Before Alex Steinweiss convinced Columbia to allow him to design album cover art for Smash Song Hits by Rodgers & Hart in 1939, album covers featured just text on the cover. When the sales of that album skyrocketed, Columbia paid him to continue designing covers, and he went on to design roughly 2,500 of them over the next 35 years.
I will be presenting nearly 60 of Steinweiss' record covers (most of them from the '40s and '50s) in a gallery display entitled Steinweiss: the Inventor of the Record Album Cover, hosted by Wild Goose Creative in Columbus, Ohio.
The grand opening of the display is Saturday, May 9th, at 7:00 pm. Program notes will be provided. If you're in the area, please stop by and enjoy the designs and innovative techniques of this important 20th century graphic artist.
Wild Goose Creative is at 2491 Summit Street, in Clintonville. Parking is available on Summit and behind the building.
WGC is a non-profit, community driven arts company. Learn more at: http://www.wildgoosecreative.com/Wild_Goose_Creative_%7C_Home.htmlAnd learn more about Alex Steinweiss at: http://www.alexsteinweiss.com/as_index.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Steinweisshttp://soundfountain.org/rem/remcovart.html
That's right, I said the best. Who are Glen Brunswick and Dan McDaid? I'd never heard of them before picking Jersey Gods off the shelf for the title alone and the classic, Silver Age vibe it projected. Now I know: these guys are the bomb.
Brunswick, in two short issues, has created not one but three worlds, each with their own unique environment and array of sharply defined characters. The operative word here is fun - and good-natured suspense. This was like reading a 1965 Thor in 1965 for the first time: fresh, and exciting.
McDaid brings it all home with a classic style forged from the fires of Kirby, Frank Robbins, and Alex Toth, with the quicky, juicy inklines and spontaneity those gents' work conjures in the mind. I'm a Dan McDaid fan for life now.
With a Mike Allred cover for the first issue, a Darwyn Cooke cover for the second issue, and a Paul Pope cover for the third, Jersey Gods is essential reading. A backup series by Mark Waid seals whatever deal you weren't going for.
Check out these links for more info:
Jersey Gods blog: http://jerseygods.blogspot.com/
Dan McDaid's blog: http://danmcdaid.blogspot.com/
Dan McDaid's website: http://danmcdaid.com/
Clint Eastwood is one of my heroes. Here's a man who's directed six interesting, ambitious feature films over the past six years, with another one in production. Several of them have been nominated for, or have won, Academy awards.
The kicker is this: Clint Eastwood is nearly eighty years old (he was born in 1930). At an age when many of his peers have given up on life, or are wasting their time until their last day on Earth, Eastwood is plowing on ahead, creating vital art.
Along with other fine film directors in their sixties and seventies (David Lynch, Woody Allen), Eastwood is refusing to view himself as irrelevant or incapable of speaking of current and future generations. To this, I say: what an example, and I hope I'm still sane and creating at that age!
Before Alex Steinweiss convinced Columbia to allow him to design album cover art for Smash Song Hits by Rodgers & Hart in 1939, album covers featured just text on the cover. When the sales of that album skyrocketed, Columbia paid him to continue designing covers, and he went on to design roughly 2,500 of them over the next 35 years.
