Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Jailbait Avengers (WARNING - slightly risque, but probably work safe)

As I vaguely mentioned in the Young Avengers thread I have just finished a piece for Rich Johnston's 'Civil Wardrobe' comic coming out in October (should be in Previews next week). The comic is a parody of current trends in Marvel comics and includes art by the likes of Frazer Irving, Sam Hart, Mike Netzer and Fred Hembeck along with a load of other very talented artists.

In amongst that lot you'll aslo find me. The piece I've done is 'Jailbait Avengers' and was a joy to do. Below is the unlettered version of the art for all to see. I'll see if I can post a better version when I get home since this one is reduced a lot and slightly fuzzy. If'n you like it then don't forget to ask in your LCS if they're getting copies because it'll be well worth it (pluggity plug).

Bevis

Oh, and the insert panel is Tony Stark (sort of) but it also started out as a caricature of Allan Heinberg. It's not all that accurate, but it amused me.

That. Is. Fantastic.

No, scratch that. It's Fabulous. Magnificent stuff Bevis!

Thanking you kindly Wayne. ChickenHawkeye was an absolute bugger to get right. In fact originally the whole layout was vastly different and I knew it should work but it simply wouldn't. I spent three hours or something tryign to get it to work and it just didn't. It looked cluttered and awkward. Basically it was going to be based on teh kind of promo shot they have of the cast for the OC and the like but it just looked wrong. So I gave up and decided to start again. I sat there with all the YA issues and took a different approach. Instead of doing it as a promo shot I approached it in the same way that Cheung did a lot of the covers, with one or two characters front and centre large and the others behind them. That clicked and I got everyone apart from ChickenHawkeye right pretty much staright away. i went though about six different poses for her before finally getting that one and finally it all hung together like it should do. Yay!

I also tried to get something of the way Cheung draws into it as well. I didn't want to just ape his style and didn't want it not to be obviously by me, but I think I got the balance right.

And deservedly so! Great piece of work, Bevis. Patriot's star pasties are a hoot... what's up with Iron Vision Lad's "package"?

And don't worry yourself about how "ChickenHawkeye" turned out. The girls look great. I shall definitely keep my eyes open for this; It's assuredly going to be the ONLY Civil War-related comic I buy that I wasn't already collecting outright.

Well originally his 'codpiece' was even more... elongated, as t'were, only it was just that little bit too suggestive so i toned it down slightly. I didn't bother toning down the bits either side though.

That's awesome, Bevis!


But...we have to wait until October to get this?

Afraid so, but it'll be worth it.

In fact you can see the cover in the latest LITG column here and you can also see Mike Netzer's 'Thor of the Church of Scientology' on his website here

I've also seen Kaare Andrew's 'Osama Bin Hulk' which is both brilliantly twisted and just a beautiful piece of art as well. I'm not sure what the other artists are doing, although Liam Sharp was certainly going to be doing 'Captain Beckham' at one point and may well still be. I'm particularly keen on seeing what Frazer does. Great artist and a lovely chappie as well to boot.

Ooh, me too, me too! His work on the KLARION 7S mini was outstanding.

October, huh? That means it should be listed in the August Previews. I'll have to look for it next month. Thanks for all the info, Bev!

Well, hell's bells, man, why hasn't one of the Big Two comics firms snapped you up by now? This is 500,000-copies-a-month-quality work. From the names alone, though, you and your colleagues seem to be too potent as satirists to ever get them to pay you for this caliber of drawing. I wish I read enough Marvel works (I said "read," not "bought" {g}) to "get" all the parodies.

Pov, all being well it should be in Previews next week, which I guess means that either it's due first week in October or that it takes slightly longer for them to be ordered because it's a small company producing it.

And thanking you kindly Grey. I have to admit that i think I've upped my game recently. In the last six months or so I've actually got to the point where I have enough confidence in my work and have developed the skills that mean I think I can really consider properly making a career out of this. Of course the first thign is to get the foot in the door, which this could potentially be since even though it's coming out from a small company it's written by a known name with known artists and is a parody of Marvel which means at least some Marvel editors are bound to see it (Quesada gave Rich his blessing to do the comic i the first place). I'm also doing a new Oddcases story and the pages I;ve done so far I'm more plesed with than I have been by anything else and we're actually putting together a proper pitch for it. As always with comics though it's getting noticed in the first palce that matters and until recently I don't think I;ve had the balls to actually push myself in the way that I need to.

After all, up until the last year or so Frazer (who I've known for a while now) wasn't known and see how quickly he's got a name for himself. Two other people to keep an eye out for are Natalie Sandalls (who is also doing a page in Civil Wardrobe) and Jamie McKelvie who has got Phonogram coming out later this year (written by Kieron Gillen who is also worth keeping an eye out for). They've been small pressing for ages with bits and pieces of professional work eher and there but they're really getting notice now. Nat and Jamie are both brilliantly lovely people are sickeningly good artists too.

OK going off the point rather there but I'm being very passionate about up and coming artists and small press of late (which of course is no bad thing). What I was going to say as well though, is that with most of the issue you probably won't need to knwo too much about what's going on at Marvel. Most of the characters are the big names (Black Panther, Captains America and Britain, thor, Hulk and so on) and the jokes are fairly universal about comics, it just so happens it's based on Marvel. I'd love to see what Rich would do with DC characters as well but I have a feeling DC wouldn't be quite so open to the idea. You never know though...