Two new commissions from Thony Silas - Asgardian Storm and Dr. Strange

Yeah, whodathunkit? Jack Knight seems to be my third choice lately when I need to choose a character for an artist to draw. Dr. Strange has always been #1 and now Asgardian Storm, aka Storm as Thor, seems to be my 2nd go to girl. Asgardian Storm was designed by Art Adams and is essentially Storm with the power of Thor, which she obtains by holding the hammer. I tend to give artists leeway on the costume, but the Art Adams' design is so wonderful most enjoy drawing that fairly faithfully.

I have been having fun on the collector's society forum lately, and a thread entitled "never heard of him" contained some work by Thony Silas and you know what? I had never heard of him! Now normally I steer clear of those without professional credits but it turns out that Thony has some, and the work was so good I had to jump right on it even if he had not.

First choice, Doc and Clea. What do you think of this?

Dr. Strange & Clea by Thony Silas

I know, right? (*said in best Craig Ferguson imitation)

And if that isn't badass enough I got this as well.

Asgardian Storm by Thony Silas

I mean, is this guy good or what? Yeah, I thought so. Now go get your own. He is on deviant art. Tell him you seen it here first!

PEACE!




(That closing salutation is an inside joke to the wife, Bonnie. I normally say "tippy tae on the sippy sie")

STRANGE TALES 11 cover - KEVIN NOWLAN

This post is another one of those "what a great piece of art I just bought" posts. They are getting more and more common, and what a wonderful happenstance that is. Costly, but wonderful. So this week I got two Starman pages, one by matt Smith and the other by Richard Pace. But what really tickled my fancy was finally getting this:

art by Kevin Nowlan, with layout/idea by Carl Potts

Published in 1987, Strange Tales was right in my Dr. Strange college wheelhouse along with The Michael Golden portfolio, Triumph & Torment (Mignola and Badger on art), and Into Shamballa (Dan Green, watercolors, on the gorgeous art). Although this isn't my favorite piece of art by Kevin Nowlan featuring Dr. Strange, or even of Doc by Carl Potts!, it is a really strong piece of art that really adds nicely to my collection. Slowly but surely it is getting better, more classy as it were. Yeah, that's the ticket...classy comic art. With demons of course. And Mr. Jip!

New comic art t-shirt - RUDY NEBRES DOC VS DRAC!!!

Earlier this month I blogged about getting some shirts made from my comic art. Well I need to keep the variety up because I wear them all weekend, every weekend, so far. So I got one from the art that inspired the idea in the first place. Check out the Rudy Nebres Dr. Strange versus Dracula, feasting on the Scarlet Witch no less!

No smartass comments about the model, folks!

Check my other posts for the original (Thanks to Rudy, with isn't online himself in any way, shape, or form - so he will never see this but thanks are due!) and the colored versions (Thanks Gerry!).

I am not sure what is up next. Maybe I will look over the 20 or so designs I have already made and get another one now. In fact I am pretty sure I will. I have 2 or 3 ones that really excite me but they are fall and winter shirts so those can't be next. I think maybe the Zappa by Rick Geary, but I haven't settled on if Lyle Lovett should be on there as well. And if he is, who is front and who is back. Choices are the most fun though, so it is a good problem to have. Maybe I will wait on that then and think it over. Something else then in the meantime? Hmmmmm.....


OH! Since we are here we chould clear something up. One of those other shirts is not pink. It is red. And it came out so much better than was conveyed by my horrible pictures of it. So I took a scan of one side and wanted you to see it in its' glory.

Yeah, it may be wrinkled but it still looks sweet, no?

Not in all its' glory as the other side is awesome as well and you don't know that by the picture, but you get the idea now.

Happy Birthday Molly!

Yesterday was the anniversary of the greatest day of my life - the birth of my first daughter, Molly. The picture above is an old one, but I like it. Molly feels differently. So a slightly belated shout out to Molly Wasielewski on the occasion of her entrance into teenagerdom! You go girl!

And to keep it comic art related, here is a link to Molly's comic art fans page. She only has a few pieces up but she loves comments.

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=46034

In with the new continues...Starman has arrived

This is the piece I was talking about earlier this month. It has arrived, so I feel safe in showing it off. One of the first pieces, and maybe the only piece, that I have bought from someone asking "make an offer". I believe this was drawn, along with a Shade piece owned (for now!) by Mike White, for use as a trading card that was never made. Whatever the reason for its' creation, I am very happy to now own it!

Comic art T-shirts!

Well, when I received the Rudy Nebres commission that I posted about here I was so thrilled with it that I wanted to do something special. So I decided it would be a wonderful t-shirt and set about trying to find out how to make that happen. In other words I asked the comicart-l yahoo group, a wonderful list group of individuals who collect comic art and are generally open to helping each other out. Group members Steve Erwin and Rob Stolzer were kind enough to reply with suggestions (thanks guys!) and I decided to go with Rob's suggestion first. I ended up ordering the Rudy Nebres shirt and another one with art drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz of musician Roger Waters. Rog is touring The Wall right now and I wanted the shirt to wear to the concert I went to last week. Well I put in the two orders, which have to be submitted individually. And while I awaited the results I made a LOT more t-shirt designs. In fact it was the most fun I have had with my comic art in a long while, and I enjoy the hell out of my comic art on a regular basis.

But wait, trouble was afoot! I got an email stating that the company noticed the art had an artist's signature and they wanted permission from Rudy to do the shirt. That was not going to happen as Rudy is off-line, and a few emails later I just cancelled that order. Then I got to photoshop and removed the signatures from the t-shirt designs I had made but not submitted, including Rudy's piece. This was not my first choice as I wanted to give the artist's their due credit but hey, I wanted to wear the art even more. And what do you know...the Sienkiewicz shirt was produced and the order completed despite having Bill's signature right there for all to see. So I was able to wear this shirt to the show.

art by Bill Sienkiewicz

 Now this was my first shirt, and as excited as I was to order it I wanted to wait until it came to see how it came out. Plus there are so many choices of shirts, colors, etc. that I wanted to see how the material was as well. And I had never before tried to use photoshop, although I was familiar with it because my wife is a web designer for Rutgers University and is VERY good at her job. But she don't photo the shop for me too much and I did not want to hassle her with my art - she puts up with enough in that regard. If I had done this shirt now the white on the edges would be gone and the shirt color would flow right into the art. BTW, here is a link to the original piece I used for this shirt. http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=247956&GSub=38471 I only used 4 or 5 colors for the t-shirt and my wife likes how that looks better than the original! 

So when that one came out so well I went to town. I decided I could not wait and ordered two more shirts. I have about 20 designed, but thought that one in particular stood out. Well, the Grendel Prime hoodie looks awesome, but I can't wear that in summer. So I went with art from one of my favorite artists, Andy MacDonald. Andy created NYC Mech with Ivan Brandon and Miles Gunter. Ivan has gone on to well deserved acclaim, mostly while working at DC, but Andy is just as talented an artist as Ivan is a writer and deserves to get more work as well. And he has too, but not enough as far as I am concerned. And with this shirt I decided to go with art on the front and the back. While you can't see the art too well, here is what I did. BTW, I went with a different brand of shirt just to see which one I would like the best.

Bruunhilde, The Valkyrie by Andy MacDonald

Asgardian Storm by Andy MacDonald

Here are links to the originals in my CAF gallery.
http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=279482&GSub=102726
http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=223900&GSub=82376

Last but not least I decided to have some fun. Well, more fun I guess because making these shirts was just a blast. I pretty much went through every Itoya I own and looked over what I would want to wear and what would make a good shirt. Panels from my Mazzucchelli DD page seemed a good idea but I didn't like how they came out on the shirt. I have a great piece by Walt Simonson, a portrait of Alan Moore as Rorschach, and decided that would be my next purchase. I tried a different brand shirt and this time went for something a little more than the basic tee. I got something with color on the neck and sleeves, and while this one has a little bit of sketchiness due to the art being resized larger than the original I still think it came out well.

Alan Moore as Rorschach by Walt Simonson

Alan Moore as Rorschach by Walt Simonson

Man, I can't wait to wear these to conventions. I wore the red Andy Mac one to work today, even though I am a Ph.D. level psychologist working at a major state psychiatric center. Casual Friday indeed. I wasn't out of the house for five minutes today and already got a compliment at Quick Check. The shirts ran me from $20ish to $30ish, and they have all sorts of products to choose from. I expect to ask for these for Christmas and my birthday and better have a whole wardrobe full by this time next year. I have designed all sorts of them, Asgardian Storm shirts, shirts with the same image on the front and back (my wife thinks that is stupid but I want everyone to see the art, coming AND going!), Linsner shirts, Texeira shirts, more Andy Mac shirts, ad infinitum. I expect to get the Nebres shirt soon as well. So if you like these, feel free to make your own at customink.com.

One last thing though. I am a bit afraid an artist will yell at me for these! I have a few more Andy Macs shirts ready to go but Andy and Ivan sell their own line of shirts. Even though I have not used NYC Mech art I hope Andy is cool with it. We'll find out in October at NYCC I guess, because you know I will be wearing these or others all four days. So if you see me there, tell me if you like the shirts...it will make my day!

The Michael Golden Dr. Strange portfolio

In this untitled post here I described how I had the Michael Golden Dr. Strange portfolio plates displayed in my room at college and that I was occasionally having artists do homages/recreations/interpretations of the plates for my original art collection. I have had one or two more completed since then and thought I would post the remaining plates as a nice and easy reference point for future commissions. Plus they look so good nice and big like this.

PLATE 3 - CLEA

PLATE 2 - MORDO

PLATE 5 - ETERNITY

I posted the other three plates (The Ancient One, Dormammu, and Nightmare) in that untitled post I link to above. These are just fantastic pieces of art and I have inquired with Renee and Michael Golden about doing a recreation of one of the plates but the price is not what I am looking for, yet. So I will continue to get ones like this:

JK WOODWARD does Plate 1 - The Ancient One