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| First Lt. Blueberry novel, 1965 |
Christoph Roos over at his excellent blog is an authority
on book illustration, comics, graphic novels, and so on, with a special
interest in the Old West. His self-named blog is subtitled “Phantastische
Bilder Zwischen Traum und Wirklichkeit” [Fantastic Pictures Between Dream and
Reality]. Roos is a German-speaking artist and blogger, who lives in Switzerland.
Readers here may be surprised to discover the breadth and
depth of work by European graphic artists devoted to Old West themes. In recent
posts, Roos has featured Czech artist Zdenek Burian (1905-1981) who illustrated
editions of western novels by the Irish-American writer Thomas Mayne Reid
(1818-1883) and the German writer Karl May (1842-1912).
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| Zdenek Burian, Scalphunters, 1937 |
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| Zdenek Burian, Northern Star, 1936 |
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| Zdenek Burian, Friend of the Solar Gun, 1935 |
For a more recent example, a hugely popular western series
was a French-Belgian production, “Lieutenant Blueberry,” which began in the 1960s and
still has a following in Europe today (see Fort Navajo cover above). Roos has a page devoted to its artist,
Jean Giraud. (For more information on this series, there is an extensive entry in English at Wikipedia.)
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| Artist: Jean Giraud |
Roos is an illustrator himself and has posted samples of
his own western comic sketches. Like other illustrators working in Europe, his
style demonstrates the high drama in the way the Old West is imagined, in both
the action and the landscape.
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| Sketch by Christoph Roos |
Roos also discusses photo images from western movies, like
his recent tribute to Robert Duvall with stills from several of his films. The
best way to sample his blog (even if you don’t know German) is to scroll
through posts using the label “western” [or click here]. At the end of the
page, click on “Ältere posts” to get more pages.
Image credits:
Coming up: Charles Bronson, Breakheart Pass (1975)
These are certainly cool!
ReplyDeleteMuch of the superb cover art for my Skye's West series was done by a Spanish artist called Royo. It couldn't be better. I believe he did all the covers for the original eight mass-market titles.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous. The horses seem poised to jump off the page.
ReplyDeleteThis is some brilliant art. These look like real photographs and not works of art.
ReplyDelete