Ken Bald and GEM Studio

Up until 1983 the closest I came to a comic strip was reading one.

That all changed when Ken Bald asked me to color a few Dr. Kildare sunday strips. I was a storyboard artist in advertising at the time, and aside from some package design and a few magazine & newspaper spot illustrations, I didn't have much in print. So this was a big deal to me. I remember being pretty cautious, but the thought of seeing it published in a week or two got me jazzed.
But enough about me, I'd rather tell you about Ken.

Ken Bald has been an illustrator since the early '40s. While studying at Pratt Institute he became art director & lead figure artist at the Binder studio, producing comic book art for Fawcett Publications, the Captain Marvel publishers. Then the war broke out and Ken signed up.

After serving honorably in World War II, Ken resumed his carreer as an illustrator, creating comic books, comic strips, movie posters and ad illustrations, before becoming one of the most in-demand storyboard artists in the advertising industry.

Ken joined Gem Studio as Creative Director in the early '80s, and they created a cottage industry of storyboard & animatic art that would last for two and a half decades. From an original crew of three illustrators and various freelancers, Gem went on to grow in staff and dominate the advertising art market.

Much of this was due to Ken's creative direction and generous instruction to our group of illustrators.
No matter how busy he was, Ken would always take time out to help us with a tough pose or show us how to draw a closer likeness. No one draws film, sports and tv stars like Ken Bald. Nobody.

Here's an example...I'll keep adding Ken Bald illustrations for the next couple of days.
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12/2/07 update...

This storyboard frame is one of the first pieces Ken made at Gem. It was used in a promotional booklet.

Here's an example of Ken's loose inking style, before the marker rendering.

Billy, Rodney & George.

Ink illustration for another promo piece.
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12/3/07 update...

Both of these pieces below were created for GEM's "Black Book" ads. Does anyone remember that directory? Back then, if you weren't in the Black Book you were small time. All of the illustrators had to concept and produce their own illustrations for these promotional ads, and if we didn't get it right by the first or second submission it would become a commitee project. Needless to say, we all tried to get it approved on the first try.




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12/4/07 update...

This Bahamas art was another promotional piece Ken created for our promo brochure, perfect subject matter for his style. The Early Times Bourbon ad in the center is by John Moodie, another master sketch artist and close friend of Mr. Bald. John liked the look of Magic Markers, and used them exclusively. His visuals were always crisp and looked like watercolors. His linework was always done with color Pentel pens.
The Proctor Silex toaster below is by Mr. Check Hom, who also worked closely with John creating product art for his storyboards and print ad comps. Every senior illustrator had their own product guys. Check worked with John and I worked with Ken. In addition to our product work we were also responsible for our own workload of storyboards and print ad comps.

Julius...

El marinero flotante y las gauchas...

I'm still enjoying the book "LIFE: America's Parade" (2001), especially interesting are the vintage balloons and their abstract designs.

This visual caught my attention> because it looks like an Oscar Grillo illustration come to life, with its unique composition, color splashes and a certain sailor hovering above the cowgirls.

The photo was taken in 1968.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

The top two balloons are from 1948 & '47, and they both made an appearance in todays Macy's Parade for the first time in sixty years. I'm hoping that they bring back the clown next.

All photos are
Copyright 2001 Time Inc.

From the book
"LIFE: America's Parade"

Honeymooners promo art...

These ads were created for comic book distributors' preview catalogues, usually produced within a day or two. I was responsible for writing the copy, creating the illustrations, hand-lettering and production. They were a lot of fun to work on.

"The Thing" from another flat file--

I was five years old when I first saw "The Thing from Another World". Most of the overlapping and science-heavy dialogue couldn't hold my attention, but when the creature made his appearances my eyes widened. Just the thought of all those people being held hostage in a remote ice station by an alien monster made it seem like a terrifying version of the "I'm gonna get you!" game of hide and seek I'd play with my older cousins. The creature scared the hell out of me, but I couldn't look away.

The most interesting aspect of this film is how little screen time the alien creature was given. And when he is on-screen he's cloaked in shadow. Less was more, much more, as opposed to contemporary horror and sci-fi films wherein all of the gore and details are polished in cgi and thrown at us in each and every scene.

These sketches of the Thing were done while watching a vhs copy and trying to figure out just what this elusive creature actually looked like. In the sixteen years since there have been digitally remastered vhs and dvd releases, along with photos and "making of..." articles in mags like Filmfax, Outre and Cinefantastique, etc... But at the time I made these studies all I had was a vhs player and a pause button.

Looking at these sketches with older, wiser(?) eyes I see plenty of places where I dropped the ball - I didn't notice that he had a chest emblem, five fingers on each hand, his head's too bulbous, etc... but I do remember having fun drawing them.

I hope you've seen this film and appreciate it as much as I do. If you haven't seen it, I envy you- you're in for a real treat.

"Keep watching the skies!--"

We support--

tremors--

The Creature...

It was twenty years ago today...

...give or take a few months.

After working at GEM Studios for eight years, doing storyboards and finished art I decided to pursue some comic book work. I enjoyed superheroes, but I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of drawing them. Norm Abramoff owned a small comic book shop in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and one day while we were talking I mentioned that I was interested in creating comics. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a surprise hit, so doing a small press comic seemed feasible. By chance I had my portfolio in the car, and while looking through it Norm suggested licensing a well known property and turning it into a comic book series. The Honeymooners was a big late night syndication hit on TV, so he thought that property might be a good candidate for publishing.

Norm and I partnered with Triad Publications and produced the Honeymooners for three years. The best part of the job was managing and directing a small group of freelancers- friends and co-workers I'd met and whose work I admired. My buddy Vinny Abbruzzese would help me out on cover art by airbrushing our logo, while Susan Sykes and Ted Camut would assist me in rendering the story pages. I'd do the inks and color the figures to set the lighting and Susan and Ted would take it from there. When they were done I'd make a final pass over it. Some sequences, like the midnight snack and exploding hot dog were solo efforts. Vic Spadoni supplied color tinted covers for a few issues, as well as cover art for issue four. The 48 page Christmas Issue would have been cancelled without the help of Brian Postman, who provided two full page pencils and lots of color work.

A young Jimmy Palmiotti did some retouching for us on a photo of wrestler Lou Albano and a carousel horse for our interior covers of the Coney Island issue. And Evan Dorkin expressed interest in working with us, but he never did for some reason or other.

John Reiner of the comic strip Howard Huge (Parade magazine), helped out with page layouts for the issue in this post, but I don't have any recollection of how he became involved. Maybe our publisher, Ron Merians hired him to help me get ahead of schedule. I almost had the chance to work with Jim Fern, but it never happened.

A big highlight in the run was when the legendary Jack Davis illustrated a wrap-around cover for our "Coney Island Baby" issue. One of the biggest, most beautiful pieces of illustration I've ever seen. I wonder where it is now?

The greatest part of the whole experience was working with breakdown penciler Win Mortimer. Win began his carreer at DC in the late '40s, and was one of their most prolific cover artists. In the early '60s DC began publishing Batman Annuals. Their cover art was usually a large Batman figure and a few reproductions of the covers from stories reprinted in the issue. Win's covers were always my favorite, so you can imagine how happy I was to work with him. He was a consummate professional, always getting his pages in early, and every panel was perfect.
At least until I got in there and mucked it up with my inks.

It was lots of work and lots of fun. I hope you enjoy these images.

Rods and Monsters...

This is another Franky image from the same "80s book as the previous post. I was a big fan of Mr. Monster in the eighties, loved Michael T. Gilbert's art and quirky scripting style. Old MM stayed in print for at least ten years and was always a fun read. Sadly these days MM is only the host of "Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt", a series of articles appearing in Roy Thomas' "Alter Ego" magazine. I think Michael T. is currently writing stories for Disney comic books, I'm hoping he'll script a few more MM adventures. I miss that ol' monster hunter!

Old tricks...

These are out of a sketchbook from '82. In those days NYC was an anything goes place and totally out of control. There were guys selling reefer on every corner, cars being stolen every minute and drug treatment centers filling every square inch of open real estate in the run down sections of the city.

It looked like the kind of place that would scare Frankenstein's Monster, so I did a few gags based on that notion. Over on the "Gum or Mints" blog the subject is Frankenstein's Monster, I'm doing something new for that site but I thought it would be fun to post these here.

Break shot...

Time stood still in some parts of my old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Old bars full of old drunks and Pool Rooms populated by "hitters" who never grew out of the fifties. Most of the tough guys were gofers for the local mob family, low level thugs who would get their hands dirty while the capo's sat in their social clubs sipping espresso and talking about the old days. I'd occassionally see incidents like this one, and then document them in sketches, with varying degrees of success.

(detail, inks & prismacolor pencil, 1976)

a work in progress...

Here's something I'm working on for the "waitress" theme currently being explored at the gum or mints blog. I'll post the progress here and the final piece there.

Old School...

This was a "dummy" of a magazine, created in May of '73 for a school assignment. At the time I was influenced by the art nouveau approach, Peter Max, Andy Warhol and everything else that floated by. And, of course The Beatles.

When I was given the assignment I immediately thought of creating a music magazine and plunged into the layout stage.

In those pre-Mac, dark days everything had to be created by hand and in position. Color prints were too costly, and color copiers didn't exist. So I worked on acetates, inking with rapidographs and painting color behind them for all of the article illustrations.

The cover was created on bond paper with rapidograph pen, color inks and Letraset rub-on type. The masthead was hand lettered.I can't remember how long this took, I'm thinking at least a week.

What I do remember is having a lot of fun producing it.

Something old, something blue...

Editorial sample, 1978. Ink, watercolor, paper & type.

Searching for a character...

There's a waitress at Billy's Deli in Glendale named Evelyn, she's amazingly funny and sweet, and she's from the Bronx. I've been trying to sketch her from memory, but it seems like the only thing I'm getting right is her dialogue.
I'll have to bring my sketchpad to Billy's and order a brisket sandwich.

Art from the Crypt...

These go way back to the early '70s. I was working a lot in pen & ink and color pencils on illustration board. I was also devouring any Will Eisner art I could find. Eisner's still a big influence on my work today.