I grew up drawing superheroes about as often as I read about superheroes. I had a craving to create something amazing and hoped one day to draw a comic of my own. Unfortunately, I wasn’t any good at it. I eventually admitted this to myself and moved on to writing– I guess you have to play to your strengths. So I might have an even greater appreciation for talented artists than most people. I’m fascinated by good art because I can’t figure out how to do it myself.

I know some great artists and I’ve run across some incredible artwork while surfing the Internet. The medium of comic books is another one of those, like music and film, that’s very hard to break into. There are a lot of very talented people no one will ever know about because there’s only so many positions available in mainstream entertainment.

So I thought I would show you some really great artwork I’ve found around cyberspace. These are all artists I think are good enough to write for comics, and unless you scour fan-artcentral.net like I did, you’d probably never run into them. I like helping talented people get more exposure, so here for your viewing pleasure are some really neat drawings of some of my favorite characters. There is a lot more impressive art like this and I’ll be sure to share more with you in the future.

Swingin Around by koglerr

I love perspective shots like this and the lighting is really unusual. Spidey looks almost orange, which is working for him, and it seems like you can see the city lights in his costume. This would be a great cover.

Superman Returns by graphixrob

I’m not the biggest fan of Superman Returns, but this is really impressive portrait work. I find a lot of artists in books have a hard time making people look like real people, especially in books for shows like Buffy or Star Trek. This guy got Routh and Spacy dead-on.

Doomsday by Kuroko8

I gotta say, I really geeked out when I found this one. I’m a huge fan of the Death of Superman arc from the early ’90s and I really appreciated seeing someone recently draw him like he was originally presented. I liked the Doomsday in the new Bruce Timm animated movie, but he pales in comparison to this.

Batman and Venom by Stitchking

As if it weren’t enough that this is a comic fan’s dream come true… it’s also a classic Venom and a classic Batman. Venom isn’t easy to get right but this guy draws him like he’s meant to be drawn. I like the contrast between his blues and Batman’s solid black. Instead of both being drawn like a Batman or a Venom artist, he merged Spider-Man and Batman art together to make this masterpiece. Eat your heart out, Amalglam!

Spawn by DarkSlyde

If I had to pick a winner out of this set, it would be this one. This piece is very Greg Cupullo. The detail is astounding– surely good enough for a cover. Spawn is one of the hardest comic characters to draw but this guy does him with authority, and even though it’s a closeup with no cape (which is one of the hard parts) he spares no complexity when he gets into the face and especially those arms.

If you have any fan art of your own you’d like to share, please point me in the right direction and I’ll be sure to put good ones in future blogs.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

According to the Smallville Wiki another season of Smallville has already been approved for the CW. If you’re like me, the series has been pretty much over since season 4 but I still follow it somewhat regularly, if for no other reason than it gives me something to complain about and it’s a good model of bad TV to compare really good shows to.

I shouldn’t rag on it too hard. This season has been a surprising improvement over the previous two now that Lana finally knows Clark’s secret, has a little bit of Lex’s personality in her, and now that Lex has gone back from completely two-dimensional evil to just mostly evil, and therefore sometimes interesting. Kara was more fun than I thought she would be until she lost her memory in a quite contrived subplot (another classic example of Smallville having a hard time finding stuff for its characters to do). The reveal that the editor of the Daily Planet was a clone of Lex’s brother Julian was a nice curve ball but I’m not sure what the point was of using him for half a dozen episodes and then giving him the ax. So Lex is tortured and all his plans end in him killing or trying to kill someone he cares about. This isn’t really news.

So it’s gotten a little better but considering the silly arcs of season 6, including (but not limited to) Lex and Lana’s wedding and a very Power Rangers story of Clark spending a whole year ridding the world of monsters from the Phantom Zone, that isn’t terribly difficult. Smallville hasn’t had anything new to say in a long time and it’s really time for it to say its goodbyes. Unfortunately it’s on one of the least popular networks and is its most popular show– the CW can’t afford to lose it, so regardless of its worn out welcome, it stays.

Michael Rosenbaum originally said he was done after this season but he’s in negotiations now and might come back if he gets the right deal. I imagine the CW knows that Smallville without Lex is like Batman without Batman (wait, they tried that with Birds of Prey…) and they’ll probably give him whatever he wants. Allison Mack may not be back, which is no great loss considering all she’s contributed to this season is the most worthless super power ever. She can heal people but it puts her in a coma. Since when do Krypto-powers have side effects? And have the writers forgotten this isn’t the first time she’s been a Kryptofreak? The show acts like this is one of its greatest revelations.

Kristin Kreuk’s contract is also up this year, so she may not be back, or at least not as a regular. Others have said that despite her obnoxious on-again off-again relationship with Clark, she’s essential to the Smallville idea. I would agree that she was during the first three seasons, but ever since then I’ve been hoping for a Smallville without Lana. By this point, the show is no longer the story of Clark Kent’s youth before he bcomes Superman. He’s already learned about everything about his (extremely unbelievable) Kryptonian heritage, met half the Justice League and all his future Daily Planet co-workers and fought most of Superman’s major villains. He should already be living in Metropolis and wearing tights. I’m not saying Smallville couldn’t have gone seven seasons with its original concept, but now it’s like watching Superman only he still acts like a whiny teenager and he refuses to actually be a superhero. So where does Lana Lang fit into this whole concept??

The other main cast members will all definitely be returning and we might even get more James Marsters.

Being on the CW, I was always worried Smallville would end up like Seventh Heaven– going too long just to milk a little more cash. The tenth season was announced as its final and advertised that way for months, until it suddenly got picked up again. The same things seems to be happening with Smallville. In fact, Gogh and Miller apparently can’t see doing an eighth season without letting Clark start to fly, which tells us they never intended it to go this long, because they never wanted him to fly. And let’s not kid ourselves… Clark has flown. He’s done it lots of times. He did it in the tornado at the end of the first season. But not on a regular, every-episode basis, which is probably going to finally happen next year.

They still refuse to put him in costume but apparently he will start wearing glasses next year, in order to begin setting up his secret identity. I just don’t think this makes any sense. Clark, buddy… you’re name has been on the file of every crime scene in Smallville for the last seven years. You live hours away from Metropolis, the city you’ll no doubt be moving to when the series is over in twelve years and you’re finally finishing up college. And, the man who owns most of Metropolis is Lex Luthor, your former best friend, now sworn enemy, who knows what you look like. If you only move a couple hours away and you’ve saved everyone and his dog around the area, you can’t suddenly put glasses on after 23 years of not wearing them and expect to fool anyone! It only works in the comics because Clark moves so far away he can be sure no one he meets will know what he looks like without glasses.

If it’s gotta happen, I certainly hope Lex returns. He’s the reason I fell in love with the show when it was a fresh idea in 2001 and he’s the reason I still sometimes tolerate it now.

Anybody else miss moments like this one??

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan