What's black and white with inkwash all over it...?

Starting in July, DC Comics will be releasing a weekly series called Wednesday Comics that will feature a unique newspaper strip-style format. I've been lucky enough to be included in the mix, doing the Superman strip with the amazing John Arcudi on writing duties and relative newcomer colorist extraordinaire Barbara Ciardo. Since the folks at DC have already released a couple preview pages in color I figured I'd share my original black and white artwork here.
This is probably the first project where I have really made a deliberate effort to soften things in the black and white phase. Coming off of Joker, where I tried hard to give the artwork a dirty, hard, grimy look, this proved to be more time consuming and difficult than I would have liked but it' definitely helped me to think more about turning my forms. Looking at a lot of Bernini and Ingres also seemed to put me in the right mindset. There's also something about the look of those old Hollywood serials that I connected with while trying to find the right approach for the story. I felt like the alien should look almost like a guy in a rubber suit or something...
The story really focuses on Superman's emotions and the acting definitely had to play a big part in the page. It's been a challenge to try and pull off some of the subtle facial expressions and body language throughout the course of this little project. Of course, the fact that the originals are HUGE helps give me the space to play around a bit more. More of these to come....