Art For Art’s Sake #311: Of Sienkiewicz And ‘Stray Toasters’
by Richard Bruton
In the words of Bowie’s Major Tom – ‘For here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world, planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do’ – well, Major Tom could have whiled away his time looking through a little of the great comic art I’ve found on the Internet for you. It’s Saturday, it’s Art For Art’s Sake.
This week, we end with a look at Bill Sienkiewicz‘s ’80s book Stray Toasters, a book well ahead of it’s time in so many ways, a visual feast where the artist rather let fly…
Like I say, that’s for later. For now, more and more and more and more art…
Darryl Cunningham‘s brilliant Dalek invasion of Oz. Russell T Davies, are you seeing this?
George Perez – The Thing
Matt Wagner – Batman and the Red Hood
Doug Braithwaite – Conan
Tom Scioli – Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre #2 variant
Skottie Young – Han Solo
Michel Fiffe – Darkseid
Dan Panosian
Paul Soeiro – Princess Projectra and Karate Kid
Ty Templeton – Legion of Superheroes and meet Super Bugs
John K Snyder III – Zorro
Alex Toth – The Fox
Jenny Sparks – Jeff Spokes
Joelle Jones – Exceptional X-Men
Chris Bachelo – Black Cat
Frank Quitely – The Dark Knight
Javier Rodriguez – Absolute Martian Manhunter #2
Christian Ward – Absolute Martian Manhunter #2 variant
And we shall finish this week with Bill Sienkiewicz’s very strange Stray Toasters – an absolute visual throw it all at the wall of a comic from 1988 and Marvel’s Epic Comics line.
Still (at least I think) the only long-form thing Sienkiewicz has written and drawn. When it came out it was rather dismissed as an artist going over the top for effect. But it’s actually a book that’s a fairly simple serial killer noir thing, albeit it with the sorts of visual invention you’d expect.
What’s it about? Well, the blurb will give you all you need to know:
‘Locked up for a crime he didn’t commit, burnt out detective Egon Rustemagick is released from a high security mental institution in order to catch a serial-killing monster who is murdering and mutilating housewives and young children.’
