Mike Hoffman
Mike Hoffman has to be one of the top fantasy artists working in the field, and he is one of my all time top ten Vampirella artists.
He has a very distinctive style and you can spot a Hoffman Vampirella a mile away. As well as his publications Octavia, Lost Worlds, Squid Girl, Tigress Tales (and more) Mike fairly regularly has original art for sale on eBay - including Vampirella stuff.
Mike is a very productive, self-publishing comic and fantasy artist. His initial inspiration was Frank Frazetta and his art does show this influence (IMHO), though he has branched out into other fields and styles.
Creem Magazine called him "The Most Outspoken Man in Comics" for his regular savagings of the status quo in his infamous and popular blog, which pulled no punches.
Characters and concepts flow freely from him including :-
- the jungle cat-girl "Tigress",
- "Madame Tarantula" in a Spaghetti-Western futuristic, black comedy,
- the underwater Jules Verne-esque adventures of the part human, part animal "Squid Girl",
- Sword-and-Sorcery tales of "The Minotaur",
- a Gothic Western series "The Ballad of Utopia",
- the 1960s Italian Horror inspired "Octavia",
- and the candid and unrepressed adult titles "Captain Bluebush" and "Robin Screwso".
Add to these art books, sketchbooks, prints, portfolios, postcards, bookmarks, t-shirts, music CDs and collector card sets ...
To date he's produced hundreds of oil paintings and thousands of drawings and watercolours, as well as a plethora of comic pages for Marvel, Dark Horse, DC, Pacific, Eclipse, Fantagraphics and his own books since 1984.
In 2006, Mike made the decision to begin moving out of comics towards galleries, book stores, filmmaking and world travel, so there has been a slight slow down of his comic based artwork. But, every now and again a new Vampirella piece appears.
You never really forget your first love, do you?
