Summer Movie Super-Heroes

The area inside the frame is approximately how it'll print.
Here's the uncropped artwork for this week's TimeOut entertainment tabloid. It was a busy couple of days in the newsroom while I worked on this -- as you might imagine (thanks a lot Navy Seals!) -- and a few hours before it was due, I had doubts about getting it finished. But you know what? I made quick work of it and had some time to spare.

Maybe I should have gone back and polished it up a little. Eh, I like the roughness.

It sounds like "Thor" is going to be pretty good. Contra Costa Times graphic novel reviewer Randy Myers liked it a lot. I can't think of a time I've disagreed with his comics appraisals, so I'm betting I'll dig it when I get around to it.

I confess that I avoid comics movies. I have a hard time warming up to modern visions of the stuff I enjoyed as a kid. I fear that I'll be disappointed if the Thor movie doesn't look like it was drawn by Jack Kirby or Walter Simonson. But that's just me. I hope it does well and everyone enjoys it so much that they go out and buy the gigantic collected edition of Simonson's work from the 80s. Hopefully it will be heaviest book ever to reach #1 on the NY Times' book list.

What I've seen of Cap and Green Lantern looks okay, if I let go a little. I'm not a big GL fan by any stretch, but I loved the Gil Kane artwork in the old reprints. Cap? It's Kirby or bust, for me. Well, Englehart and Sal Buscema had a bunch of good stuff. And those issues drawn by Frank Robbins are more than awesome. And Byrne did a good Cap back in the late 70s. Geez, I think I'm old.

The End

2 comments:

  1. I apologize...I saw this in the Time Out and I didn't check the artist. I always check the artist because I look for your name! I do..really. This morning I scanned the paper...I didn't read it ...really well. Even Tim missed this but I will point this out to him.

    Like you, Superhero movies worry me. They make them more dark or their stories more dark than the comic books of growing up. It bothers me that the little kids can't (shouldn't) see them on film because of the graphic nature. Art however keeps it clipped and precise of the nature of the character. Imagination can decide how we think they sound, move, react. We can't be disappointed in the reading whereas the movie can leave us aghast.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My impression is that the the films are darker than than the comics we knew back in the day, but they aren't nearly as dark -- generally speaking -- as contemporary comics. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just not the same. I suppose kids just don't read them any more so the business has changed its targeted age to late teens and early twenties men.

    I'm betting they don't make comics for little kids any more. I sure don't see any when I'm out and about. No more spinner racks in the grocery stores, that's for sure. Occasionally, I see an Archie's Digest, but that's it. I don't see even see MAD out there in the wild, now that Borders/Barnes/Noble have left town.

    ReplyDelete