Francesco Francavilla’s Italian Spiderman

By Chris Roberson, on August 24th, 2010

Longtime readers of the Ramble may recall that I am a huge fan of Italian Spiderman. And a search through the archives will show that I am an even huger fan of the work of artist Francesco Francavilla. So as you can imagine, I was thrilled to see these two great tastes come together as Francesco turned his talents to illustrating Italian Spiderman for the Comic Twart blog. Thrilled, I tell you!

What’s great is that, now that I’ve hung out with Francesco in person instead of just admiring his art from from afar, when I look at this image I hear the text in my head in Francesco’s accent. A perfect fit!

Alan Moore on culture and responsibility
“I think our mistake has been thinking, in the 20th and 21st century, of the big cultural providers, like television or Hollywood, as culture. They’re not. They’re commercial entities which may occasionally or accidentally produce culture. But, they’re not culture. We are culture. Just ordinary people, what they do. You’ve only got to look at all sorts of areas around the world at present to see people taking things into their own hands. That seems to be the trend politically and I think it’s a very good one.

“Taking responsibility for something is generally a good way of gaining some measure of control over it. That’s certainly true when it comes to one’s own life. You take responsibility for it and all of a sudden you have control over it. And I think it extends to other things as well. If we take responsibility for the way we’re governed and the way that we’re ruled economically and the way that the Anonymous and Occupy protesters seem to be doing, then that potentially can have a huge world-changing effect. That’s the same whether you’re talking about politics or whether you’re talking about the arts. If I hadn’t believed that it would be possible for me to have some sort of effect then I’d never have tried. As it turns out, my ideas have been communicated to a fair number of people. But back at the beginning, that was far from obvious. All that you had was your own belief in yourself. So yes, it’s vital that individuals believe that they can have an impact upon society. For one thing, it’s historically true. For another thing, it is the best thing to believe because if you believe otherwise that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is the philosophy of a natural-born slave in many respects.”

Alan Moore, from an interview with Honest Publishing (December, 2011)
02/21/12
Danger 5 - “Danger Warrior”

My love for the Danger 5 series knows absolutely no bounds…

02/20/12
Alex Ross’s depiction of a galaxy of Alan Moore characters, illustrating an article in Wizard Magazine #130. Bits and pieces of this were reprinted in Mythology: The DC Art of Alex Ross, but the non-DC characters weren’t reprinted there. Just as with yesterday’s portrait by Brian Williamson, I’d love to have a print of this on my wall, but I’m not going to hold my breath that anyone could get the rights together to do so.

02/19/12
A printer’s proof of a promo for the Marvel UK magazine Daredevils signed by Alan Davis and Alan Moore, featuring several characters more wrote, including Captain Britain, the Special Executive, and Night Raven. (via Secret Oranges)

02/19/12
A Garry Leach “Warpsmith” sketch, from the A1 Sketchbook (Atomeka Press, 2004).

02/18/12
A “portrait” of Alan Moore done by Brian Williamson for the Sunday Times Magazine, to accompany a piece commemorating Moore’s 50th birthday. Here’s how Williamson describes the piece:

Because I admire him as a writer ( and stupidly trying to ape his style got me my first writing jobs on 2000AD) I wanted to do the subject justice and spent far to long trying to draw all the characters in an approximation of the style of the original artist - even Maxwell the cat, who can just be seen at the top of the pyramid.

02/18/12
Alan Davis’s cover to Amazing Heroes #85, featuring all of the characters he and Alan Moore worked on together in the early eighties.

02/18/12
A promo for Australia’s Central Institute, featuring Henry & Aaron. WARNING: It gets pretty gory by the end.

02/18/12
Alan Moore on nostalgia
“Nostalgia, if handled wrong, can prove to be nothing more than sloppy and mawkish crap. In my opinion, the central appeal of nostalgia is that all this stuff in the past is gone. It’s finished. We’ll never see it again… and this is where the incredible poignance of nostalgia really comes from.”

Alan Moore, from his original proposal for Marvelman, reprinted in Kimota!: The Miracleman Companion, edited by George Khoury
02/17/12
The fourth and final portion of Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything is a Remix.” The entire series is well worth watching for any creative, if you haven’t already.

02/16/12

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