One hundred comic book artists have come together over the past year to create the next great joint art project, this time featuring the Dark Knight Detective and Bruce Wayne alter ego, Batman. Previous subjects have included Adventure Time, Wonder Woman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hellboy, The Uncanny X-Men, and Captain America. This year a new group of some of the best-known names in the world of comics volunteered an original work of art featuring the Caped Crusader (how many nicknames does he have anyway?) penciled, inked, painted, or otherwise colored on a DC Comics Batman #75 blank comic book cover. It’s all for a good cause that gives back to–and in effect pays forward–comic book creators that have come before. It’s called the The Batman 100 Project.
This month sees the bicentenary of acclaimed American author Herman Melville′s birthday, August 1, 1819. If you were an artist and asked to draw a defining interpretation of the author’s creations, what would you draw? Ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg, the Pequod, the whale, or some other inspiration from Moby-Dick, right? So the fascination for many of a new book of artwork interpreting and saluting the 19th century American author will be searching out how the 1851 classic novel Moby-Dick; or The Whale is interpreted, and what other creative ideas found their way to paper recalling his other, lesser-known works. This Wednesday comic book publisher A Wave Blue World/AWBW will be releasing such an assemblage, From Hell’s Heart, a full-color, hardcover volume featuring the works of 57 artists.
Most readers today will look at the title and first recall Ricardo Montalban uttering the title as the villain Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, part of his many monologues pulled by screenwriter Nicholas Meyer from the likes of Melville and Shakespeare. But you might also recall from grade school days the short story of Bartleby, the Scrivener, a character study of the early poster boy for the modern office’s work-averse workforce. Artist Nacho Yunis provides a superb mock retro-style comic cover for his entry honoring that story, and Fernando Blanco’s contribution is perhaps the most evocative snippet in the book from the mind of Melville. The artists stepped up to create imagery more interesting than the Melville excerpts you were have likely to been force fed-in junior high American literature class. Surprisingly, most of the artists conjured images taking on the feel of H.P. Lovecraft in their haunting beauty, including the image of psychological horror on the cover by the artist known as Well-Bee.
Comic book readers will find renderings from some familiar artists in these pages, including Andrea Mutti, Maxim Simic, Ryan Sook, Denis Medri, and Brandon Graham. As expected, the bulk of the artwork is devoted to the great whale. Bjarne Hensen provides a strikingly colored street scene from Moby-Dick. Victoria Maderna and Federico Piatti contributed a fantasy image that begs for an entire reprint of the novel with their artwork peppered throughout. Steve Baker opted for fun, depicting the whale as a dog and kids playing Moby-Dick as they might play Cowboys and Indians. Cosimo Miorelli gets the mood in his image just right.
A month ago here at borg.com we discussed looking outside the comic book medium for the artwork of your favorite comic book artists. You don’t need to look too far outside of comic books to find the next great artwork from fan-favorite cover artist Ryan Sook. Every year just in advance of San Diego Comic-Con, comic book stores are stocked with the annual update to The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. First published in 1970, the 1,200 page log of nearly every comic book published to-date arrives at its 48th volume this summer, dated 2018-2019. Known as the go-to guide for prices for a generation of collectors, Robert M. Overstreet’s book of prices and thumbnail photos is also a source to glean what’s happened in the past year by way of comic book trends. It features its own hall of fame for comic book legends, plus full-color sections highlighting some of today and yesteryear’s best covers.
For this year’s comic book store exclusive hardcover edition, Gemstone Publishing tapped Ryan Sook to create a cover to commemorate 50 years of Planet of the Apes films. Sook reached beyond the original to reflect imagery from throughout the Planet of the Apes movie saga– a great homage to the original shocking environment as Charlton Heston’s astronaut Taylor arrives in the future horrifying world of human scarecrows, with General Ursus leading the charge and the creepy denizens in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the return to the past by spaceship for the apes in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, to the militant world and apes under arrest in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, culminating with the eagerly-awaited first appearance of The Lawgiver in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. The familiar image of Roddy McDowall behind John Chambers’ Oscar-worthy make-up takes center stage–McDowall connects all of the films alternately as Cornelius and Caesar (and later as Galen in the TV series), and here he cleverly blocks the identity of the planet.
You can only purchase this edition of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide in comic book stores, so put in a call to Elite Comics to make sure you get a copy when this new edition arrives in July.
More than 100 comic book artists came together over the past year to create what is one of the best joint art projects featuring superheroes that has come out of the industry. And it’s all about the biggest superheroine of all. Some of the best-known names in the world of comics volunteered an original work of art featuring Wonder Woman, penciled, inked, painted, or otherwise colored on a 75th Anniversary DC Comics Wonder Woman blank comic book cover. It’s all for a good cause that gives back to, and in effect pays forward comic book creators that came before them.
It’s called the Wonder Woman 100 Project. All proceeds of the auction of the original artwork will go to the Hero Initiative, an organization that helps out the comic book industry by contributing funds to individuals and their families in the event of medical and financial crises. Most of the comic creators the fund helps were piecemeal workers in their careers over the past decades or those without any kind of retirement program.
And for those who can’t afford the original artwork, the Hero Initiative is creating a hardcover and softcover edition compiling all the covers that will be for sale in June 2017, with proceeds of those books also going to the Hero Initiative.
You’ll see some of the very best Wonder Woman images you’ll ever find. Many are from well-known artists, but some of the finest works are showcased by more recent artists entering the industry.
What if every comic book cover artist also created the artwork inside the cover? It’s a rare thing. Cover artists tend to get discovered and begin churning out great cover work for a good rate and find less time for interior work. Once in a while Alex Ross will take on a labor of love and work the interiors as with the Masks and earlier works like Kingdom Come and Justice. Same with Frank Cho, as he did with a surprise Savage Wolverine series a few years ago and Mike Mayhew with his The Star Wars series after his cover work became more and more popular.
Adam Hughes is well known for his cover work, especially his DC Comics women renderings. His Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan mini-series, a rare event featuring his own interiors, was probably the high point of the series. This summer fans of his artwork and classic Archie Comics characters are in for another rare treat.
Hughes will be scripting and illustrating interiors for a new Betty & Veronica series. Best friends and classic rivals Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge will be at each other again, this time over the fate of Riverdale’s hangout, Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe. Hughes has said he is attempting to make the characters timely and relevant. It shouldn’t be too hard, as the duo is certainly timeless as seen in the updates–and retro inspired designs–of the characters on the variety of covers. The standard cover will be by Hughes, featuring the two girls in his distinct style. Thirteen covers will be supplied by women comic book artists. And none of them chose the look of the gals from the classic series.
We’ve been pretty lucky to both know and regularly cross paths with some great artists who have worked on the many years of Green Arrow stories in the DC Comics monthly series, and others who haven’t worked on the character but created original sketches for us at conventions. From time to time we have posted original artwork of Oliver Queen and his partner Dinah Lance aka Black Canary here at borg.com. These include works by Freddie Williams II, Mike Grell, Neal Adams, Phil Hester and Ande Parks, Howard Chaykin, Michael Golden, Mike Norton, Cliff Chiang, J.K. Woodward, Jock, and Phil Noto, among others.
We don’t know Ryan Sook personally, but he is one of our favorite cover artists. He created our favorite cover of 2012, the cover to Mystery in Space #1, shown here. The awesome sci-fi steampunk girl on the cover just demands her own comic book series. We ran down some of his best cover work here last summer.
When we had the chance to commission a pencil and ink piece from him for our Green Arrow and Black Canary gallery, we couldn’t pass it up. The result is simply awesome.
With three new Star Wars comic book series beginning this year as the license returns to Marvel Comics, we’re taking a look at the second book in Abrams Books’ series of hardcover art house books on the franchise, Star Wars Art: Comics. From the series that also brought us Star Wars Art: Posters, Star Wars Art: Concept, Star Wars Art: Illustration, and Star Wars Storyboards, Star Wars Art: Comics hones in on sequential art found in the comic book medium.
Star Wars and comic books have been in lock-step since Star Wars first hit theaters, thanks to George Lucas and an early meeting with writer Roy Thomas and artist Howard Chaykin. The transcript of that meeting is included as an appendix to the book. Beginning with the first comic book adaptation from Marvel and running through the Dark Horse years, Abrams has compiled a solid overview of thirty years of interpretations of the myth and magic of the Force.
Plates from cover and interior artwork were hand-picked for the book by George Lucas. Star Wars Art: Comics is worth its price alone simply for the clear photos of Howard Chaykin and Tom Palmer’s original cover art for Marvel’s Star Wars Issue #1 and Dave Cockrum and Rick Hoberg’s original artwork to the oversized edition, both also featured on the book’s binding under the jacket. Al Williamson’s stunningly rendered imagery from his adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back pepper the volume as well.
We’ve delved into some great cover artists at borg.com in the past three years, from Alex Ross to Mauro Cascioli to Frank Cho and Mike Mayhew. With his cover run on the DC Comics New 52 series Futures End, Ryan Sook is the artist you just can’t miss these days. His cover for Issue #14 (above right) of Futures End is being solicited for August 2014 already, and it showcases several styles. If you take a look back over the past few years you can see one of the best artists around developing his style and craft, putting his mark on the covers of some great comic book series.
You can see Sook as the cover artist of choice to start up several new series with the number one issue out of the gates, for series including Robotika (2005), Giant-Size Hulk (2006), Friday the 13th (2007), Batman and the Outsiders (2007), Death of the New Gods (2007), Countdown Specials, Countdown Presents and DC Universe Specials (2008 and 2011), Broken Trinity: Aftermath (2009), Blackest Night: Wonder Woman (2010), JSA All Stars (2010), The Magdalena (2010), B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth series (2011-2013), Victorian Undead II (2011), DC Universe Online: Legends (2011), Kirby: Genesis (2011), Justice League Dark (2011), Lord of the Jungle (2011), Rose & Thorn (2012), Sword of Sorcery (2012), and The New 52 Futures End (2014).
Sook is able to render men and women superheroes equally well, yet his women really stand out. Here’s his Wonder Woman, showcased in the Blackest Night series:
Less stylized than Cliff Chiang’s current angular Wonder Woman look, Sook may have created a modern twist on the definitive look of the classic character for other artists to emulate.
If you’ve read Dark Horse Presents or past mini-series featuring Elisa Cameron aka the Ghost, then you’ll likely say “it’s about time”. We thought Ghost deserved her own monthly series months ago when we reviewed here at borg.com Issue #1 of last year’s Ghost limited series back in October 2012. Now previous Ghost writer (not ghost writer) Kelly Sue DeConnick, who has proven she knows this character well, is partnering with writer Chris Sebela, and they are teaming up with the awesome artistry of Ryan Sook to carry Elisa’s story forward.
Elisa is back with her two male investigator friends as she tries to learn more about her past, before she became part of the spirit world. Dr. October will return to the series, too. DeConnick wastes no time plunging Elisa into battle with the demon world. Will she reclaim her memory? DeConnick creates an easy-going story that will allow readers old and new easy access to the three main characters, mixing the light-hearted with the dramatic.
Like Phil Noto’s beautiful renderings in the mini-series, Ryan Sook’s equally lush characters and landscapes will make the new series a must-read for fans of his work. Where Noto’s pencil work leaned toward the Adam Hughes camp, Sook’s Ghost could be interchangeable with Frank Cho’s pencil work. This means that along with DeConnick’s compelling story telling, as with the mini-series you’re in for an equally great looking book.
Check out this preview of Ghost Issue #1 courtesy of Dark Horse Comics:
Ok, I’ve been holding back. I landed my hands on the first issue of Dark Horse Comics’ new series Dream Thief a few days ago and WOW–I am convinced it’s the next big thing. It’s one of those from outta nowhere books that comic book stores better start ordering in droves for its May 2013 release.
We’ll preview Dream Thief here as we get closer to its release. What’s it about? Here’s the official promotional blurb from Dark Horse:
Your dreams… His nightmare! After stealing an Aboriginal mask from a museum, John Lincoln realizes that the spirits of the vengeful dead are possessing his body and mind while he sleeps. His old problems have been replaced by bloody hands and the disposal of bodies—and now remembering where he spent last night has never been more important…
The series is written by Jai Nitz with art by Greg Smallwood. We’ve reviewed works by Jai Nitz here at borg.com before, like the cool Tron: Betrayal, the comic book prequel to Disney’s big screen Tron: Legacy. He’s also written some great stories in the pages of Dynamite Comics’ Kato series and the awesome DC Comics tale El Diablo with Phil Hester and Ande Parks. And the creator-owned series Dream Thief is sure to be Smallwood’s break-out book.
Dark Horse has released this great teaser piece featuring the story’s masked hero that really sums it all up:
