New Gif: Floating Head of Doom

collage gif by JRC

This new piece is comprised of fewer images, and all together simpler than my earliest from this series. It is though, composed of some of the first images that spurred me to start this project. I've had ideas for this grimacing character, but just recently have thought that I might flip my own script. At this point, it is important to not let my ideas lock in and dictate what comes next, to just let them percolate and join up without too much force.

The central figure is the Floating Head of Doom, an image that's cropped up in many different forms since I was a young kid. Here it is represented by a repurposed one-off character, the titular star of "Broadway Cop" illustrated by Bob Powell for "I'm A Cop" comics from 1954. Later, Powell helped create the Blackhawks, edited the satire magazine SICK for many years, and worked on the infamous Mars Attacks trading cards.

There's a couple of great sites making comics with expired copyright available, digitalcomicsmuseum.com is my usual haunt, and comicbookplus.com is another. I'm a lifelong comic book reader and fan. Reusing comic art is a sensitive issue, and has been since Pop Art broke in the mid-1950s. It shouldn't be done without attribution and credit.

The background image is a composite of two photos, "Joe's Auto Graveyard (Pennsylvania)", by Walker Evans found via the Getty Open Content Program. Unfortunately, I stupidly forgot to note what the other photo for the composition was, but I'm pretty certain I found it via the library of congress Print and Photograph collection. Sorry, I'll keep looking and update if I find the original scan again. This is another lesson in not trusting your memory or your computer's open tabs to always be there when needed.

This card will have a back to it, which I'll probably work on next.

I'm also researching for another article in Atomic Elbow though, so I may be delayed in getting to it.