SPECTATORS - Part 125
Plus, a spectacular cover gallery from Niko Henrichon!
Hang on, is it “temblor,” “tremblor” or “trembler?”
Brian here, still a little groggy after whatever the hell you’re supposed to call the tiny earthquake that nevertheless woke me bolt upright like Nosferatu at 4:22am this morning. At least our latest brutal heatwave ending is helping with the region’s three major wildfires? Hooray, Southern California!
Anyway, much to discuss on this slightly shaken Monday, so let’s get straight to today’s installment of Spectators from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks. Just one (magnificently full color) new page for you this evening, as Niko also had to tackle today’s extraordinary Artopsy, but we’ll have a bigger chunk of story for you next week…
Right after sending out last week’s installment, I learned the terrible news that we’d lost legendary comic artist John Cassaday at the unacceptably young age of 52.
Co-creator with writer Warren Ellis of the hugely innovative and influential Wildstorm series Planetary, Cassaday was a once-in-a-generation talent, though he couldn’t have been a kinder, more humble dude the few times we crossed paths.
Here’s what I had to say about John almost twenty years ago (?!), in my introduction to the first collection of Astonishing X-Men, his all-time classic run with writer Joss Whedon:
There’s a single page in Issue #4 that’s my favorite moment from any work of fiction that I’ve encountered in years.
The fact that this elegant page is made up of just a few silent panels is a testament to the power of John Cassaday, one of the three best visual storytellers alive…
When an artist is firing on all cylinders—like John does with every single line—it’s a writer’s job to back off and let the pictures tell the story.
You lucky readers who haven’t yet discovered this masterpiece of our medium will have to pick up the book to see exactly which page I’m talking about, but here’s another exquisite page of John’s that I’m fortunate enough to have in my collection:
And speaking of Joss Whedon’s outrageously talented collaborators, I was also crushed to hear about the death of artist Karl Moline (who was only 51, fuck!).
Karl co-created Fray, a groundbreaking comic set in the future of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe that somehow featured both amazing action set pieces AND genuine big laughs. Most creators struggle to pull off either, but Karl did it all with seeming ease.
My deepest condolences to the friends, family and many fans of these two remarkable artists.
Before I turn things over to my dear pal Niko Henrichon, I promised to give away my remaining signed copies of Saga #68 to a few of you generous paid subscribers of The Tower who posted to our discussion about the last museum and/or live sporting event you attended.
Intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe randomly selected a few of you commenters from this very random subject, starting with Eddie C:
Though I don’t go as often as I should, I did manage to check out The Poster House, a museum dedicated to poster artwork of all kinds on 23rd St in Manhattan. They had an exhibition of movie posters by Dawn Baillie. Cool stuff!
As for sporting event, I attended the US Open on Labor Day and saw a couple matches, as well as explored the grounds. I’ve been going every year since 2012, since it’s practically in my backyard (Queens).
Next up, Jan said:
The last museum I visited and the last sports event I visited happened on the same day. On Saturday, August 3, my wife and I travelled to Paris. In the morning we visited the glorious “Exposition Bande Dessinée, 1964-2024” in the Centre Pompidou featuring art work of some of the greatest to have worked in comic art (Spiegelman, Hergé, Kirby, Mignola, Moebius, Miller...), on multiple floors of the amazing Centre Pompidou building. Then we travelled by metro to Montmartre and found some standing room on the stairs of the Sacré Coeur hill where that day the men’s cycling road race of the Olympics passed three times. In a mass of people (you may have seen the images on tv) we cheered on the riders and saw our countryman Remco Evenepoel take the gold. After having dinner in a classic brasserie near the Gare Du Nord we returned with the Eurostar train to Brussels where our fantastic day had started.
Whoa, I’m jealous, Jan. (Of the comic art more than the bicycle spectating, but still.)
Finally, Sean M. wrote in from my old stomping grounds:
I was at a Guardians loss to the Orioles a few weeks ago. This weekend I’m going to an Akron RubberDucks game. It’s been a bit since I’ve been to a museum, although I did ride my bicycle past the Cleveland Museum of Art Saturday and saw Rodin’s The Thinker, famously damaged.
Yep, Cleveland is home to Rodin’s masterwork… or at least, one of 25 nearly identical castings of the same sculpture, though in 1970, a bomb equivalent to three sticks of dynamite blew ours right off its ass, perhaps as a war protest, though no one ever claimed responsibility or was apprehended. Hooray, Northeast Ohio!
Thanks to everyone who responded, and if you’d like a shot at winning future signed books (or if you just want to help underwrite the completion of our epic graphic novel), I hope you’ll consider joining your fellow giraffes in The Tower.
If so, we only have the rest of 2024 left together, so you may want to sign up at the monthly level instead of annually. But we appreciate however you choose to support us, even if it’s just to keep reading Spectators for free.
I’ll be back next Monday evening with a preview of Saga #69 and a cool update about that “long lost” radio drama by the Coen Brothers, but for now, please enjoy another awesome artistic autopsy performed the surgically precise Niko.
-BKV
Hi, everyone!
Today, for your monthly Artopsy, I’m going to show very old pieces of work, some of them are the very first work I did with Marvel comics, back in 2006!
A few months after the release of Pride of Baghdad, I started getting attention from other publishers, including Marvel Comics. I tried to work with them a few years earlier but never received any reply from the samples I sent them. I heard Marvel and DC were receiving hundreds of artwork samples every day. I guess the best way to attract their attention was by doing a nice book.
So I wanted to work with them because they were obviously one of the major players in the game, but in fact, I didn’t know much about the Marvel Universe and the whole complex mythology they had developed over so many years. I’m coming from a French cultural background and was more at ease with Tintin and Asterix.
I had read a few special comics projects here and there, like Frank Miller’s books: Elektra and Daredevil, with Sienkiewicz and Romita Jr. I also was a huge fan of the late Tim Sale, and had read the Daredevil and Spider-Man books he did with writer Jeph Loeb. Otherwise, I was kind of lost when Marvel started giving me work. Luckily, most of the editors I worked with were very nice and gave me all the info I needed, including digital comics.
So here’s the very first work I did. Two covers for Black Panther, Issues 26 and 27.
Here’s the original artwork, before coloring, of issue 26. I wish I could show the layouts but this is so old, it’s probably on a computer somewhere in Quebec.
Final artwork. At the time I was only doing digital coloring.
Issue 27 cover was ordered as a tribute to a classic Fantastic Four cover: Issue 3. I think Jack Kirby drew that.
This time, I only did a pencilled image and went straight to digital colors.
Final result:
Now let’s jump a few years ahead, to 2008, for these Marvel Adventures covers.
[BKV again, letting you know that there are over a dozen more incredible behind-the-scenes images for those of you in The Tower after the paywall, including one of my favorite Niko covers ever!]