It’s been a million years since a I posted a drawing. Have an Ikari, Daredevil’s newest enemy, complete with Manga Studio noodlin’ in the background.

Beginning an occasional series of… well, the world’s worst superheroes. Today’s contestant: Otterman! He’s an underwater adventurer like Aquaman or Namor, but like his namesake, he can’t actually breathe underwater, so he’s at a real disadvantage. His trademark fighting move is banging his enemies’ heads on the big metal plate on his chest, like an otter cracking open a clam. Easily distracted by stackable cups, he never the less does his best to fight for truth, justice, and scubagear endorsements.

Otterman co-created by Maile Reyes.

Somebody’s havin’ a bad day.

Recent events have brought this name out of retirement, so here we are. They’ve had a West Coast branch, they’ve had a Secret branch, they got a “mutant affairs” branch and now a robot branch. It’s about time for The Dirty South Avengers. We need protection down here, too. Monica Rambeau (Hopefully in a new costume) leads fellow southerns Rogue, Gambit, Doctor Voodoo, Cannonball and special guest New Orleans resident Damian Hellstrom into battle against… hurricanes? I don’t know who’s around to fight, but they’re gonna do it. The funny thing is, since I first started talking about this, Rogue has actually become an Avenger, and Cannonball, too. I didn’t even have him on the team before. I know Doctor Voodoo is currently dead, but what does that mean in comics? Especially for a dude called Doctor Voodoo.

Why do comic book artists seem to like to dress southern characters in trenchcoats? Monica and Gambit are from New Orleans, man, it’s never cold enough for a trenchcoat. Hellstrom is the only one with any sense.

Coulda put more work into that logo, but I was ready to get this off my desk.

Blade of the Immortal day 5, closing out the week with Makie. Makie is tall, lanky and has an air of sadness about her that can disarm people… all of which works to her advantage with the action starts.

I was trying like mad to channel even a little of the kinetic energy of Stuart Immonen. Not sure I got very far. Ah, well. The end.

Blade of the Immortal day 4 is Anotsu, our principle villain. For the most part. The way things went from black & white to a very murky gray over the course of the series is part of its power.

As for the artist, I think it’s obviously Mike Mignola.  Too obviously, this is where even I wasn’t sure what I was doing with this artist reference. I just thought about Anotsu carrying a big heavy weapon, and who else swings a heavy weapon around? Also thought heavy darks seemed like a good fit for the bad guy. Last one tomorrow.

Blade of the Immortal day 3 is Rin, the heroine, whose story drives the whole book, really. She’s doing her signature move, tossing 2 handfuls of knives she hides up her sleeves. 

The artist I was looking at was the late, great Mike Weiringo. Not sure that had much bearing on this, really, but Samura always draws this move from a kinda 3/4 view with her sleeves obscuring her face, and I was looking at how ‘Ringo handled Sue Storm during his time on the Fantastic Four to get a different look at an iconic image from the series. More tomorrow.

Blade of the Immortal day 2. It’s the mysterious Magatsu. Friend to our heroes and their enemy, who knows what his agenda really is? His secret weapon is a short sword hidden in the handle of his main sword, which he’s getting out here, so things must be going badly.

This was the first one I drew, and I realized I was going for a kinda John Romita, Jr. running pose, and that’s where the idea to look at other artists for each one came from. I dunno what the background is. Just self-indulgent scribbling. :)

Somebody else tomorrow!

I sat down to draw last week and drew a character from Blade of the Immortal, and then decided to draw some more. Further complicating matters, the initial drawing reminded me of another artist. It wasn’t really drawn in his style, but the character’s pose reminded me of his work. So then I decided every character would evoke a different creator I like in this admittedly vague way. This was probably a mistake (Especially since the initial drawing wasn’t done with this theme in mind, and I’m not posting it first), but, whatever, too late.

Here’s Manji, one of the two lead characters of the book. When I realized I wanted to draw one of those unique weapons he’s always spinning, Walt Simonson came to mind, naturally. So I tried to pose him in a way that reminded me of Walt. Is that obvious? Probably not! Was all this text necessary? Probably not! Too late! Another character tomorrow.

Another sketchbook thing, Spider Jerusalem and his two-faced cat. I miss those guy some times. The cat seems less weird now than she did back in the 90s.