Skip to main content

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures - Production art... Part 6

Today I will post images of Belinda Zee.



See. Told you.

Belinda is notable as she is really the only original character we introduced to the Supergirl mythos. Admittedly, our version of Lena Thorul seems to have very little in common with the original version. But still...

Obviously, Belinda Zee's name is also a take off of Supergirl's secret identity, Linda Lee. Not quite as obvious is the fact that her name was also inspired by my fiance's name: Belinda Lee.

I've also seen it mentioned that she seems to have some common elements to Grant Morrison's Zibarro. What with the non-Bizarro like speech patterns and the color scheme and the prominent "Z" in the name... Coinicedence. I won't lie. I think All-Star Superman is one of the best books out there. But I didn't read it until a few months ago. In fact, I rarely read comics anymore. That's changing a bit... out of necessity more than anything else.

The design of Belinda was partially inspired by Archie Comics character, Veronica Lodge. A little of her temperament springs from this source as well. Belinda is a fun character to write. She's not exactly evil, and she certainly isn't good. Her emotional state of being is on a hair trigger. Essentially, she's an agent of chaos. Chaotic neutral, if I must let my roots as a D&D geek show.

The images here of her as Superiorgirl are Eric's original take on the concept. But I was looking more for the mirror image feel, so we switched to classic Bizarro look, with the mask. The mask was specifically inspired by the Silver Age appearance of an evil Superman, who was indistinguishable from the good version, except for his domino mask.

I didn't really realize just how common Supergirl doppelgangers were until after we had put the Belinda Zee wheels in motion. I'm not sure I would have done it differently anywaey. Anyone who has read much of our work will know that doppelgangers are a fairly common theme. Our Tron comic has a character who deals with multiple versions of himself. Seems natural in a universe with copy and paste functions. Little Gloomy has met two different doppelgangers in the pages of Super Scary Monster Show, and Kid Gravity once met his parallel universe twin named Kid Anti-Gravity in the pages of Disney Adventures magazine.

Evil duplicates are nothing new. But they're always fun. Belinda Zee was alot of fun to work with. From her arrogant sassiness, to her vulnerable emotional outbursts. Fun.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FROM YEAR ONE TO DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: A BATMAN CHRONOLOGY - REVISED

FROM YEAR ONE TO DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: A BATMAN CHRONOLOGY Back in 1986 I picked up a comic off the shelves that changed my perception of sequential storytelling. I was 15 years old at the time and had been reading comics for as long as I could remember. Batman had long been my favorite character. Well, more specifically Robin had been - ever since I was three years old and I encountered re-runs of the 1960's Batman TV series. I was even lucky enough to meet Burt Ward (in his Robin costume) at a car show in 1976. Considering where my career has landed, it is easy to argue that this exposure was impactful. To clarify: I'm a professional comic book writer, and have been producing stories since around 1992. I managed to write a few Batman related comics in the late 00's. But long before this, dating back to that day in 1986 when I found a copy of Dark Knight Returns on the shelf, I have been trying to formulate in my own head a complete and functional Batman chronolog...

Mezmerella incorporated into Pixar/Incredibles float at Disneyland California Adventure.

A life size cutout of Mezmerella is a part of the "Pixar and Pals" presentation at Disneyland/California Adventure. Mezmerella was created in late 2009 for the Boom! Studios Incredibles series I was co-writing with Mark Waid. Although he did not work on the Incredibles, Eric Jones stepped in and designed the character, which in turn was rendered by Marcio Takara (I think it's his art used here) and Ramanda Karmarga (who I believe drew the Underminer in the above image). The colors scheme for the character was selected by editor Aaron Sparrow and the name (originally Hypnotica) was the idea of my wife, Belinda Adams. So alot of credit goes to alot of people for the character. It's pretty exciting seeing something I conceived of being a part of a Disney attraction of any kind. Even more fun to see young children interact with the inanimate character by throwing things at it. My favorite quote from the video: "Mezmerella gets kneecapped!" Here the full video: ...

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 9th Grade - Concept art

Been sitting on this for a couple of years now. Figured might as well let people see a bit of what we had been thinking for Supergirl's future as she enters the turbulent world of high school. One of the things I would like to point out about these images is the evolution of Kara's design. When the first series was announced (along with an image never intended for the public) the common complaint was that our Supergirl was boyish. That she was rough looking. That she looked awkward and maybe even a little weird. Eric could have drawn Supergirl as the epitome of style and grace. But that wouldn't have been our Supergirl. Our Supergirl was a character who needed to grow. She was overly self-aware, insecure and gangly, that's part of being a young teenager (particularly as younger teens see themselves from within) and therefore an important part of the storytelling. I think with the slight changes to the artwork here we really begin to see Kara's self confidence manife...