📝This archived post is originally from my old comics focused Wordpress blog from 2011-2019. That site was a space to publicly commit to learning the art and craft of cartooning and self-publishing. These posts are full of a naive enthusiasm that though at times embarrassing, I'm proud of. I hope you find them useful in some way.❤️

This afternoon I came across a message from Half-Man Half-Static, who runs the great little online galleries 4CP(Four Color Process), Comic Book Cartoraphy and Supertype!, a comics typography gallery.

I’ve mentioned 4CP in the past, so forgive me if you’re already familiar with what Half-Man Half Static has been up to. The post was regarding the likely loss of his public galleries due to Twitter’s acquisition of Posterous. I highly recommend you visit the galleries to gander at some wonderfully curated crops of the magical 4 color process. Download what you like (and be sure to jot down the source notes. That’s always pretty useful!)

Here are some examples of the recontextualization that Half-Man Half-Static works with:

And the post:

It looks all but inevitable that Twitter, who acquired Posterous last year, will be eliminating the blog platform. This means that all my blogs will vanish, which is a shame, because all my blogs are actually compendiums of very specialized comic book material, meant to be permanent galleries, available forever. It’s possible that I will reinvent the 4CP gallery elsewhere, as I continue to be interested in making images of that sort, and feel strongly (given my aesthetic interests) that the Web ought to contain a big library of this kind of material. As far as I know, 4CP is the only one, and it seems to continue to delight new and returning fans from a variety of backgrounds. However two other galleries will not be recreated, if Posterous folds. I encourage you to check them out now, if they sound interesting to you. COMIC BOOK CARTOGRAPHY compiles approximately 120 large scans of mid-20th Century comic book maps, diagrams, and cutaways. As with all my blogs, you can download the full-sized files easily, if you want to keep them around. SUPERTYPE! is an extremely narrow gallery, containing nothing but the mastheads from comic book covers from the late 1930s through the 1970s. It’s a compendium of comic book typography at its most blown-out. What motivated me to give it a week of evenings in the first place a the particular Posterous template that makes the blog look like a giant magazine rack, with just the titles peeking out. It’s a combination of my scans and images sourced from the Web, but they’re all reasonably large and ready for graphic design pirating. Please alert interested parties If you know of others who’d be interested in my blogs, or have a social media platform that will reach such people, I’ll be grateful if you’d spread the word, while the blogs still exist. I made them because I thought the world needed concentrated material of this sort, with one-stop convenience, and I’m bummed that my work has turned out to have a very short lifespan. Such is the inevitable fate of anyone who relies on a free service in a corporate culture that doesn’t feel any responsibility to non-revenue customers. Given all the content, time, sweat, and love people put into their work on blog platforms, summarily shutting down a platform – because it no longer comports with a business plan – strikes me as something like a book burning. Incidentally, I’d be very interested in connecting with digital gallery owners who might be interested in mounting a 4CP exhibit. The scans look great on very large screens, and given that I’ve made at least 500 of them, a well-curated selection would surely be a visual treat on that scale. People often suggest a 4CP coffee table book, but I can’t imagine how awful the copyright issues would be in such an undertaking. A gallery exhibit seems doable. Thanks to all who have enjoyed these galleries and who have corresponded with me over the last couple of years.

Again, check it out the blogs if you haven’t already.

If you’d like to see behind the scenes of the process, check out Blow up Your Comics. There are 30 posts where John Hilgart, Half-Man Half-Static, pulls back the curtain and shows you how you too can find bliss in the recontextualization.

Screen shot 2013-01-23 at 6.14.22 PM

If you like the projects that he’s been running and have some ideas for him, be sure to get in touch with him. It’s certain that he’ll appreciate the input.

Who knows what will happen to them in the coming months.