I bought a page of original art at my local comics shop a few days ago. It's a late-1970s-looking pin-up page of Tigra by a guy named Tim Tyler, who up till then I'd never heard of. From what I've seen he's done a number of pin-ups of her, and seems to have an affection for the character. And for Marvel, DC and Warren horror titles of that era in general.

Here's another page of Tigra he did, that while nice isn't quite as impressive as the page I bought:



The little I've been able to google about Tim Tyler, he's a graduate of the Kubert school in 1986 and has been working on independent comics since then. Initially for London Night Studios and for Tim Vigil and other similar 1990's publishers.

In a 2012 interview he was 45, so as of this writing he'd be 52 now.

Honestly, a lot of his 1990's work is generally pretty third rate, with clumsy out of proportion anatomy, and dark bad-attitude cynical poses that are prime examples of what I hate from that era. But in between, some really nice pages too.

In recent years, Tyler seems to do a lot of commission pieces at conventions, and a lot of tribute covers. I also think his work has improved and refined in the last decade, with more detail and better composition. Some I don't like, a lot of it pretty nice, even wall-worthy. Certainly in the case of the page I bought.

A pseudo-movie-poster in the Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez mode.

From the artist's comments, it's the poster and cover art for an actual DVD-released movie.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/511627731/fiends-4-by-tim-tyler

A link to multiple pages from his latest book, FIENDS issue 4, that seems to be the most regularly published series he's done in a number of years.

The cover to a sketchbook he apparently sells at conventions.

Tyler lists FANTASTIC FOUR as one of the two books (along with SWAMP THING) that would be a good match with the type of stuff he'd like to do in comics.

I could alse see him doing BATMAN. I'm thinking in particular of the stuff done in the Doug Moench/Kelley Jones run on BATMAN.

Tyler's strengths to me are
1) monsters,
and
2) beautiful women (when he takes the time to draw them well).

A WEREWOLF BY NIGHT issue 1 tribute cover, originally by Ploog in 1972. Again displaying his skill at the cross-pollenation of 1970's Marvel, combined with horror material.

Another really cool page, of the Creature From The Black Lagoon.

I could see Tim Tyler doing a good job on series handled by artists such as Arthur Adams, Kelley Jones, or Mike Mignola.

"I am Groot!"

This for me is reminiscent of a MAN-THING miniseries by Kyle Hotz that had some really nice art.

A nice design on this Wonder Woman page.
Possibly cover-worthy.

A pretty cool Rogers-esque Joker pin-up.

A crab-monster. Somewhat reminiscent of aliens in the Predator movies.

A promotional T-shirt design he did for a comic store.

I'd love to have one.

https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_5528/subcat_193311/vugf8Xl3_3009181542101gpadd.jpg




An interesting take on Batman.

A smokin' hot Sue Storm.

Another nice page in the EC tradition.

The camel toe ruins it. In a drawing of woman defying basic physics and photonics that is the most unbelievable thing, namely, that anyone would wear a costume that rides up like that.

I get a certain Wrightson vibe from this one. Very good. I approve.

You don't think many women flaunt their sexuality in real life with their clothing choices, just to drive us guys nuts?

I rarely wear spandex exercise clothing, but when I first did, I became aware of how much less modest women have to be, to wear body-fitting tight clothing like that, virtually any women's clothing, even shy women. Women I think love showing themselves off in clothing like that.


Regarding the "Midnight 2" one you commented on, as I recall the artist said it was commissioned as a DVD cover for a straight-to-video very low-budget horror movie.

Tyler is a good artist, but if I strained to make a complaint, it's that he seems to borrow from a lot of other artists. Especially Wrightson, and Kelley Jones. And Tim Vigil, more so in his earlier work.

I dug up a search list of Tim Tyler's work, far from complete.

https://www.comics.org/penciller/name/tim%20tyler/sort/alpha/

He's a big late 1980's/1990's era artist, drawing almost entirely for small indie black-and-white books like those by Tim Vigil and London Night Studios.

The current, apparently self-published, horror anthology book he does is called FIENDS. In the Warren magazines tradition, and maybe borrowing some from Marvel's 1970's horror titles. I posted a link earlier to a Kickstarter that he apparently does to publish each issue.

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Nice to see Tyler's own version of the classic SWAMP THING 1 cover, originally by Wrightson.

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And a mid/late 1980's- era CONAN tribute cover.

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A little more good girl art.
Tyler likes to splice together the western and horror/supernatural genres.

This also looks like it could have a bit of EC influence, channeling Wood, Frazetta and Williamson.

The logo is also nice.

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One of at least three vaariant covers I saw for Tyler's self-published FIENDS issue 1, out sometime in 2013.

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One of several variant covers for Tyler's FIENDS, issue 2, out sometime in 2016.

This one was the cover art for a low budget direct-to-video movie release.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4801352/?ref_=nm_knf_t_4

Still love that cover. Hilarious!

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Tim Tyler's proposed cover for FIENDS 3, to my knowledge not published yet.
One of several paste-up covers he's offered as possibilities as final covers for the issue.

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A little Ed "big Daddy" Roth and hot-rod trading cards influence on this one.

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Another website for Tyler's "Rathouse comics" line of self-published books, showing covers and interior pages for his various recently published titles, including FIENDS, and several other titles. And older titles by Tyler, dating back as early as 1986, and into the 1990s.

https://www.rathousecomics.com/Catalog/


The release dates for FIENDS issues are all over the place. Another site I mentioned previously showed FIENDS 1 coming out in 2013, this site shows it released in 2019. And other pages for FIENDS 2 and 3 coming out in 2017 and 2018. I think maybe a lot of these were promotional release dates that were just wishful thinking and didn't work out as promoted.

His blog posts on this site end in late 2022, so apparently he's busy elsewhere. Not currently promoting any pending new releases.

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Another Comic Art Fans website with Tim Tyler commission pages and other original art. Many of them nice, and others horribly bad, out of proportion and rushed looking.

https://www.comicartfans.com/comic-artists/Tim_Tyler.asp

I like the tribute covers, nice to see Tyler's version of some famous covers, from the 1960's, 1970's, and more recent eras. Possibly tribute covers requested at conventions, and others likely reflecting Tyler's own tastes and favorites.