Art For Art’s Sake #287: Comic Art For Your Viewing Pleasure

It’s another week, therefore it’s time for another spin through some of the finest comic art I saw on the Internet – all killer, no filler – It’s Art For Art’s Sake…

John McCrea posted this about the new Deadeyes and this particular variant cover by the great Simon Gane…

‘Here’s Simon Gane’s variant cover for Dead Eyes: the Empty Frames #3! What a beauty! I love Simon’s work and commissioned him for this cover and bought the original off him. Lucky me! Dead Eyes #1 should still be in the shops and it’s awesome- go out and buy it, please and thank you! And thanks so much to everyone who already has!’

And while we’re talking about McCrea and his great artwork, here’s a few more Dead Eyes by co-creator John McCrea…

And this from Simon Gane – Milo Manara‘s Miele/Honey…

… and a Savage Land Storm…

Kyle Baker house ad for The Shadow – a great, great series from the late 80s…

The New Mutants by Alan Davis and Paul Neary

Thunder Frog by Walt Simonson – from an old Marvel Age comic

Wonder Woman by Sebastián Píriz

Leonardo Romero – Batman Rogue’s Gallery

Damion Scott – ‘Metropolis’ – from Solo #10 (2006)

Jorge Fornes – Harley Quinn variant

Evan Dorkin… the whole Bill & Ted gang’s all here…

Gorgeous Craig Hamilton Nightcrawler…

Doctor Strange by Michael Golden

Terry Dodson – Zatanna: Bring Down the House 3

Batman – Lee Weeks

W Scott Forbes – Poison Ivy

And more Poison Ivy by Babs Tarr…

And finally this week… a little Coyote. Now this one takes me right back to my teens. Although the Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers created book, I Am Coyote, had already appeared in Eclipse Magazine #2-8 from 1981-1983, I first saw it when Englehart took it back to Marvel, his first work there since the many problems he’d had with them over rights in the ’70s. But Epic Comics was different, headed by Archie Goodwin and publishing creator-owned series, it was a strange mix of Heavy Metal and Marvel, with an eclectic range of books – so many of them absolutely wonderful – things like Moonshadow, Bozz Chronicles, Alien Legion, Starstruck… and of course, Groo The Wanderer.

Well, Coyote was an early Epic comic, published from 1983 across 16 issues, and it was something that I just loved. I was 12 at the time, a precocious reader, getting into plenty of different comic books at the time, far beyond the Marvel zombie stage, X-Men loving fan I had been. So, Coyote, the Epic version, really hit at the right time.

The first couple of issues had incredible art from Steve Leialoha, absolutely gorgeous things that were just so great, so much love obviously poured into every page. But that meant that Leialoha was taking an age on each issue – five months on issue 1, two-and-a-half on issue 2, something that just meant a bi-monthly book like this was never going to be kept on schedule. All of which meant that, unfortunately, Leialoha had to step away. Issue 3 was by Jackson Guice and Bob Wiacek, and then, from issue 4, a new artist, Chas/Charles Truog, came on to provide art for the series. The same Truog whose art would later adorn Grant Morrison‘s run on Animal Man from 1988.

It’s all about the Coyote myths of the American peoples, lots of relationships, strange occurrences, plenty of bizarre storylines. But most of all it just seemed to this young (at the time) reader as something different and innovative, and so much fun. Of course, looking back on it now, it was hardly radical, sitting in the left field of what was laughingly called mainstream comics of the time – sure, there were no superheroes in it, sort of, but it still held to the accepted norms of what comics were at the time in the Americas. Re-reading it recently, it’s aged not too well perhaps, but some of the fun is still there. And that Leialoha artwork is still an absolute joy.

Anyway, all this comes from seeing just a couple of house ads for it – and that set me off on a memory trip… it’s the age, you know.