THEME: Year of the Dog

On February 16th we moved into the Chinese Year of the Dog, so this week we'll celebrate by making collages with dogs on them. If you think about it, it's really a wide-open theme: you can make any kind of collage at all, so long as it has a dog on it. Have fun!! =smile=

Crime Zone

gotta put a dame on the cover

As I went through a stack of pulp crime books, I just kept noticing the women on the covers, so I decided to make a collage tribute to the dames of the pulps. =grin=

Who was it? Maybe Raymond Chandler wrote, "One look, and I knew she was trouble... my kind of trouble!"

Suspicion

Is she fleeing the scene of the crime? Or did he do it? What is she clutching? Why does he have gloves on? And what does that crumpled piece of paper on the ground contain? Clues???

Dead End!

racket squad in action

underworld grotesque

I must confess: I was not in the mood for pulp tonight, so this collage--with the possible exception of the two men fighting in lower right--is not pulp. I'll get back to pulp later this weekend, I promise.

Upper left by Otto Dix. Upper right by George Scholz. Middle right by George Grosz.

The Mighty Crime Wave

THEME: pulp >>> crime

I had a hard time coming up with a title for this one, because this pulp genre includes mysteries, thrillers, detective stories, true crime, suspense, police procedural, the mob, and a number of other weird categories involving murder and mayhem. I chose "crime" as the closest to an all-embracing rubric. But be assured, this is a broad theme that doesn't even have to include a murder—just some sort of crime or criminal(s). Comic books in this genre had titles like "Strange Suspense Stories," "Crime Smashers," "Murder Incorporated," "Crime and Justice," "Crime Does Not Pay," "Crime Must Pay the Penalty," "Scotland Yard," "Law Breakers," "Public Defender in Action," "Badge of Justice," "Racket Squad," "Underworld," and simply, "Danger." I think you get the picture.... Have fun!

This will be the last of the four pulp genres I decided to explore this month. There are more: horror, men's adventure (don't ask), war =bleah=, jungle, and so on. But since next week we enter the month of March, I figure that would be a good time to return to our usual mode of all kinds of mixed-up arcane themes. That is, if you guys don't mind my doing another month of themes.... please lemme know!

Homestories

From the archives - first one from my series "Homestories" from 2013

Tom Mix

Sorry, another from the archive. Will try and make a new one for the next theme.

The Return of the TV Rustlers

What Happens on the Prairie Stays on the Prairie...

Pulp Dreams (Little Sister)

the man who rode with death

Flying Arrows

The black & white arrows courtesy of

"Designers Guide to Japanese Patterns"

by Jeanne Allen.
"Flying Arrows" is a yagasuri (arrow) design, originally worn by maids who served the daimyo and shoguns, and was eventually adopted by Edo townsmen.

Western Ballet

A rehearsal for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show!

Injuns!

One from the archive.

bandannas to the rescue

THEME: pulp >>> westerns

The wild, wild west! Cowboys and Indians... gunslingers and outlaws... stagecoaches, buffaloes (bison), saloons, whorehouses, the town marshal and his jail cells... campfires, leather, booze, coyotes, rifles, handguns, trains... tumbleweeds, cactus, sagebrush, mesquite... "we don't need no stinkin' badges!"

John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, John Ford, Sergio Leone....

And don't forget horses... lots and lots of horses....

If you need inspiration, look into the novels of Louis L'Amour, or put "pulp western books" into Google and see what you find....

Have fun!!

Romance? Well, Maybe Not...

Pulp Dreams (Rogue Gondola Man)

romantic adventures

Creature in upper left corner by Edward Gorey.

Collage Comic No. 2

True Love Adventures

Valentine's Treatment (Can Make it All Seem Heaven Sent)

Inspired by Valentine's Treatment a song by The Undertones (written by D.O'Neill & M.Bradley)

The Queen Of Hearts

Actually a "work in progress" made from a collage from the archives ( slightly amended ) and some new ATC's used as a border. It's for work inspired by the Cheshire Archive visit recently - particularly that of Victorian illustrator Randolph Caldicott. Some tweaking to do yet but the basic elements are there. Seemed appropriate with Valentine's Day just round the corner.

SWINGERS

This is pretty spicy, eh?

Here is my favorite part of this collage...the word "SWING" comes from an ad from the 1960s. The words "JUST WHAT I WANTED" come from a 1903 McClure's magazine. I was struck by the modern look of the 1903 typeface which echoed the groovy type style of the 1960s.  By the way, "JUST WHAT I WANTED" was used in an ad for ink (fountain) pens!

they started out to paint...

Two backgrounds?! Why not? I have some more complicated stuff that's going to take hours to arrange, so I decided to kick the weekend off with something simple... FYI: this scene was lifted from the front cover of a paperback titled Art Colony. =laugh=

TWO from THE ARCHIVES!

These were created for The Kollage Kit 5 years ago...always been favorites of mine.

"Love is in the Air"

"The Fire of Love"

THEME: pulp >>> romance

This next week includes Valentine's Day, so I figure our next pulp genre should be Romance.

What is Romance? In a way, it's a game—a game that two people (or three) play with affection, flirting, love... holding hands, kissing, sex.... pleasure, cheating, betrayal... all the components of a hypothetical relationship. So this week our collages will depict people playing this game—happily or unhappily. They may be at the beginning of getting to know each other; they may have been bonded as a couple for years. Or else, design a pulp Valentine's Day card for your honey...Whatever strikes your fancy!

But we're not in the world of today: we're back in the pulp decades of the 1920s through the 1950s. Think covers of mass-market paperback books. Think comics, magazines. Think strapless dresses, lipstick, hairdos & hair oil. Be corny, be silly, be dark. Give your characters speech bubbles to be saying things to each other, or thought bubbles like clouds. Or show the game taking place without words.

And have fun!!

waving goodbye?

moment of intense confusion

Planet of the Balancing Dogs

the asteroid god

Yeh, I know this whole thing doesn't make any sense... =shrug=

the haploids

A haploid is a cell or an organism that has only one copy of the chromosomes. The usual is two copies = diploid.

Frankenstein of the West

 

Not quite Sci-Fi...Frank travels forward in time?

Outerspace - Vol.1

The Land of the Head Vases

Ace Spacers

This is the front cover from a great paperback I've been plundering for images over the last few years - not much of it left now - a few tattered pages remain inside I thought I would pay homage with this collage for this weeks theme as it seemed pertinent. Science pic from an encyclopedia for children. Eyes from various places!

Space Wars!

Love this category...I'm posting one from the archives, while I get to work on a new one...

dr. kandinsky in his laboratory

One from my archives just to get us in the mood: "Science fiction" is not just technology like rockets and ray guns; it's also science—creepy, twisted activities in laboratories. I'll be making a new collage soon....

THEME: pulp cover art >>> science fiction

I'll start by quoting from the introduction in the 1998 book Pulp Culture: "At one time the readers of pulp magazines numbered in the tens of millions and the number of titles in the hundreds. The 'pulps' were  the successors to the story papers of the last century and the dime novels of the twentieth. Started in the 1890s, they reached the height of their popularity in the 1920s and 1920s and had largely disappeared by the 1950s—forgotten by all but a few avid collectors and cultural historians. But for many years they were the chief source of entertainment in a country [the U.S.] that was starved for it."

I can't get my iPad to give you the right link, so instead go to Google.com and search using these words: "pulp magazines pulp book covers." 

The pulps—named for their cheap paper that deteriorated rapidly, turning yellow, and then was pulped for recycling—came in a variety of genres: science fiction, western, detective crime thriller, romance, horror, and more. 

What we're doing this month is exploring some of the different genres, starting with science fiction. But you don't need to read any more text. Search on "pulp magazines pulp book covers" and add "science fiction": rocket ships, ray guns, aliens, bubble helmets.... You know the drill: look at the images and be inspired! =grin=

And hang on to any clippings relating to the other genres, because we're going to march through those as well. Have a blast, y'all! =laugh=