Ordster Up

You don’t really have to sell me on a book called The Art of Jerry Ordway.



I mean, Jerry himself being part of it’s sorta key, but otherwise there’s very little that could dissuade me from plunking down my actual or virtual cash despite my own and the world’s travails of the day. On which more in a few moments. (Also, I’m sorry to say that at least one particularly unscrupulous publisher came to mind as soon as I dashed off the start of this paragraph, but I’d like to get this out tonight with minimal editing.)

New Pain, the publishing imprint of comic-book creators Keith Champagne and Tom Nguyen, has a Kickstarter going that’s officially labeled The Jerry Ordway Double Feature which kinda confusingly has two separate main rewards — a “32-page special edition” of Proton, the creation of a youthful Ordster that he’s been reimagining with his matured talents, and the above-mentioned “premium, 100-page sketchbook bringing you closer than ever to the raw genius of a master craftsman”.



I’ve bought issues of Jerry’s Proton and The Messenger in recent years, which I think contain what’s collected in the special edition, but, to spoil a coincidentally upcoming post, his art has been among my favorite things for over four decades. While I’ll discuss this more there, I believe Jerry Ordway is not just a great, underappreciated penciler, colorist, and storyteller in general, whose facility with the likes of DuoShade / Craftint blew me away before I even understood what they were, but almost impossibly one of the top two or three inkers that a of pair of icons of my personal Silver Age of Comics, John Byrne and George Pérez, had in their respective careers, entirely apart from my adoration of his wholly modern depiction of certain legendary superheroes in a classic vein.

Look, I know times are especially tight right now, from the usual expenses to pleas
for disaster relief at home and overseas. That only contributes to my determination to boost the work of acquaintances, friends, or simply beloved creative hands, really, because I also know the hustle and economic inconstancy of freelancing are tough.
New Pain’s campaign by Nguyen and Champagne for The Jerry Ordway Double
Feature runs until midday on July 16th.