Brian M Kane: 2017

Monday, February 27, 2017

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Welcome to my Portfolio!

As a freelance artist, writer, and editor I have had the opportunity
to work with some amazing people. My portfolio includes not only
my personal art, but my work as a book designer, cover designer,
photo and art digital restoration specialist, digital colorist,
and teacher of digital artmaking for non-artists.

I have sixteen years of undergraduate art teaching experience in
both traditional and digital artmaking techniques. I have authored
three books and dozens of articles on the history of illustration
and the history of comics, and my writings have been translated
into French, German, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, Croatian, and Serbian. I also wrote
several sections for the first History of Illustration (2018)
textbook for Fairchild Books/Bloomsbury Publishing.

For more information please contact me at bmkane1@aol.com

Book Design -- Book Covers

James Bama: American Realist (Flesk, 2006)

The cover art was selected not only because it is an iconic image of
Doc Savage, Bama's most recognizable character, but because warm
tones attract the eye. The black frame was deliberately chosen to
create a physical and visual space between this book and other
books when displayed facing out on a bookstore shelf. The
same concept was repeated with the spine vignette.

Teaching and Learning Emergent Research Methodologies in
Art Education (Unpublished)

The author supplied the photograph for this cover with
the instruction to run a rainbow down the road.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 13: 1961-1962 (Fantagraphics Books, 2016)

The cover layout for this series was established by the original
designer. As the current Editor of the series, I am responsible
for image selection and placement. Images, or in some cases
whole pages, are chosen from the 104 Sunday Prince Valiant
pages included in each volume. Since each page contains
between three to eight panels, the process can be challenging.

Here, Vols. 13 and 15 contain images that represent the various
storylines in each book, while Vol. 14 is thematic of the series.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 14: 1963-1964 (Fantagraphics Books, 2016)

See the Restoration -- Artwork portfolio for an example of the
restoration work executed on one of this cover's panels.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 15: 1965-1966 (Fantagraphics Books, 2017)

Prince Valiant, Vol. 16: 1967-1968 (Fantagraphics Books, 2017)

Prince Valiant, Vol. 17: 1969-1970 (Fantagraphics Books, 2018)

Prince Valiant, Vol. 18: 1971-1972 (Fantagraphics Books, 2018)

Book Design -- James Bama: American Realist

Half Title

Contents Page

The entire 160-page book was designed as spreads rather than pages.
No two spreads were exactly the same. This spread shows the same
model used in the painting on the left for Tomboy, but also in the
(larger) first printing of The Heller on the right. Additionally, it
showcases a later printing of The Heller painted by Bama,
but using a different model. The use of color backgrounds,
color proofs, covers and photographs allowed for
more creative designs.

The Harrad Experiment sold millions of copies -- based on the cover art alone.
That distinction demanded that it have its own spread. Bama's photographs
were used not just as a design element, but to allow viewers to see how
they informed the art. Though certainly a Realist, Bama is not a
Photorealist, which is evident when one critically
compares the photos with the final painting.

In addition to covers and color proofs I had hundreds of photo negatives
taken by Bama during modeling sessions. Including these photos
(some using different models) gave me the opportunity to
examine Bama's creative process.

Chapter breaks were designed to establish both a visual theme and color scheme.

For this project I had to restore every book or magazine cover back to mint
condition. This meant that every title, author's name, caption, price point,
and logo was digitally recut. In certain cases, as with this photo, the
artifact on the left fell out of frame once the image was enlarged to
fit the spread, so I moved it into frame to enhance the design.

Book Design -- Prince Valiant reprint series

Prince Valiant, Vol. 8: 1951-1952 (Fantagraphics Books, 2014), pp. 4-5.

In 2013, I became the editor of the Prince Valiant reprint series with

Volume 7, after assisting Kim Thompson on the first six volumes. I

just finished my twelfth volume (Fall 2018). My duties include

writing biographical or art historical articles, compiling and

annotating backup galleries, finding artwork for both the front and

back matter (from international collectors, museums, and libraries),

digitally restoring photographs and art, creating preliminary layouts,

working with designers and art restorers, procuring talent to write Introductions, and proofing the final product before it goes to press.

The series has appeared on the New York Times "Best Sellers"

list, and nominated for several Eisner Awards.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 8: 1951-1952 (Fantagraphics Books, 2014), pp. 6-7.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 12: 1959-1960 (Fantagraphics Books, 2015), pp. 110-111.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 7: 1949-1950 (Fantagraphics Books, 2013), pp. 116-117.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 14: 1963-1964 (Fantagraphics Books, 2016), pp. 118-119.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 14: 1963-1964 (Fantagraphics Books, 2016), pp. 4-5.

Prince Valiant, Vol. 15: 1965-1966 (Fantagraphics Books, 2017), pp. 4-5.

Book Design -- The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion

Title Page with Credits.

The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion was designed to
not only be informative, but also visually interesting. For
this title page I selected a scene of Prince Valiant with a
book. After all, this is a book about a book. The credits
were designed as a contemporary scroll.

Client: Fantagraphics Books

Client: Fantagraphics Books

Book Design -- Bob Peak: Reflections (unpublished)

Bob Peak: Reflections was a proposal for a book
that never saw print. This is the design for
the Title Page.

An example of an opening chapter spread.

My intention was to design pages with no more than
three pieces of art. Here I wanted to control the eye
and slow down the pace of the viewer by using
images that point to the opposite page.

We know in our public consciousness that speed skating and skiing
are fast sports. Bob Peak's art beautifully resonates with that
sense of kinetic energy. Because our culture reads from
left-to-right, I designed this layout to take advantage
of that natural flow in order to enhance
the drama of this spread.

Restoration -- Photos

Remove ink line though figure and face.
Client: Vanguard Publications.

Digitally splice image back together.
Client: Vanguard Publications

Correct for chipped areas, cracks, and foxing.
Client: Vanguard Publications

Correct for chipped areas, smudges, reflective gloss then add sepia tint.

Client: Fantagraphics Books

Color adjust then remove dirt.

Client: Private customer

Restoration -- Artwork

This was one of the most demanding and time consuming digital
art restorations I have ever executed. The cover was only
printed in red and black; however, the halftone color of
the haystacks was comprised of interwoven Bed-Day
dots (an earlier form of Zip-A-Tone).

Client: Fantagraphics Books

Client: Flesk Publications

Client: Fantagraphics Books

Restoring printed pages that are off register is common. Trying
to restore a page that has all four channels shifted completely
independent of one another on both the X and Y axis is
insane. See the panel below for another example from
this page, and go to Book Design -- Book Covers for
the entire page as it appeared on the cover of
Prince Valiant, Vol. 14: 1963-1964.

Client: Fantagraphics Books

Client: Fantagraphics Books

Client: Flesk Publications

Sometimes color transparencies become corrupted with dirt or there

is loss of color from transparencies sticking to each other.

I have established techniques and the patience to

digitally bring these pieces back to mint

condition -- all with only a mouse.

Client: Flesk Publications

Personal Art

Four slides from a Power Point presentation showing me drawing
and inking Snoopy as part of a multi-media biographic exercise.

Batman short story, "As long as there shall exist..." (unpublished).

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight sequel story proposal (unpublished).

Prince Tuftan

Pen/brush & ink on 2-ply Bristol board.

Komando and Tuffin in Snoozyland was simply a joke that came
to me while visiting the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
I thought, "What if Jack Kirby's, Kamandi and Prince Tuftan
were really nothing more than characters in one of Calvin's
(and Hobbes') bad dreams?" Including the bed from the
classic Little Nemo in Slumberland speaks for itself.

All of the black & white art is original pen/brush and ink on 2-ply
Bristol board. Colors for the first four panels were scanned from
old comic books, while the last panel is digitally colored using
a palette based on the original comic strip colors.

Tarzan Sleeps

Brush/pen & ink on 2-ply Bristol board.

Moonshadow

This was a T-shirt design for Null G Sports consisting of three
silkscreen plates (white, blue and violet). The blue and violet
plates deliberately overlapped to create a fourth color. Once
printed on a black T-shirt the bleed-through from the shirt
created the silhouette of the hang-glider -- essentially
adding a de facto fifth color to the design.

The blue and violet plates stacked on the left were made
using brush and ink on clear acetate.