Marvel 5

Last piece in the poster and my favorite. Wolverine. Drawing that character felt like a perfectly natural fit. Hell, wouldn't mind doing it again on the regular. Wolverine covers anybody?

Marvel 4

X-Men. Wish I could have done Ice-Man or Havoc but there were certain characters who wouldn't appear in the issue with the variant so it came down to choosing from a limited roster. Cyclops was fun. Not much else to say.

Marvel 3

The Fantastic Four. I'm a pretty big fan of Jack Kirby's original interpretation of The Thing in the first issue of the book. He was less refined, more monstrous and sad, yet at the same time more likeable. There was something very blue collar to that Thing that visually you don't seem to get with more modern versions. I picture the Thing being the type of guy to throw on his hat and trench coat and go grab a beer after work. He doesn't need to be anatomically muscular to seem hard and tough. My Mr. Fantastic was modelled after Francesco Meo, my good friend and former roommate. Sue Storm was based on my wife's best friend Stefania.

Marvel 2

Second piece of the Marvel poster. This one was probably the most fun the draw, seeing as I loved getting into the Hulk's anatomy. Unfortunately, my rendition of Daredevil here just isn't quite up to snuff. This was before I tackled the DD covers and didn't really feel like I had a good enough vision for him. I almost ALWAYS go back to the original incarnations of the characters and read some of the first few issues before doing a new character. In this case, I skipped over DD and went straight for the Hulk and my favoritism shows. Couldn't help it. I'll pick monsters over costumed guys every time.

Marvel 1

Some people still may not have seen this as it was never published in the states. Panini Comics commissioned me to do a huge, interconnecting cover for the Lucca convention a few years ago. Originally it was intended to be a series of alternate covers for 5 of their Marvel books. It was the first time I ever tackled the Marvel characters and I was thrilled to be able to do it in such a huge fashion. As it turned out, they printed the entire image as one big gatefold cover, sans the Spider-man section.

I'm going to post the whole poster over the course of the week and talk a bit about each one, but definitely wanted to start with the Spider-Man image. Out of all the characters I knew had to be featured, Spidey was the one I dreaded the most. All that webbing on the costume, the weird poses, etc.... How could I make it believable?!? You know you have problems when you're thinking how you can make a dude who got bit by a radioactive spider and gifted with super-powers 'believable'.


In the end, it wasn't my favorite piece but I definitely feel like I cracked how to make the character fun for me to draw. I think I've said this here before, but I'm really a firm believer that the costume should look hand made and NOT cool. I like the idea that the webbing looks sloppy and asymmetrical. I mean, essentially Peter Parker was a bit of a cosplayer. ,) I remember thinking to myself as a kid, 'How come you can't see where his mask attaches to the shirt?'. The solution: you can.

More to come....

Cruisin' for a bruisin'

Eat Turkey. Draw tough guys.

Luthor

Over at The Source, DC has unveiled the cover for the new Luthor hardcover as well as a couple new story pages. They asked me to write a little something up, so I tried to provide a bit of information in regards to the new and improved, 'director's cut' of Brian Azzarello's and my 2005 mini series LEX LUTHOR: MAN OF STEEL. This was such a treat to get to do. For reasons I wont go into here, that mini always felt unfinished and the fact that the powers that be over at DC have allowed us to tinker with the book as much as we have is really unprecedented.

The book should be out this month. SO nice to finally see it in hardcover form after five years. Wow..... has it really been five years?!?!