Superboy – Christopher Jones Comic Art and Illustration Blog http://blog.christopherjonesart.com Mon, 12 Aug 2013 01:29:58 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 42733131 Original Young Justice Page Art for Sale! http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/original-young-justice-page-art-for-sale/ http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/original-young-justice-page-art-for-sale/#respond Mon, 12 Aug 2013 01:29:57 +0000 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=4283

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Three pages of my original Young Justice art are now for sale on eBay. These are original interior pages from DC Comics Young Justice series, the companion comic to the popular Cartoon Network Young Justice animated TV series.  This is original, hand-drawn 11″x17″ page art by Christopher Jones.

Here are direct links to the three individual sales.

Young Justice #20 page 12
Featuring a nice kiss between Superboy and Miss Martian, as well as Superboy’s introduction to Clark Kent. The page also features Garfield Logan, Marie Logan, and Jimmy Olsen!

Young Justice #24 page 08
Featuring Wonder Woman, Superboy, Captain Marvel, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, and The Atom battling the alien villain Kylstar.

Young Justice #24 page 15
Featuring Wonder Woman, Superman, Captain Atom, Captain Marvel and Superboy battling Kylstar.

Auctions end Sunday August 18, 2013.

]]> http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/original-young-justice-page-art-for-sale/feed/ 0 4283 Coming in December: Young Justice #23 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/coming-in-decmeber-young-justice-23/ http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/coming-in-decmeber-young-justice-23/#comments Mon, 17 Sep 2012 21:41:47 +0000 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=2629 Young Justice #23

Young Justice #23

YOUNG JUSTICE #23
Written by GREG WEISMAN
Art and cover by CHRISTOPHER JONES
Color by ZAC ATKINSON
On sale December 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E

• Batgirl takes on Match — alone!
• Alpha Squad infiltrates Brainiac’s ship as it hovers above Metropolis!
• Superboy and the Justice League battle their captor, Kylstar!

That’s the info from the official DC solicitation. The action is getting pretty epic, I can assure you! I’m still having a great time drawing the new Season 2 Young Justice characters, plus all the amazing guest heroes and villains! This is the full reveal of the cover I was teasing a few weeks ago, showing the villain Kylstar. He’s an existing character – a lesser-known bad guy from Greg Weisman’s days on Captain Atom – but he’s been given a bit of a Young Justice makeover. And the Justice League are in trouble! The Invasion continues!

Young Justice #19 is still on the stands, and #20 will be out THIS WEDNESDAY! You can find Young Justice at your local comics shop or in digital form!

]]> http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/coming-in-decmeber-young-justice-23/feed/ 6 2629 Coming in September: Young Justice INVASION! http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/coming-in-september-young-justice-invasion/ http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/coming-in-september-young-justice-invasion/#comments Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:44:11 +0000 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=1951 Young Justice #20

Young Justice #20

Starting in September, the Season Two events of the Young Justice TV series will catch up with the comic!

YOUNG JUSTICE #20

Written by GREG WEISMAN
Art and cover by CHRISTOPHER JONES
On sale SEPTEMBER 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E

• Following the animated series, it’s now five years later!
• ALIENS have infiltrated the Earth!
• NIGHTWING’s new team includes BATGIRL, BLUE BEETLE, WONDER GIRL and BEAST BOY!

Issues #17 of Young Justice comes out later this month! Pick an issue up in digital form or at your local comic shop!

]]> http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/coming-in-september-young-justice-invasion/feed/ 4 1951 Character Designs & Creating a Cover: Young Justice #14 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/character-designs-creating-a-cover-young-justice-14/ http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/character-designs-creating-a-cover-young-justice-14/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:48:30 +0000 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=1661 We’re going to jump ahead in sequence of our Creating a Cover series, and we’re combining it with the next installment of Character Designs. That’s because most of what there is to tell about this cover is about the desgin work that needed to be done for it, and there are SO MANY new characters appearing in Young Justice #14 that I thought I’d get a few of them out of the way with this entry before detailing the rest of them in a separate entry on YJ #14 in the near future.

Long before I drew the issue itself and even before I’d seen a final script for the story, I needed to design the cover for the issue, needed early for publicity and solicitation purposes. The scenario I was given was to do an underwater downshot of Aqualad, Miss Martian and Superboy surrounded by Hooded Atlantean Purists. Furthermore, Superboy was to be wearing one of Aqualad’s spare costumes, but MINUS the Water-Bearers, BackPack and “A” belt buckle. He was also to be sporting a clear oxygen mask that covers his mouth and nose with some form of filter/re-breather attachment. Miss Martian was to have shape-shifted into a more underwater-friendly form, having ditched her usual cape and morphed herself to copy Lori Lemaris’s mermaid tail from the waist down and having grown Aqualad-like gills on her neck.  She was also meant to be shorter than usual, but that didn’t end up being a big issue with the floating figures on the cover.

The Purists were meant to be cloaked and hooded Atlanteans of Aquaman’s type, i.e. to the naked eye they look completely human.  Like all Atlanteans, there were to have bare feet.  I was also instructed that their eyes were to magically glow from within the shadowed depths of their hoods.

Miss Martian’s mermaid form was almost a non-issue, as it was just putting the top of her body on the bottom of the design for Lori Lemaris, plus adding gills identical in design to Aqualad. Superboy was basically in Aqualad’s costume minus key accessories, plus the addition of an oxygen maks. And I had to design the Purists.

Purists first:

Atlantean Purist A
Atlantean Purist A
Atlantean Purist B
Atlantean Purist B
Atlantean Purist C
Atlantean Purist C


I wanted to give the Purists interesting looking hoods, as I figured we’d be getting a lot of shots of these hoods serving as close-ups of characters in the actual story. I also wanted lots of draping fabric that could swirl in the water and make interesting shapes and suggest movement. The draping sleeves and tabards tended to get even more elongated once I was actually drawing the story. The whole design evolved a little bit once I started drawing pages, but we stayed close enough to the approved model that no one complained! I wasn’t sure about a color scheme, so I put these three options together, half-expecting to have someone suggest an option D. Version B was chosen, but which do YOU prefer?

Superboy Underwater Mask
Superboy Underwater Mask


Next up was Superboy’s air mask. I wanted to keep this simple and unobtrusive. I wanted Superboy’s face and expressions to be unobscured, and I figured we were dealing with advanced Atlantean technology and we didn’t need to be constrained by anything resembling current diving gear and oxygen tanks. This is what I came up with, and it actually became further simplified in the story, losing those square-ish bits at the corners of his jaw.

So now it was time to design a cover!

Young Justice #14 - cover rough 1

Young Justice #14 – cover rough 1

This was a relatively tight drawing for a cover rough, but we seemed to be pretty firmly locked into a concept, so I felt I could do something fairly tight I could then use as a basis for the final pencil art. Given that the characters were floating in water, I wanted the heroes to be “surrounded” in a fairly 3-dimensional way. I tried to make it clear that the Purists were not only coming from all sides but also from above and below.

The feedback was that DC wanted a little more of a feeling of action. Also, they wanted the piece to have a little more focus, so it was suggested to emphasize Aqualad a little more since it was his story.

Young Justice #14 - cover rough 2

Young Justice #14 – cover rough 2

The revised version is pretty similar – I just changed the proportion of some of the characters, bringing Aqualad forward and pushing Superboy and Miss Martian back. I turned Miss Martian’s head to better show off the gills on her neck. Aqualad is now deflecting a magical attack from one of the Purists with one of his hard water blades.

This version was approved, so from there it was the routine progression of pencils and inks, with color by Zac Atkinson.

Young Justice #14 - Cover Pencils

Young Justice #14 – Cover Pencils
Young Justice #14 - Cover Inks

Young Justice #14 – Cover Inks

Young Justice #14 - Cover Color

Young Justice #14 – Cover Color


And there you have it!  Young Justice #14 goes on sale TODAY both in digital form or at your local comic shop!

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

]]> http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/character-designs-creating-a-cover-young-justice-14/feed/ 6 1661 Young Justice #14 Solicit is Out! http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/young-justice-14-solicit-is-out/ http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/young-justice-14-solicit-is-out/#respond Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:41:33 +0000 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=1028  

Young Justice #14

Young Justice #14

YOUNG JUSTICE #14
Written by Greg Weisman and Kevin Hopps, art and cover by Christopher Jones.

Aqualad visits Atlantis with Superboy and Miss Martian. But can they stop an insidious new menace that threatens to plunge the undersea kingdom into civil war?

32 pages, $2.99, in stores on March 21.

And yes, that’s Miss Martian with gills and a mermaid tail, and Superboy wearing a spare Aqualad costume. And who are the mysterious cloaked figures threatening our heroes? You’ll have to read Young Justice #14 to find out!

Issues #1-10 are currently available and issue #11 featuring Batman and Ra’s al Ghul will be out soon. Pick an issue up in digital form or at your local comic shop!

]]> http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/young-justice-14-solicit-is-out/feed/ 0 1028 Creating a Cover: Young Justice #10 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/creating-a-cover-young-justice-10/ http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/creating-a-cover-young-justice-10/#respond Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:24:01 +0000 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=893 Time to break down the creation of another cover! This time it’s Young Justice #10, the second half of our Captain Atom murder mystery story! Last issue featured Captain Atom on the cover and no action, so there was a desire to see conflict with our costumed villain, who appeared at the end of the previous issue.

The villain in question is Rako (aka The Cambodian), and you can read more about the redesign of this character in a previous blog post. Once again I was designing a cover before the script for the story, so I didn’t have anything to draw from other than being told there was a fight with The Cambodian at an Asian-styled mansion, and that Superboy being cut by the Cambodian’s sword was a major story point.

Captain Atom #7 cover

Captain Atom #7 cover
YJ #10 cover sketch a

YJ #10 cover sketch a
YJ #10 cover sketch b
YJ #10 cover sketch b


Again I started with a template that used a logo masthead from a previous issue to help block out how the cover art I was designing would fit together with those elements on the finished cover. My first thought was to reference the Cambodian character’s first appearance in Captain Atom #7 by echoing the poses of The Cambodian and Captain Atom. There would be no torrent of energy glowing from Superboy’s wound and he was being sliced across the chest rather than the abdomen, but it seemed like the pose still worked. The original Captain Atom cover had no background, but I suspected my editor would want to see more of the Young Justice team than just Superboy, so I provided variations with and without the rest of the team rushing to Superboy’s aid, with the intent of including some additional background detail of sketch b were chosen.

YJ #10 cover sketch c

YJ #10 cover sketch c
YJ #10 cover sketch d

YJ #10 cover sketch d


I thought I’d offer a different angle on the action, and came up with a composition that would only show The Cambodian from behind, leaving him more mysterious, but framing the Young Justice team dramatically with the dark shape of his armor. Again, I offered versions with only Superboy and the whole team. You might notice that some of the figures are identical between the sketches. When quickly creating different compositions like this, I sometimes draw figures and use them as “building blocks,” assembling them in different arrangements in Adobe Photoshop to get the composition I want.

YJ #10 cover pencils

YJ #10 cover pencils
YJ #10 cover inks

YJ #10 cover inks
YJ #10 cover color guide

YJ #10 cover color guide


Sketch b was chosen, but Greg Weisman said that Aqualad and Artemis weren’t going to be present during the fight sequence being depicted, which was just as well as it uncluttered the image a bit. You can see where I found room to suggest a bit of background in the pencil art – I set the battle on the roof as that seemed to offer more space for Robin and Miss Martian to approach from above. As it turns out this battle is located entirely inside in the actual story, but I don’t think anyone will complain. After completed the inks, I threw some color onto the image in Photoshop to act as a color guide for the Cambodian’s armor and to show how the glowing sword was to be treated.

YJ #10 cover colors

YJ #10 cover colors
Young Justice #10 Cover

Young Justice #10 Cover


Here you can see the artwork in full color. I normally love interactive light sources in artwork, and the lineart suggested that the sword’s energy was behaving as a light source, but I think the electric blue is a bit overpowering here. You lose the blackness of the Cambodian’s armor, and with the light pastel colors used for the background it seems a bit jumbled. But I think it’s still a pretty solid cover, and on the right you can see it with the “trade dress” of the logos and other masthead elements.

You can read a 4-page preview here, and then pick up the comic in digital form or at your local comic shop.

I’ll be doing a Commentary blog entry on this issue in a couple of weeks, and will be doing another “Creating a Cover” entry for Young Justice #11 in a month’s time!

]]> http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/creating-a-cover-young-justice-10/feed/ 0 893 Young Justice #10 out Wednesday http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/young-justice-10-out-wednesday/ http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/young-justice-10-out-wednesday/#respond Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:11:51 +0000 http://blog.christopherjonesart.com/?p=873

You can find it at your local comic shop or buy it in digital form, make sure you pick it up. It’s there’s something on the last page I can’t believe we got away with!

Young Justice #10

Young Justice #10

Written by GREG WEISMAN and KEVIN HOPS;
Art and cover by CHRISTOPHER JONES

Captain Atom’s cold-case assignment is definitely heating up: The true killer has resurfaced to target anyone who might expose the truth about the murder of General Lemar back in 1968 – and that includes each and every member of the Team!

  • Johnny DC
  • 32pg.
  • Color
  • $2.99 US

On Sale November 16, 2011

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