Saturday, August 20, 2011

Teen Titans #100 and the Covers

If you pick up this month's Teen Titans (out next week) you will see a few pinups in there, one of which is by me!  I drew (and inked and colored) some Titan Ladies.  I've always loved the thought of teams because you can contrast characters and interact them in cool ways.  The tough thing with them is coming up with an illustration that has any sort of color or composition sense!  That's what I tried to attempt here.

I think the opportunity came about because of the image below:
I had done a Supergirl cover featuring some Teen Titans at one point (inked by Richard Friend, colored by Guy Major).  It was never used, unfortunately!

I wish I could say it was a fluke, but in fact, I drew four Supergirl covers in that year's time that won't ever be published.  There's a lot of confusion dealing with the "why"s and I'm not sure I was supposed to know.  Eventually I just stepped down because I didn't feel like there was anything else I could do.

So when I put the above cover online, I was pleasantly surprised how well fans reacted--thank you!  It feels good that the cover's gotten a good amount of playtime online, all things considered.

Another comfort at the time was that I was working on variant covers for Batwoman--we had it set up that I would do variants for JH's run and he would do variants for mine (meaning, the main covers during my arc would be drawn by me).  AND I got to ink and color these, which really got my creative juices flowing.  It's been a while since I've had that opportunity and I had a blast!

So, I'd done four of the five variants, when I had found out that DC decided not to publish any variant covers on Batwoman. 

I have told many fans to keep an eye out for these variants and I apologize for getting your hopes up!  No word yet on whether they will ever see print.  I've tried to ask about printing them on the interior of their respective Batwoman issues, but haven't heard anything yet. 

No definitive word, either, on whether they will let me do covers for my arc.  Or give me another cover gig.  For now I'm still working on Batwoman interiors, and that'll start February of next year.  Thank you for your eagerness and I hope you'll be patient and keep your eyes open when I have work coming out again!

In the meantime, your positive buzz I think goes a long way.  And never fear, I will get back to being prolific soon enough.  I will grab fate by the balls and tell it to shove off!!!