Quick Fix?

Would love to be able to do this for real.

Having one of those days....

Bag no longer contains cat......

DC announced my upcoming project, Batman: Noel, on their blog last week. Suffice it to say that I'm relieved I can finally talk about it here without having to use silly insinuations and not so clever wordplay. Check out the link above to read DC's press release including a very kind quote from my editor, the incredible Mark Chiarello.

The project will be released later this year, towards the holidays and is written and draw by yours truly with amazing color work by Barbara Ciardo. If you've seen the work she did over me in Wednesday Comics, this book takes things even further. Couldn't be happier with the colors...


While I still can't show anything substantial, I was given the go ahead to post a tiny little piece of a page for you guys to see. Hopefully it will give people a good idea of the look of the book. Better yet, head over to Barbara Ciardo's blog to see it in color!! Can't say much more, but rest assured you'll be hearing more about this in the coming months. Excited, excited..

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....