I think its safe to say that, in general, as crime story illustrators go, Joe Bowler was a great romance story artist. Still, petty details aside, its impossible not to love his masterful sense of composition and page design and top-notch painting skills. Plus, its just kinda neat seeing Bowler characters holding guns!
* Be sure to check out all of this week's scans at full size in my Joe Bowler Flickr set.
You know, what I've noticed is a lot of the illustrators used cool lighting with warm shadows. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but perhaps with the higher contrast stuff, a bigger warm shadow draws the eye in as well as the key lighting from the scene.
ReplyDeleteIt's just interesting, because today's painters/illustrators seem to always paint warmly lit scenes. I guess I'm speaking mostly of the fantasy illustrators. Which is a whole can of worms I try to avoid.
Anyway, these have been a real treat as I'm doing research for a short comic story that's set in the 50s.
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Thanks for that Shane - I'm not a painter so I can't add anything knowledgable to your observations, but I wonder if this might not be part of what was being taught in the Famous Artists course...
ReplyDeletePlease let us know when your comic story is ready!