Zeke El Berserker y El Gobbling God

A Nod to European Comic Artists

I thought I’d lighten things up in today’s comic. It’s a tiny nod to all those great Spanish and other European cartoonists from the 1970s and 80s. When I was a teen, I eagerly looked forward to pouring over their work every month as the latest issues of Heavy Metal, Creepy, Vampirella, and Eerie Magazines would arrive on the newsstand.

Monolinguists don’t fear, you don’t really need to read Spanish to get the gist of the comic (but you will miss a couple of jokes.)

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In case you couldn’t tell, this comic was also inspired by my dog Zeke’s never-ending hatred for our vacuum cleaner. He’s such a crazy mutt. Who knows what goes on in that little peanut brain of his, but at least this comic will be included in the Zeke’s Comics Compendium that I’ll be releasing in September. (Another freebie for premium members!)

Now, getting back to art influences, unlike a lot of other kids, super hero comics weren’t that big of a thing to me. The closest I ever came to super hero comics was reading Swamp Thing, or Will Eisner’s “The Spirit” when Warren started reprinting the old comics.

Horror and sci-fi comics were more my jam.

I essentially learned to draw from reading, and copying, from Warren’s Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. Not only did the magazines expose me to great American comic artists like Rich Corben, Alex Toth, and Berni Wrightson, they also included absolutely astounding art by Jose Gonzalez, Jose Ortiz, and Estaban Maroto and other Spanish artists. These artists’ talents deserved just as much notoriety amongst US comics fans, yet it seemed like they never properly got it at the time.

While, I suspect that Jim Warren’s parsimony dictated these hires for his magazines, I’m glad that at least he helped expose US comic book fans to the work of these masters. Also, by using these artists, Warren’s editors maintained a high visual standard for these magazines. I assume that my readership of said mags must have trained my eye to appreciate a well drawn comic.

Of course this might also be why I snobbishly never really got into the lesser Skywald publications like Nightmare or Psycho, or Eerie Publication’s Horror Tales and other mags.

When Heavy Metal magazine came along its design and quality content opened up an appreciation for even more foriegn cartoonists, such as Jean Giraud, Phillipe Druilett and Jaques Tardi.

Part of the reason I’m mentioning all this is becuase I’ve always been interested to see what, or who, influenced an artist’s work, especially that of comic artists. Was it classic art, Manga, Silver Age, Bronze Age, or other foreign cartoonists? It’s fascinating to learn what creative’s hand may have guided the hand of another.

If you’re a cartoonist I’d love to hear who influenced your style or approach to cartooning.

Now If you’ve never heard of them and you’re curious to see the work of these Spanish cartoonists, here’s a couple of books that are a must to read.

The Art of Jose Gonzalez - The main artist on Vampirella

Masters Of Spanish Comic Book Art - A great compendium

The ART OF LUIS GARCIA

As for other European artists, let me suggest these artists:

Phillipe Druillet - Wild, wild work

Jean-Claude Forest - Creator of Barbarella

Jaques Tardi - so many amazing works!

These are just a few suggestions to keep your eyeballs entertained. If there are any young artists in your household, please do the world a favor and expose them to the art by these masters of comics!

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Now go find a nice shady spot to read a good book while you sip a nice cool drink. I’ll chat with you next week.

Cheers,

Ed