Month: July 2013 (Page 3 of 3)

The PopCult Bookshelf 

This week the PopCult Bookshelf takes a look at a great new comic book that’s appropriate for all ages. After depressing PopCult readers earlier this week with news of how kids are abandoning action figures the same way they did comic books, I felt that it would be good to remind you folks that there ARE still good comic books being published that kids will enjoy. This week we’re looking at one of the best comics for kids on the market, AW YEAH Comics!

You may remember a few months ago I plugged the Kickstarter campaign for this title. The campaign was successful, raising far more than its goal.

However, I miscalculated when the campaign would end, and wound up missing out on a subscription to to the book, so I’m playing catch-up with the first two issues, ordered directly from the AW YEAH Comics! Publishing website.

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GI Joe, the first action figure

It shouldn’t come as any shock to longtime readers of PopCult that I am a toy collector, concentrating mostly on action figures. I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out of my hobby over the years. Part of the appeal is recapturing my childhood, only with an adult’s budget, and part of it is simply a life-long fondness for the toys and an appreciation of the work that goes into them.

However, I fear for the future of my hobby. I don’t think action figures will ever go away completely, but I can see warning signs that the action figure as we know it might be evolving from a toy for kids into a collectible for adults. This sort of thing happened to comic books, and I have a bad feeling that it might be happening again. This could just be part of the boom/bust cycle of childbirth playing havoc with the toy industry, but it shows signs of being a more permanent shift.

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Today’s art is my tribute to Comic art great, Wally Wood. Wood was a master of science fiction, first gaining notice at EC Comics in the 1950s. He continued to master every genre, from horror, to superheroes, to humor, Westerns, and fantasy.  This painting, which recycles the spaceship from my 2013 Steetworks design, features my sad attempt at emulating Woody’s masterful inking style, then painting over it digitally to hide some of the mistakes.  Click it to see a bigger version, and check out my black-and-white original below.