Arlen’s Events Blog
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THE SPECTRE free webinar 10/27
Thursday, October 27 @ 5:00pm EST:
THE SPECTRE OF THE SILVER AGE free webinar!
DC Comics’ ghostly character THE SPECTRE has been around since 1940, but has only been published in his own title since the 1960s, The Silver Age of Comics.
And while The Spectre has seen multiple versions of his own book come and go ever since, it is arguably those 13 Silver Age issues–illustrated by Hall of Fame artists Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, and Jerry Grandenetti–that remain his greatest outing.
So come join comic book art historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as he takes you on a SPECTRE-ACULAR sojourn through The Spectre’s stunning Silver Age career!
ZOOM MEETING: https://bit.ly/3VSWWqC
MEETING ID: 853 0597 3413
PASSCODE: 391832
“1964: When the ’60s Became The ’60s” webinar w/NY Adventure Club 10/18
Tuesday, October 18 @ 8:00pm EST:
“1964: When The ’60s Became The ’60s!” webinar via NY Adventure Club!
While the 20th century is packed with culturally defining moments in American entertainment history, no year was more transformative than 1964!
In a single year, American popular culture changed forever with musical moments like The Beatles’ debut on American television and Bob Dylan’s declarative The Times They Are a-Changin’; theatrical debuts like Fiddler on the Roof and Funny Girl featuring Barbara Streisand; and film debuts like Mary Poppins and Goldfinger. It’s time to explore some of the incredible artistic contributions of this very special year and their iconic legacies that still endure all these decades later.
Join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as we go month-by-month through the year of 1964 to uncover the artistic moments and stories that shaped it into one of the greatest years in American pop culture history!
CAN’T MAKE IT LIVE? Register and get access to the full replay for one week!
BATMAN-BILL FINGER free webinar 9/28
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 @ 6:00pm EST:
“BILL FINGER: The Man Who Made Batman, Batman” free webinar!
Since 2016, DC Comics (and its parent conglomerate, Warner Bros.) has officially credited legendary DC comic book writer Bill Finger (1914-1974) with the co-creation of Batman, in partnership with the (in-?) famous artist Bob Kane (1915-1998). But for all the years before that, Kane was solely credited, while Finger was virtually forgotten.
Yet it was Finger, not Kane, who made the initial graphic recommendations to Kane that gave “The Bat-Man” his distinct look and mystique, as well as so many other key story elements, concepts, and ideas that collectively make up most of the Bat-lore ingrained in our collective comics unconscious—like naming Batman and Robin’s civilian identities, along with Wayne Manor, The Bat-Cave, and Gotham City—and so much more!
So join comic book historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as he’ll make you see and understand the TRUE origin of the comic book superstar as if for the FIRST time!
ZOOM MEETING: https://bit.ly/3f07naK
MEETING ID: 818 9042 7825
PASSCODE: 591912
VIVIAN MAIER webinar via NY Adventure Club 9/14
Wednesday September 14 @ 5:30pm EST:
“VIVIAN MAIER: Greatest Photographer of the 20th Century?” webinar via NY Adventure Club!
The life, career, and truly unbelievable story of American photographer VIVIAN MAIER (1926-2009) gives truth to the adage that “truth is stranger than fiction.”
How else to describe how a woman with no formal artistic training could take over 100,000 photographs in her lifetime, hardly develop or print any of them, die unknown and unmourned—and then, in the quirkiest of fates, have her works accidentally discovered posthumously by a young photographer, who brings them to public exposure and subsequent acclaim, fame and renown?
So join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as we explore the life and career of Maier, and how her esteemed body of photographic works measures up to some of the greatest photographers of the 20th Century!
•••CAN’T make it LIVE? A ticket allows you to watch a recording of the webinar for up to a week after!
NEAL ADAMS webinar via NY Adventure Club 8/24
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24th @ 5:30pm EST:
NEAL ADAMS AND THE END OF THE SILVER AGE webinar via NY Adventure Club!
The body of work Neal Adams (1941-2022) produced near the end of the Silver Age of Comics (1956-70) caused something akin to a revolution in the look of comic book art itself.
Adams’ unique blend of dynamic anatomy and photographic realism made the superheroic fantasy worlds of comic books visually believable in ways never before seen; he once said, “If superheroes really existed, they would look the way I draw them.”
While Adams forged definitive artistic identities for several leading characters at both DC and Marvel Comics, from Batman to the X-Men, his visual acuity enabled his writer collaborators to break new ground telling the kinds of stories that could be told in comic books.
So come join comic book art historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as he presents an overview of Adams’ illustrious Silver Age career, dynamically displaying his comic book panels, pages and covers so that you’ll feel like you’re seeing them for the first time!
•••CAN’T make it LIVE? A ticket allows you to watch a recording of the webinar for up to a week after!
STERANKO webinar via NY Adventure Club 8/17
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17th @ 5:30pm EST:
THE SUPERCHARGED PSYCHEDELIA OF STERANKO webinar via NY Adventure Club!
JIM STERANKO has worn many hats in his career—artist, author, illustrator, art director, designer, entertainer—but he wore them all when he put on quite a show at Marvel Comics at the end of the Silver Age of Comics (1956-70)!
It began in 1966 when, as a virtual unknown, he was handed complete control of a second-string Jack Kirby character, the James Bond-knockoff Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. He promptly used Fury as an unlikely launching pad for his meteoric rise to prominence, which would result in him being dubbed the Jimi Hendrix of comics! Steranko invested the B-feature with a startling array of cinematic and stage storytelling techniques, wedded to the ascendant Kirby/Marvel style of in-your-face power. The combination was an explosion of alchemical proportions, and it blew the field wide open.
Each issue, indeed each page of Steranko’s Marvel works—including a stunning trilogy of Captain America stories—was a supercharged surprise, as Steranko relentlessly, iconoclastically experimented with mixed media applications, fusing a graphic designer’s with an illustrator’s approach to the medium of sequential storytelling.
So come join comic book art historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as he presents an overview of Steranko’s illustrious Silver Age career, dynamically displaying his comic book panels, pages and covers so that you’ll feel like you’re seeing them for the first time!
•••CAN’T make it LIVE? A ticket allows you to watch a recording of the webinar for up to a week after!
GENE COLAN webinar via NY Adventure Club 8/10
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10th @ 5:30pm EST:
THE MARVELOUS MILIEUS OF GENE COLAN webinar via NY Adventure Club!
With the obvious exception of Jack Kirby, no other Marvel Comics artist defined the look of as many major characters as GENE COLAN (1926-2011) did during The Silver Age of Comics (1956-70)!
Upon his arrival at Marvel comics in 1965, Colan first drew the underwater hero Sub-Mariner; Colan’s figures, graceful yet powerful, were perfect for an athletic swimming hero, and gave the character a regal aura that suited his title, Prince Namor. When Marvel gave Iron Man to Colan in 1966, he commented after, ”I wanted the reader to feel his emotion at times, not just be a metal figure always looking the same. So I took some poetic license. I tried to be very subtle with it, add a little humanity to the face.”
This quality of bringing to superheroes a realistic, human side made Colan perfect for the nascent Marvel style of heroic—yet somewhat tragic—protagonists. The blind hero Daredevil blossomed under Colan’s stewardship, because he convincingly depicted the swashbuckling side of the character as well as his civilian alter ego of lawyer Matt Murdock. And Colan’s Dr. Strange stories, drawn in cinematic, chiaroscuro shadings, with panel layouts and compositions that wended and warped their way through the page, befitted the ectoplasmic, otherworldly dimensions they were set in, and are a testament to Colan’s atmospheric style, one of the most unique in the history of comic book art.
So come join comic book art historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as he presents an overview of Colan’s illustrious Silver Age career, dynamically displaying his comic book panels, pages and covers so that you’ll feel like you’re seeing them for the first time!
•••CAN’T make it LIVE? A ticket allows you to watch a recording of the webinar for up to a week after!
JOE KUBERT webinar via NY Adventure Club 8/4
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4th @ 5:30pm EST:
THE SAVAGE STYLE OF JOE KUBERT webinar via NY Adventure Club!
Of all the giants of the comic book art medium, Joe Kubert’s unmistakable and unforgettable style made him perhaps the most expressive pen-and-brush artist of his generation!
Kubert entered the comic book field in the 1940s as a teenager drawing Hawkman for DC Comics. in the early ’60s, Kubert maintained continuity with his ’40s roots by returning to the character, who has been rendered by many artists since, but given his most definitive treatment by Kubert, despite a brief run of only six issues.
Kubert’s name and style became synonymous with war comics during The Silver Age of Comics (1956-70) because of years of service drawing World War II’s heroic American Sgt. Rock, and then later, the offbeat antihero, World War I German flyer Enemy Ace. Both became signature characters; Kubert’s gritty pen line and bold brushwork perfectly suited writer and partner Bob Kanigher’s emotionally wrenching writing.
So come join comic book art historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as he presents an overview of Kubert’s illustrious Silver Age career, dynamically displaying his comic book panels, pages and covers so that you’ll feel like you’re seeing them for the first time!
•••CAN’T make it LIVE? A ticket allows you to watch a recording of the webinar for up to a week after!
SUPERMAN lecture @ Westport Library 8/3
REGISTER for this FREE event: https://bit.ly/3vu80it
GIL KANE webinar via NY Adventure Club 7/27
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27 @ 5:30pm EST:
GIL KANE webinar via NY Adventure Club!
If the human figure is the foundation of comic book drawing–indeed, of all drawing–then its epiphany is found in the distinctive, dynamic style of Gil Kane (1926-2000), one that matured demonstrably during lengthy runs on a pair of DC Silver Age superheroes, Green Lantern and The Atom. Kane’s figurework was both a primer on structural anatomy and musculature, and a lifelong quest to endow his characters with all the grace and lyricism his drawing prowess could muster.
When he began to illustrate for Marvel in 1966, Kane paid homage to his mentor Jack Kirby by incorporating all of Kirby’s new dynamism into Kane’s own idiosyncratic style. This caused a quantum developmental leap in Kane’s own artistry, which he fed back to the field in two unlikely vehicles: a Grade-B superhero for Marvel (Captain Marvel) and a toy-based superhero for DC (Captain Action).
So come join comic book art historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art) as he presents an overview of Kane’s illustrious Silver Age career, dynamically displaying his comic book panels, pages and covers so that you’ll feel like you’re seeing them for the first time!
•••CAN’T make it LIVE? A ticket allows you to watch a recording of the webinar for up to a week after!