Happy Halloween – Don’t let the bed bugs bite

Kirby Genesis - Giant Bugs!

This is from my set of try-out pages for the Kirby: Genesis book at Dynamite. I was one of 4-5 artists on the short list who was asked to do samples for the book. The scenario depicted was based on verbal phone conversations with Kurt Busiek by phone, and is similar to scenes that eventually appeared in the actual book! Click on the image below to see all four pages at higher resolution from that fun not-to-be project!

Kirby Genesis - page 3

Title Pages: Batman Strikes 18 & 33

Whenever possible, I always preferred hand-drawing my own sound effects and story titles during my run on The Batman Strikes! I especially liked incorporating the logo into the background art in some way, probably because of all those great Will Eisner titles for The Spirit. But I always had to work with what I was given. Sometimes I didn’t have a lot of room. Sometimes the story title didn’t lend itself as well to graphic treatment. But it almost always was more pleaseing to my eye than having it left to be typeset by the letterer.

Let’s kick this off with a pair of logos from Poison Ivy stories (boy we had a lot of Poison Ivy stories on The Batman Strikes!).

First up, from Batman Strikes #18:

Batman Strikes #18 - Title Logo

Here’s an example of a title that lent itself to graphic treatment nicely, but as part of a 4-panel page there wasn’t much room to work it into the background art. Still, I was able to give the title something of a flowery flourish, and that was fun.

Strikes #18 Title Page pencils

Strikes #18 Title Page color

Here’s a view of the full page, so you can see how the logo works in context. Inks are by Terry Beatty and colors are by Heroic Age. Which I guess you could read for yourself in the credits if you click on the image to see it full-size!

Strikes #33 - logo

In The Batman Strikes #33 we had the reverse scenario: A big splashy full page shot, but kind of a simple title. I opted to just create really organic character shapes and try to make it look as though it were wrapped around the side of this giant vine structure.

Strikes #33 Title Page pencils

Strikes #33 Title Page color

I was quite happy with this page overall. BTW – those are plant simulacrums of Poison Ivy that Batman, Robin and Batgirl are fighting. I like the dizzying quality to this shot, and the way the vine wraps through the image. The credits were colored a bit darkly, but I suppose no-one really cared except for the seven people who’s names are listed there!

More to come, stay tuned!

Choose your Halloween costumes wisely

The Big Comeback page 12

The Hypno Hustler, from an unpublished story for Spider-man Adventures.

Creating a Cover: The Batman Strikes #28

OK, time for one more Creating a Cover breakdown before Fallcon!

We’re looking again at an issue of The Batman Strikes!, the comic book-tie in to The Batman animated TV series.

This issue featured a story by Jai Nitz that had Joker stealing Scarface from the Ventriloquist and going on a crime spree with the dummy. Batman ends up working with The Ventriloquist to track down Scarface and defeat Joker. It’s a fun story idea. I’d have loved to see more done with the fact that Scarface is just a dummy and his personality is manifested from the personality of the individual holding him. But it’s a 20-page comic and I don’t know what went on behind-the-scenes with the developing of the story. DC often has different ideas then I do about what’s appropriate in an all-ages comic. But I digress…

I began as usual with submitting some sketches for different cover concepts. Just 3 this time.

Batman Strikes #28 Cover sketch a

Sketch A: This was my main idea – a leaping Joker (he was very bouncy and monkey-like in this incarnation) holding Scarface and menacing Batman. I figured it would probably have a background added (and indicated such when submitting my sketches), but I wasn’t going to bother to work out a background yet when just trying to get sign-off on which concept to pursue. It should be noted that Scarface in the comics is typically drawn as a ventriloquist dummy caricature of an Al Capone-style gangster. The Batman had chosen to update Scarface’s look to reference the John Travolta-like disco suit worn by Al Pacino in his Scarface film. I actually thought that was one of their more successful villain redesigns.

Batman Strikes #28 Cover - sketch b

Sketch B: This one is a little hard to appreciate in sketch form, but I really liked this concept. I had subtly distorted Scarface’s features to make them more Joker-like – essentially an amalgam of the two. I indicated that I wanted Scarface colored with the Joker’s white skin, red lips and eyes, and yellow teeth. This version of Scarface was bald, so sadly there was no hair to turn green. Obviously a symbolic cover and not something literally appearing in the story, I think this close-up would have been very striking on the comic shop shelf, especially with some nice under-lighting.

Batman Strikes #28 Cover - sketch c

Sketch C: Finally I thought it would be fun to show Joker and The Ventriloquist battling over Scarface. Not a lot of room for Batman in this design, but I didn’t think it was essential. His name was on the book.

Sketch A was chosen, so I proceeded with pencils, adding a background modeled on the Arkham Asylum rec room as seen in the animated TV show. I tried to make the setting claustrophobic and moody, with the lines of perspective working with the curve of Batman’s cape to really pull the characters together and emphasize the confrontation.

Batman Strikes #28 Cover Inks

The inks were provided by Terry Beatty, who did an especially nice job on some of the background textures on this one.

Batman Strikes #28 Cover Colors

This is the version of the color art that was used for solicitations. I wasn’t happy that so much of the background was washed out, and it seemed odd to me that such a bright light source was used behind the figures but the coloring on the figures themselves didn’t seem to follow that light source – or really any light source. But I liked the color scheme over all and I thought the amber tones used for the background worked well.

Batman Strikes #28 - Final Cover

So at some point someone decided that it would be better if the background were pink.

Yeah, I know. I don’t get it either.

It always seemed to me that regardless of the tone of the story inside, the covers of the Johnny DC books were always geared with their logos and cover copy to appeal to 5-year-old boys. And apparently someone thought that 5-year-old boys really loved a lot of pink with their Batman.

See you next time…

A word about Halloween

Kolchak: Fever Pitch - pg 3

Yes, that word is “Splattch.”

From the Kolchak the Night Stalker graphic novel “Fever Pitch,” story by Stuart M. Kamminsky.

‘Tis the season…