storm in a teacup

Happy Birthday Freddie Mercury | 5 September 1946

“…Sometimes I feel I’m always walking too fast And everything is coming down on me down on me I go crazy oh so crazy living on my own…”

Living On My Own - Freddie Mercury

Freddie by Elicia Donze, drawn in PS for @bwap. Please don’t remove caption.

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[Caption: A realistic digital painting of Freddie Mercury. Portrait is from the chest up. Freddie is wearing a fluffy yellow bathrobe. He has short dark hair and a mustache and is applying eyeliner to his left eye. His image is repeated horizontally in a retro broken registration style in shades of cyan and magenta to his left. Soft focus adds to the glam retro look. The background is a gradient from warm banana yellow to soft orange.]

He came in and i was like woah, this is Freddie. And he wasn’t just acting. It was something that came natural to him. We’re going to shock the audience. Its one of the best performances I’ve seen for a very, very long time. — Graham King, producer of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)   

♫ Freddie Mercury Outfit Appreciation ♪

Two years ago, former Marvel Comics bullpen member Steve Bunche posted a comics try-out page submitted to Marvel in the 1990s by an unknown hopeful. The page, while lacking in polish and technique, nevertheless had very clear storytelling, and, as Bunche notes in his blog post: “While this guy would never have gotten work in a professional comic as a penciller, I have to admire his talent for creating an instant classic of a non sequitor:”

artist unknown

You are not imagining this. Wolverine stalks through the wilderness, searching for we know not what, and finds the late Freddie Mercury, frontman of the band Queen.

The page has since been rattling around on the Internet, occasionally reposted and retweeted, chuckled over and admired by people like my studiomate Jeff Parker, which is how I originally became aware of it. And it just kind of got stuck in my head. For TWO YEARS.

The story as presented raises a number of questions. What is Wolverine looking for? Agents of AIM? Peace and solitude? Or, as my other studiomate Memorial artist Rich Ellis suggested: is he looking to find Somebody To Love?

And how and why does Freddie Mercury appear at the end of his search? Was his tragically fatal illness miraculously cured, perhaps by an alien symbiote? Has he just returned from sailing the Seven Seas of Rhye? Or more simply and perhaps most logically, has Logan found himself in the presence of the wordly manifestation of a literal God of Rock?

And so, I have decided to explore these mysteries by recreating the original story, correcting some of the technical blunders on the way. I invite other artists to do the same, by which exercise we may one day come close to the fictional Truth of the matter.

I am reblogging both to further signal boost this brilliant piece by my studiomate, Colleen Coover, and also make sure you don’t miss that final line at the end of her commentary:

You guys, Colleen fricking Coover is inviting you all to re-draw that original page of Wolverine discovering Freddie Mercury by an unknown artist.

She is starting a movement.

Will you answer her call?

Heed the call of Wolverine and Freddy Mercury.

Reminder: Bi Visibility Day is September 23. Remember to leave cookies out for Freddie.

Freddie Mercury