Comic Panel Cut-Ups

Here are four inaugural pieces in my new Comic Panel Cut-Ups series of cut paper and gouache paintings, offering my own spin on the oft-used pop art perspective. What I hope comes through in these initial attempts is the fact that all are taken from comic books I have owned most of my life, some childhood favorites. The chosen panels have stuck with me through the years, odd and curious images that have, undoubtedly, informed much of my other illustration work. See them now, at Shop, J.W.E., priced at a healthy discount. They are also available through Comic Art Collective.

SKIDDD.. BAM! One of my all-time favorites, Hot Stuff, uses his horned noggin to move a mountain. From Hot Stuff #88, February, 1969, published by Harvey Comics, original artist unknown. I always preferred the “little devil” to the “friendly ghost”, Casper’s role as a dead child in limbo far less appealing than the child so “wicked” he’d been sent straight to Hell for his errors in life.

FIND THE MAN WITH THE SOUTHERN DRAWL! Another of my childhood favorites, Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, busting down some slumlord’s door, an enigmatic glass drinking flute waiting to greet him. From Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #15, November, 1973, published by Marvel Comics, original art by Billy Graham. For one of my personal Cage memories, see Septimius Versus Power Man on the Living Room Floor at Comic, J.W.E.

ARRR! Uh-oh, it looks like the teenage Clark Kent is playing Fay Wray to a King Kong-sized Superboy. It’s hard to beat just about any issue of the Superman titles from the 60s for their sheer lunacy and constant desire to reassign the familiar Super logo. From Superboy #142, October 1967, published by DC Comics, original art by George Papp and Frank Springer.

ZIING! RROAR! RRIIIP The justifiably forgotten Jigsaw, Man of a Thousand Parts, does his best Mr. Fantastic impersonation, ensnaring an escaped lion. Oh, those accident-prone circus trains! From Jigsaw #1, September, 1966, published by Harvey Comics, original art by Tony Tallarico.