American Bombshell 2003

Greg Hildebrandt’s, American Bombshell, is an illustration of an armed woman made with a commercial approach. The colours are bold and clear, very comic book, very illustrative. It’s interesting how the orange of the explosion in the background gives a fiery glow to the woman in the foreground, even though that might seem obvious, look at how her body almost melts into the inferno behind her. It reminds me of those film noir posters where the shadows give just as much information as the parts in the light. It’s the kind of painting that makes you think of pin-ups and pulp art, a bit like if Robert Crumb had a love child with a renaissance master. But it's also interesting to me that he is one of the Brothers Hildebrandt and he made art for comics and films. Seeing this you can see the through line from a comic book like X-Men to an image like this, art lives in constant dialogue across media.