Tuesday, May 03, 2005

This Artist Is Good - Christine Norrie

Have not done this in awhile, and I figure now is as good a time as any, so here is my little spotlight on an artist that I like who might not be considered a "superstar."

Christine Norrie had done a lot of small indy work (a pin-up here, a shrot story there) when she got the opportunity to be the artist on Jen Van Meter's Hopeless Savages, and she really shone there.

Here is a sketch by Norrie (from her super-cool website)

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This sketch by itself is enough to demonstrate the awesome expressiveness that Norrie brought to Hopeless Savages, which was especially useful for a project such as Savages, which relied greatly on the reader's association with the characters for the book to be a success. Norrie's design work did the job well, I think.

She then inked Bryan O'Malley and Brian Hurtt on Queen & Country, showing her ability to work in a much darker style. Very cool.

She also worked on Bad Girls for DC, and I would show you a sample of her art on that series, but I do not have any...as she did not do the covers (the covers were done by Darwyn Cooke, so they DID rock most heavily).

Wow...Bad Girls had a nice pedigree, didn't it? Cooke on covers, Jennifer Graves drawing #1 and Norrie doing the next four. Niiiice.

Her best work, though, in my opinion, was on her own graphic novel (that is not that surprising though, is it? That someone's best work would be something of their own...), Cheat.

Here is a preview (again, all these images are coming from her cool website).

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Note her use of black?

Very cool.

That different type of style persists throughout the book. Heck, just look at the cover of Cheat to see how it is definitely different from Norrie's other work.

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Recently, she has been doing children's books and Disney strips, but next year will hopefully see the release of the much-anticipated (by me, at the very least!!) graphic novel she is collaborating with Jamie Rich on - 12 Reasons That I Love Her.

It should be awesome.

Rich has a good eye for talent.

What do you folks think of Ms. Norrie's work?

7 Comments:

Blogger Alex Segura said...

LOVE Norrie's stuff. Wow. I need to go buy Cheat again. Wow.

5/03/2005 09:56:00 PM  
Blogger Alex Segura said...

I thought she just inked the Queen and Country issues, though?

5/03/2005 11:18:00 PM  
Blogger Brian Cronin said...

You are, of course, correct, Alex.

Tis corrected!

Thanks for the pickup!

5/04/2005 02:21:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

My only exposure to her has been through [b]Hopeless Savages[/b]. It, of course, was great fun. I'll have to keep an eye out for [b]Cheat[/b]. At 72 pages for $6, it would be hard to say no.

There's a really lengthy negative review of the book on Amazon.com. There are also two positive reviews, but what about you guys? Is the story as good as the art?

5/04/2005 04:52:00 PM  
Blogger Brian Cronin said...

No, Scott, I did not!

I thought her Scholastic work was illustration work, I didn't even know Scholastic MADE graphic novels!

COOOOOL!

5/04/2005 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger Brian Cronin said...

As for the story of Cheat, Tim, well...I really really liked the art.

Hehe.

5/04/2005 05:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cheat: great art, somewhat predictable but emotionally-charged story that made me depressed (which it was meant to, so I'll call it a success).

5/05/2005 07:56:00 AM  

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