A Post-It Doodle done at work in red and black gel pens, scanned and inverted. I never read the Amalgam comic, but like most of them, the idea seems neat…
Iron Lantern
Shadow of the Colossus
Drawn a few years ago in pencil, finished in Adobe Illustrator. There are some things I’d like to go back and tweak, but can’t find the original AI file. Colossus was always one of my favorite X-Men characters when I was growing up, probably third after Nightcrawler and Wolverine.
Sandman
I’ve had a fondness for the Golden Age Sandman for a long time, only reinforced by the criminally underrated Sandman Mystery Theatre by Matt Wagner, Steven Seagle and Guy Davis. There’s just something great and timeless about a guy in a suit, trenchcoat, fedora and gas mask. I have a smattering of SMT issues, but not the whole run. They are difficult to track down. Someday, I’d like to get the trades collecting the series, but someday I’d like to get a lot of trades collecting a lot of series. So there you go.
Incidentally, I’m a terrible inker. Looking at this piece, while I dislike it in general, I find a cleaner line that I am capable of when I ink something. I’ve always had a problem inking, but it’s really something that’s been bothering me more and more lately. There’s just more control in the pencils, but I am definitely not an admirer of comic art that is reproduced from pencils only. Ink is necessary. I just wish I could do it.
Madman Monday
My pal Jason and I were drawing on Saturday, and he mentioned that he was going to draw a Madman picture for his blog. At the time, we were watching the show Mad Men, and that’s what I thought he said. It’s not too odd, he’s drawn characters from other TV shows before. But when I saw him pull out some Mike Allred’s Madman reference, I got a little disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing his renditions of Don Draper and Co. Then he gave me the brilliant idea that’s too stupid, I can’t believe someone hasn’t done it yet.
So anyway, for uninitiated to either Mad Men or Madman, here’s a key:
Bold = Mad Men character; Italics = Madman character
(left to right)
Joan Holloway, Bonnie
Roger Sterling, Dr. Gillespie Flem
Don Draper, Frank Einstein (Madman)
Betty Draper, Joe Lombard
Bert Cooper, Dr. Egon Boiffard
Peggy Olson, Gale
Pete Campbell, Astroman
I thought about other match-ups too. The only definite one was Paul Kinsey as Mott, and then various Atomics characters as Sal, Ken, Harry, and some of the secretaries.
Anyway, go check out Jason’s Blog to see the Madman drawing he completed.
UPDATE: Jason couldn’t scan his drawing in. Go to his blog and berate him.
21 and 24
I fuckin’ love The Venture Bros., and I especially love 21 & 24, rest his fictional cartoon henchy soul. Season 4 can’t get here soon enough.
Firestorm of the New Gods
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.
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.