December 23, 2006
[above] The Reagen building on the night of Dec 22 on Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street in Washington DC. More DC Photos here.
SHORT NOTES: JACK KIRBY AND WASHINGTON DC
I was in Washington DC for a couple of days visiting family and to see the "The Artist's Vision: Romantic Traditions in Briton" at the National Gallery of Art. Below is a watercolor titled A Loch in Scotland by George Fennel Robson. This jpeg image does not do justice to the actual colors that are in the piece. The exhibit was not very large, but it had art by Wm. Blake, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, John Dixon and John Martin.
I walked around the DC mall and took my millionth photo of DC buildings. Here are a few below:
[above] They call this the "Old Executive Office Building." it was originally built in the 1870s, but has been slowly gutted and rebuilt from the inside since the 1950s. It's on the right hand side from the White House, and at one time housed the War Department, - - all of which now is across the Potomac river at the Pentagon. The building now contains the offices of the Vice-President. I was in this building in the 1980s (when I was a messenger) and there was a very large tunnel underneath guarded by Marines (and I presume, Secret Service). The tunnel took a visitor to the basement level of the White House - - I suppose the whole thing has been remodeled since those days, though, as back then I was able to walk right in and drop off my packages without being stopped. The building reminds me of German architecture. For that matter, so does the much more modern Reagan building that I posted above. More DC Photos here.
[above] Washington DC of the present: they're gutting and rebuilding right-and-left in DC where real estate has become so lucrative. The building in the photo above (on the right) used to have a little international art gallery on the ground level corner. I also used to rent a parking place in the basement, it ran about $200.00 a month in the 1980s. The lot has since closed, probably because it's a security risk since it faces the White House across Lafayette Park. The building on the left is where I used to work from as a messenger. More DC Photos here.
Okay, back to our regularly scheduled program of comic book related material:
I am reading the old Simon and Kirby Captain America tales from the 1940s via the 2000 "Classic Years" repro volumes. I'll post a review soon. [Cover above is the Kirby drawn printed in the reverse of the book.]
[Above: Scott McDaniel art from Green Arrow #69] I was flipping through comics on the rack and saw these two panels. The minimalist inking on the mask really caught my eye. I hope to get a chance to read the whole issue and post a review here soon.
I like Kyle Baker's artwork, though the typography can be pretty jarring when it's like this!
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