Visions of Lorelei: Frank Thorne

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus. Today we feature an artist who knows a thing or two about drawing sexy women…

“Draw ’em like you wanna f— ‘em!”

That was the advice a bunch of fledgling artists and I were given during a one-day class titled “How to Draw Women the Frank Thorne Way,” held at the 1988 Great Eastern Convention. And who better to dispense such a pearl of wisdom than the man who’d made a name for himself as the premier artist of Marvel Comics’ Red Sonja? Although, honestly, hearing it come from a guy who looked like a kindly old grandfather was a major shock to everyone in the room. Still, anyone familiar with my own drawings of Lorelei can’t be too surprised that Thorne’s words have always stuck with me…  😀

When I made plans in 2001 to revive the Lorelei comic series, Thorne was one of the first artists I tracked down in my desire to gather together as many old-school horror artists as I could. (The new series was designed to look like 1970s horror comics.) Having a fondness for redheaded sexpots, he was more than willing to provide an illustration for the second issue’s cover—and thus made a small-press publisher (and big-time fan) very happy.

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Visions of Lorelei: Holly Golightly

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus. Yesterday we featured a convention sketch from Catwoman and Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose artist Jim Balent, so what better time than today to feature a Lori illustration by his wife, Holly Golightly?

I first met Holly in 1994, back when she was drawing adult-film-star biographies under the name “Fauve” and I was pushing the original Lorelei comic series. She was looking to get into more mainstream-oriented work, and it just so happened that I needed an artist for a project already under way. Uriel Caton (co-creator of The Saga of Pandora Zwieback) had had to give up his commitment to a full-color miniseries called Heartstopper that he and I were working on for indie house Millennium Publications. We’d delivered the first issue before he left, but without a replacement artist issue two had been stuck in limbo. Holly quickly stepped in to complete it.

(Note: This was the comic that introduced Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, who now works as monster-hunting mentor to teen Goth adventuress Pandora Zwieback. You can download the first issue of that miniseries, retitled Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa, for free from this very Web site.)

She was well on her way to fully penciling the third issue when Millennium’s publisher told me about a feature article the company was about to get from The Comics Buyer’s Guide, one of the industry’s leading news magazines. Could we provide CBG with some cover art that promoted Heartstopper?

What you see here is the completed cover art; Lori was included because I was negotiating with Millennium to pick up her series as well (also because Holly had been wanting to draw her). However, the cover was deemed too bloody by CBG’s editors’ (wussies!), and the article never happened, but that was all right—not too long after, Millennium and I parted company just after Holly had finished issue three’s pencils and cover (read the afterword in Heartstopper #1 for why that happened).

Still, that’s a pretty sweet drawing.

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Visions of Lorelei: Jim Balent

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus. Today we’ve got a sketch from one of the 1990s’ top “bad-girl comics” artists.

In 1991, before his work on DC Comics’ Catwoman was even on the horizon, Jim Balent and writer Ed Polgardy were the creators of an indie horror miniseries, From the Darkness. The story was okay—a half-naked vampire queen on a rampage—but the real, er, draw was Balent’s great black and white artwork. So when I wandered past Balent’s table at an NY comic con and realized there was no line in front of him, I went back and asked him for his take on Lori.

Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say? No wonder DC hired that guy!

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Visions of Lorelei: Mike Mignola

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Steven

Welcome to day six of Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus.

Sure, today he’s known for his creation Hellboy—the star of various comic book minsieries and a pair of movies directed by Guillermo Del Toro—but back in the day Mike Mignola was a mainstream artist who’d been wowing comic book fans with his work on DC’s Cosmic Odyssey and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, and Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon and Alpha Flight. And when I stumbled across his table at an NY convention in the early ’90s, Mignola was immediately added to the list of artists I wanted to draw Lori. Thank goodness he agreed to do it!

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Visions of Lorelei: Tim Vigil

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus. Today we’ve got a pencil masterpiece by the artist of one of horror’s creepiest comics!

When it came to horror comics in the 1990s, no series was more of a psychological attack on all that’s good and decent in the world than the ode to unrepentant sex and violence called Faust: Love of the Damned (which is making its return this fall). And no artist could ratchet up the gore and sexual deviations to squirm-inducing levels more than Faust co-creator and artist Tim Vigil.

So when I came across his table at a New York convention in 1992, of course I had to request a sketch of Lori from him.  😀

Now, don’t get the wrong impression—despite the lightshow around her hands, Lori’s a succubus, not the Scarlet Witch. If I remember correctly, Vigil got the idea after I showed him a Lori commission that seventies horror artist Tom Sutton had done for me, in which Sutton had drawn Lori using magic to reanimate a corpse. (You’ll find that incredible art reproduced as the frontispiece in Sects and the City.)

Nevertheless, it’s quite a drawing, wouldn’t you say?

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Visions of Lorelei: Billy Tucci

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s first horror heroine.

“Hey, congratulations, man!” a friend of mine said back in 1994. “How’d you get Billy Tucci to put Lorelei in that comic?”

I looked at him like he was nuts. “What’re you talking about?”

“That Shi comic of his that just came out—Lorelei’s in it!”

I had absolutely no idea how that could have happened. I knew what Shi was—Tucci’s self-published, top-selling bad-girl comic about a modern-day female Japanese warrior—but as far as I could remember I’d never crossed paths with the guy. So I was pretty sure my buddy was mistaken; no way could Lori be popping up in a Shi comic, certainly not without a heads-up from Tucci. Still, I figured it wouldn’t kill me to drop by Forbidden Planet and look into it.

Turned out “that Shi comic” was Shi/Cyblade: The Battle for Independents, the second half of a crossover with Top Cow Comics in which Tucci and Top Cow president/artist Mark Silvestri were making a major push to promote indie publishers to mainstream comics fans (part 1 was titled Cyblade/Shi).  Seemed like an admirable idea, but as I thumbed through the issue I didn’t see any evidence of my girl making her full-color debut. Then I hit the two-page center spread:

Yup. There was Lori, in the middle of a charge by indie characters against the big, bad mainstream corporations. Looking at it now, that spread’s like a gigantic “where are they now?” of indie comics. The only characters I still recognize, other than Shi and Cyblade, are: my friend Richard C. White’s Troubleshooters Inc. werewolf, Nightstalker, in the upper-left corner; Greg Hyland’s Lethargic Lad riding Stephen R. Bissette’s T. rex from Tyrant; Jim Lee’s Grifter in front of them; David Mack’s Kabuki (standing to the right of the motorcycle); and Jeff Smith’s Fone Bone.

Well, my immediate impression was that it was kinda neat, but I was puzzled why no one had ever contacted me. I guess in their enthusiasm to spread the word about indie comics, Tucci and Silvestri just went ahead and put in characters they liked. (I have a feeling I wasn’t the only creator surprised by their character’s appearance in the comic.) Didn’t really matter to me—I appreciated the nod, and it was nice seeing Lori in a full-color comic for the first time.

So now all these years later, I have just one question left to ask:

“Hey, Tucci, where are my royalties?”  😀

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Visions of Lorelei: Joseph Linsner

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Steven

It’s day three of Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s first horror heroine. Today we have my all-time favorite convention sketch, done by an artist whom you may have heard has some familiarity with drawing spooky, redheaded femme fatales…

Flashback to 1989. About five minutes after I’d picked up my first-ever Lori sketch from artist Dave Simons (see yesterday’s post for that drawing), I wandered into one of the other convention areas and saw two guys sitting behind a table, promoting Cry For Dawn, a horror comic series they were about to publish.

One guy identified himself as the comic’s writer, Joe Monks; the other was the series’ artist, Joseph Linsner. What got my attention, though, was the painted art they had on display showcasing Dawn, the star of their comic. I asked Linsner if he wouldn’t mind doing a sketch of my redheaded femme fatale. He said sure, asked to borrow the Simons sketch for reference, and said come back in an hour. One hour later, I had this.

Absolutely stunning, wouldn’t you say? And most of it’s rendered in colored pencil! Linsner said he had to stop himself—he was enjoying the sketch so much he realized he was putting too much work into it. Hey, I didn’t mind.  😀

Of course, Dawn became Linsner’s seminal character—eventually becoming a cottage industry of prints and T-shirts and statues and cosplay contests and, yes, even more comics—and he became a pretty big name in the industry. Deservedly so, in my opinion.

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Visions of Lorelei: Dave Simons

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Steven

Welcome back to Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s soul-stealing succubus. For day two, we have the first-ever Lorelei convention sketch that I commissioned.

In 1989, Dave Simons was the inker of Marvel Comics’ Ghost Rider, bringing—with penciler Bob Budiansky—a Bernie Wrightson–like look to a series that had started out as a 1970s horror title but had eventually devolved into just another superhero comic. At last the motorcycle-riding hero was returning to his horror roots, which meant that when I learned he was attending a comic book convention in New York City (one of the early Great Eastern Cons, I think), I put him on my list of artists I wanted to approach for a sketch.

See, 1989 was also the year that I introduced Lorelei in a digest-sized comic that I’d spent months drawing—my very first comic project—so I was curious to see how professional artists would interpret her. Simons was the first I talked to—and man, was I happy with the result!

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Visions of Lorelei: Louis Small Jr.

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Steven

Welcome to Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s first horror heroine: the soul-stealing succubus Lorelei, who made her small-press comics debut in 1989 before starring in a short-lived, full-size comics series in 1993. We kick things off with a team-up that will probably never happen—but a fella can dream, can’t he?

I first met artist Louis Small Jr. in early 1993—I was making plans to publish Lori in her first full-sized comic, and Louis was getting attention as the penciler of Harris Comics’ recently launched Vampirella series (with some guy named Jim Balent inking him—hey, whatever happened to him?). Considering how ugly the art was on Harris’ previous Vampirella comic—the b&w miniseries Morning in America—Louis’s art was the proverbial breath of fresh air. And I told him so, when I ran into him at the ’93 Great Eastern Convention in New York. He was talking to a friend of mine who saw me coming and yelled out, “There’s that guy I was telling you about, who’s the big Vampirella fan!” And then I gushed about how awesome Louis’s art was.

The gushing paid off. Turned out Harris Comics wasn’t really promoting Louis’s appearance at the con—in fact, they didn’t even have copies of Vampirella #1 on display—and he was feeling pretty annoyed. But now, here was someone excited about his art, and he felt appreciated—so appreciated that he stopped by my artist alley table the next day to say he’d be willing to draw the cover for the upcoming Lorelei #0 for free.

Skip ahead to fall ’93. By then I’d published two issues of Lorelei—#0 and #1, both with covers by Louis—and I was trying to figure out a way to get people’s attention at another Great Eastern show. How about a free b&w poster? I thought. But what should the subject be? Lorelei, obviously, but there needed to be a real eye-grabbing element. Then the idea just popped into my head…

Lori and Vampirella, drawn by Louis—makes sense, doesn’t it? And the people who picked up the poster sure loved it. Unfortunately, this is as close to teaming up as these two ladies have ever gotten. Ah, well. But it’s sure a nice piece, isn’t it?

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Talking About a Beautiful Monster

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Steven

As part of the SWC promotional machine’s push to spread the word about our brand-new Mature Readers graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, Rob Caprilozzi of the Horror News Network conducted an interview with me that’s just been posted to the site Comic Monsters:

“Lori’s story goes like this: She used to be an acclaimed photographer known as Laurel Ash, but after meeting a man of mystery named Arioch she wound up undergoing a supernatural process that turned her into a succubus—a sexual demon. As a result, she can consume the souls of her victims, draining their life force until they become withered corpses…. After she became a beautiful monster, Lori made a conscious decision to only take the souls of bad guys; whether she can keep to that promise is a topic for future stories…”

Read the entire interview by clicking the Comic Monsters logo up top.

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