Happy Birthday Bill Clinton!

I suspect President Clinton commissioned this painting himself.

Happy Birthday Mr. President!

Barack Obama in the eyes of the press.

Respect

Happy Birthday President Kennedy!

JFK makes the moon safe for America.

Paul Revere's Ride 2.0

Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson!

Thomas Jefferson makes the case for Independence.

Happy Birthday to Old Hickory!

Andrew Jackson: Earth's defender.

Happy Birthday George Washington!

Thanks for keeping America safe, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln!

President Lincoln at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Happy Birthday President Reagan!

Exactly how I remember him.

Happy Birthday Benjamin Franklin!

Ben Franklin acquires electricity.

Happy Birthday Teddy Roosevelt!

Talk softly and carry an M-60.

Moebius (1938-2012)

French comic artist Jean Giraud, also known as Moebius, died yesterday at 73.  I give this guy credit for getting in early on the whole one-word name thing that made you instantly cool and pretentious.  I've only read one comic with his artwork, but it was a good one, a collaboration with Stan Lee on Silver Surfer: Parable, a two-issue limited series released in 1988.  It's arguably the best Silver Surfer story out there, not only because of Lee's faithful portrayal of the character, but the stunningly unique artwork provided by Moebius.  His Surfer was slighter and more nimble than previous incarnations, but complemented Lee's noble and graceful hero as no one had before. To the best of my knowledge, that was the first and only time he worked on a traditional superhero book. Too bad.  Most of his work is on science fiction and fantasy comics. From what I can tell, it's pretty cool, if not a little weird.  But hey, he's French.

Ralph McQuarrie (1929-2012)

The great concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, whose pioneering work created the look of Star Wars, passed away yesterday at the age of 82.  I can't think of any artist who has had bigger impact on pop culture.  The ideas may have come from George Lucas, but what we see on the screen came from the pen of McQuarrie.  Some of my favorite books to thumb through to this day are The Illustrated Star Wars Universe, and the three volumes of The Art of Star Wars, full of the worlds, machines, creatures and characters created by McQuarrie.

Without his designs, Star Wars may not have even been made.  When Lucas was struggling to sell his project to the studios, he used some of McQuarrie's early concept art to convince executives to green-light the film.   It's easy to see why.  His visuals have such scope, detail and imagination you really want to visit those worlds.  He won an Oscar for his design work in 1985, not for Star Wars (amazingly), but for Cocoon. He was also the conceptual artist for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial,  and the Battlestar Galactica TV series.