I know that due to logistics and geography, a lot of you haven’t had the opportunity to see me at a convention or signing, but want to pick up one or more of my art prints. You probably know that most of my art prints are available for purchase in my Etsy store, but to show you I appreciate you all just as much as those able to visit me at events, I’m holding an online art sale! This is your chance to pick up that art you’ve been eyeing from me at a bit of a discount.
My GRODD WANT ART SALE will run until June 23!
(Why Grodd? No reason. I just love Grodd.)
Check out my Etsy Store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/ChrisJonesArt to see the full selection of art prints I have available. Use one of the discount codes at checkout.
GRODDMEGA – 40% off any purchase of $150 or more GRODD45 – $45 off any purchase of $120 or more GRODD30 – $30 off any purchase of $90 or more GRODD15 – $15 off any purchase of $60 or more GRODD5 – $5 off any purchase of $30 or more FRUGALGRODD – 10% off any purchase of $10 or more
Also, prints now ship inside the United States at just $5 for any size order, and there’s a combined shipping discount on international orders.
Art prints all feature an original signature by the artist (yours truly) and can be personalized upon request.
I won’t offer discounts on online purchases super often, but it is my plan to hold an online sale at least once per year going forward.
Here’s part three in a series collecting the art from an unpublished comic based on Gerry Anderson’s UFO. You can read up on the back story of this project in part one.
Below you can pages 16-23 of the #0 issue, comparing the pencil art by myself, the inks by Joseph Rubenstein, and the colors by Matt Webb. Obviously the lettering is not in place.
Page 16 – Foster and a SHADO Mobile have some trouble from a local hunter AND an alien UFO that was hidden in a lake.
Page 17 – The SHADO Mobile takes off in pursuit of the UFO, which is headed towards London.
Page 18 – The SHADO Mobiles pursue the UFO down the M4 highway towards London. So much for SHADO operating in secret! Meanwhile, General Henderson takes issue with Commander Straker.
Page 19 – The Mobiles finally get a bead on the last UFO, just as Straker and Henderson run outside in time to see it falling from the sky.
Page 20-21 – A double page spread showing the damaged UFO crashing to the ground and skidding across the parking lot of Harlington-Straker Studios (the ground-level cover for the underground SHADO HQ) before coming to a stop at the feet of Straker and Henderson.
Page 22 – Foster arrives just in time to watch Straker and Henderson argue in the aftermath of the UFO crash.
Page 23 – More talking. More burning.
Page 24 – Straker worries about the future as the #0 issue comes to a close.
This concludes the issue that was intended as a big “Series Finale” in comic book form, and was to have been followed by a 6-issue mini-series that would have been a sequel to UFO, picking up several years after the time of the TV series.
It’s time for another installment of my Creating a Cover series. As was often the case, this cover was being designed before I had seen the script for the issue in question, so I had to rely on a suggestion from series writer Greg Weisman for an idea of what would be appropriate subject matter for a cover. Greg suggestion was basically “Everybody versus Brainiac.” I hadn’t seen a script for our Brainiac (aka “The Collector of Worlds”) in action yet so I wasn’t sure what kind of offensive capabilities he was going to display. I figured I’d just have him in a “ready for action” pose and make it obvious that combat was imminent. The “everybody” he was going to be fighting included all the Young Justice Team members, plus members of the Justice League – everybody who had been seen up to this point on Brainiac’s ship or the ship belonging to our other villain Kylstar.
I asked if there was any one character who was the focus of the final showdown with Brainiac and I was told that there wasn’t. Because of that and the fact that this was going to be the final issue of our series, I didn’t want to emphasize one of the heroes over the others for the sake of a more dynamic layout, so the the challenge became how to include more than a dozen heroes fighting a single opponent, without giving any one of them the lion’s share of the focus.
As is often the case when trying to include this many characters on a cover, the way to organize them into a layout is a process of almost mathematical deduction. I knew what I wanted to do, but I felt the need to offer multiple options and present my reasoning.
Sketch A
Sketch B
Sketch C
I presented three sketches to indicate the three basic approaches I saw as our options:
Sketch A places Brainiac at the center background with everyone else rushing him. The disadvantage of this approach was that while it makes for a compelling image, it puts most of the heroes in a position with their backs to the viewer – something I especially wanted to avoid on the cover for our swansong issue.
Sketch B takes more of the lateral view – viewing the gang-rush of heroes more in profile, with Brainiac down in the corner to allow the heroes to be more spread out and coming at him from both ground-level and from the air!
I felt the strongest option was the one presented in Sketch C – with Brainiac in the foreground, cheated “towards the camera” so we get a better look at him, but his attention clearly on all the heroes converging on him from the background. This option has the heroes coming at us front on, and gives us lots of open space to spread them across the cover, still leaving room for the logo at the top.
Pencils
Inks
Happily for me, Sketch C was chosen so I proceeded to pencils and inks. This ended up being the only time I got to draw Lagoon Boy in his “puffed up” combat mode. This is also a great look at our version of Brainiac, who I was so happy to have gotten to design for Young Justice.
Final Cover
And finally, here’s the final version with color by Zac Atkinson complete with all the final logos and other trade dress.
I really enjoyed getting to draw so many of the covers for my run on Young Justice. I enjoy drawing covers overall, and I really enjoyed getting to contribute more fully to the total look and feel of the Young Justice issues I did, as opposed to The Batman Strikes were most of the covers were by other artists.
You can find my previous Creating a Cover installments here.
I just told this story in responding to a comment on another post and I thought it was worth sharing with a wider audience.
I remember one of my earliest conventions at which I had a table as an artist – it was before I’d “broken in” to do work for DC Comics or any other major publisher. I had displayed a Batman drawing I’d done on the wall behind me – it was my response to a lot of Batman art I’d seen that didn’t strike me as having a lot of mood or atmosphere. My piece was a black and white ink drawing that was 90% black with just a moon and just enough edge-lighting in white to make out the shape of Batman’s cowl and cape.
This young kid was walking buy my table and the sight of that Batman drawing stopped him in his tracks. He looked up at the drawing and his eyes got big. “Do you… draw Batman?” he asked me.
“I drew that Batman, if that’s what you’re asking, but I haven’t worked on the comic book yet, no.”
“Oh,” the kid matter-of-factly replied, and walked away without saying another word.
This is NOT the Batman drawing from the story…
I thought it was pretty funny at the time, and I *still* think it says something about fans and conventions – but don’t ask me exactly what that is!
It’s time for another installment of Title Pages, featuring another title page from my run on The Batman Strikes! which was a tie-in comic for The Batman animated TV series. A Title Page is the page which features the story title and credits for the issue, and is often (but not always) a Splash Page, which is a full-page image, rather than a page broken up into multiple panels.
A classic comic book Grundy
Grundy as seen in The Batman
The De Niro Frankenstein monster
InThe Batman Strikes! #19 we got to play with Solomon Grundy, who in the continuity of The Batman was a gaunt, zombie-like figure, who reminded me of the Christopher Lee Frankenstein monster. It also let us move out of Gotham City and into the (oddly) nearby swamplands, which made for a nice change of pace art-wise for the book. I was doing my best to channel the classic EC Horror Comics on this one, and my inker (and classic horror fan) Terry Beatty was more than up to the challenge!
No real set-up this time, as we get our title logo on panel one of page one. I thought it would be fun to have the letter shapes darken and cast a wavering reflection in the murky swamp water.
And here’s the rest of that sequence. As you can see, the sound effects were part of the artwork from the pencil stage. I love doing that whenever possible.
I wish the effect of Batman caught in the beam of the flashlight hadn’t been colored with such a sharply-defined cone of light coming from the flashlight. It’s not a realistic effect and it detracts from the effect of the area caught in the beam popping out from a background that’s otherwise in silhouette.
And while it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Title Page, I can’t blog about this issue without including my favorite page from the issue, and one of my favorite from the entire series.
I’ll have more installments of Title Pages soon, but until then you can check out previous installments! As always, questions and comments are welcome!
Christopher Jones is a comic book artist who has worked on DC's Young Justice, The Batman Strikes!, Batman '66, Justice League Adventures; Marvel's Superhero Squad, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes; Titan's Doctor Who; Re-Animator, Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink & more!
Conventions, Doctor Who, Misc Artwork, Young Justice | Christopher Jones | 
May 23, 2015 2:36 pm | 
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