Alright. It’s my birthday. 14 years now I’ve been annually posting sadness. Well, not so much this year. I mean, listen, the world is fucking crumbling around us, and I’m still fucked up and broken, but, y’know, things could be worse for me. In just a few weeks will be the one-year anniversary of meeting a woman who has changed and influenced my life for the better. I have fallen hard. I’m scared of that, because that has generally only led to incredible heartache and then, we get to 14 years of consistent birthday sad-man suicide notes. But, I am attempting hopefulness. Despite an odd and non-traditional situation, I truly think this will be the lasting one.
Meanwhile everyone around me is screaming, on fire, and flailing like windmills. But there’s only like 5 or 6 people in the world I give a damn about, and all I want is for those 5 or 6 people to be okay.
So. Art.
Back like 12 years ago or so, when I got into doing Cover Recreations semi-regularly, I stumbled across this issue of Justice League of America, Issue 95.
Featuring a cover by the late Hollow-Earth conspiracy theorist Neal Adams, I latched onto the black Pied Piper with a guitar imagery and thought “man, it would be great to re-do this with Prince in place of Johnny Dune”. I even went so far as to set-up the design elements in Adobe Illustrator, do a couple thumbnails and find references for Prince. Then… nothing.
But, it always stayed in the back of my head as a “one day” project.
I’m not entirely sure when or why exactly I just decided “go for it”, but I’m suspecting that the aforementioned ladylove bringing up the song Pussy Control repeatedly sort of snagged onto me. I thought lyrics from that song used as the cover blurbs in juxtaposition with the Justice League dancing and vibing to it were too funny to pass up. The layout and idea I had 12 years ago was essentially the same as I pulled off now, but maybe some better skill? I dunno. For most of the League, I referenced photos of Solid Gold dancers from the 70s and early 80s. All but Batman. I knew I wanted him to be doing the Batusi, and I knew I wanted the Michael Keaton ’89 Batman. Because, as we all know, Batdance is the greatest song ever written and performed, and the Batman ’89 soundtrack is Prince’s best album, and the best soundtrack of all-time.
I decided on the Morrison JLA logo and DC bullet, because, well, I like them. Deal with it.
Anyhoo. Prince, R.I.P.