COMICS BLAH!

Work stages on a variant cover I drew for a long-ago Udon Street Fighter spinoff miniseries, focusing on the ninja heroine Ibuki (which featured writing and art, respectively, by emerging young talents Jim Zub and Omar Dogan). Note that, on the final piece, artist Emily Warren (of Teahouse fame) colored directly over my pencils, as I hadn’t the time (nor the inclination) to ink the piece. Wheeee!

Note that the more pronounced angling of Ibuki’s body in the rough gave way to a less kinetic orientation in the pencils; alas, I couldn’t compose the final illustration properly without losing that angle. Sigh.

Work stages for the unabashedly tear-jerking Empowered vol.8’s back-cover illo, which depicts the ill-fated telepathic superheroine Mindf**k (with eyes and tongue mysteriously intact).

#1: Initial rough, with alternate face options.

#2: Initial pencils, depicting Mindf**k in the schoolgirl uniform she wore when appearing in her ex-girlfriend’s memories. (Long story.) I was well into inking the piece before belatedly realizing that, dressed in this fashion, she might be mistakable for our similarly blonde heroine Emp, who also wore the same outfit on a previous back-cover illo. Whoops!

#3: Inks on the revised illo, now featuring Mindf**k in the elastic vacuum counterpressure (space)suit she wore in earlier volumes.

#4: Color guide.

#5: Final colors, as beautifully rendered by the great Rob “Robaato” Porter.

I might have already posted this stuff here years ago, but can’t remember; my (wholly insincere) apologies in advance.

More info on Empowered vol.8 here: http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/19-253/Empowered-Volume-8-TPB

Wonder Woman by Adam Warren #DCWomen

Roughs (both rejected and used), color guide, and finished colors for the cover illo from the third issue of Livewires, the long-out-of-print miniseries I wrote (and occasionally drew) for Marvel 10 years ago. (Ouch.) Colors on the finished piece by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird; all other art by yrs trly.

The first rough used a “multi-panel” cover layout, which was an approach I often used on my Gen13 covers earlier in the decade. Editor Tom Brevoort didn’t go for it, though, so I resubmitted a different take with the second rough; once that was approved, onward to the final version!

This is, alas, the only Livewires cover that I actively dislike, but it’s nonetheless a image of notable significance to me. That’s because back then (July 4th weekend, 2004), I borrowed Social Butterfly’s variant hairstyle on this cover for use on the first pages of what would later become Empowered, my ongoing “sexy superhero comedy” series. I should note, howeva, that Emp’s hair wasn’t quite as long as the comically exaggerated, Tangled-worthy mane that Social Butterfly sports here.

(I should note that Social also sports an exaggeratedly and annoyingly skinny waist here, which was a puzzling, possibly Bruce-Timm-influenced unconscious stylistic tic that popped up at random in my work at the time… More on this odd—and, in retrospect, frustrating—trend later, though.)

COMIC BOOK ARTISTS DRAW DISNEY

Donald Duck by Scott Pilgrim‘s Bryan Lee O’Malley

Jessica Rabbit by Elektra: Assassin‘s Bill Sienkiewicz

Buzz Lightyear by The New Frontier‘s Darwyn Cooke

Gargoyles' Goliath by Empowered‘s Adam Warren

The Hitchhiking Ghosts by Uncanny X-Men‘s Chris Bachalo

Mickey Mouse by damned near everything awesome’s creator, Jack Kirby