Unapologetic Zaree [戯絵]

 
A little background information on this week's submission to The Line It Is Drawn...

Secrets of a Super-Hero Sketch Artist: Cartoon Crisis

On this week's The Line It Is Drawn, I had the pleasure of revisiting a topic I had done five months ago, this time spotlighting 16 DC Comics cartoons (spanning six decades) that are no longer being produced. Can you name them all?

See the full wraparound cover version (as well as the fantastic pieces my compatriots have created) here. 


(Based on the cover of  "Crisis on Infinite Earths #1" by George Pérez. Done with respect to him and all of the talent behind these fantastic programmes.)

Secrets of a Super-Hero Sketch Artist: Con Artist with a Cause

I used to attend the Comic-Con International held in San Diego quite regularly — seven years out of the decade of the naughties, in fact. This was just before the event had exploded into the massive pop-culture phenomenon that now offers extremely slim odds of my being able to attend.

Very interesting that it was only now that I made my first submission into the event’s Souvenir Book. I would admit that my then lack of confidence in my rendering of human figures made me apprehensive to participate a decade before. Perhaps my 100-plus weeks on The Line It Is Drawn had finally emboldened me...

The subtext of this piece was obvious. While Bob Kane may had triggered the initial imaginative spark, it had become more and more apparent that his collaborator Bill Finger provided much of the tinder to the creative fire that forged the enduring concept, and legend, of the Batman. It was very likely that the red-garbed, Flash Gordon-esque mystery man I had depicted above, which was based on Bob Kane’s original Bat-Man concept, may had been what Kane would have pitched to National Comics (now DC Comics) if he had not first consulted Finger.

Much of this had been brought to the public light recently thanks to the exhaustive efforts of author and historian Marc Tyler Nobleman and his book, Bill The Boy Wonder (a great read for all ages). While Kane profited by the Batman creation, Finger lived and eventually died, in the words of Nobleman, “poor and unheralded.” Nobleman had been leading a… dare I say, noble crusade to demand DC Comics and Warner Brothers to grant Bill Finger the co-creator credit Nobleman felt Finger deserved.

And it was not just Nobleman who believed this. Decades before Nobleman had written his book, though it was years after Bill Finger’s death, Bob Kane himself had publicly stated that Finger deserved co-creator credit for his invaluable contributions to Batman (two examples I had encountered in the 1980s were in Kane’s biography, Batman and Me, and a one-page essay Kane wrote for the History of the DC Universe 1988 special edition hardcover; there may had been others). It was my understanding that DC Comics had been contractually bound to credit only Bob Kane as the sole creator of Batman, and yet said contract was arranged by Kane himself. So I was forced to wonder why Kane, who (albeit sporadically) eventually acknowledged Finger’s right to co-creator credit, never renegotiated his contract with DC to award it.  

I started to sketch out this Souvenir Book submission idea back in the beginning of this year, and almost didn’t follow through after seeing a brilliant piece by Ty Templeton (the illustrator of the Bill the Boy Wonder book) that truly emphasized the importance of Finger to the Batman mythos. However, my wife reminded me that my idea did focus on one key Finger contribution upon which Templeton’s piece did not explicitly touch. Therefore, I pressed forward to create this piece that may also serve to add one more voice to further the Nobleman cause.

Art by Xum Yukinori. Batman created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger (see, that was not that difficult). Batman and all related characters copyright DC Comics.

Secrets of a Super-Hero Sketch Artist: Dual Duels of Duality

I had recently reached my 50th birthday the other week, and I have to admit that initially, the day wasn’t all that special. It probably didn’t help that my celebration of this half-century milestone was more of a halfway measure as I was currently halfway around the world from my wife and family. So while my birthday dinner comprised of what I believe to be the best sashimi the Roppongi district has to offer, it was less enjoyable when partaken at a table-for-one. I also splurged on dessert, a lovely honey-lavender pudding that one of my dear aunties managed to bring to me from Hokkaido. However, the evocative taste triggered thoughts of an exquisite delight that I had shared with my absent wife that I am to this day still debating whether the indulgence was more pleasant or painful.

I do suppose one consolation of my then-current solitude was that it had provided an excellent opportunity for deep self-reflection on the past five decades of my life – a chance to see how far I had come into this world, and how far I have yet to go.

But the only “midlife crisis” I wanted to deal with belonged to my cartooning “altered-ego,” the unabashedly conceited "Professor Xum," who couldn't help but commemorate the half-life occasion in a recent “mock comic book cover” submission to "The Line It Is Drawn" (a feature of the “Comics Should Be Good” blog on ComicBookResources.com [hereinafter referred to as “The Line”]). The week's theme revolved around a breakout cartoon programme called “Adventure Time,” of which I could sum up all of my personal knowledge at the time in this “sketch cover variant.”

The summation of my knowledge of "Adventure Time."

But a little thing like lack of show knowledge wouldn’t stop the narcissistic Professor – especially since he recently discovered that he is about the same age as another “Professor Zoom,” who was a recurring villain in one of his favorite childhood comic books. The idea of having two fifty-year-old “Professors” squaring off on the comic book cover was too much to resist, even if it had nothing to do with “Adventure Time.” Fortunately, a Twitter suggestion happened to request a team-up between a couple of the show’s characters and Zoom’s four-color arch-nemesis. So all the wily Professor needed was a few quick Google searches on “Adventure Time” to figure out the creative shoehorn he needed. The egocentric result can be viewed here.

The Epic Confrontation No One Demanded

Little did the vainglorious Professor know that this would only be the first “doppelganger duel” on the week of his birth. His long-distant wife and a few Stateside friends have conspired with the ever-wonderful ShannonFarnon to provide a special birthday surprise to a longtime SuperFriends fan: a follow-up audio scenario for the one episode that never truly had an ending. And the villain of the audio piece goes to super-extreme measures in an attempt to eliminate me (as if my head wasn’t swelled enough). Fortunately Wonder Woman arrives to save me… and the day… in a very unique manner. Of course I can’t keep this wonderful birthday gift to myself. You can check out this fantastic audio treasure here.

(By the way, it’s possible to hire Shannon Farnon yourself to create a Wonder Woman recording for your loved one’s birthday, or any special occasion. Just visit the “Voice Mails for Sale” tab on her website to find out how.)

Fortunately, my family had finally arrived at Narita Airport yesterday for the summer. As soon as they get used to the time shift, we'll plan a more proper, albeit belated, family celebration to kick off the next 50 years.

Secrets of a Super-Hero Sketch Artist: "Candid Camera" with Attitude

Here is a little preview of my submission for the 88th "The Line It Is Drawn," which will feature the topic of "comic book characters on reality shows." My chosen Twitter suggestion involved the MTV series "punk'd" -- which was pretty much the only reality show in the U.S. that I was familiar with (essentially "Candid Camera" with attitude... right?).

This is a separate illustration that will be overlayed on a view screen in my final piece to reveal to the comic book character victims that they have been "punk'd". As for who gets "punk'd", and how, you'll have to wait until The Line It Is Drawn #88 goes live.

You can see #88 starting May 3rd, as well as past editions anytime, here:

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/category/the-line-it-is-drawn/

Enjoy!

Secrets of a Super-Hero Sketch Artist: Served with a Silver-Age Spoon

Some of you following my blog may have noticed that I am the “Yukinori Xum” who has been recently contributing to the weekly “The Line It Is Drawn” feature in the “Comics Should Be Good” blogs posted on the “Comic Book Resources” website.

For those of you not familiar with “The Line It Is Drawn”, it is a weekly sketch-drawing challenge that revolves around a weekly comic-book-related theme, where myself and a group of artists take suggestions submitted by site visitors via Twitter responses. We essentially have 4 to 5 days to pick a suggestion and complete the drawing for submission. I have submitted 12 entries so far on almost a weekly basis and I must admit it’s a fun way to exercise both my drawing hand and the creative side of my brain.

Last week, the “Line” theme was “M.O.D.O.K. March Madness” – which essentially asked for suggestions of a comic book or pop-culture character (or characters) to be depicted as a M.O.D.O.K., which is a Marvel Comics villain primarily known for his huge head (click here for a better look). 

Nearly 124 unique responses have come in, ranging from Squirrel Girl (a common suggestion, I understand) to the cast of “Big Bang Theory.” As I was skimming through the list, I saw a suggestion that simply said “Wonder Woman.” I immediately thought, “Well, she can’t really defend herself from bullets with her bracelets if she had a M.O.D.O.K. form,” and that’s when the whole idea just clicked. A mysterious villain would transform Wonder Woman into a M.O.D.O.K.-like creature, and thus put her into immediate jeopardy. It sounded like an actual “Silver Age” DC Comic scenario, complete with the “bizarre transformation” trope that made comics of that era such fun to read. So I decided to approach this assignment as an actual Silver Age Wonder Woman cover, playing it as straight as I imagined DC Comics would have at the time.

Below is a teaser of the line work, you can see the finished version here on the “Line” web page.

This week’s “Line” theme asked for “What-If?” suggestions, based on the Marvel Comic that told alternative storylines framed around that question (e.g., “What If Someone Else Besides Spider-Man Had Been Bitten by the Radioactive Spider?” or “What If the Fantastic Four Never Gained Their Super-Powers?”). Out of the 195 Twitter suggestions for this theme, the one that caught my eye immediately was: “What if the Flash wasn’t the fastest man on Earth?” One could easily dismiss this idea as “it’s been done,” as evidenced by a number of Silver-Age Flash stories. Like the one where he was transformed into an extremely fat person that could hardly move, or when he was hit by a gravity beam that made him so heavy he could hardly move, or the story with “slow radiation” that slowed the Flash down so much he… hardly moved. (You can see the pattern here?)

So when I saw this suggestion, I decided to try something that wasn’t as obvious: instead of playing on the “fastest man” aspect, I would focus on the “Earth” part, and make the Flash the fastest man on another planet!  Since that sounded like another Silver-Age comic scenario, I did another “straight” Silver-Age cover concept, complete with the expository word balloon that essentially explains the entire premise of the "story" inside the comic – if this was an actual comic.

Scroll down this “Line” site to find the final version.

When I was working on manhua projects in Hong Kong in the late 1980s, I was essentially a cog in the production process relegated to rendering backgrounds and background characters (the “movie extras” of the Hong Kong comics, essentially). I am not complaining, mind you. My job was a vital one: creating the scenery and added realism without which the book wouldn’t be complete. But still, it’s nice to actually do some comic work that was more in the forefront like these comic book covers, even if they are fake ones created just for fun. I hope you enjoy these submissions as much as I did making them.