Ron Zalme Publishing

02/02/2025

Just finished a painting I've been procrastinating about since last summer! LOL My wife and I were picking up a pizza and I snapped this pic of the deli next door to the place. It's just the two storefronts in the heart of good fishing country... Swartswood Lake and lots of good local trout streams. Well... we got a big laugh outta the advertised "menu"... and the pic seemed a natural subject for a painting. I didn't alter it much and really enjoyed the rendering process... after a few false starts... and the intervening holidays. It's 11x14 mixed media... but mostly Dr. Martin's liquid watercolors.

11/29/2024

Years ago, when the internet was still a new thing, I did an experiment... I created an online e-book called "What Did Toby See?". It was a free children's book I hosted on my webpage, and to my surprise, it really took off! It spread just by "word-of-mouth" alone, which was the basis for my experiment... to see how effective the net was for networking and commerce. I started getting fan mail... teachers requested copies that didn't exist (it was online only), a school in Virginia wanted it for their book fair, several foreign schools let me know they were using it to teach English... and then after a couple of years, it fizzled... and I have no idea why. I never received another email... though to be fair, I was forced to change internet providers and create a new website around that time. Anyway... several years later, when I decided to begin self-publishing, I chose to do a sequel, "Where Did Toby Go?" as my first offering. It's been well received and several teachers have used it for their reading circles and libraries and I've done chalk-talks to students based on it. It's available at Amazon.com.
A couple of months ago, it dawned on me that the original Toby story could be adapted to be a book in print as well... they'd make a nice pair. So, I altered the format, added some new artwork, and uploaded it to be my seventh self-published title! Fresh off the presses... I announce the availability of "What Did Toby See?"... the long dormant original story of Toby... a dog with a great imagination!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DP7DW9H1

What Did Toby See?

11/18/2024

For anyone in need of a mental challenge to pass some time... or relieve some stress... I thought I'd post some of my old mazes to momentarily distract any of you who might need it... for whatever ails you. Basically, follow your instincts and choose a wise path forward. They get harder as you go. Enjoy!

10/06/2024

Even though I was never really a "superhero" artist, despite working for Marvel Comics for so many years, my skills in comic production and style earned me many jobs in the educational magazine markets. My comic's background was highly prized to present sometimes tedious educational material in a fun narrative-art kind of way, that the students recognized and appreciated. I did panel art, often with superhero themes done in a comical way, for Scholastic, CTW, MacMillan, McGraw-Hill, McClanahan, Pearson, and many many others. In this post I wanted to share a series of posters, and characters, I created for Scholastic, using made-up superheroes to inform students about early computer concepts. Each poster featured two heroes, male and female, and had to include a diverse range of ethnicities. DEI is not a new concept... it was standard practice in creating educational material when I began my freelance career in the 80's... and I'm certain even well before that. Anyway... I had great fun being a "superhero" artist in my own fashion... even though Marvel and DC didn't accept me as such. They did help give me the skills necessary to do all the art, lettering, and titling though! Hope you enjoy these posters as much as I did doing them!

09/30/2024

I thought some of you might find this technique interesting... This is a variety of full color work I did for Marvel Books after I left staff to go entirely freelance. I was proficient in airbrush painting... and one of the few sources for it Marvel art directors knew of. So, I did many coloring book covers for Marvel Books... Transformers, GI Joe, Visionaries, and Spider-man. The artwork was done traditionally in pen & ink by Marvel "superhero" artists and then photostatted onto transparent overlays with a matching light-gray paper copy. I did my full-color airbrush work on the paper copy which was photographed for repro as reflective art... halftone screens for offset printing. Then, the black line overlay was photographed as solid line-art and "keyed" to my color background. The final effect was full color repro with a bold black comic outline. I included a couple of shots to show the art with the overlay pulled back. It was a pretty nifty process... the richness of full color without sacrificing the bold black line to a gradation.

09/26/2024

As a past member of the NCS, I received invitations to the Pl***oy magazine Christmas parties held years ago atop the Crown Building in NYC (their NY headquarters). When Michelle Urri, the cartoon editor at the time, found out I had a knack for mimicking styles, she asked if I could take a crack at copying Eldon Dedini, one of their longtime contributors... he was retiring and she didn't want to lose his stylistic contribution to the magazine. I provided two gag illos in my attempt to mimic him... one in acrylic, and one in watercolor. She approved my acrylic "Sugar Daddy" gag for publication, but not the other. I was hoping I'd broken down a barrier into a regular gig... but she didn't care for my roughs on a subsequent submission call, and suggested I just wasn't a good fit for the humor style required. Just not hip enough, I guess. What... they don't take "Dad" jokes? At least I can claim to be one of the very few, or perhaps the only, cartoonist ever to appear in both Highlights for Children and Pl***oy in the same month! LOL
***OY

09/26/2024

When I left staff at Marvel in the summer of '85, I was getting a lot of freelance work from several other sources... CTW, Avon Products, King Features... but I was also fortunate to stay with Marvel on a freelance basis as well, even though I wasn't a superhero artist! Marvel started a side business, Marvel Family Publishing, to produce activity, coloring, and story books for a younger audience... perfect for my abilities! I did quite a few books... the Red Racer book I posted about previously, a Chuck Norris coloring book, Little Wizards books... and quite a few full-color airbrush paintings for hero type coloring book covers... Transformers, G.I. Joe, Visionaries, and others. Two of my favorite projects, because they were so unique, were the Giant-Size coloring books... 17" x 22"!! And to make them even more memorable, the editors gave me full reign to draw them however I wished... I didn't have to conform to some predetermined style... I could just be me and have fun!

06/10/2024

Finally dragged out my childhood "Box O'Comics" from the mid 60's. They were read over and over and over... but they're not in terrible shape. Disney, DC, Dell, Archie, Flintstones, Dennis the Menace... no Marvel... not a one! LOL I hated how cheap those comics looked in the 60's... how ironic is THAT?
Recognize any?

05/10/2024

When I began my staff position in the Marvel bullpen at the end of July 1978, it was as a bottom rung paste-up guy. My main job was to correct stats of reprint material for publication. Marvel was reprinting popular comics from the 60's... but the original repro-quality film the printing plates were made from had been lost... I believe due to a flood or fire in a warehouse someplace. (Don't shoot me if I'm mistaken... it was a long time ago!) Anyway... all that was available to print from were rolls of photostats of each page... and their quality was pretty awful. It was my job to fix all the blobs of letters that had "closed up" in the fuzzy photography. All the A's, B's, P's, O's etc.... every letter that had an open "hole" had filled in... and I had to clean up all the letters with ink and whiteout so they were readable again.
There were also editorial corrections... AND art corrections because a lot of art detail had filled in too. I was such a novice that "real" staff letterers like Rick Parker had to redo any major changes, but I kept at the painstaking work. I was hopeful that my talents would be noticed and I would improve and get a chance to do artwork for Marvel too... and I DID! Within a month's time, I was furiously freelancing in addition to my staff work! First for Marvel... lettering, background inking, Crazy magazine articles... and then for Scholastic... lettering, spot illustration, feature articles, and even my first cover!
I recently came across the very first Marvel freelance job I had... tracing a photo of Hot Wheels cars in ink on vellum... so the linework could be colored and used for an ad in the comics. Here's the art - -

04/19/2024

Facing an unintended retirement, and not being particularly fond of sports, I have been left with few options... since I've already self-published several unnoticed books in a wide variety of genres. I can check off making numerous self-indulgent posts here on Facebook... and I'm even annoying the folks over at Instagram when I get the chance. So, my traditional retiree activities, without resorting to Bingo, seem to be fishing, woodworking, and painting. I've decided to leave the poor fish be. I'm not hungry, my local ShopRite has a terrific fresh fish counter, and I see little reason to ruin some unsuspecting underwater denizen's day by suddenly hauling him from his happy habitat by a piercing hook to suffocate in ours. I'm almost certain to wind up in my workshop soon... there are several sets of broken windchimes that need to be restrung. The excitement is palpable.
So... that leaves painting... I have been occupied as an artist for quite some time after all. I'm not ready to hike to some hilltop to render fields of daisies yet... but I have collected a few photos over the years that I thought would make for interesting subject matter. One of them is a pic I took in '87 of a paddlewheel. I really liked the complexity of the wooden structure vs. the fluidity of the water... and the natural limited palette of the scene. I struggled for two weeks with acrylic on 11"x14" canvas... definitely not my "comfort zone" medium. I thought I'd debut my efforts for your perusal... here's "Paddlewheel".
Now... where are those windchime tubes...?

04/12/2024

I've always enjoyed drawing animals... but I never had as much fun with them until I had a gig drawing for Busch Gardens! Some examples:

04/08/2024

As a (primarily) humor cartoonist, I didn't often delve into the realm of superheroes, even though I was employed on staff by the premier comic-book company of the world. My staff job was technical... and quite different from the creator end of the business. I did "crossover" on occasion, doing background inks, airbrushing, cover roughs, super-themed coloring books, etc. But I sometimes managed to get into the regular comics too... a paper cut-out saber tooth tiger for Kazar... Marvel age calendar pages... Peter Porker... Marvel Universe characters... even a Red Sonja corner symbol. But one of the most fun I had was employing my humor illustration talents to "What If"... especially because my cartoons got to be inked by some of the best Marvel inkers! And the ideas were conjured up by some of the best writers too! Mike Carlin, Bob Budiansky, John Romita Jr., Rick Parker, and Mark Gruenwald were responsible for the gags on my pages... and Al Milgrom, Bob Wiacek, and Brett Breeding inked over my graphite meanderings. Here are four pages of issue #34 I had a hand in...

04/04/2024

When I left Marvel staff to go freelance in '85, I started doing a lot of stuff for Marvel Family Publishing... an offshoot business Marvel explored, which was very timely for me! I did licensed properties like "Little Wizards" and "Chuck Norris" coloring books... and giant-sized coloring books of my own characters based on kid's popular themes, like a snowman story and a baby dinosaur story.
But one of the oddest books, was a project for Tonka. I was asked to use my airbrush skills to do a full-color story book about a generic "Red Racer" (the title) and I was given a script... and nothing else. There was no actual Tonka toy racecar to work from. So, I designed my own. My first drawings were just awful. Cars are precise and mechanical with specific shapes... and my sketches were too "organic" and loose... and I found it impossible to match the proper ellipses for all the tires! So... I went out and purchased a toy Ferrari Testarossa and set it up on a workbench in all the angles I needed according to my layouts... I even used HO and N scale toy trains as props to achieve perspective. I had to wait for the pics to be developed... and then I used them as "models" to draw from! Below are some samples of the toys and the illustrations.
I finished the entire book and handed it in and the editors loved it... unfortunately, the project was then abruptly cancelled and the book was never printed! Luckily, I still got paid... but after all my hard work, I was very sad for me that my artwork never saw print. This post is the first time several of these works have been seen outside of my portfolio. >sniff<

04/02/2024

The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, Inc. trained me for many of the skills needed for a career in comics... drawing, inking, lettering, and coloring. But the industry standard at the time for coloring comics was Dr. Martin dyes... very intense watercolor dyes that are not lightfast and can be too intense for proper color scanning for printing... but they mimic the bold colors used in comics perfectly... especially for separators to work from. One issue that always personally bothered me in watercolor, was covering large areas, like backgrounds, without getting blotchy color. It takes a lot of practice! But another way around it, is airbrush. I loved the tools and quality of airbrush art and collected many books on the subject. I bought myself a compressor and my first airbrush as soon as I got the chance. I'd used it once, briefly, to spray black ink on some newspaper... just to make sure it worked. And then I was approached to do a cover for Blip... Marvel's new computer game comic! I just couldn't see any other way to tackle the bright, smooth, vibrant colors of video... so I did my first full-color airbrush assignment from scratch to mimic a made up video game! This is it below. Thank goodness I learned quickly after that, that you shouldn't use toxic dyes in an airbrush... and switched to non-toxic acrylics! I wonder just how much cadmium I've got in me??