Built for love, but ready for war

This is the description given to She-Hulk in this next page, this time quite clearly written and drawn by Frank Miller.

Sin City had already made its debut in Dark Horse Presents but it was still in it’s early stages (first story) when this issue of She-Hulk was produced

And what we have here looks as if it could just be a page straight from Sin City that is with the obvious exception of the hand lettered dialogue that accompanies it:-

Where Frank is clearly having fun at his own expense with parody laden noir movie dialog, firstly attacking his own laziness at drawing backgrounds, then saying comics are not fun

She-Hulk scowls, fronts, mutters and grimaces - none of which she has ever been known to do at all.

And finally there is a reference to the infamous issue of Alpha Flight “Snowblind” and ( much lesser known) more recent of She-hulk itself (featuring the Living Eraser) in the shape of “too many blank pages”…

It shows that Frank Miller does actually have a sense of humour, and is willing to pick himself to peices… If only we had seen a lot more like this and a lot less… Well - I think you know what I mean…

This particular page has to be one of the hardest I have ever had to recreate, I have no idea how big the original art is, but my recreation is on a A4 size piece of paper and it took ages to do! So I don’t think Frank Miller was really being that lazy, do you?

NEXT WEEK:- More Frank Miller Magic featuring She-Hulk

She-‘oo me old china?

Having established last week that the first would be replacement artist for She-hulk would be British is a start...

But even this does not begin to encapsulate the page that follows as written and drawn by Dave Gibbons- Yes the same Dave Gibbons best known as the artist of ‘Watchmen’… (and as featured on this blog before)

There are multitude of references in the art, this is just a few :-

The coat the punk rocker is wearing is the same as Rorschach’s there is the obvious inclusion of a Smiley badge, the shorts also appear to be pin striped just like Rorschach’s trousers. But we have the much more traditional union jack T-shirt and mohawk haircut to offset this

The police-man is a complete miss mash of apparel - wearing a english police helmet, a sheep-skin jacket (as if he is from ‘up north’), a black shirt with FBI written on it, a standard english police truncheon and a badge on his belt very reminiscent of Judge Dredd from 2000AD (a comic that Gibbons worked on extensively), he is also referred to as "Yer Honour" suggesting he could be in fact a Judge...

There are also a number of british items in the street, such as an old red telephone box, a London double decker bus together with the marvel cliche generic buildings with american names just put on them such as new york town hall etc

On top of all of this is the dialogue which is laden with he most over the top mock cockney you could possibly imagine - Its much more like what a Hollywood producers idea of what cockney might sound like… And yes I am thinking of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins right now…

The page concludes with the appearance of what is most likely to be the former UK British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Overall one must guess that Mr Gibbons must have heard too many times an rather limited view of response from any would be american comic publisher to which he had submitted his work as a reason for rejection

And this page is a summary of all those negative responses all combined together in one single page?

Renee’s response on the next page seems to suggest this also with a direct statement of failure to capture the American idioms…

Moving on - we again play guess the next artist - Renee says it’s “One of the top talents” - She-Hulk Mentions “Grim and Gritty” and “this Dark Stuff”…

Who could it be?

NEXT WEEK:- She-hulk wonders if her run-on sentence is ever going to end!

Super Spidey-Man! Issue 6

This month we feature the ludicrous misadventures of the Jester... who unfortunately does not have a thing for citrus fruits....

Super-Spidey Man! Will return the 1st week of July!

NEXT WEEK:- WHAAT? It's She -ulk, that's oo!

Anti-Mutant Hysteria...

This is what Renee Witterstaetter Suggests as the reason why all of Marvels "Mutant Titles" loose "Millions every year" in this next completed page of She-Hulk...

This reference having a number of inferences :-

1) It's a call-back to the cover of Sensational She-Hulk Number one on which She-Hulk states that if you don't buy her comic she will come around to your house and rip up all of your X-men comics

2) The Anti-Mutant hysteria angle being a very well established trope for all X-men comics, in the Marvel 616 (where this comic is set), so this could actually be a legitimate reason for low selling comics in that universe - however there wouldn't be that many titles being published logically speaking - a point made more clear by the "millions" wasted

3) In truth this is actually a tongue in cheek inverse statement - in other words it's actually She-Hulk's comic that is not sifting shed loads of copies - remember this comic is the "artists interpretation" of real life events that took place in the Marvel 616

That Aside - Renee introduces the gist of this issue, she has chosen some well-known artists and writers to try making a few try out pages for the She-Hulk comic, and she starts with a "famous British Writer/Artist"....

That British Writer/Artist will be immediately familiar to anyone who has been following this blog...

Having been featured quite a number of times (and yes I have met this person)

Can you guess who it is?!

NEXT WEEK:- Super Spidey-Man! Returns with Issue 6 of the still ongoing monthly comic recreated by myself, this month we feature the antics of The Jester

IN TWO WEEKS TIME:- Not only do we find out the identity of  the"famous British Writer/Artist" but of course there will be a lot more with 2 pages of She-Hulk!

A Dangling Sub-Plot

Following below is the next completed page of my attempt at recreating She-Hulk 50

A few things do need explanation in this comic...

Firstly the JB font lettering you can see is scanned from the original page,  I figured that was okay as it was not hand lettered in the first place!

Also for those unfamiliar with the concept of the She-hulk comic - which gets a bit more clarification on this reproduced page - the John Byrne issues of the Sensational She-hulk, at least several issue of John Byrnes run on The Fantastic Four and one issue of The Thing are all comics published in the Marvel 616 universe...

That is to say these are "artists reinterpretations" of real life events that happened inside the Marvel 616 themselves in comic book form, which the characters themselves have been seen to read and also explains how creators can appear in comics (which is not a new thing as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby appear in the Fantastic Four Annual where Reed and Sue get married)

Quite how these Marvel 616 comics happen to be available in the real world to be purchased is not explained

But all of the rest of this a comic inside a comic, about a comic and about the comic industry is hopefully familiar to anyone following this blog previously...

The fact that the She-hulk comic exists in the Marvel 616 explains why She-hulk can readily ignore the "fourth wall", talk to the reader, talk to John Byrne and even know she is in a comic and in this issue how she can have a one to one conversation with the then real-life editor of the comic, Renee Witterstaetter

She-hulk herself explains she sold Marvel the license of her likeness to make a comic...

One thing to note about the art here, there is an uncredited cameo from the then new artist on Namor, Jae Lee, whose work appears on the picture of Namor you can see in-between She-Hulk and Renee , this was one of the first mainstream comics to feature his work...

And no, I don't know what happened to him, either :-)

NEXT WEEK:- Renee rips into the X-men comics...

Byrne, Baby Byrne!

Starting this week and over the course of several months in-between drawing issues of Super-Spidey Man I am going to attempt to recreate a comic by John Byrne

As I don't think I have mentioned this before-  I have been a fan and follower of JB since 1978... I guess that makes both of us seem pretty old

After quite some time thinking I still wasn't quite there in being able to do any recreation the justice it deserves (which I still think) and changing my mind many times over what comic to chose... I have kind of gone "the easy" route

And have chosen The Sensational She-Hulk Issue 50 as the comic I will attempt to recreate

for those who haven't seen this comic before this also poses the challenge of being able to recreate all of the various guest artist pages of this issue as well

So this should be fun!

Pages will appear here on the blog in-between complete issues of Super Spidey Man as often as I can Manage, at least I will try and aim for 1 page of She-hulk a week! Commentary will be minimal as I am spending all my time drawing!

Here is my attempt at the cover and the splash page

NEXT WEEK:- More She-hulk!

Super Spidey-Man! Issue 5

This month I proudly present a brand new post modernised take on the "origin" of Spidey-Man as seen through the filter of a Marvel Uk 1970s comic!

Featuring an essay by Stan Dolt, A letter from Steve Ditko (as if), J Arthur Crank and more!

For those who are curious, anyone who sends a letter has a chance of getting a drawing of their choice!

NEXT WEEK:- Something very different indeed!