I thought I would give this blogging thing another try, believe it or not it has been a whole week since my last blog, lol! There were a Couple of Comic Book Birthdays this week, I wanted to say Happy Birthday to two of the Amazing Artists that I had the chance to photograph for my book project, The Artist Within: Books 1 & 2, First Trina Robbins. Trina was an early and influential participant in the Underground Comix movement, and one of the first few female artists in that movement. Both as a cartoonist and historian, Robbins has long been involved in creating outlets for and promoting female comics artists. In the 1980s, Robbins became the first woman to draw Wonder Woman comics. So, Happy Birthday Trina!
Also Happy Birthday to the Original Marvel Girl, Marie Severin!
"Marie began her legendary career in comic books at EC in 1949 as a colorist on her brother John Severin's work in "Romance comics" # 9 "A Moon, a Girl" . She worked outside of the comics industry and at Atlas, the precursor to Marvel. Marie joined Stan Lee's bullpen in 1959. Eventually, she added penciling and inking to her credits, beginning with a Doctor Strange story in Strange Tales # 139. Marie penciled or inked a number of books in the Silver Age, including The Incredible Hulk, Tales to Astonish, Submariner, X-Men, The Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man, Daredevil, Not Brand Echh, and Kull the Conqueror, inked by her brother John."
As I mentioned, both Trina and Marie are some of the over 240 Artists that I photographed for my books of portraits of Comic Book Artists, Cartoonists, Animators and Illustrators, "The Artist Within" and "The Artist Within: Book 2" you can purchase both on Amazon, or directly from me at our website here:
https://sampselprestonphotography.com/purchase-the-artist-within-books-1-2-links-here
you wont be disappointed.
Also this weekI had a wonderful call out about my books from Matt Burtram and the Podacast "Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing", be sure to check out these great podcasts, lots of great SEO info!
Speaking about SEO, all this week I have been working on my website's SEO (search engine optimization) strategy, Yes, a whole strategy, it is maddening! So what does SEO strategy mean? Well I'm not 100 % sure that I know the answer, it is a learning thing, I have been putting up new images, and trying to get people to the site so they can look at it, & blogging. I have been also working on the social media side of my SEO. According to my friend Dan McElhattan, an expert at Identity and Branding here in Las Vegas, it somehow all works together what sort of alchemy is this SEO stuff? and, so far so good, I think? As I go along I will let you know how it is working, if you have ideas on this craziness please share, perhaps sacrificing a goat might help, again still figuring this out.
Dan or Mister Wizard as I call him, is my go to marketing expert here in town, he will tell you that is not the case, but when I whisper his name over my computer, it shutters in fear, so...Give Dan a call, seriously he knows stuff!
So I have been going through the studio archives of past work this week and I came across a file box that contains film from an old project that I worked on around the time I was graduating from Art Center. My Author project was the precursor to "The Artist Within". Back then I had been working on a personal quest photographing portraits of science fiction and fantasy authors at book signings. I would travel from my home in Vegas down to L.A. to do some portraits, (better book signings in L.A.), and would stay with my friend Scott Shaw and his wife, Judy. It was on one of these trips that I showed Scott my portfolio of these Author's photo's. Up till that point I had photographed maybe 30 authors including: William Gibson, Octavia Butler, Victor Koman, Larry Niven, Anne McCaffrey, Joyce Carol Oats to name a few. Here are a few of those, I will show more in subsequent posts if you"d like, let me know, Thanks!
