SiDEBAR - COMICS, ART & POP CULTURE

Podcast Episode 176 :: PHIL HALE

Click here to listen to the show

Making the transition into a new phase of our lives is always a challenging proposition. Even in our professions, attachments get made, bonds are formed, and none of these connections are easily severed. Sometimes, it can take years. Ask Phil Hale.

Phil worked as an illustrator early on in his young career, and that wasn’t something he set out to do. After being mentored by his friend, artist Rick Berry, moving the paintbrush for art directors just sort of happened. A “validation thing”, he says in our talk. And yet, it didn’t go unrewarded. His clients, we’re sure, must have been happy with his work. They continued to give him assignments. And his name became a very popular one amongst art collectors as well as fans. But in his time doing illustration, Phil grew weary of it and longed for other things.

Over the course of the next decade or so, his career focus shifted from working illustrator to working portrait painter. As it turns out, Phil comes from a long line of artists, specifically portrait artists, on both sides of his family tree. And his own work in this field received international notoriety in 2007, when he was commissioned by the House of Commons to paint a portrait of (then) Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

These days, however, if you wanna see a new Phil Hale image, don’t look for it on a book cover or in some portrait gallery. Your best bet is to seek out his next gallery show either here or abroad. Phil has fully and finally returned to personal work and he’s all the better for it. In a recent email exchange I had with him, he did share that while his exodus from illustration has been on-going, he still loves it. But judging from the breadth and depth of his personal work, clearly, he’s right where he should be.

Hope you enjoy the interview.

- SWAiN

*Our conversation with Phil covers some of his background, his friendship with Rick Berry, his thoughts about picture-making, and his plans to attend Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! this summer as one of its special guests.

The image above is an old fave (Swampy), and the one below is an example of Phil's newer work.

Ep. 81: The Evolution of JASON SHAWN ALEXANDER

"Change in life is inevitable. My advice to you—embrace it and move on." - R. Hardy

Man, what a statement of truth that is. For some, probably a painful one. For artist, Jason Shawn Alexander, change has served him and his art, pretty damn well.

We first became acquainted with my man's work through rather odd and circuitous means. Dwight bought the Dark Horse mini-series, The Secret, just because he dug the covers. Me, well...I was a big Gotham Central fan, scooped up the two issues Jason did with Ed Brubaker, and thought, "Hmm, nice, but who's this dude?" Three months ago, a forum member named MarkCalifornia posted a link to Jason's blog on our board, raving about teaser images from his upcoming project, Dead Irons.

And most recently, I stumbled across his official website through a series of links, went nuts going through his gallery goodness, then realized he was the same guy from all of the above (we're so sharp here at the 'BAR...)

The fast-forwarded version of Alexander's bio goes something like this: born in Iowa, raised in Tennessee and self-pubbed after high school before doing Empty Zone at Sirius Entertainment. Moved to North Carolina, hung out with George Pratt and Kent Williams, took up traditional painting and he's been extra awesome ever since! Oh yeah, and he now lives in Los Angeles.

    

To be serious for a minute (not Sirius), we used the word evolution in the title because that's what truly transpired along Jason's journey. He's very much a different artist from what he was in his younger days and it was moving to hear him speak about his desire to grow.

Dwight and I chatted with him from his LA studio about all of the above and well, everything in between. It's a pretty full conversation and definitely gives you some insight into the mind of one Jason Shawn Alexander.

Be warned though, once inside—there's an awful lot of single malt Scotch (ha)!

Click here to download the show.

Ep. 68: Back for the First Time...RAGNAR!

The title of this interview is a reference to the man's first appearance on the show last year—an episode we lost! The audio crashed, the back-up was never found, it was ugly... But hey, today we've been given a second chance at greatness and greatness we deliver!

Ragnar is not only one of our favorite creators, he's also one of our favorite people. A wonderfully knowledgeable guy, a student of his craft, a committed family man and often seen wearing...what? The colors in his palette! Do tell! Plus, he's just a super nice guy. His response to the aforementioned lost episode was, "No worries, I understand completely" (and just so you know, we were worried as hell).

To us, as long as Steranko and Prince aren't in the room, he's the coolest guy around with one name. We met him in person for the first time at this year's ACE and for the convention, he brought with him a mucho smaller version of his Comic-Con set-up. It was all really quite neat. Books, prints, mugs, chimps, skate decks—again, just neat stuff. He sat in on about three panels that weekend and we thoroughly enjoyed his presence as a guest.

Now, the work. Ragnar's done tons of work in animation, but will tell you himself that a good bit of it, you may never see. His clients over the years have included companies like Warner Bros, Disney, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. However, with the nature of animation and the film business in general, projects often start off one way and end up somewhere else by the time they finally come out. And that's especially true for Development, which is the area he's contributed to the most.

What you can see though and plenty of it, are his own creations! Books like Chromaphile, Vernaculis, Kings of the Road and the newly released Symptomatica! All of them fantastic and all get the high SiDEBAR Seal-of-Approval (which means dick, but go buy 'em anyway, they're hot)!

Our conversation with him stays pretty loose since we all sorta know each other, but we do get to some key items. Big City being one, Symptomatica being another, and the latters being his upcoming all-ages book and where he got his name. Beyond that, the rest is just filler—but it's some damn good filler (ha)!

**For this episode, we played a snippet of Dead Kennedys "California Uber Alles" in honor of Dwight's timely reference.

Little Cartoons

Symptomatica Blog

Click here to download the show.