Rough Monday: The Anatomy of “Namor and Me”

by on January 16, 2012 at 11:03 am
Posted In: Blog, Rough Mondays, Water Cooler Discussion

This “Namor and Me” piece was done for CBR’s “The Line Is Drawn,” where a list of artists (including myself) had to choose from twitter feed responses and then create cover homages. Someone suggested a cover homage to Betty and Me #16, which featured an unintentional double entendre. This is a REAL cover, folks, no photo-shopping:

The twitter requestor suggested the same cover with amorous Prince Namor whisking the Invisible Girl away from her Fantastic Four teammates. But I wanted something more…. and then I thought of all the Archie “Double Digest” Collections… And I thought, ah, “Double ENTENDRE Digest”! And then just continuing with a stream of unintentional bits that could be seen as Archie-clean or slightly-naughty. Here’s the sketch:

The fun was taking some innocent double entendres to ridiculous new extremes, with dialogue from Reed, Jonny and Ben… plus a few little things in the trade dress and blurbs. That dialogue went through a few passes, as you can see my original thoughts in the sketch vs the final. It took awhile to get the exact phrasing down. And the writers of “Three’s Company” made it look so easy….

Plus, I always knew Northstar was going to figure in; That pretty much wrote itself!

And here’s the final:

This one was a lot of fun! Hope you enjoyed it.

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Dream Casting The Hero Business

by on January 4, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Posted In: Blog, Water Cooler Discussion

FlixMentallo21 (aka Picassamia on our boards) has done a really, really fun fancast of “The Hero Business” as an animated series over at comicbookmovie.com, where fans create dream casts of their favorite comic-related properties.

Here’s what Flix had to say: “I thought this would make a good animated series, so this fancast is the result–with Walko himself (via the comments section on his site) giving me the okay to do so. The art style would be taken right from Walko (though I’d imagine he’d be doing the animation himself, if given the chance), and the cartoon would air on G4 (which I think would be the best home for it). Here is my voice cast, divided into the main characters and the guests (bio info courtesy of the site).”

Here’s a few of my favorite choices from Flix’s cast:

George Lowe as the voice of Bravado. Flix says: “Lowe provided the voice of Space Ghost on the cult hit “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast”, and when I read Bravado’s lines in the web comic, I immediately thought of Lowe. His voice is just perfect for this guy.”

Simon Helberg as the voice of Brody LeBlanc. Flix says: “It took me a while to figure out who had the right voice for Brody, and finally, I thought of Helberg, and this would be the total opposite of Howard Wolowitz for him, which I’d think he’d have fun with.”

Billy West as the voice of Louie the Lounge Lizard. Flix says: “For picking Billy West, I thought that for Louie, he could combine his voice for Rancid Rabbit from CatDog with a bit of Moe Syzlak and Harvey Fierstein to get the right rasp for this slithery bartender.”

Rosario Dawson as the voice of Glamazon. Flix says: “I went with Dawson since she’s had experience playing an Amazon before, Artemis in the 2009 Wonder Woman animated film.”

Katee Sackhoff as the voice of Stiletto. That’s just about perfect.

And this is just a sampling of my favorites. Flix has done a gleefully exhaustive fan cast, featuring the complete  Hero Business staff and clientele. Check it out here!

So, who would you cast, Heroites???

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Rough Mondays: Anatomy of an Aqua-Christmas

by on January 2, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Posted In: Blog, Rough Mondays, Water Cooler Discussion

Greetings, post-Holiday Heroites!

For this week’s Rough Monday, I’m sharing some preliminary sketches from a commission piece I did for the ever-excellent Aquaman Shrine. The idea: the modern AquaFamily celebrating the Holidays.

Aquaman and Mera retained their present looks, while Arthur Jr.’s design is in keeping with his appearance in the “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” cartoon. The Aquaman Shrine gave me carte blanche with the other characters…. So I really wanted to tweak the AquaTeens…

Here’s some initial thoughts…

Garth, the original Aqualad, is reimagined as a zen surfer dude; I combined his Kingdom Come costume but kept his original Aqualad gloves. Tula, the original Aquagirl, got modernized; I kept her seashell motif and gave her a stylish wild-wave hair-do to echo her original Nick Cardy design.

For Lorena, the new Aquagirl, I redesigned her wetsuit to include an “A” symbol; I also liked her original “edgy” look with the dark eyeliner and short-shag cut. For Kaldur, the new Aqualad, I adapted his “Young Justice” look, which I prefer to the dreads he sported in “Brightest Day.”

Here’s the final Aqugirls:

I then mapped out who’s going where in the Aquacave celebration…

(Storm and Imp…. aw, reindeer games!)

And then debated what Mera was going to be doing….

Aaaaaaand here’s the final:

Happy Holidays Holiday Hangover everyone!

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A Very Stiletto Christmas

by on December 19, 2011 at 11:10 am
Posted In: Blog, Rough Mondays

A few weeks ago, The Hero Business hosted the return of Stiletto. She was my first published comic creation – a hard-edged heroine with a sharp blade and killer heels. Originally a joke shared with a few friends, the character took a life of her own, serving as a satire for comic books but “sexy under-dressed 90s anti-heroines” in particular.

After Stiletto’s Hero Business debut, I shared her secret origin along with the very first ashcan issue. For this week’s Rough Monday, I bring you a holiday tale of the ages: The Stiletto Christmas Special. Hope you enjoy!

Happy holidays, heroites!

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Rough Monday: Hostess is the Mostest

by on December 12, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Posted In: Blog, Rough Mondays

It’s week two of the Comics Should Be Good “The Line Is Drawn” try-outs. The theme is “team ups” and “two comic characters that have never teamed up before.” You have to choose from a selection of fan-tweets, so I chose Booster Gold and Wonder Man.

My “genius” idea was to do a riff of those corny Hostess ads that ran in the late-70s and early-80s. You can check ’em out here. My idea was to portray the Hostess ads as a real paying spokesman-like gig. Yeah, perfect for two fame-seekers like Booster and Simon.

So here’s the pencil sketch:

I originally had Booster and Simon in their retro-80s era costumes; Then, I decided to keep it modern…. with the conceit that the snack food company had fallen on hard times and could no longer afford the likes of Superman and Spider-Man. And here’s the final:

Also, a reminder: If you’d like to see more of this stuff, vote for me in “The Line Is Drawn” poll, right here!

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