Favorite Authors and Favorite Artists

(Lady Macbeth, by Steven Pugh)

The author of the website Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time! asks comic artists for sketches of their own favorite authors or literary characters. The collection has grown enough since 1998 to be written up in the Los Angeles Times. There are some small treasures that may someday be regarded as the definitive portrait of their subject.

There's an ongoing tradition in fandom of collecting sketches by favorite artists. Some of the more interesting collectors bring their own sketchpad and collect different artists' interpretation of a particular character. (And some unscrupulous "collectors" auction them off on ebay, getting hundreds of dollars of a sketch that cost them ten to fifty dollars.) This is the collection I've seen that has interest beyond the world of fanboy/art class freaks like me.

Here is Colleen Coover's (Small Favors, Banana Sunday) take on Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice:


... And Jill Thompson's sketch of Carson McCullers (Ballad of the Sad Cafe, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter):

Eric Canete's Truman Capote...


... And Gene Colan's sketch of the great Bill Mauldin:


David Hahn's Yossarian...


And Jeeves and Wooster by Roger Lanridge.


More literary-artsy goodness here; the artists and subjects are listed along the right-hand column.