Mark V :: J. Webster Sharp || NOW #12 Complete Story

"Untitled," pg. 4 from Now #12 (2023)

Artist: J. Webster Sharp (All)

10 Comments - 211 Views - 5 Likes

Untitled, pg. 4 from Now #12 (2023) Comic Art

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Artwork Details

Title:	"Untitled," pg. 4 from Now #12 (2023)
Artist:	J. Webster Sharp (All)
Media Type:	Pen and Ink
Art Type:	Interior Page
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	211
Likes on CAF:	5 6
Comments:	10
Added to Site:	10/13/2023
Comic Art Archive:

Description

11x17

Another "Shocktober" piece from an untitled story published in Now #12 by Fantagraphics in early 2023.

I was immediately drawn to Sharp's work by the detailed stippling technique and the body horror elements she incorporates into her work. However, I'd argue that Sharp is more than a horror artist. In this piece alone, there are grotesque elements, silly and whimsical juxtapositions (the bottom quadrant), offbeat eroticism, and parts that recall medical drawings.

I don't want to say too much more about this piece because, like much of Sharp's work, it's definitely open to interpretation. However, I do very much like this quote from Ryan Carey, who discusses Sharp's provocative work on the Comics Journal website:

"[T]he comics of Yorkshire-based cartoonist J. Webster Sharp have a very definite “dreamlike” quality: a tired description for work that’s either partially or completely unmoored from the strictures imposed from without by the ever-weakening vestiges of what was once thought of as consensus reality. In my nominal defense, the term absolutely applies.

Furthermore, to say that Sharp’s body of work belies an “auteur sensibility” is equally unoriginal, yet also true: there’s no one else making comics the way she is, and there’s no mistaking one of her comics for somebody else’s. Her concerns, fixations and flights of fancy are more or less entirely her own, and her means of communicating them are likewise utterly unique."

https://www.tcj.com/i-would-be-producing-this-work-whether-anybody-bought-it-and-saw-it-or-not-the-comics-of-j-webster-sharp/

Sharp is represented by Athenaeum Comic Art

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About the Owner

	Mark V Premium Gallery Owner
Joined:	March 2021
Last Login:	September 2025
Website:	https://instagram.com/markvcomicsandart
Country:	UNITED STATES
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Comments on this Artwork

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Ruben DaCollector
Member Since 2008

1 - Posted on 10/13/2023

Beautiful stippling technique. I love seeing it because it's such a throwback to the stippling heavy art that some illustrators employed quite often back in the 1930's to 1950's. I also really love the triangular X composition. Kudos on another fine piece, Mark!

Rick W
Member Since 2017

1 - Posted on 10/13/2023

Trippy top panel with mind-bending & classical side views.

And the bottom seated figure has lovely pointillism ;)

Marcus Wai
Member Since 2005

1 - Posted on 10/13/2023

Stipplicious! Drips with horror and bizarre that is meant to get a reaction out of the audience. It goes into the inner workings of man and rearranges your inner clock of how you perceive reality. I'd raise my hand too, like the center square, to ask teacher, "What is this about?"

Shelton Bryant
Member Since 2005

1 - Posted on 10/13/2023

Luv the Rendering and Surrealist Symbolism!!!

Ian Saint
Member Since 2021

1 - Posted on 10/13/2023

Beautiful artwork with a theme that gets the job done, as dolls creep me out. "We toys can see everything... So play nice!

Comic Art Channel
Member Since 2018

1 - Posted on 10/13/2023

Beautiful stippling. Have yet to read anything but this has me intrigued.

artless artmore
Member Since 2013

1 - Posted on 10/14/2023

The stippling technique and the hyperdefined nature of all the stippled surfaces feel a bit like medical illustrations, as you pointed out, but even more like botanical illos or plant or animal field guides, to my eye. The top panel in particular wrenches the syntax stylistically, though each of the three quadrants has its own character. I can't imagine the narrative this page comes from...

Doug L
Member Since 2019

1 - Posted on 10/14/2023

Bizarrely amazing!

Bill J
Member Since 2009

1 - Posted on 10/19/2023

Wow! Every now and then, someone posts something that's fresh and interesting but totally unexpected. This page by J Webster Sharp is filled with strange images, like the half-robot, half-woman face at the top. Then there's the robot in the middle left panel and the period woman playing the harpsichord to the right. It all winds up in the bizarre bottom panel, which I don't understand at all. But that's okay, there are lovely artiistic techiques displayed throughout, including extensive stippling and the Op-Art like background in the top panel. I love that you challenge our expectations with a page like this one! Thanks for sharing!

Mark V
Member Since 2021

Posted on 10/19/2023

Bill J wrote:

Thanks, Bill. Appreciate your honest engagement with this piece. It's definitely a curveball.

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