I found this in the Vault
today, a promotional balloon from the 2012 Franktastic Christmas
party event featuring an image by
me, commissioned by the Frank Sidebottom Statue Fund the image was
originally used for the event's poster (based on artwork that Frank
himself created for his Christmas is really Fantastic LP) but I
was tickled pink so see it also feature on the events balloons! You
will recall this event played a major part in raising funds for the
statue of Frank which now stands proudly in his home town of
Timperley.
holding a portrait of her dogs that she commissioned.
It's been a rather emotional time, my grandmother Marie Julia Roberts was laid to rest this week after a long battle with Alzheimer'saged 79. Although I try to keep these posts 'relativity' light
and on topic it's actually seems only right that I devote this post
to nain* because when I was aged three I believe she steered my
life in this direction. It is very likely that I would not have been
an artist and so this very website might not have ever existed had it
not been for my grandmother and something that happened when I was
three years of age. As I amused myself with a box of felt-tip pens
and some sheets of paper I drew some clowns, why clowns I can't
remember, but I drew a happy one (the one featured on this post), a sad one, a fat one and a thin one
and when I was done I showed them to my grandmother who not only
praised them but also showed them to everyone and told me that I had
talent, I was told that I could actually draw and from that day on I
was the kid that drew cartoons that aspired to someday becoming an
artist.
Although we didn't always see eye-to-eye at times she was
always the one Id go to during a 'crisis' and she was always
supportive of my craft and when there was an artist or cartoonist on
the TV my grandmother would inform me of it and if there was an
article in the paper she would save it for me. As I grew older and my
style developed I would still be summoned to gran's house to show off
my portfolio to a distant relative or friend of the family that had
stopped by that day and the first art sale I made was a cartoon I
sold to her when I was trying to get some money to buy a comic and I
guess you could say that my first solo art exhibition was the time
she pinned my drawings up in her porch. She encouraged me to go to
art collage, attended end of year shows and was there for my
graduation. Since her illness worsened six years ago not a day has
gone by that I haven't missed being able to go over to see her, tell
her for the millionth time that I didn't like tomato sandwiches
before tucking into a plate of cheese on toast with Branstonpickle and tell her about my latest projects and ideas. I have
no idea what direction my life would have taken had it not been for
her support and the thought of pursuing this course without her makes
me incredibly sad but onwards I go. I intend to see it through as I
firmly believe its what she would have wanted.
I miss you nain x
As addressed in my
previous Prehistoric Pinning devoted to (former) Dinosaur World Colwyn Bay I do love me a fibreglass dinosaur! Another park which
catered to this love of model dinos was Drayton Manor which I visited
back in 1995. A relaxing walk leading up to the Zoo it also had some
handy placards providing information about dinosaurs and yes being an
excitable, hormonal teenager I hammed it up for the camera... Drayton
Manor Theme Park near Tamworth first opened to the public in 1950
after the Bryan family converted 80 acres of derelict land into this
tourist attraction which now sees more than one million visitors each
year. Always wanting to give the public something new and exciting
they introduced Dinosaur Land to the park in 1975 before opening a
phase 2 the following year that adjoined the
park’s zoo and this was filled with life-size models of dinosaurs
(as Wikipia put it, “to intrigue and enthrall the kids”) sadly I
have been unable to find a list of all the dinosaurs that featured
however when ‘Dino Land’ closed in 2009 the attraction had
featured the following exhibits,
I
say “closed” it was actually re-located and re-named ‘Dino
Trail’ in 2010 and I am pleased to report that some of the original
dinosaurs feature in it, namely the T-Rex, Baby T-Rex,
Euoplocephalus, Iguanadon, Dimetrodon, Titanis, Pachycephalosaurus,
Ornithomimus, Styracosaurus, Protoceratops, Placodus, Tanystropheus,
Tylosaurus, Elasmosaurus and the Nothosaurus. Back
in 2016 it was revealed that the old section, despite being closed
for several years was still standing and offered some amazingly
beautiful sights of derelict dinosaurs and cobwebbed cavemen! Seeing
as the previous post featured some postcards from the attraction I
thought I would also include the ones I have from Drayton Manor (referred to as 'Lost World') If I manage to track down others I will update accordingly. My
sincere thanks to Drayton Manor’s Education Officer Lee Green for
his time and kindness.
Drayton manor 'Lost World' Postcards Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex
Iguanadon, Phororachos, Cave Bears and Sabre Tooth Tigers
Remember the 2008
writers strike? When 12,000 screenwriters and TV
writers armed with placards demanding compensation from the
large studios for all the DVD's and online download sales they were
excluded from? As the US television
industry ground to a halt most actors found themselves cooling
their heels waiting for it to pass and one of them was one of my
favourite actors, the King of the 'B-movies', Bruce Campbell star of
The Evil Dead, Maniac Cop and Bubba
Ho-Tep
who used the strike as
an opportunity to come over the UK to meet fans and promote his
latest movie My Name is Bruce and I.. had appendicitis...
Robbed of the
opportunity to meet one of my all time favourite actors I spent the
next ten years monitoring the UK convention circuit hoping that he
would come over and see us again and sure enough this month he
embarked on a UK and Ireland tour promoting his latest book 'Hail to
the Chin'. Confident that my appendix would not spoil my plans again
Mrs Jones and I set off for London to attend Walker Stalker Con a convention devoted to
The Walking Dead (a show that Bruce Campbell hasn't been in and I
haven't watched) to meet one of my idols. Since my good friend David
Lynch introduced me to the Evil Dead trilogy twenty years ago in art
collage Bruce Campbell has been a constant part of my life. I've
based a lot of my own style and my attitude towards life, my keenness
to discuss his work played a small part in the courting of Mrs Jones,
I've read his books, played his computer games and even dressed as
his most famous role for Halloween (see previous post) and so to
finally have the opportunity to meet the man himself, shake his hand
and thank him for the happiness his work has given me was a genuine
delight, he even complimented my shirt!
Hail to the King Baby!
Today is
International Women’s Day and we celebrate women that have inspired
us, so I thought I would celebrate one of my
favourite female artist Milicent Patrick. Regrettably not many of us
recognise the name but we certainly know her work and that's it
really, very little information about her and her life exists! We
think her real name was Mildred Elizabeth Fulvia di Rossi and that
she was the daughter of Italian baroness Baronesa di Polombara and
architect Camille Charles Rossi and that she worked both in front and
behind the camera but received very little onscreen credit for her
work and that's about it, nobody really knows what became of her
after the 1980s and even the Screen Actors Guild simply lists her as
‘missing’. But if we accept what we (sort of) know it makes her
an amazing woman worthy of celebration as she would have not only
been the first female animator hired by Disney but also the designer
of the Xenomorph in It Came from Outer Space and the Metaluna
mutant from This Island Earth. We know she worked as a mask
maker on Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Mole People and we know that she created one the most
famous, iconic creature designs for Universal, the Gill Man from The
Creature from the Black Lagoon because during Universal’s
marketing campaign for Creature from the Black Lagoon they billed
her, “The Beauty Who Created the Beast” along with photos of her
sketching the Gill Man and posing with the mask. Unfortunately this
was to be her undoing however when make-up artist Bud Westmore took
umbrage with her not crediting the entire team involved in its
creation (she had in fact credited the staff on numerous occasions
ironically a trait Westmore himself did not share) and he vowed never
to never hire her as an artist again thus killing off a promising
artistic career. This sad factor
aside she was clearly a tremendously accomplished artist and responsible for one of
the most iconic screen monsters ever created and I salute you
Milicent Patrick, wherever you are!
I found this in the Vault
today, a promotional balloon from the 2012 Franktastic Christmas
party event featuring an image by
me, commissioned by the Frank Sidebottom Statue Fund the image was
originally used for the event's poster (based on artwork that Frank
himself created for his Christmas is really Fantastic LP) but I
was tickled pink so see it also feature on the events balloons! You
will recall this event played a major part in raising funds for the
statue of Frank which now stands proudly in his home town of
Timperley. 
