La Zona Muerta

I was led to believe that yesterday was Superman Day. It was not; but strangely both April 18th and June 12th are listed online as a POSSIBLE candidate for same. Perhaps it was serendipitous luck that I accidently selected MIRACLE MONDAY (IYKYK) instead and that seems appropriate enough to have drawn the following:

This image I chose to emulate comes from some kind of portfolio (possibly?) produced by John Byrne and Terry Austin, that classical, quasi mythical penciler / inker team famous for their work on the Uncanny X-Men. I find this fascinating; obviously it’s a great drawing (the original, not my reinterpretation of it… when I do something like this you are getting a third generation copy) but Bryne doesn’t seem to have found HIS Superman yet (which makes sense; he won’t be signing the contract to work on Superman until late 1985). In fact, if anything, particularly in the face, I see a LOT of Terry Austin’s hand. Not a value judgement; just an observation. It’s not an emulation of Curt Swan’s work or Christopher Reeve… it’s a pretty singular face. Not super (heh) sure what they were going for.

As a kiddo with delusions of adequacy at being an artist, I always eschewed inking because I thought that I needed a better understanding of DRAWING. As an adult with those same delusions, while I was not entirely wrong there, I do wish that I hadn’t neglected it so much. When I do digital inks or even occasionally real life ones, I feel like I might have had some proclivity towards the act of inking had I pursued it then.

Drawing that “S” remains a bitch. NO WONDER they change it for every damned movie. I think pretty soon it will just be a triangle and a squiggle.