The Work I do When I'm Not Working

I hardly ever accept commissions because I hardly ever have time to do them. I'm always on (multiple) deadline(s) it seems and when I finish one job, two more take its place. I'm just lucky/cursed that way, depending on your point of view. So like many artists, commissions always end up being the last thing to do on my list. Right after alphabetizing my CDs or changing the batteries in my smoke detectors. But they always get done. Eventually.

Here's a Hulk cover/commission I recently completed. It was actually a lot of fun to do. I started trying to find a style I liked for the Hulk since this was my first time drawing him believe it or not. I love the Jack Kirby design, the original look that was loosely based on Frankenstein's monster:
Bruce Timm does a great take on the Kirby version which I also love. There might be a little Art Adams influence in there in terms of the Hulk's head shape and his body's build. So I set out to do a Kirby/Timm/Adams style without copying any one artist too blatantly. I wanted it to feel like those old classic Marvel covers. Since he's fighting the Fantastic Four, I figured that was the way to go! So I worked up this rough sketch in blue pencil and regular old plain #2 pencil: I then tightened that up in the pencils. Why I pencil so tight when I'm inking myself, I have no idea. I should really loosen up! I tried to indicate all that "Kirby Anatomy" on the Hulk, without actually copying Kirby anatomy because I couldn't figure it out if I tried! Kirby became almost a genre unto himself with all those cool little squiggles and graphic shorthand he developed. That's why he's The King and I'm not even apprentice to the court jester! Then I inked it using a Hunt's #102 nib, a Windsor Newton Series 7 brush and some markers. I hate inking myself for some reason. Maybe it's because I've already worked everything out at the pencil stage and I'm sick of the drawing by the time I get to inking it. It's like drawing the same thing three times! I wanted to give it a little Joe Sinnott feel, he was always my favorite Kirby inker and since the FF are in it, I kind of have to! I was pretty happy with the hair on the Hulk (that's one Arthur Adams detail that snuck into the finished piece!). Also, I probably put a little too much detail into the rubble; I even went so far as to brake out the old black crayon for texture! The reason I feel the detail is a bit much is that you wouldn't see that much rendering in the classic era of Marvel comics that I was going for. Aw, well. So what!

Vader vs. Maul

It's Darth versus Darth to the death! I get asked to do quick little sketches on 3 x 5 cards from time to time. I did this sketch on two cards that connect to form one image for a "13 year old Star Wars fan." At least he said in his letter that he was 13 years old. In the back of my mind, I always dred that it's a 40 year old comic book collector (think Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons) who will then sell my free sketches on ebay, but I force myself to give people the benefit of the doubt. I'm not that jaded. Not yet. Not until I start seeing my sketches on ebay, anyway!

Quick tip: if you're an actual fan and you write me a handwritten personal letter or note, you'll probably get a sketch. If you send me a form letter with my name filled in that you printed out of your computer and mass email to everyone, I probably won't take the time, because you didn't take the time.

In any case, this sketch was fun to do, I've been looking at a lot of Shane Glines' work lately, and this was my attempt to do a cartoony, animated Star Wars. Kind of like Clone Wars, but done more in my style. I'm pretty happy with Darth Maul, I wanted to make him all pointy and sharp edges, playing up his whole Kabuki demon look. Darth Vader probably could have been simplified even more, but his design is do damn cool there's not much I could bring myself to take awat from it. So there!

Wonder Woman Day

Here's a marker sketch I'm donating to "Wonder Woman Day," a charity fundraiser at Excalibur Comics in Portland Oregon on Sunday, October 29th. It will be a fundraiser for two local women's/kids shelter. Andy Mangels is putting the whole thing together along with the Wonder Woman Museum.

WONDER WOMAN DAY
Sunday, October 29, 2006 — beginning at noon
Excalibur Comics, 2444 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, Oregon
A part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It benefits two shelters for Women and Children:Raphael House of Portland and Bradley-Angle House.
With special guests signing and sketching: Terry Dodson (tentative) and Anne Timmons (Go Girl!), plus more to be announced!
* an on-site Silent Auction of original art sketches from comic artists, including: Adam Hughes, Alex Ross, Dan Piraro, Darwyn Cooke, Dave Johnson, Fred Hembeck, Gary Frank, Gilbert Hernandez, Howard Cruse, Jaime Hernandez, Jim Mahfood, Jim Mooney, John McCrea, John Romita Sr., Joseph Linsner, Marat Mychaels, Matt Haley, Michael T. Gilbert, Mike Allred, Paul Gulacy, Roberta Gregory, Terry Dodson, and more to come!
* All art will be matted, and some framed, with donations by Aeroframe and Jason Jones in Oregon City
* Fans can take photos with a gorgeous "Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman" mannequin.
* See an exhibit of top Wonder Woman collectibles
* An all-ages super-heroine costume contest!
* Door prizes, sale items (for charity), and raffles including toys, DVDs, comics, autographed Miss America items, a signed Allan Heinberg WW script, a WW comic art page by Colleen Doran, a WW print by Steve Rude, and more!
* The Canadian TV crew from the show FANatical will be filming the event for a WW-themed episode spotlighting comic professionals/collectors Andy Mangels and Anina Bennett. www.peacepoint.tv/whatsnew.php

So please attend or find out about proxy bidding to win some great art and help a great charity! Please bid often and bid high! Thank you!

Heroes

So who are your heroes? And no, I'm not talking about that new TV show on NBC. I'm talking about your personal heroes, people who have inspired and influenced your life. Who would be on your own personal Mount Rushmore? Here are a few of mine from MAD Magazine. I recently got to draw a tribute to one of my all-time heroes, the legendary Jack Davis. CAPS (Comic Art Professional Society) is honoring him with a lifetime achievement award banquet this month and this was my small contribution to what will no doubt be a massive book full of sketches and tributes to Mr. Davis. When I was a kid, I grew up on Mad Magazine. It inspired me to draw and taught me a lot about cartooning and drawing in general. I was especially drawn to the work of these four cartoonists: Jack Davis, Don Martin, Antonio Prohias and Sergio Aragonés.

Jack Davis
Jack Davis is a living legend, his work transcending all boundaries. From MAD, TIME, Sports Illustrated, EC Comics, movie posters and tons of commercial and advertising work you've undoubtedly seen his work. He was, at the height of his career, the highest paid illustrator in the world. Of course, I didn't know any of that when I was a kid reading MAD Magazine. I just loved his drawings.

Don Martin (1931–2000)
Don Martin was called "MAD's Maddest Artist." His style was unlike anything young Aaron Sowd had ever seen (or will ever see again, for that matter)! Mr. Martin was truly an original. His floppy feet and giant noses cracked me up. His bizarre hairstyles and slapstick humor always made me laugh. So much so, my own character Dr. Pimento from Masterminds has a little of the classic Don Martin-isms:

Antonio Prohias (1921-1998)
Antonio Prohias created Spy vs. Spy. When I was very young, it was one of my favorites. With no dialogue and clever contraptions and gadgets, the cartoon was perfect for a kid to follow. You didn't have to read, or even know English, to get the humor and the story. Brilliant stuff. I was lucky enough to get to draw Mr. Prohias' characters for the Spy vs. Spy video game box cover. How cool is that?

Sergio Aragonés
Sergio Aragonés went on to create Groo The Wanderer, one of my all time favorite comic books. But when I was a kid, Sr. Aragonés was famous for his wordless "drawn-out dramas" or "marginals" in MAD Magazine. Again, cartoons everyone could understand! Worldwide (and world class) humor!

Hulkamania!

Anybody else remember Hulkamania? Just me? I'm so old...

Here is more of my character design test for Marvel Animation. I wasn't 100% happy with it, I would have liked to simplify him even more, but I wanted to keep a slight resemblance to the Brian Hitch version from The Ultimates. Just trying to exaggerate and simplify him into simple shapes, but I probably didn't take it far enough. Or maybe too far, let's see what style they end up choosing! The first two Ultimate Avengers movies have tried (unsuccessfully?) to capture Brian Hitch's style exactly. Which is pretty much impossible to do in animation! So there!

Feeling a Little Thor...

I was asked to do a design test for Marvel Animation recently and while my designs were not ultimately (ha-ha!) choosen, it was a lot of fun to do! I tried taking a very cartoony approach, pushing my designs in a more Sean "Cheeks" Galloway direction. I thought it might be appropriate, since Joe Madureira was about to take over The Ultimates, and in my experience, big simple shapes always work best in animation. Unbeknownst to me, Sean was doing his own design test! His are a lot better than mine! I'm not sure whose designs ultimately (ha-ha!) got choosen, but it wasn't either of us. A friend of mine remarked that my designs were very "Michael Avon Oeming," so I'll take my compliments where I can get them! So there!

Get a Life! Or a Blog...

Get a Life was one of the funniest shows you've never seen. It ran on Fox for all of two years before getting cancelled but not before cementing Chris Elliot as a comedic genius in the mind of one young Aaron Sowd. So you can imagine my excitement when I got hired to do a promo poster for The Swinger, Chris Elliot's short film for Showtime. Chris Elliott plays a world famous minature golf champion and Bob Costas and Maury Povich are interviewed in this mockumetary. Costas' best line: "Sure, Tiger Woods is great, but has he ever won a free game?" It's directed by Mark Feldstein and Brad Roth, the guys behind Stun Creative. They wanted to do the poster in a comic book style and parody the Superman Returns posters since the title was going to be The Swinger Returns: Hmmm... Chris Elliot, comic books and Superman? Would I be interested? Hells yeah!

So here's the poster, in six easy steps. First the thumbnail, just a small quick sketch to get the concept approved. Chris is looking heroic in the Superman pose, holding his golf club and flying above the earth which I made into a giant golf ball: Once the basic thumbnail concept was approved, I did a tighter pencil sketch, working on getting the Chris Elliot likeness correct: When the pencils were approved I went to inks using a black Pentel marker and .01 and .005 Pigma pens. The Pental works like a nib and dries twice as fast which is perfect for advertising gigs when time is of the essence: Then I scanned in the inked Chris Elliot figure and colored him in Photoshop: The golf ball was created in 3-D and composited in Photoshop with the glows and stars. I know some people consider it cheesy, but I can't resist a good lens flare: Then the logos, tag line and text were dropped in to create the final poster. Ta-daa! Can you believe I actually get paid to do this stuff? I'm the luckiest guy in the world...

Mission Accomplished!

So what's better than sitting on the beach of remote Stone Island in Mazatlan, Mexico with a cold Pacifico? Nada, mi amigo! Back from vacation and ready to go! Bring 'em on!

I Might Need a Vacation...

There's a difference between wanting a vacation and needing a vacation. As a Type A personality and a self-admitted workaholic, I rarely take time off, let alone an actual vacation. I've got deadline upon deadline to meet and miles to go before I sleep! Did I just quote Robert Frost without even trying? Lookit that!

But a vacation?

"It might happen, tsshyeah, right, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!"

Fly, monkeys. Fly!

9/11/2006

Ducks on a Blog!

So what's scarier than snakes on a plane? Ducks on a blog, of course! "I've had it with these mother f***ing snakes on this mother f***ing plane!" (*** added for your protection. I'm pretty sure Samuel L. Jackson doesn't say ***) I love that the movie hasn't even opened yet and it's already rated 5.5 stars out of 6 on amazon.com You've gotta love the internet! Which is, according to Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), "a series of tubes." Take it away, Senator:

"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

"Well yeah. I was just sitting here, eating my muffin, drinking my coffee, when I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity."

Quack!

Hulk Stare!

When the Hulk is not smashing, he spends a lot of time staring. And thinking. Thinking about smashing.

A Little Less Conversation

Whew! What a week: San Diego Comic Con is over again for another year, and not a moment too soon! I talked so much I lost my voice. A little less conversation, a little more action please! But I did get to party with The King and Chewbacca, so how cool is that?

Padme Print

So what's new? The Padme/Amidala print I worked on finally came out! I think it was an exclusive on StarWars.com but I'm not sure. Acme Archives produces the prints and I know they sold out of them at the con. I hope everyone who wanted one got one! So there!

San Diego Comic Con!

Damn, has it been a year already? San Diego Comic Con is coming July 19th - 24th. Come on by the Masterminds Unlimited table at Q-5 in the Small Press area and say hi!

Seeya there!

Ninja Monkey!

Like most 12 year old boys, Ken would like nothing better than to spank his monkey, but his monkey spanks back. And kicks! He’s a Ninja Monkey, a deadly assassin trained in the martial arts and together, they must save the world!



KEN MURAKAMI, age 12, is the child star of a Monkey Show (Saru-mawashi). A Monkey show is a traditional Japanese performance: a showman commands a monkey that performs tricks such as splits, dancing, flying trapeze, acrobatics, wrestling, soccer, etc. In Japan, monkeys were once considered a lucky symbol, so monkey showmen were invited to festivals and samurai’s residences, traveling far and wide.

Many monkey showmen used their profession to cunningly mask their true craft: martial arts—they were secretly ninja! As monkey showmen, they were able to travel incognito, covertly gathering information and attacking the enemy.



Monkey shows and ninja were historically tied together. But following the industrial revolution and the advent of modern warfare, ninja became obsolete. Ken’s grandfather, Hiro Murakami, the last ninja posing as a monkey showman, and of the hundreds that once prospered, only his monkey show survives.

Ken’s mother and father have run the Monkey Show since just before Ken was born. So Ken has been raised with a monkey named Sarukichi, and has been trained to be a monkey showman since he was little. Ken travels the world with the circus, performing and training to be a monkey showman himself—and secretly, a ninja, too!



Grandpa is teaching Ken and Sarukichi to be “Monkey Ninja” and they are proving to be naturals in the Ancient Way. This makes Grandpa happy. He is ready to retire and needs a successor. But Ken’s father i s not happy, not at all. They live in a modern world and he wants his son Ken to focus on school and forget about all this ancient silliness.

Ken and Sarukichi endure Grandpa’s ninja training but what they really love is to perform in the monkey show—especially when there are pretty girls around. Being kids, they’re pretty lazy by nature and nothing motivates them more than having cute girls in the audience, cheering for them. But Sarukichi can’t get too close. Anxiety makes Sarukichi flatulent. When he gets nervous, he farts. And pretty girls make Sarukichi nervous.



Ken and Sarukichi have a pretty cool life, performing with a traveling circus , and they’re not sure that Father isn’t right about the secret ninja training being a waste of time. Then a young lady named Jessica McConnell enters their lives. She turns their heads, not just because of her beauty, but because of her job. She’s an undercover FBI agent. She needs their martial arts skills.

And here the Ninja Monkey’s real adventures begin…

Superman Returns (The Remake!)

SUPER-SIZED SPOILERS!

I'm cereal, you guys!

I mean it!

If you haven't seen Superman Returns yet, go do your patriotic duty as a tax-paying American and buy yourself a ticket! Enjoy the movie and come back later to read my fanby nonsense.

Everybody who hasn't seen it gone?

Good!

Here we go...

So I saw Superman Returns today and it was good, if not nearly a complete remake/sequel of sorts of the 1978 Richard Donner Superman. Bryan Singer pays homage to the great Donner by lifting lines and entire scenes from the first two Donner movies. Brandon Routh is pretty good when playing Clark Kent (he's trying hard to mimic Christopher Reeves' mannerisms) and okay as Superman. Nobody is ever going to inhabit the character of Superman as much as Reeves did and you can't hold that against Routh. Them's some big red (dark brown?) boots to fill! There is a lot to hold against Kate Bosworth, however. She's totally miscast as Lois Lane and out of her depth as the worst mother ever (count the times she endangers that kid!), a reporter (Kent and Superman both return after a five year absence on the exact same day? Yeah, right!), and a wife/domestic partner of Perry White's nephew? Since when did Lois have to sleep her way to the top? She wouldn't let Superman help her get a story, let alone Cyclops! She was all about making it on her own! I think it would have been funnier to cast Margot Kidder again as Lois, since Superman pretty much never ages (up to a point) and he's been gone five long years, Lois has fallen on hard times and not aged so well (all those cigarettes she smokes, remember?) But that would be a whole different movie, more like a remake of Harold and Maude. Speaking of casting, am I really supposed to take Kumar seriously as a henchman? He distracted me from every scene he was in.

The movie hits all the notes I loved in the first Superman, but it never really breaks any new ground. You've kind of seen it all already. Although this time around, the special effects are better. I just wish the story was. Kevin Spacey as Luthor starts off goofy (when he makes the dying widow sign over her fortune over to him) and then becomes a real threat (when he gets his hands on Kryptonian technology). If Luthor followed thru with his hatred of Superman for not sharing his technology, that'd be great. He'd have both solid motivation as a more complex villain and the tools to make himself a legitimate threat to Superman. Sadly, Luthor isn't smart enough to do anything cool with all that supposed knowledge and technology, just build an island with it so he can "wait for it.." sell some timeshares! WTF? Since when was Luthor into real estate? Actually it kind of makes sense, I bought a house a few years ago, and let me tell you, those real estate guys are pretty evil! Luthor has become a great villain in the comic books, but I never liked the hammy Gene Hackman version (mmm, ham...) and Spacey's version is more of that. He even has the ditzy girlfriend/comedy relief again. But no Ned Beatty, sadly. Maybe Kumar was meant to be the new Ned Beatty character, but his comedic scenes got cut? Who knows...

Questions are never answered:

1. Why doesn't/didn't the world need Superman? And why does it need him now? Even Lois came up snake eyes on that one. That should have been the theme of the whole movie!

2. Superman's trip to Krypton or what remained of it sounded interesting, but they glossed over it, saying "it was a graveyard." I thought they were going to tie that up somehow? Someone told me in the novel, Luthor is the one who planted the reports of Krypton in the papers, thus getting Superman to leave and go see it for himself. If it was filmed, it got cut in the theatrical release.

3. I think Singer is going with the premise of Lois NOT knowing Clark is Superman? There's the scene where he drops his glasses when she drops her purse and he almost looks like he wants to tell her? I couldn't tell for sure. Just like I couldn't tell for sure what year it was. The opening scene with the dying lady looks like the 1940's, Metropolis and Clark Kent's suits look like 1978, everything else looks present day? I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be present day. Which is funny, because nobody really reads newspapers anymore, do they? If Superman DID return, it'd be on The Drudge Report or CNN before newspapers ever got the story. Lois should have moved on to blogging or pod casting!

Plot holes abound:

1. Kent and Superman both return after five years on the exact same day? No one notices that? Clark gets his old job back (because someone died?) and a cake from Jimmy. But no love from Lois? Damn, that's cold...

2. Luthor's plan is goofier than The Joker goofed up on goofballs. He builds a new island with the intent to sell property there. If he sinks pretty much the entire United States as he says he will, won't the world economy go down the toilet? I know the dollar is weak against the euro right now, but come on! And if another country really wanted the new continent, they'd just take it by force. What army did Luthor have? Besides the kid from Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle, I mean? All of five guys? Six, counting the dog?

3. The kid. The Son of Superman. I'm so torn on this development. This opens a whole new can of worms. Bucket of beans. City of Kandor. Whatever. We now have a half human, half Superboy in the works, which is kind of lame. We've already seen a young Superman, and we know how that story goes. Shouldn't they have saved this for when Routh is ready to retire the role? I know the whole theme was fathers and sons, adoption, etc. But what are the implications of this? Superman is a now deadbeat dad? He didn't pay child support for five years! The kid gets beat up on the playground and says my dad can beat up your dad? Comedy abounds...

4. So at the end, we now have a growing "New Krypton?" Or just an asteroid? Just add water! "Like Sea Monkeys," Parker Posey said. There's more, but it hurts my head to think about all of them and this post has gone on longer than the actual movie...

And Superman drinks Bud? WTF? I'll bet he's a NASCAR fan, too...

Having said all that, there is plenty to enjoy. It's still a good movie, just not a great one.

Great scenes:

1. Superman walking into gunfire and the close-up of the bullet bouncing off his eye. Fredric Wertham would not have approved!
2. Superman catching the falling globe of the Daily Planet in the Atlas pose. Or is it the Van Halen 51/50 pose?
3. Clark changing into Superman in the elevator shaft. Now THAT'S cool! Not that many phone booths around these days.
4. Luthor dropping a quarter or whatever it was into the $10 Suggested Donation Box at the museum.
5. Jimmy Olsen getting scooped by a kid with a cell phone camera. And a homage to the cover of Action Comics #1, no less!
6. Superman recharging in the sunlight and breaking thru the clouds on a ray of light.
7. All the scenes of Superman is space are awe-inspiring.
8. The dog eating the other one to survive!
9. Superman leaving an impact creator when he comes after Luthor.

I'd still have to give it an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. I love Bryan Singer, but his Superman is not nearly as good as his first two X-Men movies. Although this does explain what happened to Cyclops in X3. He ditched his ruby quartz glasses and went off to common-law "marry" Lois Lane. So there!

Whose Side Are You On?

Loki: The Final Card

...and the final card! So there!

Loki: The Colors

So once again, Dean White hooks it all up with a masterful coloring job! He does a great job of lighting the scene and drawing the viewer's eye directly to the froggy Thor. So there!

Loki: The Inks

Here's the final inked version. I'm never 100% happy with my inking (it's always easier to ink other people for some reason!) because I set out to do that dead line weight style on this piece. It never looks finished to me, though! I have to sit there and overwork it to death. I have a lot of respect for guys like Rob Haynes and Dusty Abell for pulling it off so well. So there!

Loki: The Sketches

So what's more fun than getting to draw Loki the Norse god of mischief? Loki the Sly-One, the Shape-Changer, the Trickster, the Sky Traveller, the Lie-Smith, among others (thank you, Wikipedia!). Not much! He's always been one of the best bad guys around, I loved the Walt Simonson and Arthur Adams versions of the character as a kid. So while still attempting to keep it in a simple Rob Haynes type of style, I set out to capture the elements of Loki I loved as a kid. I like the idea, it's simple and suits the character perfectly: he's turned Thor into a frog (from the legendary Walt Simonson run) and he's dangling Thor's hammer over his head, torturing him. It's something we've all seen a little kid do: torture a small animal or insect in some way. It just cracks me up that an immortal Norse god like Loki would stoop to such a petty and immature devices. So I feel my basic idea was strong. So there!

Yet More Random Ramblings...

So what do I do in my non-existent free time? Interviews! Lots and lots of interviews. John Ortiz over at tapthetalent.com recently interviewed me for his site. You can read it here.

Abdulkareem Baba Aminu at komikwerks.com wrote an article entitled Taking Over The World With Aaron Sowd! You can read my first Komikwerks interview by G. Willow Wilson here. Komikwerks also hosts The Rants Column, a weekly guest column where they allow folks to spout off about any and all things comics. Comic books in America these days tend to be stereotyped as strictly superhero (TM and copyright 2006 Marvel and DC Comics) in content. You can read my rant about the superhero stereotype vs. the reality of growing diversity in American comics entitled Pow! Comics Aren't Just For Superheroes Anymore!

Sean and Christina Parsons at roughhouseink.com have conducted artist interviews with a bunch of professional artists in the business and collected them on their very informative site for comic book inkers. You can read mine here.

And from toptwothreefilms.com: "What is a comic book? How has the use of computers changed the creation process of print comics? Should webcomics be created in such a way that they cannot be sold as books? When does a webcomic stop being a comic and enter the realm of animation? Can webartists live from their work? These are some of the questions we try to answer in Adventures Into Digital Comics, a documentary film analyzing the events that changed the comic book industry and art form over the last decade. Investigating the work and ideas of established and up and coming comic artists, director Sébastien Dumesnil offers the audience a vision of the future of a rapidly evolving medium. The film opens a window onto the dynamic renaissance of the comic taking place today on the web, exploring the obsessions and passions, not to mention the ever present struggle to survive, of the artists behind the images." My interview is here.

So there!

Green Goblin: The Final Card

So what did the final card end up looking like? See above! It works pretty well, I think. The image printed so small, and I knew it would, but it reads clearly and tells the story. That's why I set out to do such a simplified style in the first place. All the tiny little details I was agonizing over earlier in the inks (like his scales) barely even show up. What's important is how it works as a whole. So there!

Green Goblin: The Colors

So what could possible save my art at this critical stage? Why only the best damn colorist in the world, of course! That would be one Dean White, good friend and frequent collaborator. Dean brought it all together and really saved the piece in my opinion. I was trying to play up the insanity of the Green Goblin in the way I exaggerated his face, almost to the point of the Joker. The way Dean has the fire from the pumpkin bomb flickering off Green Goblin's face highlights that perfectly. The moon and the clouds in the background set the mood for an eerie scene. Saved by the colorist! So there!

Green Goblin: The Inks

So what could go wrong with the simple Alex Toth School approach? More specifically, the Rob Haynes style I was attempting to emulate? Well, lots, actually! It started off pretty good in the sketch phase (although it's probably not as dynamic as Rob would have done) but the inks are where I lost it. Since I worked as an inker for years and years I am physically incapable of putting down a "dead" line like a Rapidograph makes! I can't do it! I tried starting off that way, but I always have to add line weights and variation! Argh! So it's hard for me to ink like Rob, with no line variation. Also, the scales on Green Goblin might be a bit much detail? Hard to say. I tried to just hint at them, but got a little carried away. He doesn't look right without scales, even in this more simplified style. Maybe the colors can save it? So there! I hope!

Green Goblin: The Sketches

So what can you do with the Green Goblin that hasn't been done before? Not much! Especially when he's on his glider, since his feet are locked into position, you're kind of limited in his poses! John Romita will always be the classic Green Goblin artist in my mind since I was too young to see the original Steve Ditko version. Ditko was such a genius when it came to designing characters: all those original Spidey villains are so iconic. Ditko was a master at incorporating the essence of each character into their appearance.

So I wanted to capture that classic look of the character, the redesigns of his costume never did much for me. Although the Hobgoblin was a great variation! I loved that Ron Frenz run! I set out to push my style in a more simplified Rob Haynes direction. Rob is so good at doing so much with a minimum of line and rendering. It's that whole Alex Toth School of "less is more" and it's actually very hard to do! Mike Mignola is a genius at it. Rob Haynes and Dave Johnson both do it masterfully. Me, not so much! I want to render the hell out of everything and that doesn't always help! Geoff Darrow once told me the reason that he puts so much detail into his work is to cover up the fact that he doesn't know how to draw very well! That's not true, of course in Darrow's case, but I often find myself falling into that trap. So since these were going to be tiny trading cards, I thought a simple strong composition would serve me best. So there!

Bring on The Bad Guys!

So what you need are more action figures? Still have uncluttered space in your office cubicle? Not enough HeroClix to cover your entire studio apartment or Fortress of Solitude? The new set of Marvel Legends Series 13: Onslaught just came out and the set of six characters includes The Abomination, Blackheart, Green Goblin, Lady Deathstrike, Loki, and Pyro. The reason I mention them is that four of the six figures: Blackheart, Green Goblin, Loki, and Pyro (pictured above) come with free Upper Deck Marvel Vs. cards drawn by, you guessed it, me! Check them out at your favorite toy store or comic book shop!

According to Toy Biz: "This Bring on the Bad Guys Series includes some of the most deliciously diabolical villains in Marvel's library. Collect all the figures in the series and you'll build yourself your very own, deluxe–articulated Onslaught – the greatest threat the X–Men have ever faced! Build your own 8" Onslaught" So there!