X-Patrol

  • Filed under Artwork

  • June 19, 2009


When Marvel & DC teamed up to do the Amalgam Comics experiment, they did an X-Patrol comic (X-Men & Doom Patrol). It wasn’t that great. It combined the 90s X-Men with the more classic version of the Doom Patrol.

After reading (and loving) Grant Morrison’s version of the Doom Patrol, I thought that they should have used his version of the team and combined them with similarly suited X-Men characters.

Peter Rasputin (Colossus) and Cliff Steele (Robotman) combined to become Peter Steele (also the name of the Goth-Metal singer from Type O Negative – pretty much my sole purpose of doing this drawing was for that joke that only I find funny).

Crazy Jane (a multiple personality disorder sufferer, whose different personalities have different powers) and Rogue (who gains others powers and minds temporarily when she touches them) became Crazy Rogue (she’s permanently gained every person she’s ever touched powers and personality, which drove her insane).

Negative Man/Rebis combined with Human Torch to become the Pyronic Man. Yeah, Human Torch isn’t an X-Men or even a mutant. Don’t care. The visual is what was important, and no X-character fit.

Anyhoo just a bit of fun done entirely in Adobe Illustrator. There are pieces I like, but a ton I don’t. I’ll blame those on the fact that I didn’t start with a sketch.

The Jack Staff episode is up at Gutter Trash, my weekly review podcast. Next week: Apocalypse Now.

Blue Beetle

  • Filed under Artwork

  • June 13, 2009


If you haven’t figured it out, since there’s more Blue Beetle drawings on this site than any other characters, he’s definitely in my top 3 of mainstream superheroes (Daredevil and Nightwing being the other two).

I drew this in regular ol’ pen and ink, and then colored with color pencils. Unless he’s thrown it away, I gave it to DC Comics artist Mike Norton as a gift at last year’s Windy City Comicon. Been neglecting the blog a bit, but my friend Jason and I challenged each other yesterday that we’d try to update our respective blogs at least once a week indefinitely. Feel free to give both of us shit if we fail (which we probably will). Check out his stuff @ Buyer Beware. Of course you can always listen to our podcast, Gutter Trash, which is definitely updated once a week.

Next week’s episode we review my absolute favorite superhero comic currently being published, Jack Staff by Paul Grist.

Work Doodles





More work doodles. Gel pens are fun.

Wolverine


So despite the fact that I can say (not-so-proudly) I am a Wolverine fan, I have no intention of seeing X-Men Origins: Wolverine. To make up for that, here’s a pencil drawing I did that was probably the only decent Wolverine sketch I’ve ever done.

That said, I did spend my money on the new Star Trek, a franchise I can easily say that I am not a fan of. I have seen most of the films, though, and enjoyed quite a few of them. The new Trek blows ’em all away. It’s just a quickly paced, fun, action romp with enough emotional weight and depth to keep you engaged when shit’s not blowin’ up. Zachary Quinto as Spock shows infinitely more range as an actor than his role as Sylar on Heroes (to be fair, everything about Heroes is incredibly one-note). The rest of the major crew is mostly cast as comic relief (with the exception of Uhura), but each gets a dramatic moment to shine as well. Chris Pine as Kirk comes off as an incredible asshole, and in any other world, this would hurt him. However in the rigid command of Starfleet, Asshole Kirk becomes the Everyman, and the most relatable character, something most of the other Trek movies and shows are missing. Leonard Nimoy’s appearance as Old Spock makes sense within the logic of the movie, but it still felt uncomfortable. However, the worst part of the film is when Young Kirk steals a classic convertible and blasts The Beastie Boys and uses some cellphone technology (Buy Nokia!) that isn’t all that far away from what we’ve got now. The whole scene does help build up Kirk as Asshole Everyman, but still feels… shallow. The direction is pretty standard, but owes quite a bit to both Star Wars and Firefly in it’s action sequences and settings. And hey, the Cloverfield monster shows up!

But still, money well spent, the movie is incredibly fun, and I would definitely recommend it to non-Trek fans. As for diehard Trek fans? I dunno. The majority of the folks in the theater (most of whom I can assume were Trekkies) applauded at the end and at certain key moments in the movie, but as I was leaving I was still hearing some folks bitch about continuity errors and things they “got wrong”. So who knows?

I was going to pick this as the next movie pick for my podcast Gutter Trash, but my local nerd crew decided that we all needed to see it opening night. And for once, my superpowers didn’t kick in, and I didn’t have idiots surrounding me in the theater. However I did get there early, to minimize the damage. One of our group, though, couldn’t get in due to the movie being sold out, however, right next to my friend was an empty seat, and there were a whole bunch of empty seats toward the front of the theater as well. I don’t get it.

Gene

  • Filed under Artwork

  • April 21, 2009


Back in June ’08, I posted a drawing of Gene Simmons. The drawing was used for a very short sequential story I was working on for an art show that never happened. My friend Jason (co-host of my podcast, Gutter Trash) and I put together a mini-comic about KISS for this show. He did a three page Ace Frehley story, and I did a three page Gene Simmons tale.

This past weekend (April 18 ’09) was the Small Press And Comic Expo (SPACE), where Jason took up the copies of our KISS comic to give away, finally.

Updated: Jason has his Ace pages on his own blog (Buyer Beware Comics).

Click on the thumbnail above to read Gene: The Mostly Un-True Tale of God of Thunder.

Guy Gardner

  • Filed under Artwork

  • March 24, 2009


Everyone’s got their favorite Green Lantern. Mine isn’t Hal Boredom. Get it? Boredom – Jordan? Get it? Eh – fuck it.

Cover Recreations

  • Filed under Artwork

  • March 21, 2009

Been busy, and I wanted to wait until I had these things colored before I posted them. But it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Anyhoo, over Christmas, rather than spend money on folks, I drew these cover recreations for some friends of mine. I discovered that doing these are incredibly fun, and I’ve got a mental list of future silver age covers I’d love to recreate. I would also love to take commissions for some as well, if anyone would be willing to pay (I work relatively cheap). If you or anyone you know wants one, send me an email.

This Doom Patrol is the first cover I did, which is why it’s the only one with an unfinished color version.

Next up was Hawkgirl. Obviously, the original wasn’t a Hawkgirl comic, but for the purposes of the gift, it needed to be.

Finally was The Flash. This was hard to do, because almost every Flash cover from this era is awesomely hilarious, and it was difficult to choose.

Fantastic Four No. 9, Page 16

  • Filed under Artwork

  • March 16, 2009

I drew this for one of my closest friends, Jason Young, who put together an entire collection of eclectic artists to re-create the entire issue Fantastic Four No. 9. Check out all the amazing artwork on display, and maybe look at this page too.

Hawkeye

  • Filed under Artwork

  • January 3, 2009


I’ve always liked Hawkeye. And Green Arrow, for that matter. I just dig superheroes with bow and arrows. It’s like Batman is just a guy hanging out with demi-gods, but he has all these toys, tools and gimmicks and to back him up. The Archers just have bows and arrows, and hang out in the same crowd.

That’s right.

Better than Batman.

Anyhoo. I’ve moved the location of the blog to just be the main site. I’m pretty certain I’ll never get an actual site built, so this is just as good, with significantly less effort.

Here’s to a slightly more productive and less bothersome 2009.

Post-It Doodles

  • Filed under Artwork

  • November 25, 2008


These are probably going to be the only new things I post once in a while. I doodle them at work to kill time between programs and files loading, saving, closing, etc. All the things that should only take seconds, yet seem to always take minutes.