comic art
Have a spare six grand? Skottie Young’s AvX cover art could be yours!
Skottie Young's Midtown Comics-exclusive cover art for "Avengers vs. X-Men" #1
If you’re a Marvel fan with a hefty tax refund burning a hole in your checking account, you may want to pay a visit to Skottie Young’s blog, where the artist has posted original art for his Midtown Comics-exclusive AvX Babies cover for Avengers vs. X-Men #1. The brush and ink art — two 11-inch by 17-inch Bristol boards taped together — can be yours for a cool $6,000.
- April 4, 2012 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
J.H. Williams III breaks down his cover process for Batwoman #10
On his blog, J.H. Williams III breaks down his cover process for June’s Batwoman #10, the penultimate chapter of the “To Drown the World” story arc that finds Kate Kane ambushed by Killer Croc.
“The goal was to keep things almost monochrome, or a limited palette. Placing all of the focus on Batwoman through color use,” Williams writes. “And on the encircling villains I used only simple grey textures, just enough to darken the image, while retaining the graphic quality of that portion of the cover. And then by leaving the background white and digitally painting white fades over the edges of the villains gives this very nice tunnel effect, Batwoman emerging from the light into the threatening darkness …”
Visit Williams’ blog to see his ful process. Batwoman #10 goes on sale June 20.
- March 28, 2012 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Joe Quesada shows you how to draw the Hulk in ‘Master Class’ clip
USA Today teases the Sunday premiere of Disney XD’s Marvel Universe animated programming block with a preview of “Master Class,” a series of shorts in which Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada demonstrates how to draw some of the company’s most famous characters. Here, the veteran artist tackles the Incredible Hulk.
Anchored by Ultimate Spider-Man and The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the Marvel Universe block also features such shorts as the “Fury Files” (dossiers on Marvel heroes), “Animated Realities” (superhero moves demonstrated by stunt and special-effects experts) and “What Would It Take?” (a look at the technology required to replicate heroes’ gadgets and abilities in real life).
Disney XD’s Marvel Universe block premieres Sunday at 11 a.m. ET/PT.
- March 28, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Your Wednesday Sequence 46 | Chris Ware
ACME Novelty Library #1 (1993), page 28. Chris Ware.
Chris Ware is one of a very few artists working in comics — honestly, a very few ever to have worked in comics — to have developed a completely unique visual style. We can look at anything Ware draws and know it’s him by the precision of his meticulous, even lines, the muted but expressive color palette, the simplification of forms that manages to seem both naturalistic and artificial. Any single Ware drawing codes for an entire way of making comics, a language the artist has created for himself from the raw material of panels and balloons.
Which makes it all the more interesting to see work by Ware done in different styles. The experience of reading a comic hammers the style the artist uses into our heads so relentlessly — the goal, after all, is that you fully believe their particular system of shapes and colors represents objective reality — and it can be easy to forget anyone can draw in a different style than we’ve seen on their most recent pages. With Ware especially, the world drawn is so rich, so much more varied in what it presents than almost anywhere else in comics, that seeing him do something outside his usual mode is almost a visceral shock.
- March 21, 2012 @ 03:00 PM by Matt Seneca
Travel Foreman shows off Justice League vs. Authority fan comic
One of the biggest returns in DC Comics’ New 52 relaunch last fall wasn’t a specific character or team, but the return of Travel Foreman. The artist burst onto the scene on Com.X’s Cla$$war and did a string of titles like Ares and Iron Fist for Marvel, but it wasn’t until his work on Animal Man that he came into his own. With news last month that Foreman is moving off Animal Man to join Birds of Prey, it got him thinking about other heroes he’d done in the past — some of which you’ve never seen.
On his Tumblr blog, Foreman showed off several unfinished pages for a Justice League vs. Authority comic that he worked on sporadically for fun from 2001 to 2004 in 2001. Foreman’s drawn The Authority on several occasions, but all of it for fun and not for DC publication.
But just imagine. With Marvel’s Avengers vs. X-Men coming in a few short months and DC looking for the next big step in its successful line-wide relaunch, what an actual Justice League vs. Authority series could do. Look at these pages from Foreman for a possible idea:
- March 21, 2012 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Arrant
WonderCon | Jamie McKelvie on Captain Marvel’s costume design
Captain Marvel, by Jamie McKelvie
Following Saturday’s announcement at WonderCon in Anaheim, California, that Carol Danvers will become Captain Marvel in a series by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Dexter Soy, Jamie McKelvie has offered a little insight into his design for the character’s new costume, writing, “Our idea was to give her a kind of swash-buckling costume that invoked a sense of her history as an Air Force officer. Her hair is slicked back at the sides when in costume — so her Kree-style helmet can form when she needs it.”
Check out McKelvie’s character design below, and be sure to read DeConnick’s interview with Comic Book Resources about the new title.
- March 18, 2012 @ 10:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Quote of the day | ‘We’re not … doing Gandalf in a red leotard’
The redesigned, and renamed, Shazam, by Gary Frank
“… The cape is now more of a cloak but, beyond that, the magic power is now a part of the look. The idea is that the lightning is always crackling around him, the power barely contained. He is, in effect, a conduit for the power. [...] We’re not ditching the muscles and doing Gandalf in a red leotard.”
– artist Gary Frank, talking with Comic Book Resources about the redesign of Billy Batson/Shazam
for “The Curse of Shazam” backup feature in DC’s Justice League
- March 13, 2012 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
March MODOK Madness returns
Guess what time it is — March MODOK Madness time! Or at least it will be in a few days. Pedro Delgado and Brendan Tobin are once again hosting artwork featuring Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s big-headed creation all throughout the month of March, so go check out their blog to see them starting later this week or to learn how to submit your own.
- February 27, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Calvin and Hobbes watercolor sells for $107,000
Calvin and Hobbes watercolor, by Bill Watterson
Auctions | An original watercolor by Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, showing his creations lounging under a tree, fetched $107,000 at auction. [Comic Riffs]
Publishing | David Barnett writes an appreciation for 2000AD, the U.K. comics anthology that turns 35 years old this year: “For a seven-year-old, 2000AD was anarchic and fascistic and funny and frightening and gory and exciting and thought-provoking, all rolled up together. They called it 2000AD, presumably, because no one expected the comic to live that long. But 35 years after the first issue, which had a 26 February cover date, and in the year that Queen Elizabeth II marks her diamond jubilee, 2000AD is still going, delivering (in the magazine’s own words) ‘thrill power’ every single week since then.” [The Guardian]
- February 24, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson
Quote of the day #2 | Marvel’s longform birth certificate
“Though Marvel has commented, the internet has decided it will not be satisfied until it sees the longform birth certificate.”
– Men of War writer Ivan Brandon, responding to online reaction to statements made by Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley and CCO Joe Quesada concerning the Gary Friedrich case and the sale of sketches at conventions
- February 15, 2012 @ 05:45 PM by Kevin Melrose
Image Expo tickets showcase ‘Experience Creativity’ campaign
Image Comics has revealed the ticket designs for its first Image Expo, a three-day convention held Feb. 24-26 at the Oakland Convention Center in Oakland, California. Conceived by Jonathan Chan, the tickets spotlight the publisher’s new “Experience Creativity” marketing campaign with five designs featuring creators Ed Brubaker (Fatale), Jonathan Hickman (The Manhattan Projects), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and Brian K. Vaughan (Saga).
Check out the rest of Chan’s designs below. Tickets may be purchased on the Image Expo website.
- February 15, 2012 @ 09:15 AM by Kevin Melrose
Gary Friedrich case spurs debate about convention sketches
Reacting to analysis of Marvel’s much-publicized dispute with Ghost Rider creator Gary Friedrich, Joe the Barbarian artist Sean Gordon Murphy has announced he’ll no longer sell convention sketches or commissions of characters he doesn’t own, and encourages other creators to do the same.
“Am I rolling over in fear of Marvel? Maybe, but [...] they’re in their legal right to come after me if there’s ever a dispute,” Murphy wrote this morning on deviantART. “I love to complain about the Big Two, but I can’t (in good conscience) get upset at them if I’m breaking the rules myself. Being DC exclusive, maybe I can get a waiver that allows me to sketch DC characters, so I’ll keep you updated.”
Friedrich sued Marvel, Sony Pictures and other companies in 2007, claiming the rights to Ghost Rider had reverted to him six years earlier because the publisher never registered the character’s first appearance in 1972′s Marvel Spotlight #5 with the U.S. Copyright Office. Marvel counter-sued in 2010, seeking damages from Friedrich who, through Gary Friedrich Enterprises LLC, had produced and sold unauthorized Ghost Rider posters, cards and T-shirts at conventions and online. The company also asserted that Friedrich had “aided and abetted third parties” in reproducing and selling “graphic and narrative elements” of Ghost Rider comics.
- February 14, 2012 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
More Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns art goes up for auction
More than nine months after an original splash page from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns sold for a record $448,125, Heritage Auctions is offering two more original pieces of Frank Miller art, expected to bring in more than $50,000 each.
Consigned by Miller himself, the pieces are the cover to 2006′s Absolute Dark Knight and the frontispiece from the 1997 10th-anniversary edition of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
“It took me years to define, in my own mind, Batman as less a creature of vengeance than of vigor,” Miller said of the Absolute Dark Knight cover. “This piece is one of my personal favorites. To me, it sums the man up.” And on the Batman and Robin splash: “Like any hero, Batman is complex. Here we see him as a father figure, instructing one of my favorite creations, dear Carrie Kelly.”
The two pieces will be auctioned Feb. 23 by Heritage, which notes that while Miller worked with inker Klaus Janson and colorist Lynn Varley on The Dark Knight Returns, “these images are rare examples of 100 percent Frank Miller pencils and inks on his most popular character.”
- February 7, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Animal Man ‘Evolve or Die’ shirt arrives in stores, then debuts in comic
In a clever bit of product placement and cross-promotion, DC Comics is offering “Evolve or Die” T-shirts featuring Travel Foreman’s cover for Animal Man #1 just ahead of the shirt’s debut in the seventh issue of the series. It certainly makes sense within the context of the relaunched title, which opened with a Believer interview in which Buddy Baker was asked how it felt “to have your face plastered on kids’ dorm rooms and T-shirts all over the country.”
The shirts will be available in direct market stores, and at GraffitiDesigns.com, at the end of the month (prices range from $18.95 to $24.95, depending on size). There’s no word yet as to when we should expect that “World’s Best Grandpa” design.
Animal Man #7, by Jeff Lemire and Steve Pugh, arrives March 7.
- February 6, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Frosty first look at Adam Hughes’ cover for Fairest #3
Adam Hughes has revealed his cover for the third issue of Fairest, Vertigo’s upcoming Fables spinoff series that will spotlight such female characters as Thumbelina, Rapunzel, Snow White and Rose Red. While the six-issue initial arc, by Fables creator Bill Willingham and artists Phil Jimenez and Andy Lanning, centers on Briar Rose, Hughes puts Lumi, the Snow Queen (previously seen in the background of his cover for Fairest #1) front and center.
Check out the full image below. Fairest debuts from Vertigo in March; the third issue arrives in May.
- February 3, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose