Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Dall'Italia con amore

So, recently my two sisters went on a trip to Italy. I guess there were some postings on Bookface (whoch I am not on), but I did get one text, from Norma Jean, and it was goodie.

They visited a Murano glass workshop in Venice, and apparently that particular artisan was a comics fan. Norma Jean didn't tell me which specific place it was they went to, but she did send these pictures:

 Crazy, innit?

Then, today I got a flat in the mail from my sister Linda - it was an autographed print of this:


I was confused at first, becasue I thought it was something from the Murano glass place, but no -- it is from Galleria La Nuova Forma in Lanciano, yet another bed of superhero amore in Italy.

The catalog that accompanied it says this is Serigrafia a 37 passaggi di colore interventi in glitter, foglia oro, foglia argento, floccaggi e passaggio calcografico a secco which Google awkwardly translates to "Screen printing with 37 color passages interventions in glitter, gold leaf, silver leaf, flocking and dry chalcographic passage".

So, to sum up: there are fine art superheroes in Italy and I have great sisters.

 

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Hero project part 6: Action!


See:  The pilotPart OnePart TwoPart ThreePart Four. Part Five.

Now that we have met all the Bravos and their rogues, here are some action shots.

The Bravos racing into combat: Virago and Monad appear to be executing a "fastball express" a la Colossus and Wolverine,  but where's Moxie?



Here's Moxie - maybe Virago was throwing Monad to her? At her?



So, the fastball seems to be a popular move...

Clydesdale swats Monad away while Osprey swoops in...



Moxie and Sleetman exchange blasts while Osprey soars by...


Virago lassos a giant robot with some power cables...


Virago swats aside a poorly-drawn cat and lunges! (Is this another iteration of Whiskr?)


Virago stopping a truck. (Murphy Anderson drew an unbelievable panel of Hourman doing this. Should be in a museum.)


Monad alley-ooping into a bad guy's, ah, jewels.


Monday keeping the bad guys on the scene.


Monad vs. truck


Osprey swooping. I like this one.


Osprey dive-bombing a bad guy who (a) is using weapons I once saw Karate Kind use in a sparring match with Superboy and (b) apparently has a pretty nice butt.


Osprey vs. Clydesdale solo. Maybe after he swatted Monad away.


Osprey vs. Sleetman. What detail!


Osprey vs... a flying shark?


Osprey vs. Handyman (I think).


Osprey vs... I dunno, PAX? I didn't know they could fly. Maybe only some of them can.


And, from the big (imaginary) Thark-DC crossover event...

Virago vs. The Manhunter from Mars!




Next up: the ur-characters

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Hero Project 5: Rogues Gallery Part Two

See:  The pilotPart OnePart TwoPart Three. Part Four.

First of the rest: 

Sleetman

If Kinkajou and Clydesdale were sympathetic, Sleetman was the villain you were supposed to love to hate. No tragic backstory, although he of course plays the victim of an unfair world in his own narrative. Basically just a prick. I think he was the first rogue recorded. 

In terms of power set, he was a scaled-down, more "realistic" version of Captain Cold or Mr. Freeze, with a more localized hand-held instant-chiller thing. He started out with a long, dramatic cloak but that soon turned into more of a hoodie.

In terms of personality, he was greedy, cruel, nasty, self-serving, underhanded, mean, cheap - almost no redeeming qualities. An out-and out villain.







The rest of the rogues:

The Bulleteers

This group of terrorist/extortionists was a direct rip from Fleischer Superman cartoon. Just go watch that for what I was going for here. They're in the public domain now, right?



Cormorant

Inspired by the Japanese custom of using birds for fishing, Cormorant was a shadowy figure who used flying automata to commit his crimes (remember, this predates quadcopters and drones). I think the gimmick would have been that the robo-birds would be stopped but that their mysterious controller would always get away.




Doppelganger

Doppelganger was inspired by G.R.R. Martin's novelette Meathouse Man, but instead of cybernetically controlling corpses, this rogue controls mindless android bodies much more powerful his own. I liked the ideas that the androids were lifeless without his consciousness animating them (sort of like the bodies T.H.U.N.D.E.R.'s No-Man used) and the visual of  his sometimes subconsciously having them duplicate his movements (kiped from a scene in the story).


Handyman

Handyman was another character who was meant to be a little more sympathetic. He was basically a scavenger who took tech left behind by other rogues and leveraged it for his own purposes. Below are his low-tech mode and his "just found a whole bunch of good stuff" look.




Kelpie

Kelpie was the underwater rogue- an underwater hero, Amphibian, showed up later, and maybe you'll get to meet him someday. A little mermaid in here and a little of DC's Dolphin (the original incarnation), and she doesn't have the shape-shift qualities of her namesake water spirit.







Kobold

I don't remember too much about this guy, except he was the underground rogue, tunneling and stuff.


Lord Lewis

The name is intentionally ironic, because this guy is my take on a working-class Lex Luthor. Lewis started out as a union organizer, and when his power of super-charisma (like that of a version of King in one iteration of the Royal Flush Gang) revealed itself, he started to do more in the way of self-aggrandizing and less in the way of labor activism. Sort of a combination of Marvel's Purple Man and Sylvester Stallone in F.I.S.T.



Nimrod

Named for the king who (may have) shot an arrow at Yahweh from the top of the tower of Babel, and who was identified in the Bible as a "mighty hunter". He fills the contract assassin character niche in the Tharkiverse, and has the hubris of his namesake.


PAX

Like the Bulleteers, PAX is a they. The name is the common shorthand for the Peace in Action Committee, a right-wing, fundamentalist organization functioning as a militia/volunteer security force/what have you. Operating theoretically under the color of law, they would prove a problem for The Bravos as they chose to implement their own political agenda regardless of legal technicalities. PAX agents were equipped with high-tech gear provided by an anonymous donor and perhaps bear a passing resemblance to Jack Kirby's Justifiers.



Ptolemy Tyne

Tyne is the genius-intellect master criminal who looks down on Kinkajou and Clydesdale as rank amateurs, at Handyman as an embarrassment, and Doppelganger as a novelty act. He is rich, untouchable, arrogant, conceited, condescending, and extremely talented. He started out in a  bit of a super-suit but then just went to utility pants and turtleneck.








Skate

Let's face it, he's here simply because Marvel's Stingray (my namesake Walter Newell) was always one of my favorite characters. That's all.


Swarm

Some sort of collective intelligence/hive-mind kinda deal, I suppose...


Whisk'r

A stealthy rogue-for-hire mercenary operative with a pet cat, although in the first image it looks to be a fox, so maybe it's a fox, and the second image is a woman, so maybe this character concept never really solidified, eh?



Next up: Action!