Books I'd Kill to Draw: Batman & Robin

This is the last week of Books I'd Kill to draw. Don't worry though, there are plenty more posts in the works of books that would bring me to murder. Keep an eye out;)

Anyway, I've made no secret of my love for the Bat titles, so it's pretty obvious that today's post would be Bat related.

This sketch is actually an homage of (I believe) an old Bob Kane drawing of the Dynamic Duo.

Have a great weekend, folks. I'll see ya back here on Monday!

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Superman's Wife, Lois Lane

This sort of goes along with the Jimmy Olsen drawing from the other day. Lois Lane is another supporting character that I think could easily carry their own title, if done properly. She had her own title back in the day, with Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, that lasted for all of 137 issues,as well as a handfull of one-shots and miniseries along the way. I think for it to work nowadays it might have to be a bit of a mash up of some of the silver-age kookiness and Lois actually using some of her reporter's instincts to get into the fray a bit though.
With this sketch I was trying to riff on the Fleisher Studios bow-lipped version with a slightly modernized version of her hair. I think she ended up almost looking as much like Huntress from the Birds of Prey TV show as Superman's gal. Still kind of dig the sketch though:D

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Atari Force

Today we have Pakrat and Morphea from Atari Force. Yes, that Atari, which is probably the reason this comic will never again see the light of day. I'd kill to draw this book, but I'd also kill just to get a collection of the series. Most of my copies are dog-eared, and a few of them have chocolate pudding stains inside. I promise not to eat anything while reading if someone would be kind enough to put out a nice collection though. Super-swear.

I've previously posted about Atari Force before here, with a sketch of Babe.

Books I'd Kill to Draw/Write: Jim & Alfred

Along with a Jimmy Olsen comic, I'd kill to write and draw a comic starring Commissioner Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth. It's actually one of my life goals. Yeah, I guess I've got a weird thing for supporting characters:)

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I know everyone has their favorite version of Nick Fury. Yours may be Sgt. Fury, who fought in WWII, the Sam Jackson-ized Ultimate version, or even the one played by TV's David Hasselhoff but my money will always be on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. James bond style action, espionage and flying cars is just the perfect recipe for good comics!

This will probably be the last week of Books I'd Kill to Draw. I'll still be peppering in some BIKtD, but I've decided on few new themes I think would be a lot of fun to start posting here in the days to come. In the meantime, thanks for lookin'!

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Jimmy Olsen

Jimmy Olsen is one of only around three things I'd actually kill to draw AND write. I previously ranted about Jimmy here, so I'll try not ramble on too much. I will say that Jimmy doesn't get the love he deserves... and just try to leave it at that:)

Below you'll see the first step in inking this piece. I went in with a marker for all the outlines and little details before I broke out the brush. I actually almost let it be at this stage, but it just didn't feel like a finished piece.

Even though the writing scrawled on the robot's chest and the dinosaurs in the background look like I was just goofing around, these elements were actually taken from a story in Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen #12. If you can't track down the original, it was recently reprinted in Showcase presents: Superman Family volume one. Those old Silver-Age tales were just packed with this sort of crazy stuff!

Anyway, have a great weekend, folks. I'll see ya back here on Monday!

Books I'd Kill to Draw: The Shadow

Books I'd Kill to Draw: B.P.R.D.

Since I've been having so much fun with the Books I'd Kill to Draw theme (BIKtD to the cool kids) I figured we'd keep this going for a while longer.

Today we've got Johann Kraus and Roger the Homonculus from Mike Mignola's B.P.R.D.

They've had so many great adventures I figured to pick from I decided to just draw a couple of the agents having a bite to eat:)

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Airboy

Well, I don't know that I'd actually have to kill anybody to do this one. I think all the Airboy characters are public domain nowadays but I could be mistaken.
In any case, I think it'd be a real blast to draw Airboy's plane (that had flapping wings!) and all the colorful characters in that book. I can't vouch for the golden-age tales, but if you've never read any of the issues Chuck Dixon did for Eclipse back in the 80's you're really missing out.
Above we have Airboy and the Heap, since I didn't feel like digging around for reference for Airboy's plane "Birdie". Yeah, I'm lazy:)

Have a great weekend, folks!

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Zot

I know there's no way in the world I'd ever get the chance to draw Scott McCloud's Zot in print (being a creator owned project and all) but Scott McCloud has been a huge influence on me. Long before I had heard about Understanding comics I was learning loads from his wonderful storytelling in the pages of Zot.
I actually got the chance to meet McCloud back in 2000 and had him sign my dog-eared copy of of the first Zot trade Eclipse put out in 1990. I still smile every time I look at it:)

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Iron Fist

This one was a lot of fun!

The Orson Randall incarnation of Iron Fist is easily one of my favorite new characters that Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction and David Aja have brought in to the Marvel Universe of late. He's got such a great pulp sensibility with his set of .45s and his Phantom like sweater.



Also, Martijn Form's farewell to Exterminators is up at Comics Bulletin with a wee quote from me in there.
Exterminators is unfortunately another of those great books cancelled far far too soon.

Books I'd Kill to Draw: Robin

As you can see from the title I've settled on my first new theme. Books I'd Kill to Draw is pretty self explanatory... I'll be posting sketches of characters from my favorite books past and present that I think would be a dream to work on (no matter how tonally wrong I may be for any particular title:)
These will be comics I grew up with, or am still reading, that have had a hand in shaping my comic tastes and style, and some that I just think would be a hell of a lot of fun to work on:)
We'll see some obvious stuff in these posts ( that means a fair share of capes and tights) but there'll definitely be a few surprises along the way as well.
Let's start with a pretty easy one. Below we have Robin...

...in true 90's fashion I imagine he's saying "Come get some.":)