Saturday 24 December 2011

Mike Hinge 133 - 138

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A Happy Christmas and A Happy 2012  to You All. And A Special Thank You to Everyone that has contributed to Onyxcube .
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A little bit of a reference to Christmas in these Mike Hinge, roughs for what looks like an in house promotional brochure for Chrysler "Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre" and "The Bob Hope Christmas Show". I only have 5 of these roughs, what seems that there were more, there's some staining on the first page.

 Mike Hinge -   "Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre" (1 of 5) . Pen on white paper. Approximate size 45x30cm. Date 1967-68?. Unsigned.

 Mike Hinge -   "Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre" (2 of 5) . Pen on white paper. Approximate size 45x30cm. Date 1967-68?. Unsigned.

 Mike Hinge -   "Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre" (3 of 5) . Pen on white paper. Approximate size 45x30cm. Date 1967-68?. Unsigned.

  Mike Hinge -   "Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre" (4 of 5) . Pen on white paper. Approximate size 45x30cm. Date 1967-68?. Unsigned.


 Mike Hinge -   "Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre" (5 of 5) . Pen on white paper. Approximate size 45x30cm. Date 1967-68?. Unsigned.


Friday 16 December 2011

Mike Hinge - a christmas card

It's nearly Christmas! Thanks very much to Alex Jay for sharing his 1981 Christmas card from Mike


Alex wrote "Mike's 1981 holiday greeting card measures 14 x 17 inches / 35.56 x 43.18 centimeters". 
and "Photocopy colored with markers. The card was scanned in four sections and stitched
together; the alignment is a bit off. Back in Christmas 1980, I visited my parents who lived
in Arizona; we spent a few days in San Francisco with my father's sister. That's what Mike
was referring to in his note".

Thursday 15 December 2011

Mike Hinge - Nigel Rowe and Mike Kowalski


I was recently put in touch with Nigel Rowe who is a writer, researcher and SF fan. Nigel has written several fanzines and a book Timeless Sands - A History of Science Fiction in New Zealand and contributed to Tom Cardy's obituary for Mike. Nigel told me that he first met Mike in the early 80's and here I am publishing his email to me which include some wonderful memories of Mike. As well Nigel included this rather nifty "Lawrence of Arabia" passport photo of Mike and a very special short story  "The Quest For Mike Hinge's Boxes" by Mike Kowalski drummer of The Beach Boys on a 25th anniversary tour in New Zealand in 1984.

I really hope that we can hear those tapes one day and view some of Mike's early art. Many Thanks to you Nigel.

Mike's passport photo circa 1978.
Mike was a friend of mine who I met in New Zealand in the early 80's. He was amazed when after introducing himself as "Mike Hinge" I replied "Oh, not *the* Mike Hinge who immigrated to the States in 1958..." As a researcher and SF fan for some time I was probably one of the few people in NZ who knew who he was and his subsequent success overseas.

Over the years we kept in touch after he moved back to the East Coast. And when he unexpectedly passed away, I volunteered to take his ashes back to NZ on my next trip. And I delivered these to his brother in the rural wilds of NZ in 2004.

I subsequently bought some of his artwork from his collection as it was sold on eBay. I also own some of his original artwork from the 50's that he gifted to me when we spent a long time sorting through his original NZ possessions that had been in storage down there for the 30 odd years he had been away. I'm including here a story written about the trip to reclaim his stuff from his elderly aunt.

I also owned a bookshop for many years, and Mike helped me get it going.
Including designing the store logo, signs, and selling books when I went off to get lunch. We spent a lot of fun times together before he headed back to the States. I have several hours of him on tape talking about his early days, the Time covers and other interesting stuff that was intended for a magazine interview that never eventuated.

My one regret is that as I too moved overseas (Chicago) I had to part with some cherished possessions including the hand made wooden art drafting table he built in the 50's and left with me. Unfortunately it had too much wood borer after being in storage in humid conditions. Oh well, I enjoyed it while I could.
And it was fun seeing him draw my store logo on it, much the same as when he last used it 25 years earlier.

Enjoy the enclosed. I can't wait to check out your site! He would have been chuffed that 8 years after he shuffled off this mortal coil that people were still enthused and talking about him.

Nigel


THE
QUEST
FOR
MIKE HINGE'S
BOXES
August 1984

Mike Kowalski

We drove down through the rain and hills to Huia.
"This is just like Wellington," said Nigel as we descended. Easy to imagine the bush-clad hills covered instead with houses and winding streets, and aircraft passing through the huge gulf of air between the headlands. The windscreen on the hired station-wagon kept misting up, and it was hard to see through the heavy rain.

The blue Skoda we were following pulled over to the side. Across the road was a row of houses. We clambered out of the car, and I unfolded my umbrella.

The tide was out and the mudflats stretched out past the headlands, which were like a row of great grey spikes fading in the rain.

Mike Hinge, itinerant SF artist, hopped out of the other car and ran to the gate. The driveway was two strips of concrete but ran only from the other side of the gate. Before the gate was a stretch of spongy grass slowly puddling up with water. Mike swung the gates open, and I backed the wagon across the grass, leaving deep muddy ruts, and down the long driveway. The shed doors opened after a fair bit of pushing, and the wagon backed up half inside the garage. Mike went into the house and talked to his aunt and then came back out and showed us to the rear of the shed. The boxes were stacked to one side. They were each a metre and a half long and more than a metre high. The bases of some were damp and rotted; most had been riddled by silver-fish around the metal bands on the ends. These boxes had been sealed for twenty-five years.

We dragged them out one by one and prised them open with a crowbar and a hammer. Dust soon gathered in the rear of the shed, already festooned with cobwebs. Outside the grimy window sat a water-tank grown around with weeds. Mike com plained steadily and bitterly about relatives with no appreciation for the value of culture, as we unearthed time and again some especial treasure damaged by time and age.

The bottom-most crate was full of art material, and this had almost all perished, the most crushing blow to Mike. But three or four boxes of jazz 78's had weathered well, and a few boxes of books. Here were first editions of Arthur Clarke and others, an early Arkham Lovecraft collection, a first British edition of Foundation amidst a whole bundle of books about the saucer craze which had once occupied Auckland fandom. It was hard to guess what, if any, was valuable, but there was a lot that was very interesting. A booklet put out by the ARA (Auckland Regional Authority) in 1955 mapped out proposed changes to the public transport system, most of which still haven't got off the ground.

Finally the wagon was loaded, and the last box went into the other car, after the back seats had been taken out. The ground between the driveway and the road was very soggy by now, and the wagon heavily laden. It didn't seem likely we would be able to get out. So we carried down old planks from the box lids and placed them on the grass. Nigel drove the wagon down the drive and across the grass, managing to miss every single plank. For a moment one of the wheels slid, but he made it to the road. By this time we were all very wet, very tired.

We unloaded the boxes on Queen Street and took them up the lift to Martian Way Press. Mike shouted us dinner at the Hungry Horse. Over coffee we argued politics. It was the day of the General Election (I didn't vote, of course). Back at Nigel's office we phoned the Values Party party at Cathryn Symons' house to find the election result, and to learn that Cathryn - who had stood for election - was not destined to become New Zealand's first fannish politician.

Mike Hinge - a biography

Mike Hinge in his own words, a short biography circa 1980. This glimpse into Mike's life tells about the exciting era and of the interesting places where Mike lived and worked and his ideas. Thanks very much to Sanford Meschkow and Matt Howarth for sharing this. The front cover is a Mike Hinge ASCII art portrait.






Mike Hinge - an obituary


Thanks very much to Andrew Porter  for sending me the obituary, Mike is very much missed.

After a long delay, Tom Cardy's obituary for Mike Hinge was published in New Zealand's second largest daily paper. The Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand) December 11, 2003
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Michael Barry Hinge, illustrator and graphic designer. B Auckland, August 9, 1931, d Philadelphia, August 2003.

DESPITE success as an illustrator and graphic designer after moving to the United States 44 years ago, Mike Hinge remained virtually unknown in New Zealand. His success included portraits with a distinct pop art influence for the cover of Time magazine -- Japanese emperor Hirohito in October, 1971 and Richard Nixon, as the Watergate crisis deepened, in November 1973. The artwork for both covers are now held by the Smithsonian. Film-maker Stanley Kubrick hired Hinge to design a "cryogenic module" for a display at cinemas to promote his 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the display was never constructed.

Hinge illustrated many covers and interiors for American science fiction magazines Amazing Science Fiction, Fantastic and Analog in the 1970s, as well as book covers. A comic strip, which he also wrote, appeared in the graphic magazine Heavy Metal in 1982.

As a professional artist, Hinge was nominated for a Hugo Award -- sci-fi's most prestigious trophy -- in 1973. New Zealand has featured in the awards only twice since then, when Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring won best dramatic presentation last year and The Two Towers this year. Hinge was also nominated six times for the Locus Awards bestowed by American sci-fi news magazine, Locus.

Hinge grew up in a state house in Mission Bay, Auckland. His English father was a bus driver and his South African mother was a former nurse. Hinge's twin obsessions were sci-fi and everything American. As a child he would stay up till 3am, drawing spaceships and futuristic vehicles. By the time he was a teenager in the late 1940s, he regularly wore a cowboy hat, listened to the blues and Louis Armstrong and was learning to play jazz trombone.

By the standards of the day, he was a maverick. To the consternation of audiences at Auckland cinemas, the Americanophile refused to stand when God Save The King was played before each film. He hated the Union Jack on the New Zealand flag and suggested a koru design instead. Hinge studied at Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts in 1947 and 1948, then worked as a commercial artist at the Farmers Trading Company and advertising agencies. In his spare time he helped illustrate several New Zealand amateur sci-fi publications.

Hinge remained fixated with the US. In 1952, he had applied for a green card to work there. In 1958, he was granted one and left in June. Until he boarded a ship to America, the only place he had visited outside Auckland was Waiheke Island. He enrolled at the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles. Commissions included record covers, fashion layouts for JC Penney and supermarket interiors.

In New York from 1966, Hinge worked in advertising agencies as an art director and designer. His designs for typefaces and graphics won him several awards and were exhibited, including a show at the Brooklyn Museum. A book about his art, The Mike Hinge Experience, was published in 1973, and his work featured in the anthology The New Visions, in 1982.

Hinge returned home only once. In 1984, his brother Noel, who had won $333,000 in Lotto's predecessor Golden Kiwi, paid for the trip and bought him a house in Orewa. But Hinge found the pace too slow and advertising agencies would not hire him. He returned to New York the following year and resumed work as a freelance illustrator. His last professional work was the cover of Amazing Stories in 1993.

Hinge was based in Philadelphia for the past 10 years. He never married, fearing he couldn't support a family as a freelance artist.He lived alone and friends became concerned after they had not seen him for several days. Police broke into his apartment and found his body. He had died of a heart attack, most likely about a week earlier, around his 72nd birthday. His ashes were interred in Auckland.

 -- By
Tom Cardy. Sources: N Hinge, N Rowe, S Meschkow, Locus Online, The Mike Hinge Experience by James Steranko.