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

LOVING THE ALIEN

Human beings have always had a fear of and, at the same time, a fascination with the “other”.

Almost as soon as humans were able to make art on cave walls depictions of strange and bizarre creatures began showing up amongst depictions of their fellows and animals. The stone walls of ancient Egypt were rife with depictions of gods with human bodies and the heads of jackals or eagles or snakes.

In modern times, when gods were replaced with aliens, depictions of beings from other planets have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Before the twentieth century a number of Victorian illustrators, chief among them French illustrator Isidore Grandville, were adept at creating menageries full of wild and outrageous creatures, but it was in the twentieth century with the rise of the science fiction pulps, that alien creatures really took center stage.

J. Allen St, John, a marvelous illustrator from the very earliest part of the century, had the enviable opportunity to be one of the first to illustrate the fantastic tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Although mostly remembered as the author who created Tarzan, Burroughs also wrote planetary romances set on the Moon, Mars, Venus and even at the earth’s core. Burroughs’ books contain a menagerie of alien creature which were ably depicted by St. John. From Martian Thoats to Lunar Kalkars St. John’s depictions inspired the imaginations of readers of the Blue Book and All-Story Magazines where Burroughs’ stories first saw print.

Read the rest of this article over at the AMAZING STORIES website (Tell 'em MD sent ya!)

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

IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!

AMAZING STORIES, the world's first science fiction magazine, is now open to the public.

AMAZING STORIES are just one click away!
The Experimenter Publishing Company is pleased to announce the reintroduction of the world's most recognizable science fiction magazine – AMAZING STORIES!

Following the completion of a successful Beta Test begun on January 2nd, 2013, Amazing Stories is now open to the public. Fans of science fiction, fantasy, and horror are invited to join and encouraged to participate in helping to bring back a cherished icon of the field.

For the past several weeks nearly sixty fans, authors, artists, editors and bloggers have been producing articles on your favorite subjects – the literature of SF/F/H, its presentations in media such as television, film, poetry, literature, games, comics and much more.

All contents of Amazing Stories are free to the general public.

Membership is also free – and entitles members to participate in the discussion, share information and engage in many other familiar social networking activities.

Membership also represents a stake in helping Amazing Stories return to publication. The more members the site acquires, the faster Amazing Stories can become a paying market for short fiction.

Every genre fan now has a chance to help support the creation of a new market for the stories, artwork and articles they all love so much.

To visit the site and obtain your free membership, go to AMAZING STORIES, and don't forget to invite your friends too!

This reincarnation of Amazing Stories could not have happened without the generous support of Woodall Design LLC and the members of the Amazing Stories Blog Team:

Cenobyte, Karen G. Anderson, Mike Brotherton, Ricky L. Brown, Michael A. Burstein, Catherine Coker, Johne Cook, Paul Cook, Gary Dalkin, Jane Frank, Adria K. Fraser, Jim Freund, Fran Friel, Adam Gaffen, Chris Garcia, Chris Gerwel, Tommy Hancock, Liz Henderson, Samantha Henry, M.D. Jackson, Monique Jacob, Geoffrey James, J. Jay Jones, Daniel M. Kimmel, Peggy Kolm, Justin Landon, Andrew Liptak, Bob Lock, Melissa Lowery, Barry Malzberg, C. E. Martin, Farrell J. McGovern, Steve Miller, Matt Mitrovich, Aidan Moher, Kevin Murray, Ken Neth, Astrid Nielsch, D. Nicklin-Dunbar, James Palmer, John Purcell, James Rogers, Felicity Savage, Diane Severson, Steve H. Silver, J. Simpson, Douglas Smith, Lesley Smith, Bill Spangler, Duane Spurlock, Michael J. Sullivan, G. W. Thomas, Erin Underwood, Stephan Van Velzen, Cynthia Ward, Michael Webb, Keith West, John M. Whalen, Karlo Yeager, Leah A. Zeldes

For more information about Amazing Stories, please contact the publisher at Experimenter@AmazingStoriesMag.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

Dress For the Occasion: The Scantily Clad Female

So, here’s a question:

Say you’re a beautiful woman (I assume some of you reading this actually are women. Please believe me when I say that in my eyes all women are beautiful. If you’re a man reading this, then use your imagination) and you need to leave the relative safety of your spacecraft to go out into the vacuum of space or maybe planetside where there is a strong possibility that you will run into hostile aliens.

What do you wear?

It’s a tough one, I know.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that a self contained space suit with a substantial air supply and radiation shielding. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

But not so fast. If we’re examining the history of science fiction illustration (which, at the moment, I am) then we have to think outside the box of conventional wisdom. Here we must enter the strange wisdom of the science fiction cover illustration.

So, what does the typical beautiful woman wear into space?

How about an evening gown?

That seemed to be a good idea to the woman depicted in a Norman Saunders’ painting for Marvel Science magazine in May 1951 in which two adequately suited spacemen appear to be manhandling a negligee-clad woman into a spaceship.

Now, according to something that we like to call science, the human body cannot survive unprotected in a vacuum. So the chances that the lovely lady in this painting is alive are slim to 0 to the power of 10 billion. She does, however, leave a beautiful corpse, which is surprising since her body has been exposed to hard vacuum.

You can read the rest of this article over at the AMAZING STORIES website!

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

NEW! MODERN! CONTEMPORARY! HIP!

From the AMAZING STORIES website (Still in Beta Tests):

 

I have spent a lot of time in previous posts dwelling in the past. I have been like an old man suddenly lost to the present, the memory of times past reeling behind his eyes while he absently stirs his tea. Well, I think perhaps I should bring this topic into the present and talk about some of the science fiction and fantasy artists working today.

There has been an explosion of fantastic art. In the past fantastic art's only reason for being was as illustration to fantastic literature. That changed and today fantastic art is it's own reason for being. You can find fantasy art on posters, tee-shirts, coffee mugs. You can find it on the internet almost as easily as you can find pornography or lolcats.

Digital art, made possible by programs such as Photoshop or Painter, has exploded onto the electronic canvas of the internet like a Jackson Pollock painting. No longer do we rely on the “delivery devices” of magazines, book covers, calendars or the like. The art is completed and posted online within hours, sometimes in the very minute of its completion.

The digital revolution in art is a big topic and one that I will not tackle in this post. I'll get to that later. For now I just want to touch upon a few artists still working with traditional materials today who, in my mind at least, stand above the crowd.

Read the rest of the article Here!

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

NOW IT'S OFFICIAL: I AM AN AMAZING BLOGGER!

On Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013, I will be joined by more than 50 other writers from around the blogosphere to help launch the Beta Test of Phase 1 of the return of Amazing Stories.

Amazing Stories was the world's first science fiction magazine. Published by Hugo Gernsback, the Father of Science Fiction, the magazine created the genre's first home and was instrumental in helping to establish science fiction fandom – the fandom from which all other fandoms have evolved.

The magazine itself ceased publication in 2005; in 2008 the new publisher, Steve Davidson, discovered that the trademarks had lapsed and applied for them. The marks were finally granted in 2011.

Phase 1 introduces the social networking aspects of the site and the Blog Team, more than 50 authors, artists, collectors, editors, pod casters, designers and bloggers who will address 14 different subjects on a regular basis – SF, Fantasy & Horror literature, anime, gaming, film, television, the visual arts, audio works, the pulps, comics, fandom, science and publishing.  

I can't tell you how excited I am to be part of this blog team. It is a great bunch of bloggers. Some of them are old friends and some of them are new, but it's a great group and I am proud to be a part of it.

I will be blogging about art, of course (among other things). I will be writing about the visual language of science fiction and fantasy. As the time grows closer I will be able to tell you more and provide links and hints as to what you will see. It's going to be exciting!

It's not going to change what happens here. i will still post pictures and videos and goofy stuff here and there. It's not going to change my life, either. It's not gonna make me rich and it's certainly not going to help me with the blocked bathroom sink that's looking more and more like it needs a plumber, nor will it help me keep the cats' litter box full nor help keep it clean.

Nevertheless, it's a great opportunity and I'm going to try to keep it light and fun. More importantly I hope that all of you will join me in January when all the fun begins.

Those wishing to participate in the Beta Test should request an invite by emailing the publisher, Steve Davidson.

AMAZING STORIES are just one click away!

End of announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog program.


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