I'm not familiar with John Pound's work. It is staggeringly good though. It's got the right level of cartooning, pleasing exaggeration, and sumptuous rendering. It's really the rendering of form that makes these images sing. They look like stills, or concept art, from the greatest unmade animated feature by a parallel universe evil-Disney studio. What really gets me is the sfumato, the atmospheric depth, he's able to create. I like that these images aren't trying to be photo-realistic, but rather ascribe to the cartoonish logic of their world, but still, have the physics of our reality. It's a world I wish I could spend some time in more than just these images can provide.
All artwork by John Pound
Benjamin Marra is the creator, writer, and artist of the comics NIGHT BUSINESS, AMERICAN BLOOD, and TERROR ASSAULTER: O.M.W.O.T. (One Man War On Terror), all published by Fantagraphics. Acclaimed writer Grant Morrison chose Marra as a collaborator on the first issue of the relaunched HEAVY METAL Magazine. Marra had two serialized webcomic series appear on adultswim.com. His most recent book is JESUSFREAK, written by Joe Casey and published by Image Comics. In 2016, he was named one of the Art Directors Club's Young Guns. He illustrated the cover of American Illustration 35. In 2017, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for his album art of Wayfaring Strangers: Acid Nightmare, a collection of obscure 1970s post-Age-of-Aquarius Heavy Metal.
This past year, as everything from Broadway theaters to suburban cineplexes closed for the pandemic, streaming TV became storytelling’s biggest stage...
