KEN STEACY-1
MODERN MYTHS AND ICONS:
The Comic Art of Ken Steacy
March 8 – 28, 2009
at 2260 Oak Bay Avenue
Preview: Saturday, March 7, 2009 10 am – 5:30 pm
(work subject to prior sale)
Opening Reception
Sunday, March 8, 2009 1 – 5 pm
Artist in attendance
Elizabeth Ely, harpist; Karel Roessingh, piano
Winchester Galleries is proud to present the first major retrospective by author/illustrator Ken Steacy, whose career spans thirty-five years in the comicbook industry. The works range from fully-airbrushed cover paintings to pen & ink interior pages, and feature a galaxy of well-known characters. Ken delights in de-mystifying the heroes and villains who inhabit the pop culture sandboxes he has played in over the years, and will be at the opening to do just that!
KEN STEACY is a Canadian Air Force brat who decided at age eleven to become a professional comic book artist. He pursued this intent until the magic moment occurred in 1974 with the publication in ORB magazine of Super Student, a two page strip that he wrote, penciled, inked and lettered. This holistic approach has been a hallmark of his work ever since, true to his belief that specialization is for insects, not artists. His favorite colour is currently turquoise.
He studied film and video as analogies to the sequential narrative at the Ontario College of Art & Design, but drove all of his profs crazy by turning in comic strips instead of film or video. They finally figured out what he was up to and awarded him a pile of scholarships, including the Lieutenant Governor’s medal.
Since then Ken has written and illustrated the exploits of practically every popular character you could name, including Astro Boy, Harry Potter, Batman, Superman, Spider-man and the X-Men. His four major works in print are: The Sacred & the Profane (co-authored by Dean Motter), Night and the Enemy (stories by Harlan Ellison), Megapowers (written by physicist Jack Weyland) and Tempus Fugitive (which he did all by himself). Other graphic novels featuring his own IP are currently in progress.
Ken spent two very intense years at Sanctuary Woods Multimedia creating, producing, directing and illustrating The Awesome Adventures of Victor Vector & Yondo, an interactive edutainment CD-ROM series for kids. He later produced a three issue comic book mini-series chronicling the further adventures of VV&Y in print. He has worked for many years with LUCASFILM, producing stories and computer-rendered illustrations for Star Wars books and prints, and has collaborated on numerous occasions with author Douglas Coupland.
Chronicle Books has published Brightwork, a celebration of classic American car ornamentation which Ken wrote, designed and art directed. He also produced all of the display artwork for the Space Place gallery at Edmonton’s TELUS World of Science, designed the sets and promotional material for a production of West Side Story, and painted stacks of World of Warcraft, Marvel Masterpieces, and Indiana Jones gaming cards. Most recently, Ken produced storyboards and design elements for the Rainmaker Entertainment digitally animated feature film Escape From Planet Earth, and rebranded a number of local enterprises, including Baggins, the world’s largest Converse shoe store.
A series of his paintings depicting the peacetime activities of navigators in the Canadian Armed Forces is part of the permanent collection of the National War Museum in Ottawa, two of which are included in a touring exhibition which opened at the McMichael Collection. Winchester Galleries in Victoria will host a major retrospective of Ken’s work during the month of March, 2009.
Tom McBomb Productions Inc. was created as a vehicle for production of digital video, on-demand books and periodicals, and other cool stuff. Together with his wife Joan, who is also an author/illustrator, they run Ken Steacy Publishing which can be viewed online at www.kenspublishing.com.