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Scanned here is a detail of a panel from Smith's greatly celebrated, and rightly so, two part adaption of "Red Nails". The issue itself is an odd mixed bag of text pieces, comic stories from Barry Smith, Gray Morrow, Joe Maneely and Berni Wrightson, and Roy Thomas really digging into the bad repros from the original REH pulp stories. Pulled out my ragged copy of Savage Tales #2 yesterday for some cool skull reference, and got caught up in looking at the classic marvel Black and White from the venerable 1970's. Becasue they are just that damn good at what they do. They have certainly had some of the best of the best to bleed dry, and we, as the audience, have let them feed us Mulan and Ariel and even a revisionist Cinderella (which has got to be the biggest nod modern plot conventions than they have allowed in twenty years) complete with alternate character arcs and a more proactive main character.Īnd i still had a good time, despite all that I know about the company. It is, lets face it, a testament to the great artists that they've screwed over the across the years. Perhaps the other thing to note is just how good they are about making characters that seem born out of whole cloth right there, with all the details in perfect position. I noticed any number of details on the Haunted House ride that I did with my oldest daughter 3 times, and I still like the London flyover in the Peter Pan ride. If there is anything that you can say about Disneyland, its that they have perfected the art of vacuuming out your wallet, all the time making you pretty much enjoy it. Now you can see where the skull study was going. While its not the greates scan, here is the finshed piece with a couple of tweaks to do to it. Steve, by the way, has his Super Con on this weekend, so if you're anywhere near the San Jose area, go there this weekend for some great guests. Just got back from a few days down in southern California, taking the kids to Disneyland, enjoying the minor upgrades to the Pirates ride.Īlso had time in the evenings to finish this sketch in my good friend Steven Wyatt's Elric Sketchbook, which already contains good pieces from Bo Hampton, Dan Brereton, JG Jones, Tom Yeates and others. Here, we have almost none answered, and thats the very best part. If there is subtext, we might be reminded of those "that would rip the heart out of mystery, hold it up to the light for all to see." If there is anything that is happening here, it is the desire for a complete immersion into an unfamiliar world, something that reignites our child-like sense of wonder, before we saw other survivors of Kryton, before we knew where the Joker came from, before we saw what other Time Lords looked like, in short, before we had all our questions answered. The book, as these two pieces illustrate, have a bravura quality with the color that is fascinating to watch, and when the group finally hits the Hidden Sea, extremely effective in conveying just what a bizarre world we're journeying into.

Perhaps it is Espinosa's use of color that separates him from the pack, as well his apparent desire to reduce entire panels to only the relevant shadows (perhaps his only storytelling flaw in the first collection). I wouldn't wonder that Espinosa knows Darwyn Cooke, since both are certainly comfortable with the bold, thick line style that takes us, as comic historians, all the way back to Scorchy Smith. Where as there are many Tolkien scholars that will tell you Lord of the Rings is really about language, I would venture to say that Rocketo, the story, is really about Rocketo, the man, and the voyage of discovery, in just about every meaningful way, micro and macro. Journey to the Hidden Sea is the title of the first collection, and what a journey it is.

(I had yet to run into any of the single issues whatsoever, so I'm not aware of how the format is effecting the artwork in the least, but it makes me wonder a little bit why I've never seen any of the singles.)Įspinosa takes us so deep into his own mythology thats its a wonder we ever climb out at all. I finally stumbled onto the first Rocketo trade at a convention and snapped it up. I slowly became aware of Rocketo the way that one hears about a great band still doing the club circuit: a word here, a small review there, a graphic purloined here… the same way that I found myself at an Earl Greyhound show months ago. His Rocketo charms, cajoles, tugs, pushes and pulls you into a wholly fascinating world: a world of far future, with different races, different continents, different lingo and a different back story that I’m sure reads better in the trade than in stand-alone issues. I have to admit, I have been fully sucked into the mind of Frank Espinosa.