Flying man meets flying gorilla

This is the cover for DC Comics Presents: Hawkman #1 (and only), a series of books that DC put out in 2004, paying tribute to long-time editor Julie Schwartz.  




It's a reworking of a memorable Murphy Anderson cover from the sixties.  As you can see, José's pencils were amazing and I tried very hard to retain as much of the middle tones as I could in the inks, especially the ape fur. 
He improved the layout by moving things around a little and he made the ape a bit more realistic and a little less cuddly.

Here's Murphy Anderson's cover from 1965.  This was the kind of image that could really warp a young mind, especially one that's only recently recovered from the sight of those flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.

Hawkman #33 cover

Someone messed up and printed this one from a low-res file so I'm showing it here as large as possible.

This was a fun one. I like Jimmy Palmiotti's Monolith character. In fact, I think I did some designs for it early on, when it was going to be called the Golem.

Looking at this piece and the Superman cover reminds me that I rarely miss a chance to stick a fire hydrant in a ground level, urban setting. I guess it's a bit of a running joke, plus -- they always look right to me, with the shadows and chains and rough edges. I'm going to add fire hydrants as a label and see how many I can come up with.

Update: I forgot to post the final version of the colors. There are just a few small changes, like the highlights on the Monolith, but I like this version (shown above) better.