Firestorm, a childhood favorite of mine (that I still have an affinity for), reimagined as a New God – Kirbyized. Done in Illustrator a few years back.
Firestorm of the New Gods
Jack Spaulding, Private Dick
Did this as a pin-up for a comic drawn by a fellow former Newsarama art group member. My love of noir is firmly established if you listen to my podcast, so I loved drawing this. Unfortunately, after drawing it, I found out that Spaulding doesn’t use guns in the comic. Ah well. I still enjoyed it, and they still put it in the comic. I’d love to post a link to it, and to it’s creator, but I do not know where to find them.
Rulah, Jungle Goddess (31)
Happy Birthday, Eric!
Oh! Hey, art blog! Thanks! What’s up?
Not much. You doin’ anything special tonight?
Nah, not really. I gotta work, and I when I get home, I’ll be going out to dinner with my folks. Go bowling afterward, but it was bowling night, anyway.
Well that sounds fun. Hey, I got you something.
You did? Art blog… you didn’t have to, I really don’t want anything…
Oh I know I didn’t, but I wanted to.
Well… thanks, art blog. I appreciate it.
I hope you like it. Here:
Oh… um… okay. Thanks? I… um… what is it?
It’s the cover to a golden age comic, All Top Comics # 14.
Well, that’s cool… I guess. What made you think of this?
You know Wheeler, right? Jason’s friend?
Yeah.
Well he’s putting together a project that’s going to focus on Golden Age comics specifically called out by Dr. Frederick Wertham in his book Seduction of the Innocent. He’s going to have some local artists recreate public domain books Wertham pointed out as contributing to the deliquency of children.
Ah! That sounds pretty cool, actually. So this was one of ’em?
Yup.
What about it made worthy of… um.. Wertham?
According to the good doctor, “its references to ‘Corpses of colored people strung up by their wrists’.”
Wow, that’s pretty dark.
Was… was that a racist pun?
Um… I didn’t mean it to be… sorry…
*Sigh*. Anyway… Wheeler and Jason knew how much I liked to do cover recreations, and asked if I’d contribute. I jumped at it.
Sweet!
Yup. So I looked at the cover, and did a couple thumbnails, eventually settling on this one:
I changed a few things, upped the sex appeal a bit, and changed the bull to a rhino, since it seemed more afro-centric than an ox. Then I cribbed the design of the natives from a Jack Kirby Fantastic Four story.
The one where the Human Torch gets captured by fireproof aboriginals?
Yeah, and Namor’s trying to make a movie!
What issue was that?
Oh, I dunno. So anyway, once I got the sketch done, I blew it up and found some rhino reference.
Then redesigned the logo and typesetting, and tweaked the trade design a tad, and put it all together in Photoshop.
I printed the composite out, lightboxed it with traditional blue pencil, and then inked it:
Once that was done, I scanned it back in, colored it and added the trade dress.
Ta-da!
Wow, that looks like it took a while.
Yeah it did. I basically had to relearn how to color in Photoshop to get it close to how I envisioned it. Still, it never turns out how you have it in mind.
True. Look at the redhead chick. Her hands are gargantuan and her eyes are all fucked up. Don’t even get me started on all that dust or whatever the hell that crap is supposed to be. Or how Rulah looks like she’s giving the rhino a handy. Or how most of logo is covered by the hair…
Hey! You fucker! This is your goddamn birthday present! Don’t completely shit on it, asshole!
Shit… sorry, art blog. No really, it’s awesome. Thanks, man.
Ah, it’s alright. This was already posted on the Covered Blog about a week ago or so. I just posted this here out of pity, anyway.
Son of a bitch!
Your podcast sucks too!
Judge Dredd vs. Savage Dragon
A few years ago, I was part of a group on the Newsarama message boards, and every week we’d have a new art challenge. One week, the topic was Judge Dredd vs. Savage Dragon. I’ve got an affinity for Dredd. I’m not sure where it comes from. Certainly not the movie. I also have a huge pile of unread Dredd & 2000 A.D. comics sitting in my office. Again, not really sure why. But for whatever reason, I dig him. And my opinion on Savage Dragon has been noted. So I was super excited to draw this piece, and despite my Photoshop cloning of shell casings, I’m still proud of this piece. It was a lot of fun to draw, and it’s the first time (and to date, only time) I’ve drawn Dredd. I should do it more. He’s an awesome character. Maybe?
Sparklefox
Back in May, on Free Comic Book Day, my pal Jason (co-host of my super-excellent podcast Gutter Trash) invited me and another friend of his to help teach a cartooning class at a local library.
It was fun, but I don’t think we imparted any wisdom on any of the kids there, who ranged in age from 9-17. But for the majority of the class, we had all the kids draw their own comic strips.
Anyhoo, I during the two hours or so that the kids were drawing, so were Jason and I. The above comic was a quickie, but it’s an idea that I had been playing around with for a while up until then.
Sparklefox is a touring metal band, and their stories will run the gamut from Spinal Tap-ish comedy to Cannibal Corpse-ish comedy. Heavily influenced by my love of metal, the cartoon Metalocalypse (Dethklok vs. The Goon out this week!), Rockumentaries, and Mock-Rockumentaries, I’m planning on short bursts of Sparklefox stuff. Such as the following:
A more refined version that I put together as a submission for a “Create Your Own Comic Strip” contest (I didn’t win, in case you’re wondering). I’ll probably do more strips like this in the future. It seems to be the one idea I have that lends itself to the strip format. Otherwise, this’ll just fall into the massive pile of stuff I’d love to work on but probably never will (I’ll probably work on them, it just takes time).
P.S. This week on Gutter Trash Episode 36: Nothing! It’s a filler episode full of nonsense and idiocy.
Plastic Man
Plastic Man has always been a favorite character of mine. This was drawn out of love for the character and in tribute to Plas creator Jack Cole, who was hired as one of Playboy’s first and finest cartoonists, and to Hef himself, who was also a big fan of Plas and Cole.
Orion of The New Gods by Kirby
I’ve never been a huge Jack Kirby fan, but lately I’ve been growing more and more fond of his work. I found this sketch online:
And then “finished” it in Adobe Illustrator and tweaked in Photoshop.
Black Adam
Over the last 5-6 years, Black Adam has become one of the DC Universe’s most interesting characters. Not to mention the fact that he’s also one of the sharpest looking designs as well. Drew this in Adobe Illustrator a few years ago.
Savage Dragon
When Image Comics first started, Dragon quickly became my favorite of that batch, and when I grew out of Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and Marc Silvestri (never liked Jim Valentino, still like Whilce Portacio and Todd McFarlane), I stuck by Erik Larsen, who became one of my all-time comic book heroes. Even though I dropped the book around issue 110 or so, it was one of the most painful comic-buying decisions I’ve ever made. I had become so bored and disinterested by the comic, but I still wanted to support Larsen. That aside, I never lost respect for the guy, he was doing what he wanted, and he was doing it his own way. Lately I’ve been picking up random issues of Dragon here and there. It’s still not as good as I remember them being at one time, but I’m not as adverse to it as I was a few years ago. But as long as Erik Larsen and Savage Dragon are around – whether I’m reading it or not – the world of comics is better for it.
The above was a brush pen sketch to see how well the brush pen worked. It worked adequately.
Batman: Fruit Pies
A parody of the old Hostess superhero ads. I miss this element in comics. Occasionally you see ads featuring superheroes, but
A) they’re usually pandering, patronizing PSAs like “Jimmy, you shouldn’t smoke!” “Drugs are whack, yo!” or “Stop fisting your sister!”
2) they’re always poorly drawn and written. Sure the hostess ads ain’t high art, but they’re so fucking insane, that they’re amazing. And usually drawn by what appeared to be staff artists, who, y’know, had talent and skill.
Gutter Trash Episode 33: Apocalypse Now is available when? Now. Next week: Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score.