Captain Kirk: The Next Iteration!

"Come back! Come back, you disloyal bastards!"

Kirk's a bit overworked, I think. But I haven't painted in a long while. This is the first time I've ever painted the Enterprise-- still have a ways to go on the ship. Overall, I want this to look like an insane version of something you might see on one of those old Star Trek paperbacks from Bantam, the ones where James Blish adapts various episodes as short stories. Those things were awesome and they had the coolest cover art.

And next a little surprise...

"WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB! ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!"

Yeah, it's Alison Pill as Kim Pine from Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World. This is the preliminary stage where I'm just laying down colors. I can already see I'll need to fix her left hand. Also, here's hoping I can take what I've learned from Kirk up there and not over-render this. I'd like the finish to be sort of 60s paperback cover style. As if Alan Drury, James Michener or Mary Ellen Chase wrote a bestseller about Kim Pine and it came out in a mass market softcover edition just before the release of the prestige studio motion picture adaptation directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Julie Christie as Kim Pine.

Kevin Nowlan's The New Mutants #51... and a Digression Regarding the Previous Issue

I don’t know what’s more surprising—that people sent hate mail to Marvel about Kevin Nowlan’s art for The New Mutants #51… or that Nowlan has apparently kept all of it! Taking a look at the book, I can see some of the issues people had with Nowlan’s work, especially since angry fan David Snyder helpfully included a point-by-point list of all the objectionables, which I’ll reproduce here complete with his unique grammar and spelling:

1) The cover, Cannonball looks like Jughead from Archie.
2) The cover, I didn’t even recognize Magma.
3) Pg 3 panel 4, That does not look like Lilandra
4) Pg 8 panel 3, What happened to Magneto, he looks like a cross between Dick Tracy and Superman.
5) Pg 13 panel 3, Did Mirage gain weight since last issue, she looked a little pudgy?
6) Pg 14, panel 2, What happened to Illyanas lips, they look bloated.
7) Pg 15 panel 1, Come on Professor X would never have an expression like that.
8) Pg 22 panel 3, Has Magneto been sipping into the booze lately?I mean the man has a terrible beer belly.
9) It seems like everybody got a haircut in SPACE since last issue, get real.

I guess people just weren't ready for Nowlan in 1987, despite Marvel putting stylists like Bill Sienkiewicz, Steve Leialoha and Rick Leonardi on the book (the Keith Pollard/Dell Barras issue #39 is particularly pretty, by the way). I wonder how much hate mail their issues generated? I wasn't reading The New Mutants at this time, but I wish I had been. Nowlan's cover looks downright Tothian-- that's the adjective form of "Alex Toth"-- and the interior art is a fun mix of solid figurative realism with peculiar little touches, like extra-sharp nostrils and vanishing eyeballs. Dani in particular seems to have obsidian shards in place of eyeballs, but it works.

David Snyder's first bit of criticism, however, couldn't be aimed at Nowlan's work: “Also just about every time I pick up an issue nobody looks the right age.”

I feel certain he was actually expressing his displeasure with the previous issue, with art by Jackson Guice and John Beatty. Their Dani looks a lot like Patti Smith at times. Now, Patti Smith is awesome, don’t get me wrong. She’s someone I definitely idolize and one of our greatest living Americans. But in this story Dani can’t be any older than 18, so there’s no reason for her to resemble Patti Smith at 41. Physically; we—Dani included-- should all try to be more like Patti Smith, if at all possible.

"Because the Night."

Still, that's nothing compared to what happens elsewhere in The New Mutants #50. While the characters' ages is in question, I really hope beyond hope Illyana’s at least 18, because there's a completely gratuitous scene were a talking space ape attempts to sell her at auction after ripping her X-uniform in such a way Lady Gaga would blush (George Lucas circa 1982 applauds appreciatively, though). And when Illyana objects, space-ape zaps her with some kind of ograzmo-ray that gives her an expression of pure sexual bliss while he fondles her half-naked body and decribes how easy it would be to "condition" her. Yikes!

And Claremont is in such a hurry to get to this sequence, he doesn't bother to show us how Illyana got there. All we know is she teleported looking for Professor X.

This is one aspect of Chris Claremont's work that always disturbs me-- you just never know when a story where the New Mutants kids having a slumber party or visiting the mall will suddenly take on BDSM subtext, or even text. For a writer with a reputation for creating strong female characters, Claremont seems to revel in putting them into bondage situations with barely restrained sexual overtones. There's nothing that isn't gratuitious in this scene. Claremont could just as easily have had Illyana being chased, or fighting city guards and in need of Professor X's help. She didn't need to be groveling, her costume didn't need to be torn and the addition of the pleasure ray is just completely bizarre.

Strangely enough, for writer also known for text heavy panels full of character-building dialogue or internal monologues-- and there are some doozies later in this story where the word balloons look like a badly-erected big top collapsing on circus performers-- Claremont completely tosses out everything we know about Illyana up to this point, too. Remember, Illyana is a character who routinely bosses around demons, casts spells, has magic "soul sword and eldritch armor" and has faced down the end of the world as we know it dozens of times without flinching.

He gifts Illyana with an "objecting delightfully, oh so helpless damsel" characterization right out a spicy pulp tale or barbarian fantasy and makes sure she can manage no more than a shrill, ineffective protest. On her hands and knees. But no real fighting back allowed, once-and-future Queen of Limbo. And this is before the slave trader zaps her with the pleasure ray.

At least she's not tied up, I guess.

There are probably a lot of barely-suppressed fetishes and sexual hang-ups inherent in most superhero stories. They are, after all, largely power fantasies involving impossibly idealized physiques in various stages of undress. But here it's like Claremont's suggesting a parallel scenario for the reader where Professor X doesn't show up and Guice's dull but adequate art gives way to Guido Crepax's spectacular decadence. Especially when Xavier points out later how Illyana, under the ray's influence, is "aware of all that is happening. But she doesn't care." More Gor than Story of O.

If anything, Nowlan’s issue is an improvement in every way over #50. His Dani, Xi’an and Illyana look age-appropriate—in fact, they’re downright cute throughout-- and, amazingly, Claremont’s script is, too. No bizarre teen girl bondage scenarios, thank Kirby. In fact, Nowlan's Mutants look so young, I'm not sure the Comics Code would have passed it otherwise. What does Claremont give us instead?

Pudgy?

Just good old fashioned cultural stereotyping! Who could possibly object to that? Under stress, Xi'an reverts to French-- apparently because Vietnamese is too hard-- and Dani talks in rodeo metaphors before concluding, "Heck, it's almost fun!" All that's missing is a leprechaun saying, "Aye, lassie, t'be sure, faith an' Begorah!"

PS-- Thanks to the always entertaining Not Blog X for providing the original link, and Kevin Nowlan for saving his hate mail!

We Need More Star Trek Comics!

Actually, thanks to IDW Publishing, we have plenty. Star Trek is one of those properties that doesn't really lend itself to the comic book medium-- it's too static. Lots of stiff, uniformed people standing around around the captain's chair. Nothing illuminates this difficulty like Marvel's atrocious Star Trek/X-Men books. Gold Key pulled it off by making the stories more Flash Gordon than Gordon Cooper. Marvel couldn't match the success of their Star Wars series when they adapted the first movie into a one-shot and a short-lived monthly. I rarely read Malibu's or DC's versions very often, and when I did, I quickly fell asleep. Strangely enough, I've enjoyed John Byrne's various IDW Trek books-- especially Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor.

Byrne has a loose style that lets him slightly caricature McCoy and the rest of the cast so he's not destroying panel-to-panel flow with portrait shots (like my little unfinished Kirk sketch above; I'll tighten it up a bit tomorrow and add it to the ol' portfolio)-- a common failing in DC's Trek comics. And he excels at hard sci-fi; even during his Fantastic Four days, Byrne worked in a number of science fiction concepts, usually in the interest of debunking common comic book tropes. Frontier Doctor is still full of dialogue sequences with people standing around jawing at each other and explaining things. Kind of reminds me of romance book storytelling, but then Byrne always had a way with quiet, character moments even when doing superheroics.

He obviously knows his classic Trek, too. Byrne's Trek books are what Gold Key might have done if they hadn't aimed their stories at children.

Still, those old Gold Key Star Treks have something all the subsequent series have lacked-- charm. I don't mind the rehashed plots-- ghost planets, space pirates, shrink rays (Kirk even gets tied down a la Gulliver's Travels in that one), de-aging (once by mechanical device and later by radioactivity) and the like-- the blond Scotty, the Kirk who often looks like Hoagy Carmichael or the green shirts on the crew instead of the familiar gold, blue and red. Those books are total fun.

And we need more fun in our comics. Kirk certainly does. He looks a bit stressed.

Sam "Cannonball" Guthrie Gets No Respect...

Nor does he deserve any.

No, I'm kidding. I kid Sam Guthrie because I love. He's easily my third favorite castmember of The New Mutants after Dani Moonstar and Xi'an Coy Manh. Sam was always so unsure of himself and clumy while using his powers. When he replaced Xi'an as team leader, he was doomed to failure. Dani was pretty unsteady in the early going, but she had more personal force, so it was natural for her to assume command once she got over her flirtations with cowardice and mental illness. But Sam remained the team's heart and soul, a genuinely nice fella who acted as big brother to the other kids.

I bought the first issue of the Chris Claremont scripted The New Mutants Forever the other day. I'd never been especially fond of Al Rio's pencils but after seeing them under Bob McLeod's inks, I could possiby become a fan. The book looks a lot like a classic mid-80s issue of the original series; the only thing I don't like-- and this is fannish of me-- is the strange shape Rio gives to Dani's head and hair. She looks like she's borrowed the top part and bangs from Brice "Wesley" Beckham.

The story reads like an old issue, too. Not only do we get the book's prime cast as teenagers, but Claremont also brings his old school scripter's voice. You know, stacks of wordy narrative captions and every character seems to speak or think in the same awkward, overly-declarative cadence-- frequently while stating something which would be obvious to themeselves or others-- we remember so fondly from when we were junior high kids just re-discovering the new, more mature-themed funny books of the day.

The most Claremont-esque moment is when Doug Ramsey thinks to himself, "I may not have phyical powers like the others... but I can old my own in a fight." During the fight. While kicking a guy. I'm kind of surprised Claremont didn't have Doug describe to himself all the other times he's proven this.

The story just bursts into full plot with no preliminaries, too. I felt as though I'd missed an issue or two of the monthly. Apparently, this tale takes place around the time Magneto took over Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Rio and McLeod put the kids in costumes a bit different than their original suits, but not as ugly as the outfits later artists stuck them with; there's an in-story explanation for it, which actually seems to be something Claremont tossed in after he took a gander at the art for the first time. A kind of "Thank God we invented the... you know... whatever device" moment.

Anyway, this fulfills one of my many comic book wishes-- a New Mutants story with the original team set in the good old days, one not tied into some huge company-wide crossover story where the characters get lost in the mix-- kind of like what's been happening in the New Mutants ongoing. Hell, I bought issue #16 of that at the same time and none of the starring cast even appears in it. It's all about four-star generals in berets and insanely babbling scientists in Hell or something.

An issue without your main cast would be fine if they'd had more than cameos in the previous few issues. Mind you, this issue is the caboose of a massive storyline train that reduced our stars to mere stowaways in the mail car. I was hoping Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid would ride up and blow that baby to smithereens. Hmm. Maybe it's not just Sam who gets no respect; maybe it's the creative team for New Mutants. We've seen little glimpses of what they're capable of, but I'm starting to think this title is little more than a vehicle for crap that wouldn't fit in the main X-books with Dani and the rest as afterthoughts. They should change the title to Things That Vaguely Affect Various Mutants Until We Introduce Them as Plot Elements in Our Main Books and Occasionally Dani Moonstar Shows Up to Punch Sam Guthrie in the Face.

Not so with The New Mutants Forever. It's self-contained as far as I can tell. So much so, I'm not even sure of the context, but it doesn't matter because... Dani. Too bad Xi'an isn't in it. That'd make it perfect. I really have to applaud Marvel for putting out a book aimed squarely at a demographic of one-- me. Actually, the biggest disappointment with this comic is it's only five issues. I'd like Marvel to know I'd go miles out of my to buy an ongoing series with this cast, this creative team and unmoored from current Marvel universe narrative. Just a sweet focus on the team I love and want to read about.

Don Knotts Comics & Stories: A Comic Book Series Proposal!

This is what the world needs: a Dell-style comic book series devoted to beloved comedian Don Knotts. It should be an anthology book, too. Why an anthology? Because Don Knotts left us with a legacy of so many high-strung yet well-meaning characters, it's impossible to choose simply one as the focus.

And also because to match the genius of Knotts with the brilliance of this idea, we have to start with his signature portrayal. You know who I mean. After all, Knotts won 4 Emmys playing him!

Deputy Bernard Milton Fife. Or, occasionally, Barney P. Fife. Or even, in one memorable episode, Bernard Oliver Fife. Whatever his name, we can certainly call Barney Fife an incredible character, brilliantly played and certainly deserving of his own comic strip. That's why our lead feature is entitled "Andy and Barney," an 8- to 10-page strip, running bi-monthly. The main character is, of course, Knotts as Deputy Fife of Mayberry, North Carolina, with Andy Griffith's Sheriff Andy Taylor and the rest of the show's cast-- including Aunt Bee, Opie, Helen Crump, Floyd the barber, Otis the lovable alcoholic, Rafe Hollister, the Darlings and others in supporting roles.

As per the TV series The Andy Griffith Show, these stories revolve around Barney's overzealous attempts at enforcing the law, with Andy using his homespun wisdom and intelligence to restore order. In one script I've taken the liberty to prepare, Barney attempts to procure a stop light for Mayberry's main street, despite Andy's protests that not only isn't traffic heavy enough to warrant one, but also they don't even have an intersection. While trying to prove the necessity of his idea, Barney causes all sorts of traffic headaches, leading Andy to declare, "You beat everything, you know that?"

In another, Barney runs afoul of Ernest T. Bass and Andy is chosen by the town to referee a wrestling match between the two while also trying to prevent it from occurring in the first place!

The back-up stories would vary in length and in these, we'd showcase Knotts's other comedic characters-- Roy Fleming, the reluctant astronaut; Hollis Figg, the bumbling bookkeeper's assistant who constantly tangles with criminals; Dr. Jesse W. Hayward, the shakiest gun in the West; and Abner Audubon Peacock IV, the love god. If we can secure the rights, I'd love to also do some shorts featuring Tim Conway as Knotts's partner in crime, as it were.

On alternate months, when the lead doesn't run, the book would feature full-length adaptations of Don Knotts's many films, such as The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Incredible Mr. Limpet (I believe this was already adapted once and could simply be a reprint) and most especially-- the two Apple Dumpling Gang flicks (with Conway) and their 1981 classic, The Private Eyes. In fact, the latter might also become the lead after we've exhausted the rest of Knotts's filmography. The two characters, Inspector Winship and Dr. Tart, could easily sustain a variety of Les Aventures de Tintin-like stories, with occasional detours into horror around Halloween each year as they pursue the terrible Wookalar.


I recognize the licensing aspect of this series may be something of a deterrent to the more timid publishers. But a company with the derring-do to match my visionary creativity would jump at this idea, with me in charge-- editing and scripting-- and reap the vast profits. How about it, publishers? Any takers?

Jurassic Dork: A Comic Page...

This is the final page of a 3-page comic I did way back in 1993 as a Christmas gift for friends in lieu of spending money. A few years later, after learning Photoshop, I went back and added gray tones. Really went to town on them, too.

The end result is an awkward, muddy mix of styles, realistic images slavishly rendered from stills (actually Topps Jurassic Park bubblegum cards), terrible anatomy on the semi-cartooned protagonist, absolutely no panel-to-panel flow because of an over-reliance on reference, some tangents, poor word balloon placement. Just about every no-no, and the first 2 pages are no better; they're mercifully lost. If I were reviewing this as part of an actual comic book story, I'd slam the bejeezus out of it. Wait... I just did!

Hopefully, I've learned a lot in the last 17 years. Anyway, enjoy!

Cavorting Comic Characters Meet Anton Chigurh....

When I taught English in Japan, I sometimes had downtime between classes or at the tail end of my dinner break. I either read or sketched. One incredible thing about Japan is the wide variety of pens available-- to make a generalization, the Japanese love to write. And draw.

These are little doodles I did with a cool little pen I found at BellMart (a kind of mini-convenience store) at Hamamatsu Station. One tip was black, the other gray. I immediately put it to work making faux gray wash drawings. You might spot a few DC and Marvel favorites mixed in with some originals of my own. My favorite is the poor man's Alex Toth Batman hallucinating Dan Clowes's beloved Ghost World character Enid Coleslaw. I believe if Batman and Enid went toe-to-toe, no holds barred, Enid would kick the Caped Crusader's punk ass into the sun.

Oh yeah-- these were done on a spare lesson plan I had lying around. Sometimes students didn't show and my boss would forget to reclaim the lessons. Most of them ended up in the filing cabinet for possible future use, but a few ended up decorated in this ludicrous way!