More Ringo!

New “Dead Ringo” images up on the FWAK! Blog!  (See earlier posts here and here.)

Awesome ninja collage

Have seen this posted on a few blogs, but wanted to credit back to the source before I passed it along.  Afrodisiac artist Jim Rugg did some ninja illustrations for McSweeny’s that were sadly cut. Check them out at his blog.

Can you identify all the ninja here. To be honest, there’s a couple that stump me! Who’s in the upper left corner, and who’s the dude with the pony tail and viking sword? Not sure I’d consider GI Joe’s “Firefly” a ninja, either. Otherwise, this thing is THE SHIT!!!

Ninja ads in comics

Want to chart the history of martial arts training (and exploitation media) in the U.S.? Just look at the ads that ran in comic books. They went from Judo to Karate to Kung-Fu to Ninja, decade by decade, always promising deadly secrets revealed and skills that would keep you from getting sand kicked in your face on the beach.

Here’s some great ninja ads, from a very nice write up at the blog of Mr. Dan Kelly.

Gotta get me some of them there Physio-Mental Powers!

Marvel’s maligned shinobi

As its Iron Man 2 weekend, here’s a quick look at some Marvel comics takes on ninja throughout the decades.

The b&w magazine era for Marvel Comics (ala the Curtis imprint) was soooooooo f’n cool! Deadly Hands was part B&W comics, part kung-fu and movie magazine. Ninja showed up here half a decade before the 80′s craze, albeit in a rather Chinese look.

Marvel fired on all cylinders during the 70′s kung-fu craze, creating enduring heroes like Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu, Iron Fist, White Tiger, Daughters of the Dragon, etc. However in the 80′s they failed to do the same with ninja. There was never a ninja hero the caliber of a Shang-Chi or Iron Fist, ninja were instead used as cannon fodder for heroes like Wolverine and Daredevil.

This ‘red-shirt’ model of ninja armies like The Hand being little more than disposable bodies en masse has endured to this day at Marvel.

There is a law of fight-scene physics that says the more of an enemy faced, the lesser skilled each of them becomes. A single ninja hero can wipe out an office building a mafiosos with machine guns. A hundred ninja couldn’t take out a single karate guy with nunchucks if they each had a bazooka. True in movies, true in comics. Guess Marvel needed the jobbers more than they wanted another martial arts super hero…

There are a few exceptions (Nth Man, Elektra on and off, Ronin I guess – all of whom are westerners BTW), but most of the hero ninja lie in licensed toy tie-ins like GI Joe’s Snake Eyes and support characters in Chuck Norris’ Karate Kommandos – a property stronger on TV and toy shelves.

Get a glorious look at the amazing gawd-awfulness of the Chuck comics over at Mr. Kitty.

And c’mon Marvel, give us a super shinobi-hero with the same chops (ha, get it?) as a Shang-Chi or Iron Fist already!

Tags: Snake Eyes, The Hand

Remco VHS art – 1986

The much-missed masters of cheap toy lines Remco released a He-Man-sized line of martial arts action figures from 1984-86 called Secret of the Ninja. Three sets were done in ’86 that included VHS tapes to ‘play along to’ – and man are these tapes some historical oddities!

Yeah… Kaiketsu Lion Maru… the pilot episode… on domestic VHS… DUBBED IN ENGLISH! What the hell? Did the soon-to-be-defunct toy company bring in a cast of voice-over actors to do this up? Was there a dubbed pilot floating around public domain after a long-forgotten failed pitch to film or TV markets? Is this the only surviving remnant of a whole season of the tokusatsu classic  re-purposed for the American market that never saw the light of day?

Now the dubbed version of Kamui I can understand a bit more – the series ran for years in Latin American markets, was dubbed for Italian TV, and more. An English version was probably done in hopes of similar syndication, but the nature of the knife-wielding youngster killing ninja in the trees may have been a bit much for American corporate sensibilities.

Regardless of the origins of the programs on these tapes, the box art was certainly new and a product of Remco. They’re signed “S. Paracio” or “Sparacio.”

Someday I’ll get around to photographing my modest collection of these figures. It’s a weird line with all-over-the-place designs, and head sculpts that look a lot like 70′s high-school math teachers.

Tags: Remco, VHS art

Another look: AKAI KAGEBOSHI

I think these still from the other Red Shadow, Akai Kageboshi, almost look better in B&W. The details of these astounding costumes are brought out better in higher contrast than they were in their decaying sepia-toned originals, which made up THE very first post ever on VN, back in June of 2009.

Y'know, almost a year ago I called this my favorite picture in my collection, and damn its still 100% true!

Tags: Thai press kits, vintage photos

Another look: CASTLE OF OWLS

In looking at repurposing color images for B&W print ads, I tried to look for zones of photos that weren’t necessarily the original focus. Blowing up some of these areas produced a lot more grain, which when thrown into B&W makes these old Castle of Owls photos look even older. Love this detail above from the color original first seen here in September 2009.

As much as the print production artist in me loves the historical connection made by these mechanical pencil lines on the press photos, used by mural painters my guess, they are a real drag when you want to really see the image.

Flipped and tightened this one. Y'know, CASTLE OF OWLS would have made a damn good B&W movie.

I will never get tired of this image, in any form.

Tags: Ryutaro Otomo, Thai press kits, vintage photos

Another look: SENGOKU YARO

Couple weeks ago I was poking around with some B&W print ads using imagery from my Thai press kit collection – converting the decaying colors into more contrasty greyscale, exploring new crops, bringing out the grain and textures of the paper more, etc.

The results turn out to be a pretty interesting second look at some of the first stuff I ever did on VN, so I thought I’d share. This first batch is from Sengoku Yaro (Warring Clans), the color originals of which were featured back in June of 2009.

These particular exercises were in COMPOSITION.

The original full frame - a decent action shot, but lacks a real focus. You can, however...

...break this scene down in two different ways - one centering on actor Yuzo Kayama, the other...

...on the non-descript ninja he's about to dispatch. A whole different context.

The composition of this Yuriko Hoshi challenge pose is already great, but once again composition can hone in and change contexts.

This detail is actually a nifty little image on its own.

And this crop lets you see more of the hottie starlet, while still conveying the notion she's surrounded but defiant.

I also worked on some familiar images from Castle of Owls, Red Shadow and The Black Hood, all coming up over the course of the week.

Tags: Thai press kits, vintage photos

TOAD!

Damned if this isn’t the greatest drawing of a monster horny toad EVER!

This is just one ‘plate’ from a 19th century scroll of yokai and human oddities featured over at the superb Pink Tentacle blog.

Tags: kaiju, toad magic

If you get this…

…its really funny, AND you’ve watched way too many Richard Harrison/Godfrey Ho movies.