Layouts for Grimwood's Daughter

These popped up on eBay the other day. You can see the auctions here and here. Stop by and give 'em a bid or two.

Grimwood was drawn from a full script, so even at this early stage, I wanted to work out the line endings and balloon placements. These were slightly text-heavy and I was a novice so knowing exactly how much space was available for the art was important. The final lettering was done by Harvey Kurtzman's letterer at the time, Phil Felix. I think I took over the lettering myself on the later chapters to avoid mailing the boards back and forth.

And, just to see if anyone was paying attention, I slipped in a Springsteen lyric in the last panel.

Karloff/Frankenstein

Hey, Halloween is only a few days away... time to do some monster sketches!

Outsiders Annual cover art

I hadn't seen this one for several years but the owner of the original painting posted a scan on the CAF site recently so I thought I'd update my old post, showing the sketch and pencils:

I'd forgotten how bad those old seps were. They really washed out the colors.

Remembering Bob Oksner...

...who would have been 95 today. Here's a one-page biography from a 1962 Jerry Lewis comic:

Here's a stern-looking portrait of Bob by Neal Adams, from a 1971 DC house ad announcing the winners of the ACBA awards. Nicely lettered by the inimitable Gaspar Saladino.








Finally, one of my favorite Oksner originals, a Supergirl page from a 1971 issue of Adventure Comics. By the way, future comic writer Steve Englehart assisted with the background inks on this page.

Twitter

As some of you may have noticed, I signed up for a Twitter account last night and was warmly received by many of my cartooning brethren. What you may not know is that my account was suspended this morning, without warning or explanation. I'm trying to find out what the problem was/is but I want you all to know it was their doing, not mine. I hope it can be resolved soon. In the meantime, I'm once again completely twitless.

Black Widow redux

A while back I was asked to do an updated version of a Marvel Fanfare piece from the '80's. The commissioner asked for the classic costume and hair. I was able to fix some of the things that bothered me in the original, like the spider and the pose. I also tweaked the lighting a bit. As with most pieces, I started with a sketch...

Batman, Batgirl and Robin

Step by step, from layout to final inks:

Hellboy and a cow: inks

I thought about adding a saddle but that just seemed wrong somehow.

Hellboy and a cow

Pencils on Bristol, 14 x 17":