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ALEX NINO created the following illustrations for the comic novel …JUST PASSING BY! in 1999. in my opinion it is the best work I ever saw from him. he allowed me to xerox the oversized originals before they went into printing and the text bubbles were added. unbelievable artwork, all drawn with a simple pen, hardly with any corrections on the total of twenty pages. the masterpiece was published in july 1999 in FRANK FRAZETTA FANTASY ILLUSTRATED, vol.1, number 7.

© alex nino / quantum cat entertainment

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early in 1999, while ALEX NINO and I were still working at disney, he came to my office to show me a whole pile of new comic pages he had done. the black/white pages were oversized, bigger than A3, and – stunning! alex was euphoric, ‘I am back!’ he had made a new deal with a comic publishing house and hoped for a whole series of publications. the pen+ink drawings were the best I had seen for many years and reminded me somehow of the masters of the barock and rokoko sculptures. like usual he could not explain how he had done them, I could not even imagine how that complex work of composition, exquisite character drawings and textures had been created. of course without any rough sketching and planning, like I had seen him working on MULAN. anyway – following is the cover of the magazine where his story appeared together with several others, released in july 1999. alex had allowed me to xerox his original drawings, I post a few of them and 2 double pages of the printed version, with the added text-blocks.

© alex nino / quantum cat entertainment publ.

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some more of ALEX NINO’S inspirational artwork for disney’s MULAN.

© disney enterprises, inc / alex nino

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and more of ALEX NINO’S amazing inspirational art for disney’s MULAN

© disney enterprises, inc

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some more designs from the MASTER, ALEX NINO. they were done during preproduction of disney’s MULAN around 1995/1996. alex told us in one of his lectures here in the philippines, when he was a boy, about ten, twelve years old, his parents did not have enough money to buy him paper and pencils. so he went to the beach, not too far away from where he grew up, and practiced his drawing skills, drawing with a wooden stick in the wet sand.

© disney enterprises, inc / alex nino

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accidentally I found a lot more copies of inspirational designs ALEX NINO did during the preproduction time of disney’s MULAN around 1995/1996. so, here is the first part.

© disney enterprises, inc / alex nino

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some more of ALEX NINO’S designs during the visual development of disney’s MULAN.

© disney enterprises, inc

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here are some more inspirational designs ALEX NINO did during prproduction on disney’s MULAN.

© disney enterprises, inc

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some more of ALEX NINO’S designs for disney’s MULAN

© disney enterprises, inc

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here is more of ALEX NINO’S designs for disney’s MULAN.

© disney enterprises, inc

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ALEX NINO, born 1940 in tarlac, philippines, is probably one of the most important comic strip artists of the last thirty years. in his very own style he created numerous comics for DC COMICS, MARVEL COMICS, WARREN PUBLISHING and HEAVY METAL, recently DARK HORSE and BIG ENTERTAINMENT. you can find his complete bio here.
I met alex when I worked on the production design for disney’s MULAN, about 1996. he became a visual development artist at disney for a few years and contributed some incredible designs, influencing the look of MULAN quite a bit. I had a chance to see him work, without any sketch – straight out of his unlimited imagination. quite depressing to see the most beautiful drawings being created effortless by a master. we became good friends, and now, that I live in his native country, the philippines, we met again after a few years. together we gonna give a lecture/talk on feb. 17 in the ST.BENILDE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AND ARTS here in manila.
in the wikipedia-bio about alex they forgot to mention his MULAN work, so – ‘to prove it’, here is some of his work on the film…

© disney enterprises, inc

as of feb.18 – here is a very nice article about this event at st.benilde school of design and arts…