Downer Illustration

U is for Ultron

steve-o — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:20:07 +0000

That’s right! A murderous artificial intelligence! Can’t go wrong with Ultron. He/it is awesome.

The ORIGINAL Terminator

And that’s all for today!

[More Sharing Options]

Rocket Raccoon! Sam Simeon! Ted Kord!

steve-o — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:14:32 +0000

That’s right, it’s a comics alphabet triple play! THREE entries jam-packed into one.

This marks the THIRD gorilla-centric post on the blog. I smell a trend!

Accompanying everybody’s favorite defender of the galaxy, Rocket Raccoon, is one half of the Angel and the Ape investigative team, the comics-drawing gorilla Sam Simeon. And standing tall in the back is Ted Kord, alias the Blue Beetle, genius inventor, superhero and all around good fella.

Also! I will give an Internet high five to anyone who can tell me where Rocket Raccoon’s weapon was originally featured.

[More Sharing Options]

Q is for the Question

steve-o — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:50:31 +0000

The Question! Steve Ditko’s faceless Objectivist crimefighter is another oddball character that’s so much fun to draw.

That's a fedora, right?

Tomorrow’s entry is one I’ve been looking forward to ever since it was suggested near the beginning of this series. Stay tuned!

[More Sharing Options]

P is for Paste Pot Pete

steve-o — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:26:46 +0000

Paste Pot Pete. Wow. Not exactly Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s most inspired creation.

Even within the comics, PPP wasn’t a villain of any merit at all. He eventually changed his name to the Trapster, in fact, but he’s still a pretty low-rent supervillain. I guess they can’t all be winners.

But he’s certainly a lot of fun to draw! I enjoyed this entry a lot more than I had any reason to.

The P is also for pathetic

Sorry I’ve been away for so long. It’s been five weeks since my last Comics Alphabet entry, so I’m going to catch up by posting one entry each day of this week until Friday. That will get me into the home stretch!

I’m considering what the next regular art feature on this blog should be. I’m thinking about another A to Z series, maybe involving the Legion of Superheroes. Are there Legionnaires for each letter of the alphabet? Anybody? Sims?

[More Sharing Options]

O is for OMAC

steve-o — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:53:31 +0000

Who else could it be but Jack Kirby’s One Man Army Corps?

EVACUATE THIS SECTOR!

[More Sharing Options]

N is for Namora

steve-o — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:05:55 +0000

I had no idea what I was going to do for N.
The I read Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk’s Marvel Comics miniseries, Agents Of Atlas. Namora is, as it turns out, an awesome character. (Apparently hanging out with a kung fu superspy, a Greek goddess, a talking gorilla, a Uranian spaceman and an indestructible robot rubs off on you after a while.) So yeah, Namora:

I only wish "Jimmy Woo" started with N

[More Sharing Options]

M is for Mr. Miracle and Metamorpho

steve-o — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:48:20 +0000

Mr. Miracle, (aka Scott Free) Jack Kirby’s otherworldly escape artist, has got to be one of my favorite comic book characters, and I think it’s mostly because of his costume. There’s nothing else quite like it.
Interestingly, Kirby partly based Mr. Miracle on a fellow comic book artist, Jim Steranko. Before becoming an illustrator, Steranko had briefly attempted a career as a real-life escape artist.

Mostly marvelous!

And then there’s Metamorpho, the Element Man. Aka Rex Mason, and spawned by the bizarre mind of the one and only Bob Haney (also the creator of DC’s Metal Men and the Doom Patrol).
I confess that I’m not too familiar with Metamorpho. I know him mostly from Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred’s recent strips featuring him in DC’s Wednesday Comics, and he seems like a delightfully bizarre creation. I mean, an adventurer for hire (under contract to an eccentric business tycoon with a Neanderthal for a bodyguard) who is given the ability to transform into any element found in the human body? It’s one of those high-concept ideas that few can pull off.

[More Sharing Options]

Sweet Pea 2009

steve-o — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:52:19 +0000

This weekend, August 7-9, Bozeman celebrates its big annual arts event, the Sweet Pea Festival. Bands from all over, including some big names, perform while local artists and craftspeople sell handmade goods. Parades, races, theatre performances- it’s all going on this weekend.

This year, I had the chance to design the shirt sold every year to raise funds for the event, and with the festival fast approaching, I wanted to show off the art I did.

So here we go. The Sweet Pea shirts:

Pocket/back

Chest, same as men's back but smaller

[More Sharing Options]

L is for Lobster Johnson and Lady Blackhawk

steve-o — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:51:07 +0000

This week’s entry features two awesome old-school adventurers.

Lobster Johnson is Mike Mignola’s other brilliant pulp creation: A mythical 1930s New York City vigilante known for branding criminals with his trademark lobster claw symbol, and who eventually showed up in Hellboy stories as an evil-battling ghost.

Lady Blackhawk is DC Comics’ crack WWII flying ace and member of the Blackhawks flying squad. She wears a cheerleader skirt, for reasons unknown.

They're a cute couple.

Next week! Metamorpho and Mr. Miracle!

[More Sharing Options]

K is for Kilowog vs. Klaw

steve-o — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:36:40 +0000

Kilowog, DC Comics’ Green Lantern of Space Sector 647! Ulysses Klaw, a supervillain physicist who wears a sound-emitting gun on his right arm and fights the Fantastic Four and Black Panther!

One of these guys is WAY cooler than the other.

Yeah, so, I like Kilowog. I’d never even HEARD of Klaw until he was suggested for this series. But that’s the fun! I get to draw wacky characters I’ve never heard of, and you get to suggest wacky characters I’ve never heard of. That works.

[More Sharing Options]