Our Guest Artists for 2015!
 Ken Kelly & Thomas Yeates
Ken Kelly
       One of the field’s foremost exponents is American artist, Ken Kelly. Beginning in the 70s (after a stint in the Marines) Ken’s art covers styles as divergent as rock legends, Kiss to Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan. Ken has created a legion of mythical characters drawn from the pages of the world’s finest fantasy writers, not to mention his own voracious imagination. You can also put Ken to the test by offering your own ideas and then watch Ken employ his imagination to create a one-of-kind work of art. A genuine workaholic, Ken often simultaneously labors over a half dozen different paintings, projects and ideas. Organized chaos would be an apt description for this artist, who probably puts as many hours into his art now as he did thirty years ago.

Under the guidance of Frazetta, Ken was able to fine-tune his skill even further.   Frazetta stressed how important it was to put feeling into creating a painting and to let the action on the canvas come from the imagination.   Ken took those words to heart and has lived by them ever since.

Later that same year, Ken received his first professional assignment.   Before he turned the painting in, he took it to Frazetta to get his approval.   Well, Frazetta did not think that the woman in the painting had a terrified enough expression on her face, so he painted over her old face, with a new one of his own, which he felt worked better.   Now it was ready to be turned in.   That painting was done for Warren’s Vampirella Magazine and is titled, “The Lurking Terror”.

For the rest of that year, Ken worked for Warren and Skywald magazine.   Then in 1969, he entered the book cover field and has since worked for just about every major publishing house.   Ken has done work for some of the best selling authors in the field, including an outstanding series for Robert E. Howard, and the complete series of Robert Adam’s famous Horseclan novels..

Outside the bookcover field, Ken has worked for nearly all of the large toy manufacturers.   He has also done many album covers, including two paintings for KISS, for which he was rewarded with gold albums.

Over the years, Ken’s artwork has continued to have the unique ability to evoke the imagination to travel to faraway places and primal battlefields.   You will see that same imaginative ability in both his pen and ink drawings and his full color paintings.   His work quite literally explodes with energy and throbs with life.   His paintings are done exclusively in oil and are relatively large in size.

 

To learn more about Ken, visit:         For Commissions:

 

 


Thomas Yeates

 

Early Years As a Pro
Yeates first professional work was for DC comics in 1978, a story featured in Sgt. Rock titled "Preacher". He worked for DC Comics on numerous series, including Warlord, Mystery in Space and Swamp Thing. From 1984 to 1985, Thomas Yeates was the artist for Timespirits from Marvel/Epic. He worked for Eclipse Comics on titles such as Airboy, Scout, Lugar, the political documentary Brought to Light, and Aztec Ace. For Pacific Comics, Yeates did Alien Worlds and Vanguard, and for T.S.R., he illustrated the Dragonlance Saga based on the Dungeons and Dragons game

 

The Tarzan Years                                                                                        In the early 1990s, Thomas Yeates drew one of his childhood heroes, Tarzan of the Apes, for two and a half years, co-authoring and drawing "Tarzan, The Beckoning" (for Semic/Malibu). Tom recalls being one day on the phone with Danton Burroughs, who said to him: “Tom, if you still want to draw Tarzan, send your work to these guys in Sweden. They want to do a new comic, but their art is terrible. They make Tarzan look to much like Conan. Tarzan’s more handsome. If they don’t get some acceptable art, we’re going to turn them down”.
He went on to illustrate a total of 15 Tarzan comics, many for Dark Horse. ”The Return of Tarzan" featured his adaptation into comics Edgar Rice Burroughs second Tarzan novel.  

 

 

Zorro and Superheroes
During the same period, Yeates also illustrated "Dracula vs. Zorro" for Topps comics. This cult favorite was his first teaming with writer Don McGregor. 
 Thomas then returned to DC and illustrated a comic book authored by Rachel Pollack titled "Tomahawk". Set at the beginning of the American Revolution, it traces the awakening of the hero from his own bigotry after being captured by a Native American tribe.
 In the late 1990s McGregor and Yeates created a highly regarded Zorro newspaper strip.  
In 2001 Yeates illustrated two Universe X specials for Marvel in collaboration with Alex Ross and John Totleben. They're titled ”Cap" featuring Captain America, and ”Beasts featuring the X-Men. The Paradise X special ”Ragnarok", released in 2003 re-tells the story of the fall of the Norse Gods, featuring Thor, Odin, and Loki.
 Next Yeates helped Cary Nord pencil issues 3 - 14 of Conan , and did an Escapist  story for Dark Horse.  
In 2007 and 2008 he has illustrated seven graphic novels in the graphic myths series for Lerner publishing including King Arthur, Odysseus, Atalanta, King Arthur and Lancelot and Robin Hood.

 

2009 - The Burroughs Year                                                                         In 2009 Thomas was commissioned to illustrate the "John Carter Of Mars" novel published by Fall River Press in the Library Of Wonder Series. This hardcover book contains the classic tales "The Princess of Mars", "The Gods of Mars" and "The Warlord Of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. For Dark Horse Comics Tom adapted the first part of the "Outlaw Of Torn"-story from Burroughs.

The Prince Valiant Page
From April, 1, 2012 Thomas Yeates took the art reins on the greatest adventure strip of all time, “Prince Valiant”. Since then there's a new adventure of the famous Prince every Sunday in Newspapers and Online at comicskingdom.com (by subscribtion).

Visit Tom's web-site