IT'S MONDAY. HERE ARE SOME PICTURES...

Hey! Happy Monday! Here are some nearly random pictures from my image morgue...

Klimpt Pencil Portrait Study

http://norsevikingqueen.tumblr.com/

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

SO HE'S 75...

Well. He looks good. You'd never guess he was a senior citizen. Can you imagine him trying to talk some merchant into giving him a senior's discount somewhere? Not gonna happen.

You know, lately I've been struggling with my age. I'm only 48. I'm middle aged. I've never been in what you would call "shape". Not like Superman, anyway. But lately certain circumstance is my life have made me think that it's time to change that. Could I be more? I mean, maybe I can be better, but I could never be Superman... could I?

Mild Mannered Newspaper employee M.D. Jackson

Super Artist and unique individual M. D. Jackson

Who is Superman, anyway? Oh, sure, we all know the origin story of Kal-El, last son of doomed Krypton, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is... at his core... who is Superman?

I'm not saying anything new by pointing out that Superman represents nothing more than the immigrant experience in America. Whether you're fleeing the destruction of Krypton or the Pogroms in Europe, or the Khmer Rouge or just a crappy economic situation... just like Superman you've come to this new land. You've got to blend in. Youi've got to look the part.

Superman donned glasses and became mild mannered reporter Clark Kent. Well how many of us are Clark Kent? Mild mannered... keep your head down... don't make waves... don't cause trouble. You don't want to be labelled a terrorist, right?

But how many of us know that deep inside us is an extraordinary person? Someone who is more than just this mild mannered immigrant trying to blend in by wearing jeans, tee shirt and Nikes? Someone who is, if you could only see, super?

The answer, of course, is all of us. We're all Superman. That's why he's so iconic. That's why everybody knows who Superman is. He represented the secret longings of two high school chums, Jerry Siegel, a young child of Jewish immigrants, and Joe Shuster, a Jewish kid from Canada, trying to make their mark in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933.

So how is Superman faring after 75 years? Does he still represent the everyman who has a secret uniqueness? The comics have tried to reinvent him away from that archetype several times, but he always seems to come back to that, doesn't he? At the end of the day, Superman toils away as Clarke Kent, his manner mild, his head down, his nose to the grindstone -- solid, unremarkable Clarke.

But underneath that grey suit and those blocky glasses there is a unique being -- a man who, if only given the chance, could show the world how damned Super he really is!

Superman is you. Superman is me. Superman is everybody who feels like they go through life with their best qualities unrecognized. We wait for the opportunity -- that special set of circumstance that looks like a job for -- who? Who we are deep down... our unique combination of skills and only that unique combination of skills and abilities -- the chance to shine. Maybe we can't fly. Maybe we don't have a blue suit with a red "S" on the front -- but maybe we don't need that.

Maybe there is somewhere... some time... where we... where you... and only you... can save the day.

Up... up... and away!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

THE AMAZING VIRGIL FINLAY

This is published over at the AMAZING STORIES website just today (and please follow the link) but I wanted to present it in its entirety here today because Finlay is an illustrator whose work has always been close to my heart.

Whenever I think about black-and-white illustrations from the old science fiction magazines, it is always the work of Virgil Finlay that I picture in my head. And why not? The man was a genius with a pen and ink… and he laid it down one dot at a time.

Virgil Finlay was born July 23, 1914 in Rochester, New York. He studied art vigorously in high school and it was there that he discovered scratchboard, his medium of choice. Scratchboard, back in the early 30′s was a white board to which black ink was applied. After the ink was dry, it was scraped off by the artist. It is the opposite of putting a black ink line on a white sheet of paper. Finlay used both techniques on the same drawing: filling areas with black so that he could scratch through to the white to achieve a specific tone of gray and also creating his middle tones and grays with hatching and stippling in black ink on the white surface.

And man, could he stipple!

Finlay had discovered science fiction with Amazing Stories in 1927 and horror and fantasy with Weird Tales in 1928. By 1935 he was confident enough that he could provide better illustrations that he sent six unsolicited drawings to Farnsworth Wright, the editor of Weird Tales pulp. Finlay’s stippling ability almost lost him the job as Wright was uncertain that such fine dots would reproduce on the cheap pulp paper. Fortunately a test print proved acceptable. Enough of the detail remained to provide the readers with the rare experience of seeing a new artistic genius explode fully developed onto the scene. He had four illustrations in that issue.

Finlay’s work was an immediate hit with the readers and the writers. H.P. Lovecraft wrote him fan letters and even composed a poem about his art. Finlay was a fan of the genre as well as one of the most talented artists to enter the field. These combined to provide his work with a power and grace unknown in the pulps. The stippling, fine hatching and pebble board were all used in conjunction to give his images a texture and depth beyond anything ever seen. Using an ultra-fine lithographic pen, he would dip just the tip into ink and allow only the liquid ink, not the tip of the pen, to touch the surface. He then wiped the residual ink off the pen point and repeated the procedure for the next dot. This incredible and incredibly labor-intensive technique, coupled with his enormous talent, created images of near photographic quality.

His reputation quickly spread. In addition to multiple illustrations is nearly every issue of Weird Tales through 1939, Wright chose him to illustrate the first in a proposed series of illustrated reprints of Shakespeare’s plays.

1938 he moved to New York City to take a staff position on The American Weekly, a Sunday supplement distributed with Hearst newspapers nationwide.

He served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. Except for this hiatus, he crafted hundreds of images for various science fiction pulps throughout the forties. Included were: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Fantastic Novels, Startling Stories, Super Science Stories, Amazing Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Argosy, and even a few comic books for DC. He continued to work for those titles that lasted into the fifties. During that time, however, the pulps were phased out of existence and the “digest” was born. Rates decreased and making a living became more difficult.

He did do some color covers for certain magazines, but his color work, although technically competent, did not have the same magic as his black and white illustrations

Throughout the forties and fifties he was the most popular artist in science fiction. However, his painstakingly slow techniques could not be rushed. Short cuts resulted in less satisfactory work. He often did nothing but draw, sixteen hours a day, seven days a week to eke out a living at the wages that the pulps and digests could afford to pay. When markets would dry up as magazines floundered he was known to take jobs repairing lamps.

In 1956 Finlay took on work for an Astrology magazines. They paid him better than the digests and continued to buy his work right up to his last years. Finlay died in January of 1971.

I am indebted to Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. His comprehensive Illustrators website has a masterful page about Finlay and much of this post was cobbled together from his site. Any errors or omissions are my own.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

THURSDAY... WHATEVER

I've been working hard and I'm tired but I have nothing to show for it, so here's a bunch more random pictures, which you guys seem to like.

I'm off to draw more muscled men with swords...

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

I GUESS I'M NOT FOOLING ANYONE...

So my April Fool's Post yesterday didn't fool anybody. What's more it garnered some disrespect for my interpretive dance skills.

So, no, I'm not chucking it all. I'm still blogging and still working as an artist. I still moonlight as a writer, Jack Mackenzie (who has a new book coming out sometime soon!) and I still leave smartass comments at my friends' blogs, mostly over at Cal's place.

I have nothing much to show right now except for the little sneak peek above. It's for a larger and unusual project which I will hopefully be able to rave about soon. It's a collaborative project with another talented artist/designer, Damon Orell. It's in its early stages right now, but it's an exciting project which I can't say much about, unfortunately.

(Really, I can't... not without Damon sending a bunch of guys after me with black suits, sunglasses and no compunctions about ventilating an artist. Seriously, the guy's connected!)

So, thank you for paying attention to me blathering on. As a reward, here's a bunch of random pictures culled from my image morgue...

Oh, hey! Look! That's me...!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

HANGING IT UP

Well, this is it. I've struggled and fought and I just don't seem to be getting anywhere. Blog traffic is down. Commissions are down and, honestly I'm just too tired...

So that's it. I'm giving up. I'm abandoning this blog, giving up art, quitting my day job and I'm moving to Nova Scotia. I'm gonna get myself on E.I, find a little shack overlooking the ocean and I'm going to drink myself into oblivion while singing endless choruses of "I's the boy..."

To all my loyal followers, my apologies... but that's the way the codfish flops, as they say...

Goodbye...

(hee-hee)

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio