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?
Judge Dredd vs. Savage Dragon
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.
X-Patrol
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
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.