It’s become a recent tradition for me to do the Plus Prop challenge every time I make a visit to New York Comic Con. First time it was with Venom and that was fun. Then I used Juggernaut and that worked out well too. This year I wasn’t sure who to use. With so many choices and some reader support, I settled on using the late, great Randall Poffo, known by many names: Bonesaw McGraw, Rasslor, Leonard Ghostal and most famously, “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

And so, I spent much of Comic Con’s four days badgering various comic artists for commissions at Artists’ Alley. The challenge is to draw Randy Savage plus another object. Any object. What that object is is up to the artist and not me. This one ended up being a ton of fun and most of the artists were incredibly into it. Before he even drew anything, Chris Giarrusso and I spent like a half hour talking about how great Savage’s promos were. So sit back and snap into the fruits of their labor.

YEAH! DIG IT!

Randy Savage with Skull
by Jacob Chabot

Randy Savage with Mjolnir
by Chris Giarrusso

Read the rest of this entry �

Last year, I went to NY Comic Con, stared Artist Alley in the eye and laid down the gauntlet for the Venom Plus Prop Challenge. The bounty was wonderful. Naturally, I’d have to think of a new subject for my sketchbook during this year’s Comic Con trip. Venom is out and Juggernaut is in.

The theme is simple: Juggernaut and another object. Any object. It’s not for me to suggest what it is, but for the artist to come up with the idea. Luckily, nobody gave him a hammer because look where that put him. Depowered and off Marvel’s best book. And nobody drew Colossus in a Juggernaut helmet because that’s lame and smelly. You know it’s true.

Let’s see what we got.

Juggernaut with Umbrella
by Chris Giarusso

Juggernaut with Cell Phone
by Jacob Chabot

Read the rest of this entry �

Ron Wimberly’s been in Japan for the past few weeks, making me mad jealous. I’ve only been once, in the fall of ’08 for a work trip. All expenses paid was nice, but staying only a week was too short. But them’s the breaks! I did buy about five hundred bucks worth of clothes, though!

Ron’s been busy, drawing comics and making connects. He’s got a big deal coming up, so I’ll let him (and Benetton) tell it:

On Saturday, March 13th, Benetton Japan will be hosting a live paint show by an American artist, Ronald Wimberly, to celebrate Benetton Mega Store Shinjuku’s renewal opening. During the event, which takes place from 3pm to 9pm, the artist will be painting on a big screen in the window, which will be reported live on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/benettonpress.

So, details:
Where: Benetton Mega Store Shinjuku‘s official Ustream channel
When: If you’re EST (where Brooklyn at), 0100-0300 Saturday morning. For those of us in PST (From Oakland to Sac-town, the Bay Area and back down), you can check it out from 2200-0000 on Friday evening. For those inbetween… do the math.
Who: Ron Wimberly, aka dπ
What: Live painting

Tune in, you might see something cool. In the meantime, check out the kid’s site, revisit his Black Future Month interview, or get familiar with GratNin. You can also read the press release.

Let’s talk superheroines, buddy. How do you like them? Do you like them with glassy eyes, mouth partly open, gasping for breath? A stone cold (or smoking hot, you feel me?) come hither look on a face you swear you’ve seen before? What about boobs? How do you feel about those? We’re talking pneumatic, post-porn star boobs here, straight up carnival breasts. Think Wonder Woman could do with a pair of tatas like those? Or even better– let’s say you could get a peek at Zatanna’s you-know-hair and chimichangas while she just looks at you with this super sexy expressionless face? That’d be dumb hot, right? You’d want to give her a full ten out of ten, am I right?

Let’s be real with each other here. How much would you pay to see a seventeen year old girl’s panties? Just a peek? What if she were Supergirl? I gotchu, dawg.

Luckily for us all, Ed Benes, The King of Sexy Superheroines has space on his commissions list, and he’s ready, willing, and able to break you off some of that super sexy submissive scoliosis bowlegged booty.

11″ x 17″ Pen and inks
$800 1 character, no background
$1200 1 character w/ background (cover quality)
Add $400 for second character
Add $300 each additional character

Let’s do the math: 800 bucks will get you Vixen and some boob socks, or Zatanna and some questionable penciling going on down in panty-land. And hey, even some Wonder Girl panty shot action.

For 1200, you can get Zatanna, a little bit of hair, and a background.

If you want Spider-Man and Kinky Sex Black Cat and Whip Cracking Mary Jane, you’re looking at… 1500 bones. Of course, that’s worth it, right? I mean, they’re totally going to do it. I mean, come on.

If you absolutely need poorly drawn, empty eyed, ill proportioned superheroines to get your rocks off you unbelievable creep, hit up Ed Benes’s art page.

I mean, sexy art is one thing. But have some freaking taste about it. Read something with some personality and attention to craft, not some hack who can’t even tell a proper story without putting somebody’s flat butt front and center. You’re better off buying something by Adam Hughes, Kevin Maguire, Jordi Bernet, Frank Cho, Amanda Conner, Phil Noto, or any one of several dozen genuinely talented cheesecakey artists. Shoot, buy some Penthouse Comix backissues. Those had a stellar line-up of artists.

Ed Benes: Wacker than the average.

Greg Land is a bad artist. Stop buying his comics.

No equivocation, no wishy-washiness: he’s terrible and supporting him is even worse. Comics should be more than just trademarks moving around on a page, acting out the latest episode of soap operas that began when our parents were young.

Put even plainer: Greg Land is a symptom of the poison in mainstream comics.

What I said before still stands. Get this lazy scrub out of here, and put somebody good on his books. Do better.

Rafael Grampa’s Batman & Robin, that is. I found this via Sean Witzke, who found it via Grampa’s flickr.

I dig it.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how women are portrayed on the covers of various comic books.  I’m relieved to hear it because my frustration level, every week when I see the solicits, has been rising.  At least I know I’m not alone.  I’ve planned a longer post on this issue later on, but for now, I’ll keep it short.

I’ve seen many positive responses to the covers.  ‘Being sexy is good, not bad,’ and ”this is what sells’ seem to be the most popular.  Maybe they’re true.  But at the same time, they’re the ones that bother me the most.

Read the rest of this entry �

The Battle for the Cowl so far is comprised of three main books, numerous associated mini-series, and a few scattered one-shot tie-ins.  I’m not strongly affected either way by most of these, but this week two of those one-shots loom large in my mind.

The first is an example of the perfect tie-in.  It shows us something we never would have seen if we were following a conventional narrative, and offers us something truly different from the norm while still maintaining the tone of the world for which it was created.  That one was Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum.  Written by David Hine, it takes us on a tour of Arkham Asylum, and for once focuses on the less gruesome aspects of the institution.  Jeremiah Arkham narrates the story, not in the usual hard-boiled tone taken by the Gotham crowd, but with sincere sadness that he hasn’t been able to help the inmates. 

While we sense that he is somewhat unhinged himself, he’s an eccentric and an idealist, not the usual film-noir lunatic.  He finds picks a few inmates who pose no threat, and leads them out of the ruined structure.  In the end, before the final, worrying sting, he expresses the hope that he can rebuild the asylum so that it lives up to its name – so that it can be a true asylum for those who are unable to survive in the conventional world.  It’s refreshing, it’s sobering, and it’s creative.

Sadly, I only really got to thinking about how excellent it was while reading Battle for the Cowl: The Network.  Well, now I know something about myself, at least.  Pissiness is a bigger motivator than honest admiration.

So let’s get to it! 

Well, first thing’s first.  Huntress’s costume has been changed back to a glorified bikini.  And why?  Because the promotional poster for the event, drawn by Tony Daniel, has her back in her Jim Lee costume.  I don’t see why this would necessitate a costume change in the actual book any more than the ‘The Real Power In The DCU’ poster would necessitate putting every woman in the DCU in a white evening dress, but I guess that’s how they’re going to play it.

Honestly?  I didn’t even notice the costume change.  A girl fighting crime in a bikini doesn’t catch my eye anymore.  What made me notice was the characters in the story can’t stop picking at the new outfit.  Batgirl, still with a perfect command of the English language, mentions it once.  Oracle mentions it later.  Both talk about how impractical it is.

I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s a jab by writer at a mandated costume change.  Maybe he’s was trying to have his cake and eat it, too, by putting Huntress in a two-piece bathing suit and still snarking about it.  I’m not sure who made the decisions to regress Huntress sartorially. 

I just know that the decision was also made to regress her personally.  When the villain announces that he will start murdering two hostages if the heroes don’t murder one, Huntress pulls her crossbow and is about to take a hostage out when Batgirl knocks her aside.  This is the deal-breaker for me.  Cass is back on the moral high ground, but she had to knock Helena off it to get there.  Never mind that in continuity we haven’t seen Huntress kill in years.  Never mind that we’ve never seen her kill that casually.  In the end, the plot of this book involves the worst mistake a team book can make: cutting off one character at the knees to make another character look good.  That’s never the way to go.

In short: Buy Battle for the Cowl:Arkham Asylum.  Leave Battle for the Cowl: The Network on the shelf.  And stop making women fight in swimwear.

Philip Bond is one of my favorite artists. He absolutely killed on Vimanarama and Kill Your Boyfriend, not to mention his Invisibles work. He’s one of the artists I follow on Flickr, and he’s got all of his art neatly sorted into a group cleverly named “artwork.”

He’s got a very cool set going of female astronauts. Each head shot comes along with a bit of history. Here’s a sample:

Delta Tau Delta sweetheart Judith Resnik became the fourth female astronaut when she flew as mission specialist aboard the maiden voyage of the Shuttle Discovery in 1984. Judith was killed during the launch of her second spaceflight aboard the Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

He’s got a ton of pieces of art, and about half a dozen astronauts. Go give it a look.