Wall Street Journal- Full Art Job

I had the opportunity to illustrate a six panel comic strip for an Op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend (scroll down a bit after linking). Got the call Friday afternoon and it was in Tuesday's  paper. They did a great job with printing and lettering-- I was surprised at how good the color looked on newsprint!-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023504577319623333618562.html

Re-masters- My Colors Over Comics Legends

Because of some life re-structuring and career re-focusing, I won't have a lot of sample time for comics in the near future. I had a lot of fun blowing off steam and taking an occasional afternoon off to color some of my artistic heroes and I certainly didn't get to nearly all of them. Michael Golden and Alan Weiss would have been next on the list.
So, here are the ten re-masters I've done all in one place (you can read my thoughts at the original entries by clicking on the artist name)-

Alex Toth

Neal Adams

Neal Adams

John Buscema

John Buscema

Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

Kevin Nowlan

Jerry Ordway

Hilary Barta

Alex Toth remastered

Toth is one of the greatest designers in the history of comics- his work is perfect in black and white. So the problem becomes--  how do you add color to a perfect black and white statement? Toth used to paraphrase Noel Sickles- to add to the truth of something only lessens its truth. In the case of this page, I tried to stay out of the line art's way, use color holds judiciously (it was tempting to hold the bushes outside the window, for example) and model just a touch, keeping Toth's own marker/ink color work in mind.
Anyway, I'm happy with the results and had a lot of fun!

Remasters- Neal Adams pencils

I don't think that any comic artist (or illustrator, for that matter) handled the pencil as a rendering tool better than Neal Adams in the 70s.
Dancin' by the Nile-- The ladies love his style!-

More Monica Moon...

I really like the direction that Andrew's going-- a lot of fun stuff in these to color!

Re-master- Jose Luis Garcia Lopez Wonder Woman

How many superlatives can be used to describe Garcia Lopez's draftsmanship?

Another Re-master- Kevin Nowlan

I first became aware of Kevin Nowlan's work when he took over Moon Knight from Bill Sienkiewicz. I was disappointed that Sienkiewicz was leaving the book, but this new guy's art intrigued me. He cemented me as a permanent fan a few years later with his work on a mid--80s Batman and the Outsiders annual- pencils, inks, colors and a painted cover (and probably letters- I'm not sure)! He's still doing excellent work- check out his full art job on a recent Hellboy one shot- and remains a constant source of inspiration. I'd love to color his work on a story one day, but the digital coloring he's been doing is so good, I'm sure I'll never get the chance.

Holiday Greetings

A couple of quick holiday jobs that were fun to color up-

More Monica Moon

Toy Box

Drawn with animated acumen by Alex Sera-

John Buscema -- Conan!

I said it before and I'll say it again-- no one inked big John better than Big John. His Conan is classic anatomy and composition  with no fancy tricks and usually a strong single light source that sets all that wonderful musculature in relief.

Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

This is the next installment in the continuing series I call "Coloring My Comics Heroes". Garcia Lopez is a draftman's draftsman- I loved his drawing as a kid and I love his drawing now. His color work is also a treat- check out his Star Raiders graphic novel or a number of DC digest covers he painted in the 80s. I had this comic as a kid-- of course it's long gone now- and I seem to recall the interior art being done by Walt Simonson and Dick Giordano, but I may be wrong on the Simonson part...

Monica Moon

Another recent coloring job working over Andrew Pepoy's classic line art-

Another Perfect Storm Cover Image

This time, very nicely drawn with angular aplomb by Rob Jones

more ad comic pages

Here are some additional pages  with line art by yours truly and Hilary Barta and my colors...

Jerry Ordway

This is a pinup image for Rob Jones' Perfect Storm book (see my earlier post for interior art by Rob and me) drawn by the legendary Jerry Ordway! I first fell in love with Ordway's work when he switched off inking duties ( over Rich Buckler) and became penciler on All Star Squadron. Ordway's one of those rare guys who has been great for 30 years and still seems to find small areas to improve- another inspiration!

Immunos

These are two pages from a commercial job that I've been working on with the singularly talented Hilary Barta. I did pencils on these pages (trying to get some feel of Hil in the characters) and then Hilary saved it all in the inks.
The colors are all me : )

John Buscema

Another one of my favorite comics legends. Big John was better better than when he inked himself!

Perfect Storm

From a book I'm coloring -- the creation of Rob Jones-

Neal Adams

I'm planning to color lots of cool stuff by comics legends from back in the day and in the present- just to have fun and hopefully learn something from the process. This first one was printed in a recent Neal Adams sketchbook and references his old mystery stories, Spectre issues and Weird Western El Diablo shorts-