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The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy

Started by ming, 15 May, 2012, 10:20:20 PM

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Andy_Lee

Does this pic on eBay look a bit odd, or is it just me?

http://r.ebay.com/Dy6f5C

This one looks a bit looser than his usual style.

Andy

ming

It's a pretty old piece, so it's probably legit (I've asked Brendan for confirmation, anyway).  The Mirkin looks a little different to his general appearance, but is in line with some sketches I've seen.  With Mirkin and Paradax! this is definitely a rarity - although I've got better!

ming

Well it looks like a real rarity - a fake McCarthy.

From Brendan: "Bizarre... a fake Paradax! picture. Not a bad attempt. Wonder who's behind it?"


Andy_Lee

Blimey I was right. I'd love a bit of Mirkin though.

Fatboydale

Quote from: ming on 26 October, 2012, 10:38:08 PM
Well it looks like a real rarity - a fake McCarthy.

From Brendan: "Bizarre... a fake Paradax! picture. Not a bad attempt. Wonder who's behind it?"

Is Mr McCarthy sure !!! couple of reasons pop up ..... why a Paradax picture ??? it looks like it has some age to it and the whole complex of the art seems too much .... and the and the signature & Artoons rings a bell ...if you was gonna fake it , you would draw a more popular character , like Dredd ???

I bought a page of art directly from an Artist at a small con, he told me it was a early student / promo piece of his ...10 years went by and i wanted it signed .... the Artist told me it wasn't his and must be a fake and pointed out the problems .....

My point been Artists tend to forget artwork they have drawn .....and if i was a betting man i would say it was Original ...

Frank

I'm bearing in mind the weekend I became convinced that Cam Kennedy's cover for The Suspect (342) may actually have been drawn by Jim Baikie here, but the inking style of that piece doesn't look to me like it represents any period of McCarthy with which I'm familiar. It features really clean, deliberate, dead-weighted brush lines; more redolent of someone like Steve Rude than The New McCarthyism.

Warming to my theme, I'm going to confidently declare that there's none of the eccentricity or personality you'd expect from our Bren' evident in the lines of the zig-zagging lightning effect, the crooked little finger, or the flare around the waving hand. I've only seen a couple of examples of McCarthy's work in the flesh, but each amazed me because upon close examination the technique and individual details appeared quite careless; yet when you took in the image as a whole it resolved itself into something quite masterful.

Now I've typed all that, Brendan will get in touch with Ming to say he remembers doing that artoon after all. Actually, while googling Paradax art to find a comparison, this further denial from McCarthy on Bleeding Cool came up:

ONLY THE TRUE McCARTHY DENIES HIS DIVINITY

The seller claims to be "a comic book artist of 20 years plus which adds to my belief!" and adds rather cheekily, "How sure is (McCarthy), and for why?". I wonder who Robot Dave24 could be?

Spikes

Curiouser and curiouser!
To my untrained eye, and especially now that doubts have been cast, im not sure that this is Brendan's work, either.
(But relating to what Sauchie touched upon, that Angel gang pin-up that i thought was by McMahon, turned out to be by Cam Kennedy, so what do i know!)

Interesting to note that it made Bleeding Cool so quickly, as well.

ming

All I can say is that Brendan seemed pretty sure that this is a fake (reinforced by the Bleeding Cool comments), and my impression of him is that he really isn't that precious about his early work - if something is technically a bit rough and not something he's happy with now, he just says so.  'That old stuff', kind of thing.

Anyway, I contacted the seller with the info and had a reply saying that he's trying to get to the bottom of it with Brendan.  I guess the sale should be binned, but I doubt anyone'll go near it anyway.


Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Judge Jack on 27 October, 2012, 06:44:51 PM
(But relating to what Sauchie touched upon, that Angel gang pin-up that i thought was by McMahon, turned out to be by Cam Kennedy, so what do i know!)

Just curious... This one?

If so, that's not Kennedy...

Cheers!

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Spikes

Yep, thats the one. Wasnt there a thread - or a good part of a thread about this, and it was confirmed that that piece was by Cam?
Never could quite get my head around it TBH.

Frank

FREE BEER AND COMPULSORY SPLIT-CROTCH PANTIES

Resuming my Andrew Graham Dixon impersonation, looking at even just the first panel of the strip in the link above, the lines aren't as smooth and tapering as the supposed artoon, the thicker outlines and edges of the solid blacks are more ragged, the line forming the outline of the baloon doesn't quite describe a perfect closed circle in quite an endearing way.

Anyway, more fannying about turned up this podcast where Brendan talks about his set visit to the new Mad Max film, the creation of Zaucer of Zilk and reprints of McCarthy's 80's stuff, including Paradax, Electic Hoax, Freakwave, Skin and Skreemer. Very excited, since I haven't read even half of that:

INTERVIEW AT 1:03:40

ming

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 27 October, 2012, 07:20:58 PM
Quote from: Judge Jack on 27 October, 2012, 06:44:51 PM
(But relating to what Sauchie touched upon, that Angel gang pin-up that i thought was by McMahon, turned out to be by Cam Kennedy, so what do i know!)

Just curious... This one?

If so, that's not Kennedy...

Cheers!

Jim

This was discussed back in April after Pete included the Angel Gang pin-up in a McMahon post on his covers blog.  I checked with Cam and he confirmed it was one of his, not Mick's.

Quote from: ming on 15 April, 2012, 12:24:35 PM
Quote from: Judge Jack on 29 March, 2012, 06:41:39 PM
I still cant quite square that in my mind as being drawn by Cam.
Ming, hurry up and ask him!  ;)

From Cam:
"From this old fuddled memory I seem to remember the editor askin' me if I could adhere to Mike's style. I have vague memories of Mike bein' ill for a period of time and I suppose they were obsessed with continuity."

:)

Fatboydale




[/quote]
The seller claims to be "a comic book artist of 20 years plus which adds to my belief!" and adds rather cheekily, "How sure is (McCarthy), and for why?". I wonder who Robot Dave24 could be?
[/quote]

Well its not fucking me ....,I own pages of McCarthy and tbh some of his art does not look like his ...for instance :



its just baffles me that anybody would copy a low value picture ...


Jim_Campbell

Quote from: ming on 27 October, 2012, 07:35:37 PM

This was discussed back in April after Pete included the Angel Gang pin-up in a McMahon post on his covers blog.  I checked with Cam and he confirmed it was one of his, not Mick's.

That's odd, because Dave Gibbons told me that the pin-up was the only time he ever inked McMahon back when they shared a studio.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

ming

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 27 October, 2012, 07:20:58 PM
Quote from: Judge Jack on 27 October, 2012, 06:44:51 PM
(But relating to what Sauchie touched upon, that Angel gang pin-up that i thought was by McMahon, turned out to be by Cam Kennedy, so what do i know!)

Just curious... This one?

If so, that's not Kennedy...

Cheers!

Jim


Yes.  ...and now the penny drops.  I finally remembered the comments about this being Dave Gibbons inking Mick's pencils, not Cam at all... Possibly Cam was just referring to the Slaine covers he did in an usual style, although I tried to be clear when discussing this with him.  I'll dig a little deeper...

This thread's going way off track, but hey.

:)