Superboy covers 10 and 11. I think these both ship in the same month and they mark the end of this Superboy run and, as a result, my run as cover artist of this series. Five issues! Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
Big thanks to Rafael Albuquerque, whose cover (for issue 1 of this series) I swiped for issue 11. Being the last issue, the editors wanted to hearken back (way, way back) to the first issue to show that Superboy was no longer alone in Smallville; that he had formed a small family unit now with his pals Simon and Lori. So I took their notes very literally and (with Rafael’s blessing) just pulled the camera back from his original composition to show the gang together. I redrew Rafael’s Superboy to match the styles a bit. And added Krypto, of course. I tried to pitch a Krypto-centic cover a couple of times, but it never quite worked out.
That’s that! Hope you enjoyed these!

rated M for Mayhem

This is the finished cover for Superboy #9. I’m not sure what I think of it. Some bits of it I like, while other bits bother me. Superboy’s pose is a bit rigid and uninteresting, the colours are kind of lackluster and the depth of the foreground to background elements got lost. I think the worst thing about it is that it just looks like a piece of ‘interior’ art (which is not necessarily a bad thing) rather than a ‘cover’, which should be distinctive and eye-catching.
I thought it might be interesting to walk through the process and show you the initial concepts, with a bit of explanation for each.
 

This is the first concept I submitted. What many of you may not realize is that monthly comics covers are usually done with very little idea of what the final story will actually be. In this case, I had a plot breakdown for the entire story arc, so I decided to focus on the ‘Hollow Men’ because they’re the creepy villains of this story. They’re basically zombified farmers, which, if you ran into them in real life, would be scary as hell, but in a static image they just sort of look like farmers. Challenge number one.
I went with this idea because I wanted to maintain the simple, graphic look of the covers that was established with issue 1. Flat colours wherever possible and rough graphic shapes. I think, of all the concepts, I still like this one the best. It would have been eye-catching at least. There’s a creepiness about that farmer silhouette that says something’s not right in Smallville.
 

This was the second concept. A more traditional superhero cover. Still featuring the Hollow Men, but in a more aggressive situation with Superboy featured front and centre. He’s angry and fighting, which is something you see on 90% of all superhero covers and is something I usually try to avoid, but there you have it. I’d be fighting too if a bunch of zombie farmers were groping me. I like the foreground farmer’s head being punched, but otherwise this is pretty boring and run-of-the-mill.
 

Similar to concept 2, but with Superboy being overrun by the Hollow Men. This one also introduces the idea of the pitchfork visual, which says ‘threatening farmer’ pretty clearly. Though, unless those are magical pitchforks, I don’t know what use they’d be against Superboy. Anyway…
 

This was the final concept. More of a situational scene, we’re on a farm field instead of in a mucky cave setting. I think this concept works much better in grayscale than it does in colour. The editors liked the graphic composition of the criss-crossing pitchforks in front of Superboy and I was in agreement at the time. Maybe if I’d coloured it in sepia tones it would have been more successful. There’s also more motion in Superboy’s body than in the final piece – sometimes a final drawing can really stiffen up and it’s difficult to pinpoint why while you’re in the middle of working on it.
 
So that’s how I got to the finished issue 9 cover. See what you think and chime in if you like. I’m wrapping up my Superboy cover run soon and I think the next couple of covers are much stronger. Cover illustration is an art unto itself, and I’m learning as I go.
More next month!

Another Superboy cover, this time for issue 8. It might seem like I tailored the bird theme to my own tastes, but this idea was actually pitched to me by the editors and I embraced it wholeheartedly.
More animals in superhero comics, that’s my motto!

I’m the new cover artist on Jeff Lemire’s Superboy series, starting with issue 7 and continuing through… I don’t know how long. Anyway, this is the first of several and it was a lot of fun to do. I’m hoping to keep them all relatively simple and graphic.
This is the original RGB version (the reds and oranges got muddy and dark in the print version). I gave them both, so hopefully this will at least find its way into the digital release.

Before we started work on Assassin’s Creed: The Fall, Ubisoft asked for some pin-ups to include in their upcoming Art Book. This was my contribution; a Mongolian assassin at the scene of Genghis Khan’s death. Possibly his own daughter? I had a whole backstory in my head when I drew it, but I can’t remember any of it now.
Anyway, it has snow and a Mongolian horse, so that’s good enough for me.