New Artwork on the Etsy Store
| January 31, 2012 | Posted by CalamityJon under Sketches and Illustration |
One of my resolutions this year was to draw a portrait-a-day – either from reference or imagination. At the end of the first month, with thirty-one portraits in the bag, I’ve learned that my lax attitude about drawing them on whatever piece of paper was handy made for nothing except a hell of a mess. I’ve started my February batch in a dedicated sketchbook and figured I may as well list some of the loose ones online if even just to clear them out of the house.
Currently up in my Etsy store are these three portraits of assorted Doctor Who villains – more to come!
Sketchin’ 2012
| January 23, 2012 | Sketches and Illustration |
Among my resolutions for 2012 are (a) to get back into disciplined sketching and (b) to fill up some of these blank sketchbooks I’ve had laying around forever-and-a-day. I must have a dozen of them – I’ve gotten in the habit of doing all my doodling and sketching on loose pieces of paper. Here’s the… (more)
What Does Superman See In Lois Lane?
| January 20, 2012 | Writing |
This is an article I posted on my Tumblr some months back, and which proved fairly popular at the time. It’s been getting some reblogs recently and I thought it might be worth reposting on my own blog … ==================================== What does Superman see in Lois Lane? Well, let’s set aside the obvious, to… (more)
The City Desk – The Eat at Joe’s Riots
| January 20, 2012 | Writing |
The City Desk was a blog documenting the daily life and often absurd history of an unnamed, imaginary city somewhere in North America. Dozens of contributors helped give weight and breadth to this storied, anonymous urban institution over the course of several years, including yours truly. What follows is an article, written by me, which originally… (more)
Half-Pint Heroes – Superman’s Rogues Edition
| January 17, 2012 | Half-Pint Heroes |
A few months back, I did a series of proto-Half Pint Heroes featuring Superman’s Rogues Gallery – my favorite collection of villains, hands-down (I do have a Superman bias, mind you). I recently went back and re-did three of them – Luthor, Brainiac and Mxyzptlk – to have them fit the current Half-Pint template, and… (more)
Relaunched Presents: WATCHMEN-TOO
| January 16, 2012 | Blogs and Online Projects |
The collaborative art blog RELAUNCHED started off as DC FIFTY-TOO and then MARVEL UNIVERSE TOO - with artists reimagining their own approaches to DC and Marvel Comics properties, respectively. Today, Relaunched announces its next theme month, WATCHMEN TOO: Rumors have abounded for the last several years that DC Comics was planning a series of prequels… (more)
The City Desk – Friday Facts for June 12, 2009
| January 13, 2012 | Writing |
The City Desk was a blog documenting the daily life and often absurd history of an unnamed, imaginary city somewhere in North America. Dozens of contributors helped give weight and breadth to this storied, anonymous urban institution over the course of several years, including yours truly. What follows are The City Desk’s Friday Facts for… (more)
Half-Pint Heroes
| January 11, 2012 | Posted by CalamityJon under Half-Pint Heroes |
Many many years back, I collected action figures. I had hundreds of them, some still in the packages and some loose. Not even the vast majority of them were on display, but they still occupied an overwhelming amount of space in my home – I had two full bookshelves, several partial bookshelves, dozens hanging on the wall. It was a mess. I’m sure a lot of you have been in similar straits.
For a lot of reasons – the space, the clutter, the ethical issues of compulsive plastic purchasing and assembly-line worker conditions overseas, the fact that I had dozens of these things in boxes in a closet or a storage unit and never even got to look at them, and so on - I cleared out my collection. My life is a lot better in a lot of respects for having gotten rid of my collections – it’s less cluttered, for one thing – but I still sometimes miss those colorful little creations all lined up on my shelf.
To satisfy the collecting bug, I started putting together templates in Illustrator for what I call Half-Pint Heroes – I’d been drawing big-head versions of my favorite characters for years, but creating them in vector form lets me re-use body parts and change paint jobs while retaining the uniform scale (just like action figures!), and yet still come up with a virtual ‘shelf-full’.
I’ve been tweaking and refining the template for a year or so, and finally have it at a point where I was happy with it. The Vision below was the first completed figure from the inaugural ‘set’:
He makes up the first figure in my “Marvel Costumes From The 1970s I Thought Were Awesome” set. See, that’s another benefit of having a completely digital ‘toy’ collection, I get to create me own releases!
Here are the remaining four from this first set: Captain Britain, Daredevil, Iron Man and the Scarlet Witch. You can see all of the figures in this gallery series …
So who’s next? Well, I have some Superman villains to clean up so they fit the template (and a few to add to the collection), but beyond that you’ll have to wait and see!
Iron Man #100 on Covered…
| January 11, 2012 | Posted by CalamityJon under Blogs and Online Projects |
Covered is a blog operated by Robert Goodin (see Robert’s superb take on an Arnim Zola comic over on Relaunched) which features reimagined recreations of existing comic book covers. I’ve contributed to it a couple of times before – first with my version of a super-fun Sekowsky/Anderson Brave and the Bold cover featuring Batman and Metamorpho, and then later with a border-busting Little Archie).
I’m back on the blog today with a reconstruction of the classic Iron Man #100, which was – fun fact for anyone writing my scandalous unauthorized biography – the only Iron Man comic I owned or read between the ages of five and … now. You can check out my cover below, or visit Covered to see it and hundreds of other excellent cover recreations.
Relaunched!
| January 10, 2012 | Posted by CalamityJon under Blogs and Online Projects |
Last year, when DC Comics announced a sudden relaunch and revamp of their entire line, I had an idea to organize and curate something of a response to the event. I contacted some independent and alternative artists of my acquaintance – and had quite a few more introduced to me in the process – and asked them to imagine and create their own revamped take on DC’s vast volume of characters, titles and concepts.
The result was DC FIFTY-TOO, which received a lot of positive coverage all over the web. The participants also had a blast taking part, and I was encouraged to repeat the effort with MARVEL UNIVERSE TOO: WHAT IF, where the crew from Fifty-Too (plus a few extras) jumped in and tackled the Marvel Universe.
Even though I had the hectic job of managining and organizing the event, I even had time to get in on the act. From the Marvel Universe, I gave long-time Alpha Flight regular Puck his own ongoing series, and on the DC side I was ecstatic to pencil a Plastic Man cover which was subsequently inked by the great Stephen DeStefano, hands down one of my favorite cartoonists:
After Marvel Universe-Too, there was a lot of buzz among participants as to what to do next – Vertigo, Valiant, classic Golden Age characters, assorted independent titles, even Harvey Comics - but the fact was that running and organizing the events were taking a big bite out of my free time, and I didn’t think I could continue to run the show.
Luckily, all-around good dudes Ryan Cody and Benjamin Birdie stepped up to shoulder two-thirds of the burden. With the new year, we’ve rebranded the DC Fifty-Too/Marvel Universe-Too site as RELAUNCHED - inviting artists to reimagine any comic book property which tickles their fancy – and have opened to door to general submissions, so that anyone can participate.
Our first entry went up last Tuesday - a great take on Dennis the Menace and friends by Charles Guthrie – and our second entry is due to go up any moment now – plus we’ll be announcing our first theme month on Thursday! I hope you’ll check out the site and keep an eye on the new submissions, and – if you’re an artist yourself – that you’ll consider contributing as well. Swing on by!
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