16 Times Comic Book Artists Totally Rocked Rock Music Album Cover Art [Hot Linked]

Artist: Todd McFarlane • Image Credit: Epic Records, Marvel Comics 

The long wait for a new post is finally over, kids! Exhaustively curated here for your viewing pleasure is a new spine-tingling listicle revealing 16 times comic book artists rocked rock music cover art.

16 Times Comic Book Artists Absolutely Rocked Hip-Hop Album Cover Art [Hot Linked]

Image Credit: Def Jam, Marvel Comics

"Exhaustively curated here for your viewing pleasure is a senses-shattering listicle showing 16 times comic book artists rocked hip-hop music cover art."

Thor, Superman, X-Men: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Artwork Reveals Powerful Superhero Influences [Excerpt]

Charles the First, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982. Courtesy of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Basquiat’s Charles the First, viewed by many as a work celebrating the jazz icon Charlie Parker (see also: the reference to the Parker song CHEROKEE), actually contains more elements reflecting his love of comics. And though it doesn’t feature any figural drawings of superheroes, it does name drop a few of the medium’s best-known characters. The first of those named is the mighty THOR, whose name is written near the top of the first panel in the Charles the First triptych, and framed with a box. Hovering just above Thor’s name is one of Basquiat’s now iconic graffiti crowns, and above both the sardonic phrase HALOES FIFTY NINE CENT is written. 

The name of Thor’s publisher Marvel actually makes two appearances. The first is further down the aforementioned panel, just under the number “193,” but scribbles mostly render MARVEL COMICS INC illegible. The name, however, is easy to discern at bottom of the third panel, where it appears with a line drawn through it, recalling a practice from graffiti. Also extracted from graffiti culture is the once ubiquitous S symbol that kids across America formerly doodled on endless sheets of notebook paper and on classroom desks. Its stylized form appears in the first panel encased in a strike zone box, like those once drawn with chalk on the sides of buildings where boys gathered to play stickball now ages ago. Next to the stylized S in the strike zone box is the ever-recognizable chest emblem of Superman with an S nested at its center. Directly above Superman’s emblem is where X-MN is written, a somewhat abbreviated reference to Marvel’s merry mutant superheroes, the X-Men. 

A variety of non-comic book related elements also make up Charles the First, which — as a whole — recalls the youth-driven scrawl that covered the doorways, walls, and trains in New York in the 1980s. But none attract more notice than the insightful phrase written across the bottom of the first and second panel: MOST YOUNG KINGS GET THEIR HEAD CUT OFF.

King Charles I of England, though not exactly young at the time, was beheaded for treason at the tender age of 55. Jazz great Charles/Charlie Parker, at the age of 35, died from a bout of pneumonia exacerbated by Parker’s many years of substance abuse. And in 1988, at the young age of 27, Jean-Michel Basquiat died from a heroin overdose.

Excerpt from the 2018 essay 'Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Artwork Reveals Powerful Superhero Influences'.

Ciphurphace will show you to your maker

James Ciphurphace is a hard-working hip-hop wordsmith whose rhymes often reflect back on that time when rap music was much less commercial, and rap artists seemed to place more emphasis on the 'art' portion of the title. Ciphurphace himself embodies this period on "How to MC," a heavenly Koncept Jones-produced track on the Arizona mic controller's ambitious sophomore album, Apply Within. Riding deep in the groove – seemingly in the spirit of Wu-Tang's GZA drivin' a topless Bentley down the autobahn – the "swAZian" microphone fiend from Tucson waxes metaphoric on the challenges of staying true to the art of meaningful rap music. For a no commitment test drive of Ciph's newly-released Apply Within, download "How to MC" and "Maker" for free-ninety-nine by clicking on the links below. – SP

Ciphurphace – How to MC
Ciphurphace – Maker

And for more information about the Ciphurphace album, Apply Within, click here.

Ollie-OX's "4 Deep in a Honda" video is a smash

Holy Honda Civic, Batman! The new video for the Ollie OX "4 Deep in a Honda" posse cut is a  smash, both literally and figuratively! Directed by Jack Simpson, this fun 4-and-a-half-minute production features Ollie OX and label mates, C-Zar Van Gogh, Jake Palumbo and Ciphurphace all sardined in a 4-door import sedan on the long road to success. Also featured in the vid are six dozen crash test dummies, fifty tons of mangled car metal, four V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes face masks, one Naughty By Nature padlocked neck chain...and more imagination than you'll see in many videos made with big studio-backed budgets. So sit back, kiddies, buckle your cyber-seat belts, and let Ollie OX and his partners-in-rhyme show you how they roll.



And for more information about the Ollie OX album Dancing with Ammo, click here.

Maya Corazon 'hearts' headphones...

.... and headphones 'heart' Maya Corazon.   

Photo: Damon 
Model: Diana 
Source: Afrodisiac

[Book Report™] Kirby: King of Comics

The bad thing about big coffee table books is that they don't always get read. Oh, sure, you'll read a few pages. Maybe even a few chapters. But what you'll often wind up doing is reading the captions placed beside and below the book's abundant illustrations. And why? Because the writing isn't all that engaging. So that impressively-sized publication quickly becomes this massive thing with a lot of unread words in it. And how does that make you feel? Yeah, just like you're in pre-school again, because you have another book that's as tall as your torso, and all you've managed to do is to study the pictures.

Well, true believers, Mark Evanier's Kirby: King of Comics is another coffee table tome that you will also not read. No, this is one that you're actually gonna devour, hungrily, like a densely populated planet on the soup spoon of Galactus. Well, that is after you've removed the dust jacket to keep it in minty fresh condition. And in your cover-to-cover consumption of this fitting tribute to Evanier's friend and mentor, you will learn far more about the history of comic books in general, and Kirby's king-sized place in the art form, than you could ever have imagined. Kirby: King of Comics is a pulse-pounding portrait of one of the most important figures to ever apply pencil lead to a multi-paneled page. A man whose space-spanning imagination may not have been fully comprehended or appreciated until now. Long live the "king."

P.S. The bad thing about this book, is that is is so profusely illustrated with stunning full-page illustrations (8.75" x 12") that you will constantly wanna tear 'em out and to tape 'em to the wall. If you're thinking that you won't be able to fight the urge, Barnes & Noble currently has Kirby: King of Comics on the clearance table for $12.98 (SRP $40). You can pick up two copies for less than the price of one! 'Nuff said.

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