March 2017 - Page 3 of 6 - ChipInHead.com

We’ve been here almost two years, but it took me until now to get to a burlesque show and draw!

Luckily I got to start at an exceptionally fine one, as Queer’lesque producer Sheila Wolf, above, invited me to draw Vaudeville Variety at the Wintergarten.

Berlin’s legendary Wintergarten is a classic cabaret supper club, with velvet seats and a starry sky ceiling.

It is beautiful, luxurious and comfortable, a fitting tribute to the original Wintergarten which was destroyed by bombs in 1944. I had a table to put my stuff on and wasser mit gas and everything!

I was seated next to Gloria Viagra, shown here; Gloria was the afterparty DJ and is a very well-known Berlin performer. We had a delightful chat!

The show was wonderful. I couldn’t draw everybody, but I did get in a lot of drawings.

The ravishing, award-winning boylesque babe Tom Harlow (legs for days!!!) danced to the Tom Jones and Jools Holland version of “St. James Infirmary Blues”. I drew Dave The Bear, stripping to “Video Phone”.

I was mesmerized by the sublime “Opium and Bondage” performance of Marlene Von Steenvag, where she actually ties herself into a rope harness at the end while dancing.

And I made two drawings of the amazing, the breathtaking Immodesty Blaize!

I’d never even dreamt I’d get to see her perform live. Let me tell you, the only thing more amazing than Immodesty Blaize in a corset is Immodesty out of a corset!

I stopped drawing after the second one and just watched her move. Here‘s Immodesty and Gloria, with Sheila in the background!

Immodesty Blaize at Vaudeville Variety by Suzanne Forbes March 19 2017

These drawings are licensed Creative Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; you are welcome to share them or print them out as long as you give credit to Suzanne Forbes, artist.

You can find full-size downloadable versions here on my flickr. Burlesque album (NSFW!)

As always, the support of my precious Patrons on Patreon makes it possible for me to do this work documenting the community and share it with you all. You can help for as little as a buck a month!

Update: here’s one of the beautiful pictures Gloria took of me. Look how fucking happy I am in Berlin. You can see the rest here, on Gloria’s pinup fashion feed!

Photo of Suzanne Forbes by Gloria Viagra, March 19 2017 at Vaudeville Variety

One of the all-time greats of comic art has just died. Bernie Wrightson has passed on at only 68.

He was a genius who elevated comic art to new level. HIs pioneering work co-creating Swamp Thing opened an incredible space and laid the groundwork for the Moore-Bissette-Totleben run, which impacted me and my boyfriend Rob profoundly. His legendary creative fellowship with Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Barry Windsor-Smith and Michael Wm. Kaluta at The Studio inspired my generation of comic artists to be artists, not work-for-hire content producers. (There’s a book!) He worked on dozens of famous characters in comics and movies, from Batman and Spiderman to The Punisher, and with Stephen King and Steve Niles. You can’t begin to imagine how how influential his work was.

Every time you looked at his Frankenstein work, you just said, how the hell can anybody be so good?

He set a standard for excellence that was so inspiring. I never met him, though I was at the same con as him a few times during my pro career in comics. A great regret, and a tremendous loss of a great artist who was loved by all.

There are six pieces of original Bernie art available for sale at the Comic Art Fans site right now. There’s lots of gorgeous images available to print in the Wrightsons Zazzle shop too.

RIP, Bernie Wrightson.

Update: SO much better! My friend and colleague at ESDIPBerlin, illustrator Rafa Alvarez, collaborated with me to make this picture actually look the way I imagined it in my head, using his amazing skills. I feel like together we did some justice to Bernie’s inspiration. Every new generation of comic artists and illustrators shares the responsibility of carrying this torch.

Bernie Wrightson Memorial Collab Suzanne Forbes x Rafa Alvarez March 20 2017

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Suzanne Forbes, a New Yorker thriving in Berlin. Crowdfunded documentary art made possible by the generous support of her Patrons. https://www.patreon.com/SuzanneForbes.

Monthly Archives: March 2017

My first burlesque drawings in Berlin!