Spider-Band on the Run

The image to the left is a hat tip to Bully and his pal John for the most recent books I received from him published by the fine peoples at Fanatagraphics.

One of Bully's fun features is the Separated at Birth series, where he shows us the comic book covers that were inspired by various other sources. He doesn't editorialize them and lets the reader decide what was homage or swipe. I knocked this together showing the similarities between the 1973 Wings album Band on the Run to the Marvel Treasury Edition #18 reprint collection. Make sure you check out all of Bully's Separated At Birth series, including his coverage of the great John Byrne' homages of the great John Byrne.

Connective Tissue by Bob Fingerman and You'll Never Know by C. Tyler: The illustrated novel Connective Tissue looks like Bob Fingerman's take on Naked Lunch and You'll Never Know is an autobiographical story of a family. Bob Fingerman is currently making waves at Dark Horse Comics. They are both on the pile to read next.

The Brinkley Girls: I need to adjust my tin foil hat because I think my deepest thoughts are being broadcast to Bully and John. How else could he know to send me this? The Brinkley Girls is exactly the kind of book I enjoy and it is full of great art from a bygone era. Nell Brinkley is an artist and illustrator who became a sensation for her full page artistic narratives and she and her work became iconic of the American Flapper era. Colorful, romantic and finely detailed art was her trademark style. In little time her creations (based upon herself, it seems) supplanted the Gibson Girls and became popular enough to have the Ziegfeld Follies use her work as a theme in the shows. The image of the Brinkley Girl also became a standard of fashion as the Brinkley characters were far more fun and open then the rather staid Gibson Girls. The business side of the Nell Brinkley output is also a story of marketing a good product and tying it in to popular culture media to great success.

You can get The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons 1913-1940 at Fantagraphics.

Thanks, guys!