I’ve often said that I don’t really read many superhero comics these days. I still BUY a lot of spandex adventures… but it’s mostly to admire the work of whichever artist I happen to admire that might be drawing that title. For my reading enjoyment, I mostly stick to alternative and small press books these days… books that sort of break the mold of what’s happening in the ‘mainstream’ these days. However, it’s not like I don’t WANT to read superhero comics. I’m so much older than I was when I first started buying and amazing at the adventures of those colorfully clad heroes I loved so much in my childhood. I still love the superhero genre, though. They might be labeled as Adolescent Power Fantasies… but it’s the drama and struggle– both outer AND inner– that the characters go through… the journey of self… that’s attractive to me. That, and good design. I love well designed costumes and characters… both visually and substantive. That’s what was so attractive to me about the UNCANNY X-MEN comic when I saw my first issue — issue #104– on that news stand rack back when I was 11 years old. That’s what made me grab it up like a starving man with a turkey leg and keep coming back month after month for so very many years afterward, as well as made me go back and buy the beginning of this new incarnation of the characters with GIANT SIZED X-MEN #1 and UNCANNY X-MEN #94. The book was my absolute favorite through all its various permutations over the years and decades…. the changes of costume and personality for the many characters. That fascination lasted up until probably 10 years ago or so. I don’t know what the dividing line– the demarkation– of when my interest began to wane. I’m also unclear as to what the reason was for that change in interest– but I suspect it was the fact that the X-MEN franchise got too huge… too cumbersome in scope and cast. There’s something comforting, I think, for the comic book fan, in knowing that their favorite characters might be put through the wringer and face challenges that might leave indelible marks on them… but at the end of the day, they will remain those same basic fictional ‘folks’ they have come to enjoy so much. I think that the X-MEN characters became rather unrecognizable to me over the years and caused me to lose interest in a group of characters I used to enjoy so very much.

Anyone else have that same sort of experience with a once-favorite comic book?

Michael Ransom Getty recently contacted me on DRAWINGBOARD.ORG to ask if I’d like a scan of a THING sketch I did for him at last year’s MEGACON in Orlando, Florida. Of course, I said ‘YES’– because I like to share them with you folks whenever I can get the opportunity to do so. And so… here you go. Great thanks to Michael for offering this scan– it’s much appreciated.

OK… another week down. Have a great weekend, all.

This is Entry 328.

Mike

This is a little bit more than a warm up sketch. I actually started playing with it over the weekend.. and did a little bit each day until I finished it this morning. I might have finished it earlier if I wasn’t so busy with the SPIDER-MAN/FF miniseries pencils these days. I’ve been doing so many sketches lately that are just single character shot type drawings that I decided I wanted to do something that was more of a storytelling piece. I still have aspirations to publish a hardcover art/sketchbook one day. I have been collecting pieces for it— and I started to feel that I had too many of those single character sketches and not enough pieces or sketches that would tell a story– something that would give someone something to look at and think about. Hopefully I achieved that with this sketch

Yesterday MARVEL released the solicitation copy and images for book shipping in April… and so I thought I’d post the finished cover to the first issue of the SPIDER-MAN/FANTASTIC FOUR miniseries that my old studio-mate Jeff Parker and I are working on. Inks by my old (lots of ‘old’) artistic partner-in-crime Karl Kesel. Colors by….. not sure who. But I like the way it came out.

I also want to remind everyone that I now have a DEVIANTART gallery, so if you feel like going through and seeing some of the sketches from past blog posts you might have missed, now you can do so. There’s almost 130 pieces there now.

OK.. that’s it for today.

This is Entry 327.

Mike

Here are the last two pages from the failed/aborted STREETFIGHTER comic book proposal. These two were inked by Rick Ketcham because I just ran out of time to devote to this project. Rick was kind enough to step in and help out, and I have to thank him once again for the wonderful assist. I’m going to have to keep it very short today…. I’ve got so much to do. My apologies.

OK… until Wednesday….

This is Entry 326.

Mike

Some times my morning warmup sketches don’t yield much, content-wise. Take this morning, for instance… couldn’t really think of anything that interested me. And any attempt to sketch out characters for one or two of those ideas that are always floating around in my noggin for stories and comics I’ve been mulling just weren’t happening to my satisfaction. Sure, it loosened me up– greased the old creative wheels enough to get started working… but I just don’t feel like posting the half-hearted results here to show. So instead, I went rummaging through some of the many stacks of old art pages and miscellanea that I have laying around the studio and pulled out a couple of old pages to post.

These two pages are from a set of 4 I did as part of a proposal to the CAPCOM folks many years back for a comic book series featuring their characters. There was a local fellow — a very enterprising young guy– who had gotten contact information for the CAPCOM licensing folks, and had called them up to see if they’d be willing to entertain the idea of a STREET FIGHTER comic book (keep in mind, this was LONG before the UNDON folks started doing their books with the SF characters). They were, indeed, open to looking at such a proposal. This guy had an artist– who had a manga style– that he was working with, but the artist was highly unreliable, and when it came to ‘go time’, he hadn’t done any acceptable samples. So I stepped in and worked up some for this fella– and I did the 4 pages in 2 days– over a weekend. I inked the first two myself– the ones I’ve posted here– and the second two were inked by Rick Ketcham. Perhaps I’ll post those two on Monday. But despite the fact that the characters aren’t really spot-on style guide-wise… I was still pretty happy with the way the pages turned out, especially having been done at such a fast pace. Of course, the project fell through… but it was still interesting for me to try to produce that much material in such a short time. I kind of like the rough quality to the inks. Not a lot of background elements… but some times I think it would be fun to work in this manner all the time…. not worry about being so ‘precious’ with the work.

It was an interesting experience.

OK… that’s it for today.

This is Entry 325.

Mike

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