay Wilson is a major figure in American comics, a founder of the underground comix movement. Wilson is known for aggressively violent and sexually explicit panoramas of "lowlife," often depicting the wild escapades of pirates and bikers. He was an early contributor to Zap Comix, and Wilson's artistic audacity has been cited by R. Crumb as a liberating source of inspiration for Crumb's own work, and I can say as much for myself.

I’d like to give a little back to the bad boy of comics, so I am turning my next 24 hour comic into a benefit for Wilson.

For those of you who may not have heard of it, the premise of the 24 Hour Comic challenge is that an artist attempts to complete 24 pages of comics within 24 hours.

I am soliciting pledges from friends and comics fans for each page I complete, the money to go towards Wilson’s medical expenses.

Contributions are at levels named for S. Clay Wilson characters:

Checkered Demon- $25 a page and over

Star-eyed Stella- $10 - $24.99 a page

Ruby the Dyke- $5- $9.99 a page

Captain Pissgums - Under $5 a page

Your contribution is not tax deductible, but contributors will receive an autographed copy of my completed story.

The 24 Hour Comic Event will be open to the public and will take place at Cosmic Monkey in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, April 11th from 10 am to 10 am Sunday (which just so happens to be Easter).

Read about the 24 Hour Comic event through this link at Cosmic Monkey Comic website.

Seven other artists will join me in soliciting pledges for their own 24 Hour Comics: Joshua Kemble, Kevin Cross, Neal Skorpen, Mike Getsiv, Tony Morgan, Josh Fitz and Steven Abrams.

Copic Marker has agreed to donate art materials for the event, including manga-ruled paper.

Anyone interested in pledging can reply by e-mail: davidchelsea(at)comcast(dot)net or write to me:

David Chelsea.
2814 NE 16th avenue
Portland OR 97212

I will contact all sponsors after the event to let them know how many pages I completed and to send them their copies.

Checks can be written to the S. Clay Wilson Special Needs Trust and sent to PO Box 14854 San Francisco CA 94114.

Thank you very much for considering this and helping me celebrate Easter in an inspiring and meaningful way. Please forward this message to anyone who might like to help or simply see what we are up to!


Best wishes,

David Chelsea

For the Annual Dave & Paty Cockrum Scholarship Fund.

Clifford Meth is selling comics from Dave Cockrum's Estate. Sales benefit Dave's widow and the annual Dave & Paty Cockrum Scholarship given each year at The Joe Kubert School for Comic Art & Graphic Design -- details are available at www.thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com --This is a unique opportunity to own X-Men comics from the personal collection of the X-Men's co-creator. More details here.

Gail Simone

From a short biography of Ashraf Ghori I helped construct for his Guest of Honor virtual table at Facebook Comic Con:

Ashraf Ghori is a visual artist, animator and film maker from the United Arab Emirates. He completed university studies in the university of Houston in 1994 and was founding member and artist for Tempest Comics, while also producing work for Titus Comics and also Razor Comics through London Night Studios. Ashraf was featured artist at the 1994 Dallas Comicon.

Returning to Abu Dubai in 1994, he worked in laser animation for Emirates Laser. He moved on to independent 3D animation and design for projects such as the documentary Unveiling Dubai in 2004. In 2006-7 he served on the jury of the Kuwait Arab Advertising Awards and was associate producer of the short film Arabana.

In 2008 Ashraf Ghori embarked on his most ambitious career undertaking and began production on a 3D animation Sci-Fi film, Xero Error. He has enlisted top visual media industry talent from across the globe for the project. It is the first such undertaking in the United Arab Emirates and production previews are receiving critical acclaim throughout the entertainment world.

XERO ERROR WEBSITE
X-PANSE WEBSITE
XERO ERROR @ FACEBOOK
XERO ERROR BLOG

From the introduction to interview about Facebook Comic Con on Xero Error Blog:

Xero Error Facebook Group Honorary Member Michael Netzer recently launched a fantastic new group on Facebook which managed to bring together some of the best talents in the world into one dynamic community. The rapidly emerging ‘Facebook Comic Con’ is quickly gaining cult status. Michael is a comic book industry veteran with art credits at Marvel & DC Comics, contributing to titles such as Detective Comics, Batman, Armageddon, Legends of the Dark Knight, Huntress, Comet, The Shadow, among others too numerous to list here. We thank Michael for actively supporting Xero Error and spreading the word on our film. I had a chance to talk to him online & wanted to share this rare insight with all of you.

READ ENTIRE INTERVIEW AT XERO ERROR BLOG

Artist Dave Simons, close friend endeared by all, is suffering spreading esophageal cancer and mounting chemotherapy radiation treatment.

While the bulk of Dave’s medical costs are covered by the Veteran's Administration, day-to-day costs (utilities, rent, groceries) are a struggle and won’t become easier as his condition worsens.

Help Dave Simons

1. Donate cash directly to Dave via PayPal: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

   For anonymity, PayPal Daniel Best: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

   Or Bob Shaw: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

2. Donate art or signed books ($10 min) for auctions. Send items to Bob Shaw PO Box 650, Derry, NH, 03038 - USA. (eBay: Help_Dave_Simons)
3. Contact Dave and commission a drawing.
4. Spread this message on blogs and message boards.

More info:
Daniel Best: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Or Bob Shaw: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Join Facebook's Dave Simons Appreciation Society.

Let’s help Dave, a great fellow and artist who gives much and asks for little.

About hope. In absence of it, life dies. Hope must then be placed in the source of life. In anything else, anyone else, it is misplaced.

The medical profession, alongside cures and relief it helps bring, can also misplace hope in its limited knowledge and understanding. By its intrinsic inability to give life. It's inability to give true hope in the source of life and healing.

This is then left for us to do. To place our hope where it belongs so we may live. So we may be healed and give healing. It is a small switch within us to make. Within Dave Simons and concerned friends. Within everyone suffering from illness.

A small switch necessitating forces we only call upon in our most dire hour.

Why wait?

Free Registration and and Convention Attendance Link. If you're not registered at Facebook, do so! Then follow this link and join the con!

Facebook Comic Con is an unofficial virtual comics convention at Facebook. Inspired by Ed Reliuga, FBCC hopes to provide a 'convention away from conventions' environment. For the countless comics professionals and fans on Facebook.

Facebook Comic Con aspires to give comics fans, dealers and creators a well deserved voice of prominence. To utilize Facebook tools in order to strengthen comics fandom within the global community. Upcoming events will include panel discussions on comics and the world. Guests will include the grandest comics professionals in the field, most of whom are registered on Facebook.

We strive to transform Facebook Comic Con into a venue for disenfranchised comics creators. To promote their work. And to help compensate for conditions which make it difficult for the many creators who find themselves not working in comics today.

We believe that in as much as comics properties are on the rise in world culture, so must the lot of comics creators be improved so that no one who's contributed to this industry is neglected.

We believe that all these goals are attainable within the emerging global communications systems, of which Facebook is a leading pioneer.

1,000 Free Michael Netzer Con Sketches!

As an incentive to launch this effort and enlist as many fans and pros as possible, founder Michael Netzer is offering a free virtual convention sketch to the first 1,000 members to register at the con and who request a sketch. Requests will be accepted as a wall post on events page for this offer, in this group. Sketches will be uploaded to photos section in low rez web format. High rez files for printing will be emailed to everyone wishing them.

Click this link to join the event and get a free sketch! If you're not registered at Facebook, do so! Then follow this link and join the event!

Let's get the show on the road with an effort to inform every comics fan (and non-comics fans) about it. Tell your friends and tell them to tell their friends. Facebook Comic Con is here!

Don't forget to urge your favorite comics professionals, in your friendly network, to register as guests and take advantage of the grand exposure this convention will provide. Comics professionals will be appointed a special guest status and privileges upon registering,

Be of good cheer, a big day for the comics awaits on Facebook! Help FBCC bring the day!

I consider comic book artist (or writer) a very high profession indeed. There must be untold millions of people, both children and former children (i.e., adults like me), that have been profoundly influenced by comics -- particularly at the most impressionable of ages, when one is first learning to read for pleasure ... when the capability of abstract thinking is just emerging ... when ethics and values imparted by one's parents may for the first time be coming under examination ... when the first pure instinct of curiosity about science and the broader world around us is forming.

For those who are not true fans of the medium, it is impossible to express its power in the development of a young mind. I know this from first-hand experience. I truly believe, as I have since the first moment I read the words, fresh off the comic stand, that "With great power comes great responsibility." Similarly, I still know of no greater expression, in fiction or otherwise, of the boundless potential of the human soul than Reed Richards' decision to save Galactus at the end of the classic first encounter. And as for science---well ... if something I learned in comics about science has not been explicitly contradicted by subsequent knowledge ... then, deep down, I probably still believe it.

That's the crux of the matter. Comic books are not merely the cradle of mythology for our age, but touch the soul of the emerging intellect, making an indelible impression. Comic book artists are hence crucially important teachers, on several levels ... and on a scale undreamt of by classroom teachers or professors. Thus, a comic book artist is fully subject to Ben Parker's famous principle of ethics.

So ... over the life of two gentlemen of roughly the same age, Stan Lee and Professor Peter Higgs (of Higgs boson fame), I have absolutely no question in my mind whose contribution to this world is greater ... whose opinions and insights have mattered more over the years of two illustrious careers. It is Stan Lee, hands down (even though I do wish for Dr. Higgs to be vindicated and awarded immortality for his role in the path to the "primary theory.")

Frankly, if Peter Higgs had never existed, someone else would have formulated his theory without too much delay. However, if Stan Lee had never existed (and Jack Kirby of course), then ... well ... in my view the universe would be an irrevocably different and lesser place.

Caretaker of Booksteve's Library

The more we grow the more birthdays we seem to have. As children, it took an eternity between. At 50, eternity is our day.

So this day is for you, Mr. Thompson.

For the hearty thoughts you write and share.

For your love for life and for its culture.

For a fine family who support in times good, and times of challenge.

And for a grand friendship that even a vast ocean cannot divide.

May 50 be the most joyous one yet. And may all your days but prance from happy to happier.

The art is produced digitally and the figures are all new inkings/renditions from well known covers that can be seen at Gene Colan's official web site.

Only 5 special prints, 11" X 17", signed and numbered with an additional small hand drawn image to round out the original art value, will be produced for the auction.

An inspiring coalition of the comics community is coming together, with an outpouring of awe and reverence for Gene Colan, the artist and the man who has bestowed much grace unto the comics form.

Keep an eye out for the Gene Colan benefit auction at Clifford Meth's blog, and help the comics community help out one of our creator giants by participating and contributing to the effort. Living tributes to Gene can also be seen at Daniel Best's blog, also compiled at the Gene Colan Tribute page at Daniel's Adelaide Comics & Books web site.