Animaleries is a 64pg book published by Fluide Glacial in 2015. It’s chock full of flights of fancy like these, involving animals and familiar objects & scenarios.

Solé was first published in ~1971, evidently influenced by the psychedelic culture of the times. Some of his work is a bit much for me (the Frank Zappa ‘dirty socks’ piece comes to mind), but his draftsmanship and imagination are undeniably top notch.

More about him and his work here.

  • NacktmullEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Tame? Hmm, that’s interesting. Dare I ask for examples?

    I was thinking of stuff like HR Giger but also AI generated images. I generally don´t post AI generated stuff though. I can´t figure out how to post images in comments from my lemm.ee account btw, otherwise I´d put a nice classic HR Giger here for you.

    I think part of why I admire these is because I’m something of an amateur zoologist who ordinarily feels protective of animals and habitats, but this guy’s amazing penwork, proportions and attention to details really won me over.

    Yeah, the guy could easily have been an illustrator of biology books.

    So-- looking through the book makes me a bit uncomfortable at times, but I also feel like the man put a level of loving care in to these crazy… “caricatures,” or whatever they’re best called.

    I know exactly what you mean. I get a little uncomfortable too when looking at the fusion of living bodies and technology. When I look at this it´s of course just a gentle impulse, far from a HR Giger level of severe discomfort, but it´s the same direction.

    • JohnnyEnzymeOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Oh, Giger, right! And he’s Swiss, so hopefully we can have a post(s) about his work here one day. Btw, have you tried this code to post images in comments?

      ![](https://i.imgur.com/YuUI5Vu.jpeg)

      You know I once did a little sketch of what a Giger piece might look like if rendered in wood. I’ll PM you a page of my sketches if you’re interested.

      Btw, the issue of AI stuff has been a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I have a few watercolor / ligne claire-type pieces that I was thinking of posting, but various factors kind of hold me back…

      • NacktmullEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Oh, Giger, right! And he’s Swiss, so hopefully we can have a post(s) about his work here one day.

        I am all for mixing in different kinds of artists and I really like the idea of a primarily comic art focused community that is also open to other forms of art, especially when there is some connection to comics. HR Giger had such a strong impact on Monster design in all kinds of sci-fi and fantasy. His impact goes far beyond the Alien movies and comic books.

        Btw, have you tried this code to post images in comments?

        Thank you! No I had not and it works perfectly. May I ask how you came up with this?

        You know I once did a little sketch of what a Giger piece might look like if rendered in wood. I’ll PM you a page of my sketches if you’re interested.

        Cool! Let´s see it!

        Btw, the issue of AI stuff has been a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I have a few watercolor / ligne claire-type pieces that I was thinking of posting, but various factors kind of hold me back…

        I think AI generated material getting posted can easily become problematic, especially for a small community that is focused on hand drawn art content like ours. The problem is that with AI, users can effortlessly create an endless stream of generic AI generated material, which will - just by it´s sheer amount - easily drown out all original content in a community. I would actually consider banning AI generated images.

        • JohnnyEnzymeOPMEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I am all for mixing in different kinds of artists and I really like the idea of a primarily comic art focused community that is also open to other forms of art, especially when there is some connection to comics.

          I feel that way too. And you know, little by little I’ve been trying to refine the sidebar text to make it less wordy and more clearer of purpose, and one of the changes was to point out that art was welcome, too, along the lines you just mentioned.

          HR Giger had such a strong impact on Monster design in all kinds of sci-fi and fantasy. His impact goes far beyond the Alien movies and comic books.

          Interesting. I hadn’t really thought about or noticed that too much, but I may not have been looking at good examples of such. Really, it would be almost impossible for his work not to have been widely influential, tho.

          May I ask how you came up with this?

          In the little bar of mini-icons above the comment space, the one on the right, “formatting help,” takes you to this page. ( I linked that specifically because IIRC when one hits that button directly, one’s unposted comment text gets wiped out :/ )

          [![](https://i.imgur.com/YuUI5Vu.jpeg)](https://i.imgur.com/YuUI5Vu.jpeg)

          Btw, the above code is also useful, as it lets a user pop out an image to see greater detail, as opposed to zooming in. And a little tip-- when in doubt as to how a user did something interesting in their post / comment, you can go to the three little dots (bottom right) and select the “view source” button.

          I’ll continue with the AI talk and sketch link in a PM. In the meanwhile, some food for thought is right here in our community, in which I debated a very big fan of AI art across a few comments:

          https://lemm.ee/post/7895573

          • NacktmullEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Interesting. I hadn’t really thought about or noticed that too much, but I may not have been looking at good examples of such. Really, it would be almost impossible for his work not to have been widely influential, tho.

            Giger had great influence on games too. One example that comes to mind is R-Type, one of my favourite classic video game series. The first boss looks like this:

            This is the last boss:

            I miss that game, might install MAME later

            Btw, the above code is also useful, as it lets a user pop out an image to see greater detail, as opposed to zooming in.

            Sounds like a good idea. I will try it out

            when in doubt as to how a user did something interesting in their post / comment, you can go to the three little dots (bottom right) and select the “view source” button

            Thank you! It´s really very helpful. I can finally put images in comments and not just in posts, while using my lemm.ee account

            In the meanwhile, some food for thought is right here in our community, in which I debated a very big fan of AI art across a few comments:

            Interesting discussion you had there and very good arguments were made on both sides. However, after reading it my main questions remain.

            1. Is writing a prompt for an AI a form of art?

            2. Is the resulting image a creation of the person who wrote the prompt, the people who developed the AI, the artists whose works the AI was trained on (often without those artists consent), or the AI itself?