Something for the Dads-

Double whammy this week-

Here’s the envelope art that went along with my charity sketch for the recently mentioned “Cran the Man” auction. Don’t know if they saved it, but perhaps the winning purchase will get it as a bonus? If not- sorry- I have no control over that.

Pencils

Inks

Finals

This was about 3″ tall, so you’re seeing it slightly larger than actual size.

Also, here’s the first cover I’ve done for the classic series. I wanted to give it a classic “pulp” feel, I hope it worked to some extent. If it makes fans happy to know– this is a BWS-free issue! 🙂

Hubba hubba

Here it is, sans text –

Who dat?

Here are the original pencils from that cover…

The first draft was a slightly more risqué version. Uh- I need a minute... alone.

As some of you may or may not know, the little “x”s that you see in the cover are indications for inkers to fill those areas in with solid black. It’s partly a time saver for me, but traditionally it also helped to keep brushes/quills from getting clogged with graphite while trying to ink over shaded pencils. The last bit doesn’t apply to us, since Gary is in Scotland where he prints out a copy of the image onto a board then inks that. He never sees the actual pencil in person, so there’s no risk of ruining his pens with graphite gunk, no possibility of losing the image in transit, or of it getting damaged in the journey. That’s the benefit and loss of modern comic making.

I don’t know how apparent it is, maybe I missed the mark, but the cobra sigil is supposed to be visible in the flames of the fireplace. I thought is was worth a shot. Gary and James worked really hard on this with me, for as with most covers, this was on a tight deadline. Hope everyone enjoys it.

Have a great week everyone.