#donsparrow

Hey gang!  As a continuation of my valiant effort to post every day in May, here’s a new blog post.  Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day, and I’ll be appearing in person at 8th Street Books and Comics doing sketches for charity.  Free Comic Book Day is one of the coolest things about comic culture.  One of the most exciting things about it is to see how many small children come into comic stores for the event.  I started reading comics at the age of 4, when my dad would bring them home for me as a treat.  There might have been earlier ones, but one I distinctly remember was this rather spooky cover by Brian Bolland. 

    It’s a very affecting cover, and pulls a trick very unique to comics, where the reader is presented with a bizarre situation (often on the cover, or the first page) and the story must explain how this situation occurred, and more importantly, how the hero will get out of it.   

  One thing I’ve noticed, attending Free Comic Book Day both as a fan and as a comic shop worker, is that kids of any age love to read Archie comics, and I do, too.  One thing that concerns me with Archie of late is a move toward making headlines rather than just telling stories.  My theory is that Archie has remained popular because of the lack of innovation of his comics, rather than in spite of it.  You know what you’re getting with an Archie comics, and it’s that timeless feeling that I think has made it successful. 

  Here’s a commission I did a few years back of Betty Cooper as Super-Teen, from those stories where the Archies would inexplicably have super-powers.

  If you’re in Saskatoon tomorrow, be sure to stop by 8th Street Books and get your portrait done, with $5 from each drawing going to Telemiracle.  And pick up a couple comics for the little ones, and get them started early on a totally unique form of storytelling.

Hey there, friendly people!

  Welcome to the third installment of redesigning the redesign, where I take a stab at redesigning classic DC characters (who themselves have been recently redesigned in DC Comics’ big deal New 52 reboot).

One of the coolest costumes in all of comics has always been the Darkknight Detective himself, Batman.  Depending on the artist handling him, his costume has varied wildly, from the moody, long-eared, hulking Batman Kelley Jones drew,

to the noirish minimalism of Steve Rude or David Mazzucchelli.  

With so many incarnations, it’s impossible to really say what the one true Batman looks like, and it ultimately comes down to personal preference—which Batman is your Batman?

 As for me, I’ve always been a huge admirer of the way Jim Aparo handled Batman.  Stoic and iron jawed, his Batman exuded intelligence through the inscrutable focus Aparo drew him with.      

  Like any kid who grew up in the 80s, my mind was properly blown when I saw Batman on the big screen in Tim Burton’s 1989 film. (My wonderful mother even let me out of school early to line up for the premiere at the old Capitol Four theatre downtown!)  While the subsequent Christopher Nolan films had more canonical adherence to the mythology (Burton’s Batman kills pretty indiscriminately at that chemical factory, and with machine guns, no less) Michael Keaton’s Batman can’t be overlooked.  Besides never getting any credit for inventing the modern, gravelly Batman whisper now so associated with the character, Keaton’s performance brought such an interesting emotional and brooding core to Bruce Wayne.  

Yup pretty brooding, alright.

  Plus, that suit was just incredibly cool—at once armour, while still looking like a human physique, just like the comics.  

  So even though the trend with costuming seems to be visible stitching and piping to make the costumes seem more “realistic”, I’ve always been a fan of keeping costuming simple, and leaving the details up to my imagination.  I don’t particularly care how Alfred/Bruce/Harold/Ace the Bat-hound sewed the seams of the costume together—I just want it to look cool, and not too busy and padded.

  So for my redesign, I incorporated the matte body, and yellow oval bat-logo from the Aparo Batman, and the slick black look of the cape and cowl from the Keaton films.  Then I inverted them—so that his cape, boots, trunks, and gloves would be a flat, dull black (represented here as a dark gray) and his body would be the slick, shiny look normally associated with his cape.  

Besides being a visual switch I found interesting, tactically I think Batman would blend into his surroundings better with a texture and shade that would absorb light rather than shimmer in it.  Plus, as discussed in the comics, I like the yellow oval on his chest (rather than the wide, black bat design) as it gives thugs a visual target to fire on that isn’t his face.

  So what do you think?  How would you update Batman’s suit?  

  That’s it for this entry.  Lots of news coming, including another convention appearance this summer.  Once they announce it, so will I!