So Much Work, And Nobody Even Dies

Just got hold of the original art for Firestorm v2 #45 page 12. Aside from a couple of great Hyena shots, I found this one panel really interesting purely for the amount of editorial guidance that went in to it:

First of all, we have the letterer Carrie Spiegle needing to add one of those line thingies (technical term) over the E in CAFE (all red markings are by me to highlight)

Next, the point on Felicity's speech bubble was lengthed. I've roughly drawn in where it originally went, as it's twinked out and doesn't show on the scan. I guess it looked a little too much like the woman in the background was talking, although you'll notice they didn't exactly follow the editor's suggested look (in blue).

The note in the margin reads "lenthen point to Felicity"

Finally, there's a note to change the hairstyles on a couple of figures. The margin note reads "More black in both Ronnie & Ed Raymond's hair, also fix Ed's hair style". Both figures in question are circled.

One small problem though. While that's certainly Ronnie on the left, on the right it's Doreen, not Ed! Ed is the figure with his back to the camera. Editor Janice Race missed that the figure on the right is wearing a skirt, so we're left with a very masculine head on a woman's body.

That's pretty funny.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

Another bit of comparisson of the printed page vs the original art. This is from Bloodhound #5 (by Kirk & Riggs), in a scene where Jason has an attempt to merge with Bloodhound rather emphatically denied. From the comic:

Original:

At the risk of sounding like I have something against colorists, I really prefer it in black and white. Could've been interesting if they still did all the lettering on the page though ;)

Manhunter in 30 seconds

Chris over at the ISB is running his annual "30 second" event, which means more bad art from me. Hooray!

This time around, it's the "Trial By Fire" arc from Manhunter, in which Shadow Thief is put on trial for the murder of Firestorm.











Previous years efforts here and here

If you've got it, share it

Following on from my last post (it's almost like I planned it...), this seems as good a time as any to point out that my entire art collection is all scanned and online right here!

36 pages of both classic and modern Firestorm, an entire issue of Moon Knight prelims, convention sketches, and a bunch of other pages from Blue Beetle, Aquaman, Birds Of Prey etc.

Despite what it tells you when you register a paid account, the pages do not quite display on a 1:1 scale. Shag over at Firestorm Fan has full size scans of various pages on his site, so consider that the place to go for the proper article. As an online collection all in one place though, ComicArtFans serves it's purpose very well.

It won't be up to date for long though, I just won two more Firestorm pages on ebay ;)

Sometimes high tech isn't better

Just had some more Firestorm artwork arrive (4 pages!), a christmas present for myself if you will (well that's my excuse, really it was just because a dealer was having a sale). Of particular interest (well, to me anyway) is the first panel from #6, page 18. As it appeared in the comic:

Cool effects and all, but here's what was actually there originally:

Heh, that's an awful lot of lines and white dots to have a colorist come along and cover up. The printed panel is certainly effective, but I think I prefer the original art (by Batista & Green).