Wonderfest! May 26-27, Louisville, KY

Once again, I'll be spending Memorial Day in Louisville, KY at Wonderfest. This is my 13th year attending the toy and model show, and I always enjoy myself. I'll be signing copies of The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim at the FAB Gear booth all weekend, I hope some of you will stop by and say hello.
For more info on Wonderfest, stop by their website here:
http://www.wonderfest.com
This year's guests include Robert Picardo, Denise Crosby, Lori Nelson, Zacherle, David J. Schow, Greg Nicotero, Bob and Kathy Burns, Pat McClung, Bill Stout, John Eaves, Mark Schultz, John Goodwin, Vincent Di Fate and more.
Hope to see some of you there next weekend!
Anthony

Things to Come - Making the Transition to Long Pants

Here's a portrait of the artist as a young man - very young. A photo of Mike Trim at the ripe old age of 5 years old, outside the family home in Fulham, London. Yes, I know it's hard to believe that this image didn't make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim, but we had to include the one of him in his pedal car - that was non-negotiable!
Mike's obsession with Dan Dare and the art of Frank Hampson was only a year or two away when this photo was taken.

Agent Crush - New Images

The Agent Crush website has been updated with TONS of new images. New behind-the-scenes galleries have been added, and the existing ones have been updated and expanded.


There are new photos of Mike Trim and the crew building models of all stripes, as well as many examples of pre-production artwork that haven't been seen before.


Mike even managed to find work for some "old friends", as evidenced in the image above! The movie is really shaping up and it looks to be "Puppet Soup for the Soul" for all Supermarionation fans.


No word yet on a release date, but I'll post something as soon as I hear. In the meantime, have fun exploring the website - and tell a friend about it!


All images ©2007 Agent Crush Productions

Mike Trim Space Art - Vintage 1973

Another week, another piece of art that didn't make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim.
This is one of the sample pieces Mike did when he decided to go freelance in 1973. Given his earlier science fiction experience, he imagined he'd end up doing a lot of that sort of work. As it was, Mike did very little Sci-Fi work during his years as an illustrator. This led to an increasing sense of frustration and the eventual emergence of The Unknown project in the late '80's. This was an original stab at a sci-fi themed puppet production Mike developed with his friend and former student, Mark Munroe. The project remains unfinished.
Click on any of these images to make them bigger. You knew that, didn't you?

Ranch Of The Future: Cattle Not Included

Here's this week's "Unseen" image from Mike's time on Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

Designed in 1966 for an episode of the series, this was yet another opportunity for Mike to play at being an architect. Felt tipped pens were a new innovation at the time. Unlike conventional ink pens, they offered a clean and easy media, with the added advantage that the ink was not completely waterproof and could therefore be blended with a wet brush, as shown here. Although the original paper has faded over the years, even when new it had a slight tint and that's why the white gouache highlights and tones were added.

Another new image goes up next week - be there! Aloha.

Welcome, Starfighter!

Welcome to the Unseen Mike Trim, week 2!
This is another image that we didn't have room for in the book, a gouache illustration of a Starfighter jet that Mike created in the early 1980's. This image is a combination of airbrush and good old-fashioned detailed brushwork, and was created at a rather small A4 size. Working in such a diminutive aspect means that the illustration demanded great accuracy in every respect. Mike's love of aircraft really shows through in this piece.
Another image will be posted next week, so stop back then!

Obscured By Crowds - The Unseen Mike Trim

As promised in my last entry, here's an image that we didn't have room for in The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim. This shot was taken in the Winter of 1964-65, outside the AP Films Studios in Slough (you can see a bit of the giant smokestacks and crane gantries of the industrial estate in the background). Mike and fellow modelmaker Roger Dicken are having a bit of a larff with a "pal" that's been frozen in the ice.
I'm happy to report that the fellow was lucky and only suffered slight frostbite.
Just kidding of course - obviously these are some fake legs from a mannequin that the duo set out the night before expressly for this photo.
More unseen images to come in the weeks ahead.

Mike Trim gets WIRED

The Thunderchild diorama featured on the Miketrimart.com webpage has been immortalized today in WIRED magazine's blog, here. It's also at Neatorama, and a nice photo of S.I.D. and a link to the website made it onto Stephen Years Dot Com.
Thanks for the mention, folks!

I'll be posting images here on this blog that didn't make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim due to space limitations beginning in the next 48 hours or so. I hope to post at least one new image every week until they're all up. Keep checking back, there's some excellent stuff that didn't make it into the book!

More CRUSH!

The spiffy new website for AGENT CRUSH is now online, featuring an interview with Mike Trim, plus loads more of his designs for the film!


There's even an edited, scored preview sequence available, which looks fantastic.

It looks as though Ioan (Mr. Fantastic) Gruffudd has signed on the voice Crush, replacing Ewan MacGregor.
I'm really looking forward to the finished film - hope it gets a real theatrical release here in the States.


All images COPYRIGHT © 2007 AGENT CRUSH PRODUCTIONS

Hearts of Glass in Canyons of Steel: New York Comic Con 2007

The photo above shows the Jacob Javits Center, the New Yorker Hotel, and the Empire State Building. I've just returned from spending several days in two of those places - didn't get to the ESB this trip. The New York Comic Con was a much better experience this year than last; at least I was able to get inside for all three days. Last year, the Fire Marshal shut the doors at around 2 p.m. on Saturday, causing a giant logjam of frustrated fanboys unable to get their four-color fix... me among them.


I was there to sign copies of The Future Was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim, and enjoyed spending time with Hermes Press Publishers Dan Herman and Louise Geer in the booth (that's Dan above), as well as meeting fans of Mike's work. It was very cool to meet fellow HP author Ron Goulart who made an appearance on Saturday to sign his new book on the pulps. I've been a fan of Ron's work since I was very young and read his novel, "Nemo," as well as his Vampirella and The Shadow books. Ron's written more adventurous prose than just about anyone on Earth, and he was a truly nice fellow as well.

I also had a fun and productive time with Christopher Jones and Melissa Kaercher, my friends from Minnesota. Chris is one of the most talented artists in comics today, and we're working together on a graphic novel. It was great to be able to hammer out some details of the project in person, and we hope to have the book out sometime early next year. It's a period mystery, set in Hollywood in 1966 - lots of pop art atmosphere along with some noir-ish touches. I'll post more details in the future.


One of the coolest things about my trip was staying in the New Yorker, the hotel where mysterious genious Nikola Tesla spent his last years, and died in 1943.


If it weren't for Tesla, we'd most likely be sitting around making blog posts on difference engines by the glow of gaslight; he worked out the power delivery system that brings electricity into our homes. He most likely worked out a great deal more than that, things that may take years or centuries for us to rediscover. To say that he was eccentric and a bit troubled is an understatement. The plaque above is affixed to the New Yorker on the 34th Street side, commemorating his residence there.