DC Fifty-Too!

In early June, my friend Jon Morris asked a whole bunch of cartoonists, doodlers and comic book artists to participate in a cool comic book cover project he was putting together, in response to DC Comics' massive relaunch of their entire comic book line (scheduled for September 2011).

We were all asked to create a cover of a comic book we would have liked to see, and I immediately called dibs on Detective Comics, featuring one of my favorite DC Comics characters ever, The Crimson Avenger.

Well, the DC Fifty-Too! website went live just a couple of days ago and some seriously amazing covers have already hit the web. If you like comic books, DC Comics characters, or even good drawings, do your eyeballs a favor and go check it out.

Here's mine:



I drew my cover a few weeks ago while visiting family in Arizona, and used my dad's computer and extra-fancy version of Photoshop to color it. Now that I'm back home, though, the colors look a lot darker than what I'm usually comfortable with. I dunno, maybe it's my monitor, but I'm thinking I should have put the Photoshop palette file I usually work with on my pen drive before hopping on that plane to Arizona.

Anyway, just for fun, here are a couple of drafts of the cover that didn't make the final cut, as well as some older Crimson Avenger sketches I posted on my old blog a few years ago. I'll let you choose the ones you like best.







Now seriously, get out of here and go check out DC Fifty-Too!

CORNERED: The Green Hornet

A new drawing just went up on Jon Morris’ Cornered blog today. Here’s The Green Hornet, from The Green Hornet Fights Crime #40 :



I’ve probably said this before, but I’m a big fan of pulp magazines and “golden age of radio” programs, and one of my favorite characters has always been the Green Hornet.



My favorite version of the character is from the 1941 black and white Green Hornet Strikes Again! Cliffhanger serial, but that 60’s tv show with Bruce Lee and Van Williams was fun, too. Unlike a lot of people, I also really liked the new Green Hornet movie that came out a few months ago, despite my profound loathing of 3D.




Aaand speaking of GH movies and stuff, French filmmaker Aurelien Poitrimoult did this short Green Hornet film a few years ago (2003, I think) that is worth a look. It was shot in French with English voice-overs, which gives it kind of a funky Saturday Morning Kung Fu Theatre vibe to it, but it’s pretty cool just the same.

The Domino Lady

It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that I am a big fan of pulp novels from the 1930’s and ’40’s. Although I do enjoy the occasional Lovecraftian pulp horror story, the detective pulps, with their mysterious masked avengers The Spider, The Shadow and The Phantom Detective, have always been—by far—my favorites.

One of the lesser-known pulp heroes… or heroines, I should say… was the lovely Ellen Patrick, also known as The Domino Lady. When her father, incorruptible California politician Owen Patrick was assassinated by the corrupt political machine who had failed to bribe him, young Ellen donned the black silk mask, cape and form-fitting gown of the Domino Lady in order to avenge him.

The Domino Lady’s adventures were more light-hearted than most of the other detective pulps. While The Shadow and The Spider fought demented scientists, cold-blooded criminal masterminds and unstoppable zombie hordes, the Domino Lady’s foes were mainly low-level jewel thieves, blackmailers, gangsters and people who looked like this. She was an expert shot with a pistol, but would only use her weapon to wound or fend off attackers; unlike her male counterparts, she wasn’t a killer. In fact, the Domino Lady spent more time undressing, taking baths and lounging around in skimpy nightgowns than she did actually fighting crime, which very well may explain the success of the stories among male readers.

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to stumble across a copy of Vanguard Productions’ The Domino Lady: The Complete Collection with cover art and chapter illustrations by the great Jim Steranko. If you’re a pulp fan, I can’t encourage you enough to track down a copy.

Anyway, here are a few drawings of The Domino Lady and her “kissable shoulders” (as author Lars Anderson often described them)…