Orson Welles on...
Brickman Returns
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Orson Welles speaking For the next five paragraphs, everything you read will be untrue and based on solid lies. In 1979, the artist Jim Steranko was a guest at the UK Comic Convention in Birmingham. During a panel,a member of the audience asked what kind of pencil he used. Steranko replied that he had "special Steranko pencils" made, with his name lettered down the side. "With these pencils, you can draw anything,"Steranko continued.
"Can I have one?" the young man asked.
For a moment, there was silence and then Steranko beckoned the young man up to the stage and handed him a golden pencil from out of his shirt pocket. I am reliably informed that Steranko whispered,"Take care of it kid, that pencil's got possibiities."
The young man used the pencil to rough out a comic strip called "Brick Person" for a fanzine called "After Image". It posed the very real, very relevant question; "What if a brick had flown through Bruce Wayne's window, instead of a bat? The young man went on to develop the character. He fearlessly challenged the ogre of political correctness by renaming "Brick Person" as "Brick Man". As his career took off and he found work with Marvel (Transformers, Dr Who), IPC and The Beano, the young man found his time at a premium and he could only return to his original character sporadically.
But now, Brickman Returns!
Lew Stringer (for it is he) has assembled a retrospective collection of the best of Brick. A literal heir to the world famous terracotta art of Nuneaton, Lew Stringer brings the same flinty satirical edge as fellow Nuneatonite Ken Loach brings to his movies.
Each page is solidly composed. At heart a strong enduring silicate concept, supported by cartooning of aluminate plasticity, this collection is given increased durability by Stringer's colouring (experts would instantly recognise the orange of Brickman's costume as testament to at least 6% iron oxide).The fire of creation is assisted by alkaline wit and a quicklime intellect to mould the concept and bind the parts together. And of course, on top of all that, there's the Steranko Pencil!
But, Ladies and Gentlemen. I have a confession. We told you that for the next five paragraphs, everything you read will be untrue. But those five paragraphs ended with the words "Brickman Returns!"
You can buy Brickman Returns - which is a work of comic excellence from Lew Stringer's own website at
http://www.lewstringer.com/page7.htm
(Hmmm. Do you REALLY want me to read that? I suppose you realise you have me saying "found" twice in the same sentence? And I would defy you to say, "the fire of creation is assisted by alkaline wit". It's NOT humanly possible within the English language!)