Notorious Crackpot

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...

I originally created The Ungorilla as a Batman villain. The character was very specifically envisioned as "not a monkey". To tell the truth, I'm tired of talking gorilla villains. And I generally think the world of the Incredibles should be populated by guys in spandex-like uniforms. Anyway, the Ungorilla = Batman villian. A guy who looked about as much like a gorilla as Spider-Man looks like a spider. King Kreep (of Idiot Ink Productions , which I am now a part of) came in and did some designs, as seen here: So I was all set to use him in Batman: The brave and the Bold. But an opportunity to use him in the Incredibles came first. So there you go. He's now a enemy of The Incredibles instead of Batman. What was strange was that the end result looked nothing like Kreep's designs. This isn't a terrible thing, but it did lead me to re-envisioning the character and shaping new plans for his future. Maybe I'll use The Ungorilla's original design for somethin...

I haven't posted any of Eric's production art in a while. And to be fair, there isn't usually as much generated for Batman: The Brave and the Bold as there is for something like Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures. Usually. In the case of our latest issue, with guest stars Wonder Woman, the Teen Titans, and enemies Nocturna, Egghead and Y'gg Phu Soggoth (Egg Fu) there was a bit of design work that needed to be done. Primarily there was the question of how to present Wonder Woman. Eric and I are both children of the 70's and subsequently are both influenced heavily by the Superfriends cartoon of that era. This early test cover gives an idea of where we might have gone with Diana: Now... we produced this months ago. Long before Wonder Woman (briefly) appeared on the show. And we wanted to try to match what might be done with Wonder Woman on the show. Long story short, we had reason to assume Diana would be presented fairly close to her 1950's self. So we altered our or...

It's that time again. A new issue of The Incredibles, written by Mark Waid and myself and with art by Marcio Takara , is in stores now. I think. Honestly, I'm hearing some mixed reports. Let's assume it is in stores. And therefore you must acquire it. This issue introduces a new villain to: Mezmerella. Originally, she was known as "Hypnotica", but this needed to be changed at the last minute due to the name being trademarked as part of some goth toy thing. And when I say "last minute" I mean it. Aaron Sparrow (editor, overlord, keeper of the three satchels of unspeakable evils) contacted me while I was in Disneyworld on my Honeymoon for input on a name change. My wife actually rattled off the name, and I threw it in with the rest. Mark and Aaron outvoted me and "Hypnotica" was no more. Sad. I had a very specific look in mind for the character. So I had Eric (Jones) cobble together a quick sketch for Marcio. And here's Marcio's version: ...

So... let me frame things a bit. Eric and I had been working on comics for over 15 years. Many of those years were spent working on Disney Adventures. Once Little Gloomy and Kid Gravity had been picked up by the magazine, we had quit our day jobs and dedicated all our energy to comics creation. Then, at the end of 2007, Disney Adventures folded. We were still very busy working with 1492 Pictures on Little Gloomy for the small screen, and there was some comfort in knowing that this work would keep us afloat... for a little bit. Flash forward to February of 2008. WonderCon. We have no jobs. No money and no immediate prospects. So we turn to long time aquaitence Bob Shreck. It really was a whim. We had nothing prepared and though we had known Bob for many years, asking for work from someone I think of as a friend is not a thing I like to do. It feels... I dunno. Not something I like. But we asked. Because we were desperate. So he recommended the Johnny DC line. There was (at the time) a b...

So... Here we are again. As promised, here is the start of the Supergirl artwork. It has been a crazy week. I've been working on multiple projects at once. that's unusual for me. Subsequently I'm very tired. But that's not what you want to hear, is it? No... You just want to know about Supergirl. One thing Eric and I knew as soon as we got the job was that Supergirl had to be played large, emotionally speaking. Her excitement and her stress, all had to be bigger than life. That way, when we would bring her emotions down to a quieter level, it would have more impact. More gravity. It also goes along way to showing her age. I've heard it said that realistic teenagers are portrayed as sullen and surly. I don't think that's realistic at all. Can teenagers be surly and sullen? Sure. But not all the time and not all of them. And most importantly, it's not how teenagers see themselves. That's a pitfall as an adult writer. When you start thinking that how yo...

Yeah, I know that behind the scenes of Supergirl would be posted next. But my plan was always to make that post on Monday. Today is Saturday. So think of this as a bonus, not a detour. So this is what a full page of pencils from Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures looks like. This is page 21 from issue 5, to be precise. Here's a look at the same page, completed and printed: Eric draws each panel on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. I take that stack of paper and scan it, Eric then assembles the page on Photoshop. I print it out at about 9 x 15 and he lightboxes the inks onto a piece of bristol board. Don't ask me why it's done this way. I have no idea. Then end result is stacks and stacks and stacks of paper. And since Eric has never sold any original art, and also not boxed it up and taken it out of my house, I get to live with it. All of it. Too much of it, really. The upside is I have full access to it and get these opportunities to share. So... Monday. Supergirl. The start of it a...

I promised Supergirl next. And that's what you're going to get. Kind of. Supergirl isn't just Supergirl, of course. Unlike Superman she didn't arrive to Earth as a baby. Unlike Superman her Kryptonian name isn't simply a part of his heritage he discovered late in life. Supergirl's name is Kara Zor-El. But when she first arrived in her rocket back in the 50's, Superman tells her she needs an Earth name. Of course, I know a few Kara's. But I suppose times have changed just a bit. So Linda Lee was born. That's Linda Lee on the left.  I think we debated between a ponytail and the final hair design. The images on the right were a bit of an experiment. How to properly portray Kara Zor-El in her native Kryptonian guise. Anyway, I felt I needed a bit more of a rationale for her not using Kara as her name while on Earth. So when she crashes in the middle of Metropolis, she's swarmed by reporters. Why wouldn't she be? And they want to know who she is, ...

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 b...

It's been a long and exhausting few weeks. But I haven't forgotten my promise to post more images. First up is Superman. Man of Steel. Last son of Krypton. You might have heard of him. He's that predecessor to Supergirl that pops up every now and again. Kind of like how Perseus is an ancestor of Hercules? A second string character, but tied close enough to the mythos that we couldn't ignore him completely. Hopefully, the appearances of this old guy wearing a Supergirl costume isn't confusing to younger readers unfamiliar with this nostalgic artifact. Anyway... I like how Eric was drawing Superman in these images. Smaller eyes. I'm a fan of the squinty-eyed Superman. Next up is Zor-El. AKA: Supergirl's father. Eric was experimenting in a slightly different direction here. More cartoonish features. Larger eyes, bigger head. Doesn't work as well for me as it makes him feel to young. In fact, Zor-El in my head was much older. Almost wizened. Zor-El doesn...

As I've been digging through Eric's boxes of old artwork looking for Supergirl material, I've also been coming across alot of other artwork that never saw the light of day. This was one of two cover concepts put together for the Kid Gravity trade paperback that Disney Press released in... 2006? 2007? I don't remember. Probably 2007. This particular montage shot is a favorite of ours. I don't know why. Probably because it's easier than coming up with a solid theme. In fact, we also used the same basic concept on a Little Gloomy book, as seen here: We are not very creative creative people. Though in truth, I like the symmetry of the two designs when compared. And the universe of Little Gloomy and the universe of Kid Gravity are connected parallel realities. So it makes a certain amount of sense. I guess.

I promised that sketches of the students would be posted today. And here I am, posting said images. Okay... so there are less student images than I thought. Thing is, we had three female lead characters from the onset. There were also going to be male characters of more prominence. Here's a look at what they might have been like. The characters were cut because it turns out that 6 issues at 22 pages long each isn't as much room as I might have liked. The relationships between the three girls would have been horribly muddied by these nonsensical subplots. So they were cut. But just to go a step further and show you what you were denied... There was an entire story behind this that involved duplicity and betrayal. The heart was to be made of gold kryptonite (heart of gold) that only had a short term effect. We had already explored the effects of green, red and blue. So gold was the next logical choice. As mentioned above, this was cut due to lack of space. It was also cut after I...

I promised there would be more art. And more art there is. Unfortunately, I'm still searching for those original Supergirl illustrations. All of Eric's original art is at my house for some reason, which means boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of paper. 17 years of comics work in boxes (minus that one back cover illustration we left in a copy machine at SDCC about 13 years ago). To make matter worse, each panel of each page of Supergirl was pencilled at full size on a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Think about that. Each panel of each page of each issue. This all adds up to alot of paper. Anyway, here's the next installment of Supergirl production art. A feature on this blog that I like to call: "Eric probably doesn't want you to see this but then he shouldn't have left it in my safe keeping because I'm not particularly trustworthy." The teachers! The gym teacher is named Mister Mongo. I don't remember if we ever mentioned his name in the comic. He...

I've been putting off posting this stuff for awhile. The fact is, I am lazy. The other fact is that Eric keeps hiding this art. I intended to lead off with one of the three original illustrations he produced for our initial meeting with DC. I'll have to search a bit deeper to figure out where those images are hidden. Anyway, instead I'm going to lead off with some Lena Thorul. This first one might be the actual first attempt on the character. Truth is, Eric and I had a pretty solid idea of what she would look like from the onset. The only issue with the initial designs was the question of hair. That was resolved fairly quickly. Yeah I know. Exciting. Woo. So we knew she would eventually end up in armor. I guess the armor was the real issue. If you've read the series, you know the armor exists in 3 states. The first is the backpack, which appears two issues before it is revealed to be armor. The second form is the transformed backpack, and the third is the full upgraded...