Is This What Wagner Had in Mind?

In the comments threads, blog reader Dan mentioned some characters he'd like to see me take a stab at. Or is that "at which he'd like me to take a stab?" Anyway, he mentioned Valkyrie, and that stuck in my head.

I was a DC boy, but knew the Marvels okay. Mostly because they had more cartoons, I suppose, with Fantastic Four (and yes, I knew HERBIE wasn't a real member), Spider-Woman, Hulk and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. Well, and the Thing cartoon where he became a teenager and had the thing ring. More odd was that Franklin Richards became a girl as I remember, yet Reed wasn't trying to fix that. Maybe he always wanted a girl.

Anyway, while I didn't read many Marvels, there was one that kept cropping up: The Defenders. I don't know why. I think my brother John got it. And I remember winning a copy at the Timberlake Family Day picnic, back when comics were on newsstands and they could comp out their returnable inventory. And I still have one of those Giant Size Treasury Editions of it. So, more than the rest of the Marvel Universe, I knew Nighthawk, Hellcat, and Valkyrie and whoever else was part of that non-team at the time.

So, I did a run a Valkyrie. I liked her classic costume and not that metallic body suit. I always liked that she was a warrior, but had hair drape over one eye because, darn it, she was such a good warrior that depth perception was completely unnecessary. And she fought in sandals. I think it works pretty well.
 
 Dan also suggested that I send him the piece when it was done and bill Prilosec. That's a great idea, if I still had their billing info. Unfortunately, they replaced my artwork with some guy named Brett Favre in their ads. Maybe with him retiring they'll bring my art out of mothballs, but I'm going to guess not. So, unless that happens, Dan, you'll have to buy it off the Commissions page. Sorry.

Push the Button, Frank!

It's time to announce a New York Comic-Con exclusive, this time for me. I've had these one-inch buttons available at shows for years now. I've done a couple of Love and Capes designs featuring Mark and Abby. For 2008, I've decided to focus on Amazonia. So here's the new design.

These buttons are absolutely free at my table. I'll have a limited number, so I can't promise I won't run out by the end of the show. So come to booth 2446 and check them out as soon as you can.

Here Kitty, Kitty

Here's another one of those tracing paper recreations from MegaCon. This one's Kitty Pryde when she was going around as Shadowcat. She had a number of bad fashion choices and questionable names (Sprite, Ariel) before she settled on this one. It stuck for a while, but honestly, it never felt like her to me.

Still, when you comes up and pays your money, you get what you wants. Someone came up wanting Shadowcat and I was happy to oblige.

Incidentally, this is the first piece done on my new Jack Skellington Mac and man does it just scream. Painter just flies on the new machine, so I was able to mess around with an oil painterly color technique, which I think adds a little energy to the piece.

Because She-Hulk was Too Easy

The Bat and the Cat

One of the reasons I've been doing this whole super women thing is to try new techniques. I did a Catwoman piece in a cut shape/Adobe Illustrator technique that worked pretty well. So, when I was at MegaCon, the Batfan asked me to do a Batgirl/Catwoman illo and he wanted it in the same style. At the con, I couldn't do it. I had no computer with which to work. But when my workload became too much, I took that piece home and, gosh and begorrah, there was my computer. I couldn't resist playing in the style again. So, here's my second attempt at that flat shape style.

Otherwise, the last couple days have been pretty good. FCBD numbers, getting the book to the printer, and some other stuff that I'll reveal at a later date. It's time for a weekend!

Orders Up!

I got my order numbers for the Free Comic Book Day version of Love and Capes #7. They are verra verra good, and, more importantly, better than last year. It's Snoopy Dance time.

Less than two months to the big FCBD!

Laws of Attraction

I did more commissions at MegaCon than I have at any other show so far. Hopefully that trend line will continue. I offer to color the commission (for an additional charge, of course) if the buyer sends me a high-resolution scan. People are still filtering back, so I don't have any of those yet, but I did keep the tracing paper roughs for a couple of them, and went ahead and redid them so I could have a copy.

So this is Polaris, of the X-Men, X-Force and I can't remember who else. This was done as a gift for a friend, and I also used it as a Sunday morning warm-up and wake up, much-needed since I am without my morning coffee during Lent. It's another Dave Cockrum redesign, and shares a lot with Shrinking Violet's revamped costume. I had a lot of fun marrying the graphic elements, like the "stained glass" panels and the magnetic waves, to the organic brush artwork,

I'll have more to post soon!

They're Here!

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I picked up the Powerful Women sketchbooks today, and they look sah-weet. I'll have them with me at MegaCon tomorrow, and at shows afterwards. If this goes over the way I expect it will, expect a second volume too.

By the way, the descriptor copy is on the back of each piece. It'll be fine when you see it, but it explains why the copy reads Kitty Pryde and the page image in Red Sonja.

Dawn Has Broken

Here's the last one in the sketchbook series, the Legionaire Dawnstar. I was reading LSH when she joined the team, and she was pretty consistently in the run after that until DC started doing their seemingly-annual Legion reboots.

She's definitely visually cool. Here, I played with some textures applied to her wings and her uniform, which I think came out nicely.

Dawnstar has reappeared in DC lately, in the JLA/Lightning Saga and Action Comics stories. I hear she might appear in the animated Legion cartoon, too.

The Zahler Oeuvre

Wowio now has the complete Maerkle Press selection of titles (save Love and Capes #4-6) available for free download from its service. I think I'll write a little spotlight on some of these books down the road, but for now, if you want to check out the romantic-comedy sitcom Long Distance or the three volumes of the Raider action-adventure-spy series, click on any of the links below.