I drew a BOWMAN pin up for Pat Aulisio’s forthcoming collection. Pat runs Yeah Dude Comics.
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Category: Art & Illustration
Includes everything from illustrations, sketches, and flyers to shoes, tapes, and an assortment of superhero doodles.
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Dr. DOOM
Dr. Doom was created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. This is yet another Kirby design that I never even attempted to draw. Not a single doodle, not a sample page, nothing. And now? I’m afraid I have to give everything up and dedicate my life to Victor Von Doom.
You saw that right: final, pencil, prelim. Next: 500 Doom comics.
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G A L A C T U S
GALACTUS was created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. This is my first time drawing this iconic Fantastic Four character. Drawing this quintessential Kirby design — drawing any of his creations, really — is a true privilege.
Above: the final piece. Below: as tight a pencil drawing as I can do and its preliminary sketch.
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G. I. Joe Samples
G.I Joe sample pages I staged, pencilled & inked back in 2011. Featured: Roadblock gunning some Cobra Troopers, Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow, Baroness & Destro being voyeurs.
This was pre-Zegas, pre-self publishing, trying to work the work-for-hire hustle one last time before submitting to the notion that cartooning was gonna have to be a hobby. I set my scope to IDW thus (I’d worked for them before & they seemed to hire from a wide spectrum of ability that accommodated relative newcomers). Since G.I. Joe was the only title they published I was [very loosely] familiar with, I drew a sequence I thought would show my “strengths”. I don’t remember whether IDW rejected or flat out ignored my knocking on their door, but thank god they did either way! Not being able to land a job I knew I could crush was becoming my personal industry standard, but I wasn’t gonna let that dopey job get me down (no offense). Hence, Copra Press.
Anyway, I think I would’ve had a great time drawing Snake Eyes kick the crap out of anything, actually (and c’mon: Baroness). But as it stands, these pages represent the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.
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N E W C L E U S
The mighty NEWCLEUS, my contribution to the Hip Hop Family Tree vol. 2 by Ed PIskor. So glad I got the chance to honor one of my favorite acts of that era.
Bob Camp & Bill Wray have lent their talent to this outfit, so I’m definitely in good company!
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Life After C O P R A
First off, the Copra T-Shirt that quickly sold out earlier in the month is available again – get it now while you can.
DRAWING: That up there is WIR paying Klaus back for the events in Copra #4, page 12, eagle eyed readers.
INTERVIEW 1: Factual Opinion featured a discussion – Consider My Weapons – between me and Sean Witzke, one of my favorite writers/thinkers about comics/movies. It was probably the most revealing I will be in a long while, and if there’s one thing for you to pick from, please look to that talk.
INTERVIEW 2: Since I love to run my mouth, I chewed Chris Sims’ ear off for an exit interview.
INTERVIEW 3: Motormouth over here. This time over at Newsarama.
BEST OF: Timothy Callahan ranked Copra as #1 in his When Worlds Collide column over at Comic Book Resources. The write up – the consideration itself- made my week. Comics Alliance named Copra as Best Comic About Squads On Suicide Missions of 2013. Also of note: Tim Hamilton, Krent Able, Clark Burscough, and Nick Abadzis for the Forbidden Planet blog, Taylor Lilley for Comics Bulletin, Guy Copes for God Hates Geeks, Billy Henehan for Tuesday Night Movies, Abhay Khosla, Matt Seneca, Alec Berry, Comic Book Resources, Graphic Novel Universe, the 9th Blog, Locust Moon, Chapel Hill Comics, Velocity Comics, Den of Geeks!, Nothing But Comics! and Kotaku.
FAVES: What other cluster of similarly minded individuals can agree on Copra being worthy entertainment for a 2013 Favorites List? Comics Reporter readers, of course. That very site listed Copra as 1 of the 100 positives of 2013.
AWARD: Copra was nominated by the Broken Frontier Awards for Best Ongoing Series.
REVIEW: Charles Meier wrote a great, detailed overview of the entire series. So did Mark Crabtree.
PODCAST: the Mindless Ones were quite gracious in their discussion of Copra. It’s a real pleasure to know the joy I take in making this comic comes across.
Lastly, check out these awesome pieces. One by Michael C. Kappeler…
… and another by Maciej Pałka, who based the image below on this and also managed to write this review.
It’s been an insane, wonderful year and this next one if gearing to be twice as nuts. Cannot wait for it, either… I look forward to making more comics for you to enjoy.
–Fiffe
As part of his private, ongoing Nazgul Art collection, illustrator Matt Kish had me draw the Witch-king of Angmar (from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings). Matt has an extensive blog showcasing all of his acquisitions, with a variety of unique interpretations: Josh Simmons & Patrick Kyle among them. All formidable & beautiful & I’m honored to be lined up next to such company.
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Commission: Elementals. It was interesting drawing these characters – Fathom, Monolith, Vortex and Morningstar – because I had never read the comic. Always heard of it, 80s ground level superhero comics are in my wheelhouse, but I never dug in for no particular reason (same thing for similar staples such as Zot!, Grendel, Mage, New Wave and DNAgents). Who am I to pass on a chance to hunt for back issues, though? So I got the first few based on this article.
Elementals – created by Bill Willingham (who has always been the guy who drew those Justice League annuals to me).
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Commission: draw some core characters from the Image Comics universe in a Copra pose. This reminded me of being 12 in the early 90s and how cool it was to see these comics come out for the first time. Following these creators at Marvel was fun and all, but there was something about them doing their own thing that seemed raw and immediate and fresh. I was genuinely excited when these comics were coming out, so it was a treat to get to draw them here.
Character & Creator:
Void (WildC.A.T.s) – Jim Lee & Brandon Choi
Ripclaw (Cyberforce) – Marc Silvestri
Badrock & Shaft (Youngblood) – Rob Liefeld
Witchblade – Marc Silvestri, David Wohl, Brian Haberlin & Michael Turner
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Travis Bickle On The Riviera
That there’s the image for the new podcast in town, Travis Bickle on the Riviera, with hosts Tucker Stone and Sean Witzke. It’s about movies, cinema, film, actors, actresses, directors, Hollywood… you name it, it’s on there.
Check it out on iTunes or at The Factual Opinion.
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Doctor Strange & An Interview
Here’s a recent Doctor Strange drawing I made specifically for a brand spanking new blog: the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Reduxe Edition and it’s dedicated to the title of the same name. From the crew that brought us Relaunched, a diverse bunch of cartoonists aim to present their versions of the original profiles. Mark Gruenwald would be proud.
Doctor Stange was created and designed by Steve Ditko and the original drawing that mine was loosely based off of was pencilled by Paul Smith.
In other news, I was recently interviewed by Martyn Pedler over at Booklsut in regards to my bootleg/love letter/fan fic Suicide Squad comic [see previous post for details]. It’s a brief piece, underpinned by Pedler’s own frustrations with ethical negotiation when reading modern mainstream comics. Read it, it’s interesting.
Oh, yeah, and here’s a Squad related sketch I did for Zack Smith at this past Heroes Con.
–Fiffe
First thing’s first: Zegas Number Two finally came back from the printer this week! It’s kinda difficult to contain my excitement! It looks great, and I’m really happy at how it turned out. Place your order over at our Etsy store. For more online consumption, I also made two prints to go along with the comics, as well as a shirt… A SHIRT.
I got to draw some commissions, too, as a result of the Zegas crowd-funding that ran a couple of months ago. Here’s my version of KOYAMA…
…JUNO for Alison Sampson’s ever growing collection…
…and a Paul Smith-era Storm (couldn’t help but include the rest of the team).
In the spirit of sharing, he’s a pin up I did for Paul Maybury’s D.O.G.S. of Mars (out May 2nd!)
I have to be honest, receiving Zegas #2 was cool and all, as was drawing stuff for people, but sometimes you need something more out of life. Well, I recently conceived that something and it wasn’t exactly a happy accident (I thought to combine two things – a video & a song – in order to amuse myself). I wasn’t prepared, however, to see how truly perfect they were when combined (danke, BG).
Don’t let me cheapen it more by trying to explain it.
” A lot of my life has been reacting against those fucking assholes that say ‘you could do much better.’ … Go fuck yourselves. This is who I am, this is the best I can do and if you don’t like it, drop dead.” –John Zorn
That about sums it up for now. I’ll post some Zegas preview pages soon, as well as different type of “process” post.
–Fiffe