Michael Ploog is a talented Illustrator and Designer who as created everything from comic book art to conceptual work for movies. I came across his book The Life and Time of Santa Claus based on the novel by L Frank Baum.
It’s a great story and Ploog’s beautiful watercolor tinted comics do the story justice that I have yet seen in other versions. The story starts as a group of immortals bring the limp body of Santa Claus to the Gnome King. The Gnome King is at first frightened that Santa’s mortality will rub of on him, but the others comfort him and we hear the life story of the kindly gift giver.
The story is full of magical creatures and fanciful scenes. Plus you get to see Santa kill an evil pig-troll creature with a sword.
Below are a few images from the book (taken badly with my digital camera)
click for a larger image.
Here the group talks to the Gnome King who appears and disappears from the rocky mountain he lives in. It’s interesting that the Gnome King also appears in L.Frank Baum’s OZ books, and Ploog also worked on the film Return to Oz where the gnome king appeared from out of the rock through clay animation just like he does in this book. A neat connection.
Here Claus is ready to fight Swine the Pig-Troll. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those stories where they take a character and drastically change his nature to make them “darker” or “more modern” or “hip”. He has good reason to go after Swine, and after the action he makes a tough choice in keeping with his character.
Swine the pig-troll. Not a nice character. A great drawing.
click for the whole page.
Here is a great action page of Santa fighting Swing. Great pose and sense of motion.
Make sure to check out Mr. Ploog’s work on Abadazad from Disney comics.
