This was the one that started it all… I just thought that Superman’s new design, with the jeans looked pretty… “grunge”… like he should belong in a rock band. So I did this piece and I kinda got carried away and did a band jam piece for the whole Justice League…
I am a big sucker for combination panorama comic covers, so I wanted this to be the concept for this series.
Batman:
Flash and Wonder Woman
Going through a bit of a dry spell..
I thrashed the last three pieces that I did because they are too horrible to show. Hours down the drain there…
This is the only halfway decent piece that I did recently… it’s also my first ensemble piece… Took hours just to render… then more hours on Photoshop… I really should get a faster comp.. 😀
Not completely satisfied with Superman, might redo him one day in the distant future..
Still trying to find my “style” so C&C most welcome.
Thanks!
Don’t get me wrong.. I think the main Flashpoint ROCKS. I’m having fun with the shock reveals that comes with every issue. It’s just the rest of the “companions” to Flashpoint that is getting to me. I am referring to the 101 tie ins that come with Flashpoint
They’re all suffering from what I term “alternateuniverseseventisvitis”.
The main Flashpoint book is an interesting foray into an Elseworld where things are familiar but not totally so, these so called tie ins just dance around the central “world”, while accomplishing almost nothing else.
B and C list characters are dying like mayflies in the Flashpoint world, but there’s this feeling that all these will not be of any consequences when we shift back to regular programming. This would not be so bad if the tie ins manage to tell an engaging story that is coherent with these “deaths”.
We’re more than half way through Flashpoint, and almost none of the tie ins seemed to be adding any value to the Flashpoint-verse other than to expand on things that we’ve already known since the beginning of Flashpoint. It took 2 issues of “Emperor Aquaman” to bring us on a huge roundabout to reach THIS point:
The Flashpoint one shots are the worst offenders of this. I am especially disappointed with titles such as “Flashpoint: Reverse Flash”. Contrary to my initial beliefs that it would contain new insights and add twists to the world of Flashpoint, it just told us that the Reverse Flash used his “time altering” powers to change the past of Barry Allen and that he was the one responsible for the death of Barry’s mum. It took one (not very cheap) issue to tell us a tale that had been established from the start of Flashpoint. WTF??!!!
This is made more apparent when the “event” is compared to one such as “War of the Green Lanterns” that contained more “HOLY SHIT” moments than you can shake a roll of toilet paper at. On top of that, “War of the Green Lanterns” was intriguing, smart and funny. Even with the impending DCU revamp threatening to make the whole crossover event obsolete and redundant, it managed to set up a final panel that makes you go “NO WAAAAAAAAY….”
Now, that is what I call a stellar event.
Go Team Green Lantern!
It’s New Comics Day again!
Really excited about the latest installments of Flashpoint, in spite of myself…
Decided to do up a piece on The Flash….
Slightly different from what I’ve done previously…
The thing about the Flash is all about his speed… Trying very hard to capture his kinetic nature.
It’s also one of my first time experimenting with a non black background. There’s a lot more to consider with regard to the color scheme to make sure that everything “goes”…
There’s also a lot more modeling to be done then the usual works…
I am sensing a conspiracy…. or very brilliant marketing people.
Marvel kickstarted their new mega event on the rare week when there is not much activity from DC’s Blackest Night.
Siege, like all Mega events promised to have far and long reaching consequences in the Marvel Universe, much like the Skrull (I mean Secret) Invasion last year, World War Hulk the year before that, Civil War the year before and the House of M nonsense the year before that. The list goes on…
The series will (presumably) chart Norman Osborne’s descent into madness (again) and possible fall from grace. Much as I want to see the series crash (I am very fatigued by these Mega Events, especially when this seems to be an extension of Secret Invasion), it is actually off to a good start. The main books for Siege is promised to be limited to only 4 books, so the actions come fast and furious.
Just check out them apples.
All this within the first issue!! Good break from the trend of Mega Events building up for 2 to 3 issues before the action starts flying. Naysayers might say that the whole Dark Reign of last year was ALREADY the buildup to this event, but I say Nay. I mean you’ve got to love Brian Michael Bendis. He seems to write action sequences as well as he does Tarentino-esque dialogue sequences.
The sad fact is, good though Siege might be, I sense that it would continue to live in the shadows of Blackest Night. Pun fully intended, baby.
I have to admit, the spin off series from Blackest Night are starting to… lose their novelty and charm. It reached a point where they are mainly issues in and issues out of DC heroes getting shocked at their closest friends and family members coming back from the dead, they get mocked, they get taunted, they get into a fight, DC heroes win. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The main series and the 2 core Green Lantern titles however, are going VERY strong, and… I didn’t think this was possible, picking up the pace and growing deeper than I could possibly fathom at the start of the event. I am genuinely excited to see what comes next after each and every issue. Geoff Johns has this ability to sweep the rug from under my feet with every twist that he introduce.
Case in point… *SPOILER ALERT*…
That has got to be one of the biggest “HOLY CRAP” moment I’ve had in a long time. Simply awesome.
Couple that with the fact that the mainstream media is piling on the coverage and upping the profile of Green Lantern (prob as a build up to the movie) (Did I mention they seemed to have very good marketing people?), GL seems poised to be the next Dark Knight.
For one thing, I want to have a limited edition Green Lantern lantern (LEGLL), like Sheldon does.
While Big Bang Theory has always been full of comic references, they went all out this week. Sheldon actually managed to SCORE a not bad looking girl with this LEGLL.
Awesome.
With no real Blackest Night installment this week, I was pretty convinced that this would finally be the week for Wednesday Comics (WC). WC is a new anthology that comes out every Wednesday (REALLY), or in sunny home town, Thursday featuring many one page stories of (relatively) popular DC heroes… much like the 1 page comic strip serials seen in the newspapers( think Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, etc…)
The cool thing about WC is that they have a truly hardcore stable of creators which translates to some (wet) dream pairing up of writers and artists working on hugely established characters.
Exhibit A: Post 100 bullets (something I should definitely blog about) Azzarello and Risso working on a noir-ish Batman murder mystery. Hot dames, check. Wittily punny (or is it punnily witty?) dialogue, check. Hard talking, smooth dealing men, check. Batman? Check! Check! and check!
Exhibit B: Neil Gaiman (yup, HIM again) and Michael Allred in an almost trippy Metamorpho adventure. Neil Gaiman, check! Michael Allred, check!
The whole comic is consistent in keeping with the tone of the newspaper strip. The dialogue is accessible (meaning comic nerd will not be the only ones who will understand the speech) and a lot of this is because, like all Sunday comic strips, the stories does not carry the baggage of continuity. EVERYONE can just hop on and be entertained. We have Agatha-ish mysteries, Last boy on Earth fantasy adventures, War stories and of course, Super hero tales. There really is something for everybody.
And did I mention the art? The deliberate news paper-ish lettering and adding of color half tones to the images to make the strips more vintage looking really brought on a wave of nostalgia… in a VERY good way
Sample art. Un Photoshopped
The reasons why WC is not top of the pops this week?
1. It’s an anthology. For every cool Busiek Green Lantern story, there is one lousy and confusing Wonder Woman one. Having a book with something for everybody means everybody has something not to like in the book. Though the average quality of the book is good to rock your heart out superb, there are still some jarring tales that just does not sit very well with you (I’m looking at you Wonder Woman)
2. Three words. Brian Michael Bendis with his Secret Warriors.
The Group that Fury built during Secret Invasion finally come of age. With the addition of a new kick ass member and the return of the Howling Commandos, the Secret Warriors are slowly shaping up to be the prickly thorn in Osborn’s backside. It’s like watching the growing of the Rebel movements in Star Wars.
Finally. Reason number 3.
And the top reason why Wednesday Comics is not the king of the hill THIS week.
Post Secret Invasion, we’ve seen this team take a beating week after week after week. We bemoan the lost of the darkly humored Thunderbolts and silently, we think that this incarnation of Thunderbolt is just gonna be the forgotten step sister to the Dark Avengers.
I mean… villains masquerading as good guys that save the world for personal gains. That’s basically the premise of Thunderbolts since its conception. So with the Dark Avengers around, who need the Thunderbolts?
The final page of #134 throws that question right open. The final reveal shows the huge and intricate web of deception that has been built around the readers. We’ve been played for WEEKS. And this normally means 2 things.
1. The old direction for the book is not working and the editors decide to take creative liberties and give a big twist in the tale to bring it in a whole new direction (think soap operas)
or
2. It was planned for all along. (Much like George Lucas planned his Star wars to be part of a nine-0-logy. It’s all bout the money, it’s all bout the dum dum de de de dum) (think soap operas)
Either way, consider me gullibly swindled due to the smoothness in the handling of the twist.
Without giving too much of a spoiler away, I’ll say this image of a future cover of Thunderbolts says it all…
It begs the question… WHO are the Thunderbolts?
And for those not afraid of a spoiler, I would say this lil minx will be getting a LOT of exposure in the coming year.
Oh, I forgot to include the context…
I’ve been pretty hyped up about Blackest Night.
The new comic week came and with it came the latest installments of the saga. We saw more of the Orange Lanterns, the Red Lanterns and the Star Sapphires in Blackest Night: Tales of the Green Lantern Corp.
More importantly, we saw one of the first real interactions between a (all together now… Woooooaaaaaah) Black Lantern with the DC meta human population. While I still do not know the powers and motivations of the Black Lantern, I do love their powers of being able to see others’ affinity with the different colors in the spectrum.
Of course, the ongoing comic con at San Diego threw up this lovely lil image of a new range of action figures for Hal Jordan as the various colored Lanterns.
Clones are people two 