Winter in Spring!

Four page Huntress story by J.Torres. This is my take on the story that actually appeared in the 2009 DC Holiday Special.

Covering New/Old Ground!

The Super Friends are kidnapped and forced to participate in a Galactic Olympics. Superman could easily win all the events, of course. But the Friends are all about teamwork. They even win the Olympics together! I can't remember why I featured Flash so prominently on this cover. I think I wanted a large foreground character. In retrospect it should have been Superman carrying the torch (but then Superman already had his feature cover on his Birthday).
One of my own favorite covers. I wanted the bunny to look like the rabbit that appeared on candy wrappers I used to love as a kid (for the life of me I can't remember the name of the company -- but the candies were like 'rockets'. Rolls of candy wrapped in cellophane twisted at either end). AND he's also fashioned after the bunny from Pixar's brilliant PRESTO short film.
I drew the interiors for this issue as well as the cover (twice). My first final (below) just had sinister looking versions of the Flash and Green Lantern. My editor, the always delightful Rachel Gluckstern, asked me to change them to Sinestro and Reverse Flash. No argument from me! Drawing those guys was incredible fun!

I love drawing these concept covers when I can. Usually the cover is more literal, though with the Super Friends anything is possible. Maybe they really do get flattened into a puzzle world which falls apart. I want to finish another of my rough sketches for this cover. I riffed on an M.C. Escher image placing the Super Friends in one of his multiple perspective/optical illusion rooms. Lot's of fun!
Oh, the chaos of a Comic Book Convention. This one is full of little Easter Eggs (of a sort). I FINALLY got to draw Batmite AND Mxyzptlk!! When Rachel told me they were the guest villains I just about burst! Awesome. I hid the other imps throughout the image, as well as myself, Rachel, and Stewart (the artist on the book). I couldn't find any photos of Dario Bruzuela (the other regular artist on the book) so, sadly, he isn't there.

j.

Alison Dares Again!

Alison Dare is being re-printed in two gorgeous collections by Tundra publishing. To promote the material the Tundra blog is running a fun contest for Dare fans around the WORLD!! Writer J.Torres and I get to judge the contest -- I promise not to show favoritism but I really hope those of you who read my blog will consider entering :)
I love the covers to the reprints. Sure, I did the drawings but the design, and fabulousness, is due to the gorgeous work of Jennifer Lum!

A Few of My Favourite Gals!

Just a few of my favourite ladies! Dolly Parton wore an outfit very much like that in an episode from the old Porter Waggoner show. She looked like a delicious dessert -- like a Lemon/Raspberry pastry. Yum!
Below her is my equally delicious friend, Mo. I drew this for her recent birthday. I wish I'd made the chair more obviously heart shaped. The bottom doesn't quite curve around as much as I'd like it to. Anyway -- who's looking at the chair!?!

j.

Feeling Super Friendly!

This week another issue of the SUPER FRIENDS hit the stands -- this is the big ol' Mad Scientist issue I mentioned previously! I've posted the sketches for and the cover to that issue already, so I thought I'd throw down some of the cover sketches that never made it to final. And to see the final covers all on one page you can check this page over at the Comic Vine
Above and below were some of my initial ideas for SF#10. The villain was Dr. Light. Not wanting to reveal him on the cover I played with light as a theme. I think it was just too gruesome to have the Super Friends as melting candles! What was I thinking?
This would have been fun to draw up with the high contrast and blast of light but was, again, deemed too serious.
DING! Man, did I ever want to draw Bat-Mite and Mxyzptlk for the cover of SF#11. I toyed with floating Super Friend heads or them as Mini-Super Friends (I believe the kids call them "Chibis") In the end issue #11 was one of my favorite covers with all of the Superheroes wearing Batman-inspired costumes.
Pirate Starro was a brilliant idea dreamed up by Sholly Fisch. First out of the gate was a play on the old Justice League cover with the heroes taking down the mind-controlling starfish. Then starfish sized Starro adorably menacing with his hook and peg-leg. I think starfish are one of those creatures who can grow back limbs, no? Am I wrong?
Ah, the Super Pets. Super Friends #14 was wicked fun to draw. I did quite a few drawings of the pets just because they were so much fun. The idea here was to have Topo as the center of an super-pet merry-go-round. Some of these covers should be revisited, I think, and maybe done up as final images!
This is the actual rough for the Holiday issue from 2009 -- SF#22. Sometimes I know right away what I want to do with the cover. This was one of 'em.
The Winter Olympics are about to start up here in Canada. They take place in Vancouver but for this issue of the Super Friends, #25, the setting is Space! I wanted a montage for this cover with the torch taking center stage. Each hero demonstrates his or her own athletic strength. In the end it's not only physical ability, but brains that win the day!
Another one that came out of the brain as a near final. I'm pretty sure the rabbit is inspired by the Pixar short "Presto" -- but also by the rolls of candy I used to get for Halloween, and sometimes Easter, as a kid. I can't remember the brand of candy but there was a bunny head on the wrapper that looked a lot like this fuzzy guy.

In other Super Friendly news, myself and Stewart McKenny were interviewed by Adam Dechanel over at his Superman Homepage. Now, I've put up some of Adam's reviews of my cover and interior work on the Super Friends which was not always the most positive. I'm not opposed to negative reviews in the least. They inspire me to work harder (after I dry my tears :) The thing with Adam's reviews were that they felt to me like he'd missed the intention of the book and especially what I think is Sholly's strength on the series -- that they are accessible to children but can also be enjoyed by adults who remember those ridiculous stories from DC days gone by.
So I was very happy that Adam asked me to take part in the four day Super Friends event currently up at his site. It gave me the chance to explain my thoughts on the book and get to know Adam a little better. Frankly his was the only site I could find reviewing the Super Friends and I was grateful for any attention given to the book! (Besides, the talented Stewart McKenny always made out well and as one of my favorite guys that was nice to see).

Here's my part of the interview.

It was a busy week for gabbing and I was also interviewed by J. Caleb Mozzocco at the Newsarama Blog. I tried not to repeat myself knowing that both Q&A's were coming out at roughly the same time. I swiped Caleb's pun for the heading of this post. ;)

Sincerely yours,
j.bone

Super Friends! Super Fans!

Every now and then I do a cover for the Super Friends book that just makes me really happy that I draw pictures for a living. This one, the cover to issue #24, is one of those covers. Everything came out exactly how I pictured it in my brain. Trust me that is not always the case. Sometimes it's a real struggle to get the image on the board to match the "perfect" picture I've got on the drawing board in my imagination.
This is the cover that marks my two years of work on the Super Friends so I did try just that little bit harder to get it right. Not that I shirk duties on my other covers, mind you :)
Here are the two rough sketches I gave my editor, the incredible Rachel Gluckstern. We both liked the first one so off I went! I love how the Super Friends are barely even on the cover of their own book!

Speaking of covers -- reviews are in on a few of my past covers. Read 'em all just below this!
The cover for Super Friends #21 - and here is the review from my favourite comic book reviewer and a big fan of my work:
"Cover Art - 2: A bit of a rush job this time round. I get the 'storybook theme' but the cover is nothing like the interior and thus it is marked low. I get the feeling this was done before the story..."

I wouldn't ordinarily bother, but I do want to say that Stewart McKenny did an absolutely gorgeous job on the interiors. I knew, after reading the script, that he wasn't going to get the chance to draw a literal fairy tale version of the Super Friends. I took the opportunity on the cover to draw Superman as a literal Man of STEEL (or tin if you want to get all nit-picky ;), Batman as a Dark KNIGHT, Wonder Woman as Amazon PRINCESS, Green Lantern as a man of LIGHT, Aquaman KING of the Sea, and Flash as Hermes God of SPEED!
Hence the difference between cover and interiors.


In all fairness, the same reviewer gave my Holiday cover the following rating: "Cover Art - 4: A Green Lantern powered sled, Superman as Santa, what's not to love!"

Super Friends #23 : "Cover Art - 3: Loved Wonder Woman's awe of space depicted here, but the whole 'Mystery In Space' theme they have going just isn't magnified well enough here. John looks like a robot by the by."

All reviews are ©Adam Dechanel.

best,
j.bone

Music Songs!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season. New Years eve was four days ago, it was fantastic. Now the holidays are over and it's time to get back to work, dammit!!
One of the things I loved about last year was discovering Garfunkel & Oates. Two absolutely adorable girls who sing brilliant songs about relationships, sex, pregnant women and ducks.
The girls, Riki and Kate, have appeared in a bunch of tv shows and movies but what I love is their music. I should warn you if you decide to check out their stuff (and you absolutely should) is that the songs contain swears which some people might find offensive.

I think Kid Robot (or someone similar) needs to get making some Blythe-like dolls of Garfunkel & Oates!

best,
j.

Holiday Tradition!

My annual Holiday card this year! The good thing for poor Frosty is that re-constructive surgery for him is quite inexpensive.

Have a great Holiday however you celebrate it!
j.

Covering Old Friends!

Super Friends #19 - The School of Evil led by a very cool moustachioed villain, the Headmaster Mind. I wanted the Friends in a bit of distress for a cover just to show that it's not always easy being a superhero. Little heroes with a giant villain is sort of a classic type of image used on comic book covers (and movie posters, novels, etc...) for ages. In fact, it's sort of like Egyptian art where the most important person (usually the king) is represented much larger than his subjects.
Super Friends #20 - How to make a scary cover without being too scary? Hopefully I was successful here. The Friends are generally happy with only Aquaman and the Flash showing any awareness of the threatening figure looming over the group. I like toasting marshmallows so that the outside is lightly browned while the middle becomes melty and gooey. Yum!
Super Friends #21 - The Super Friends visit the land of make believe and fairy tale! I wanted to do literal versions of their literary counterparts. Thus, Superman becomes the man of steel/Tinman, Batman is a dark Knight, Wonder Woman a princess (loosely based on the Disney Snow White dress), Aquaman is Neptune: King of the Sea, Green Lantern a ghostly man of light, and the Flash is Mercury (lightning fast Roman God seen in FTD's Logo). I love playing around with the hero costumes while keeping them recognizable and using their proper colors!
Super Friends #22 - The Holiday issue! The Friends play the part of Santa. Totally something they would do in real life!
Super Friends #23 - I'm a big fan of old Science Fiction novel art. By old I mean artwork from the paperbacks printed in the 50's (mostly) with a few from the 60's and 70's. The books were usually re-prints of stories that appeared in pulp magazines with new, sometimes bizarrely abstract covers. The Super Friends head to space in this issue and I was influenced by those pulp novel covers in my drawing.

j.

Challenge of the Super Friends!

Super Friends #24 marks my two year anniversary as cover artist on this most excellent book! I asked if I could draw the interiors for that reason. I also wanted to draw the guts because Sholly had, once again, written a super fun story. So many super villains, so many characters I'd never even heard of but wanted to draw. Along with the mad scientists I was drawing wolf-men, monster-men, some winged dog creatures (I can't find my script to look up what they're called...Zombgiza? Zombizi? Something like that), robots, sharks and a whole bunch of other fun stuff!

Over at Comic Book Resources the fine Jeffrey Renaud interviewed me about my work on the Super Friends. Click me!

On a semi-related note I've been watching YouTube videos of Superfriends cartoons past...the old Filmation series in particular. I only ever saw the Aquaman cartoons and had never seen the Flash or Hawkman episodes. Boy, are they ever dumb! :) In an enjoyable fashion, yes! I don't know who wrote that stuff but it is awesomely stupid! I love it!

Oh, and I've also been watching the Plastic Man cartoon on DVD! I loved that cartoon as a kid and still love it today. Again...writing ain't so great. But who cares. I love a cartoon with a laugh track. It's so perfectly absurd!

best,
j.

Mad Science and an Honorary Super Friend!

First up is an older sketch, drawn last year when old man Obama won his wayinto the White House and into the hearts of Americans and Canadians alike. Now, I hear he's not doing so well. He hasn't done enough in a year, hasn't fulfilled all of his promises, etc... I won't go gettin' all political but I always figure let's give a guy a chance. I've done a lot of work by 'committee' and it is not at all easy to deal with everyone's opinions/notes/demands and all I'm doing is drawing a kid sitting in a classroom (for example)! This guy's trying to run a country!

All right - onto the mad scientists. I sketched all of these guys for an upcoming project (I'm sure you'll figure it out by the end). A lot of these characters I had never even heard of but kinda grew fond of 'em after a month of drawing them. The Sivanas - I knew them from Shazam comics. I never really noticed the overbite and squinty eyes before. Was Dr. Sivana supposed to be a caricature of an Asian stereotype? I try to be hyper-aware of cliched portrayals of race so I toned down the buck toothedness in this family as I drew them. Just in case!
Hugo Strange I knew but not Prof. Hugo! I loved drawing Prof. Hugo's gigantic head on his wee body. He shows up an awful lot in the book...er, project.
Okay, never heard of these guys but they were by far my favorite to draw! The Fox, The Shark and The Vulture! How amazing are these guys that they're mad scientists. I don't even know what they did that was so science-y but just the very fact that I got to draw talking animals was enough to make me just mad (as in "in love") with these guys!
Dr. Cyber - never heard of her. But she showed up in an episode of Justice League at some point and had, therefore, been given a Bruce Timm design. Easy enough to translate that.
Dr. T.O. Morrow - Inventor of the Red Tornado. I know him from my Super Powers Red Tornado toy packaging. A villain creating a Hero? How is that even possible?
Dr. Tyme - Old clock head! I basically just went with his original look, mixed with the Batman: Brave and the Bold cartoon version of the Clock King. I wonder which one came first?
Prof. Rigor Mortis, I.Q. and Louie the Lilac. First two both had a fun look I played with a little. Louie - the only reference I had for him was a photo from the old Adam West Batman tv show. Did he ever appear in a comic? I dunno! So I tried to work the actor, Milton Berle, into his look. I don't know that I was successful but I dug his ski-slope nose and spats.
Maxwell Tremaine seems more like a villainous hunter than a mad scientist. I imagine him running the island I read about in "The Most Dangerous Game". A story I first read in high school. Love the eye patch!
Hector Hammond apparently can't move. He uses his villainous mind powers to commit evil acts. Because he's immobile, and his first name rhymes with (Hannibal) Lecter, I drew him strapped to a dolly. In the actual issue he's been given a Segway...I figure that way he can get around on his own, using the power of his mind to control the personal mobile unit.
The Brain is a favorite Doom Patrol villain. He's supposed to be in a jar carried around by Monsieur Mallah (an intelligent gorilla). But, I couldn't resist sticking him in a mechanical body you might see in an episode of, oh I don't know...Dr. Who!
The gorilla brainiacs! Ultra-Humanite and Gorilla Grodd. Grodd has already appeared in an issue of the Super Friends...not that that has anything to do with my reason for drawing all of these characters. Not at all.
Moving on...the Ultra-Humanite, like Dr. Cyber, had a Bruce Timm-ed version from his appearance in the Justice League. I went with it but tried to give him something a little extra and used him often in backgrounds throughout the issue.

These guys are all scientists in the DC Universe? No wonder it's all screwed up :)

j.

Happy Hallo-Week!

I had a very strange dream the other night. I was watching a Charlie Brown cartoon. Linus was waiting, as he always does, in that cold, lonely pumpkin patch but no Great Pumpkin. Then up out of te shadows rose this weird multi-limbed pumpkin headed creature who could only be the Great Pumpkin...unfortunately Linus had already long ago expired. Death from waiting! Poor Linus!
I feel like my Great Pumpkin design owes a LOT to the art of Jay Stephens (in fact I'm partially convinced I've seen him draw something very much like it and that I've subconsciuosly stolen from him). Check out Jay's amazing art at his blog, and also on tv in his popular show SECRET SATURDAYS! I've got some cool Secret Saturdays toys. I love monsters!

A little warning before you see the next cartoon...Charlie Brown swears! Sorry!
Charlie Brown would never say that word. Again, poor Linus! Halloween just isn't his holiday!

Happy Halloween, ever'body!
j.

Leslie, My Name Is Evil!

So, here's something a little different from me. A slightly more realistic (though still old-fashioned), mildly gruesome, heavier subject matter with suggestions of sex (the last image is cropped because, while it's a suitable image for the movie for which it's drawn, it's a little too revealing for this blog :)

These were done for a film called "Leslie, My Name Is Evil" directed by Reg Harkema. They appear as pages from a Jack Chick-like tract detailing the seduction of the main character, Leslie, by a beatnik who gives her LSD and an unwanted pregnancy. A college buddy of mine was the Production Designer on the movie and got me the gig. I saw the Toronto Film Festival premiere of the movie and really got a kick out of seeing my artwork on he big screen.

The movie is a darkly comic look at a young girl seduced into the violent world of the Manson clan coupled with the story of a young man torn between his duty to his country and a fascination with Leslie.


j.

Batman: The Brave and the Bone!

Wahoo! This Wednesday the issue of Batman: Brave and the Bold drawn by me (and written by J.Torres) hits the stands. The special guest Heroes are the old/new Doom Patrol! Way back when Torres and I were working on Alison Dare we used to talk about dream characters we'd love to work on. Both of us have a strange infatuation with the Doom Patrol. Torres first worked on them in Teen Titans Go which he wrote for, like, ever single issue!

Now I finally got my shot! J. wrote us a fun story with the full team and I more or less got to design them for the B&B style! In order to keep them familiar with the old Teen Titans Go audience I kept the purple and black costumes (and also because those costumes are cool) and I just made a few little minor tweaks to make 'em my own.

I love the heck out of the Doom Patrol and hope I get to draw them again!

This is my favourite page out of the book. I don't know why...it may be the duck...but it just makes me laugh that I drew it.

best,
j.

He's Just a Baby Duck!

Sometimes, especially when I've got a lot of work on the board, I just want to draw something for ME! A doodle that makes me laugh, or an idea I've had for awhile but just never took the time to jot down in black and white (or grey if I only have time for pencils). Baby Huey is one such drawing. I LOVE the Harvey characters! Dark Horse has been releasing collections of Harvey kids, sort of a Best OF selection (though I really wish someone would do a COMPLETE collection...at least of Hot Stuff).
I'd had an idea to draw Baby Huey lookin' a little...dumber. He's a big dumb oaf in the comics, and the cartoons, which is all part of his appeal as a character. He's a baby with the strength of an ox!
So the above is my take on Baby Huey!
Here's the Super Friends ABC News screen cap as nabbed by blog reader Javier. Thanks, Javier! That's pretty cool!
And speaking of Super Friends, I finally finished the interiors to another issue. I'll let you know when it's coming out, but I drew the interiors for Super Friends #18 guest starring the Bizarro Super Friends! Holy socks, is there ever some funny stuff from writer Sholly in this issue.

best,
j.