An Open Letter To Geoff Johns & Jim Lee

Dear Misters Johns and Lee,

How's it going? It's been a while since I spoke with you on the phone at a prearranged time. Did you do BBQ on Memorial Day?

Anyway, I'm writing about your new Justice League comic, which was announced today as part of a big honkin DC Comics relaunch of your entire line. What rad news! I'm sure with your past work, you guys will have some cool shit on tap for the League. However, I've got to admit I was a little bummed when I heard the lineup would consist of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and Aquaman. No Martian Manhunter? J'onn J'onzz denied?

Then I thought about it for a minute, and it occurred to me: is this about his collar?

I know the team is dressing for success with a unified look to their outfits – it's a nice touch! But seriously, they shouldn't be afraid if the Manhunter from Mars wants to pop his up every once in a while. Motherfucker has been popping his collar for years, see?





If this still doesn't convince you, may I suggest the following candidates for League expansion:









I very much look forward to your new comic in September.

Sincerely,

- Kiel Phegley

Lovely Parting Gifts

After posting my Wizard going away presents last week, I was struck by inspiration and started reaching out to others who had departed the company asking for scans of the art and whatnot they had received upon leaving so I could compile a post showing it all off. It was supposed to be a whimsical, light-hearted piece, but admittedly, following recent events it feels more like a tribute to the good ol' days before Camelot fell.

Regardless, this ia chance to show off some really neat and unique stuff that, for the most part, has never been seen in a public venue before, so I do hope you'll enjoy. I'll try to keep the words to a minimum of necessary explanatory text and let the art speak for itself, but hopefully some of the recipients will feel free to chime in with their personal recollections either in the comments or if they want to shoot me some communiques.

(I apologize in advance if I'm off on some of the dates)

My good friend Jodie Westhoff had a record-setting (as far as we know) four stints at Wizard as part of the research and convention departments from around 2001 (or so) to 2008. For one of her early exits, she was gifted a rad rendition of Bigby Wolf from Fables by artist Lan Medina (she also has a great Alex Ross Superman sketch mocking the S-shield tattoo we share in common--hers is on her lower back, mine is on my left ankle, hidden from all Marvel employees, but I forgot to ask her to scan it).

Rich Ho was my predecessor in the role of staff writer at Wizard and definitely became something of a mentor to me during the year we shared on the job together. Besides being a Harvard grad, Rich is also a grade A poker stud and had a great relationship with the great Jim Lee, earning him this sweet commission piece when he left in the fall of 2005.

One of the flat-out coolest dudes I know and the last true confederate badass, Jesse Thompson was associate editor of Wizard when I got there and stuck around until mid-2006 when he moved back to Tennessee (he did a stint with Performing Songwriter and is now working at Maxim.com). We got done for Jesse this epic team-up by Eric Powell pairing our boy and the Goon with Batman and Robin with uncomfortable results for the Boy Wonder.

Not long after Jesse packed his bags, my fellow staff writer Chris Ward hitched his wagon to head back to his native Illinois. Chris has done pretty well for himself particularly of late, penning the Politicial Power: Barack Obama comic (on sale this week!) for Bluewater Productions. When he left, we got artist Michael Kupperman to do this unique piece for Chris, featuring his dual loves of Pacman and Mr. T as well as Kupperman's own Snake 'n' Bacon.

My main man and current co-worker at Marvel.com, Ryan Penagos, hit the bricks about a year before I did in the summer of 2006. Ryan doesn't hide his affection for certain characters and artists, so deciding on the who and what for his gift was not too tough. As I recall, Rickey took point on the project as he often did in these instances, even producing a rough sketch of what we wanted (which I have, but I want Rickey to post himself and talk about). The end result was a fantastic Etrigan/M.O.D.O.K. mash-up by the one and only Steve Dillon.

By the time Rickey left Wizard to go to DC, I had already taken off myself, but with not as many gung ho gift-givers remaining at the company, a bunch of us alumni took it upon ourselves to make sure our buddy got an appropriate piece of send-off art. We batted around ideas over e-mail and after a few brainstorming sessions settled on doing an homage to the classic Flash of Two Worlds cover, but featuring Rickey along with two of his favorite characters: Kamandi and Impulse. We originally approached another artist about doing the job, but for various reasons ended up going with Jim Rugg, and I sincerely doubt anybody could have done a better job in the end.

Last but certainly not least, Sean T. Collins and Wizard parted ways under not the best of circumstances back in the summer of 2007, meaning he did not get any cool art or anything, which was a damn shame considering all Sean contributed to that magazine (and their web site efforts as well). Earlier this year, a group of us were finally able to rectify this unfortunate oversight by getting Sean a combination birthday/belated going away present in the form of this page from The Walking Dead by Charlie Adlard.

That's all for this round, but if there are any ex-Wizardites out there reading this and you have art or photoshop tomfoolery of any kind you'd like to share with the world, send it my way, gang!

More Nova Sketches!

So, I haven't been around here much the past couple weeks. Y'see, after San Diego, I had to catch up on work and sleep, but then I had to go back to Boston for my cousin's wedding, and then there was more work and sleep to catch up on, and then I had to go back to Boston again for my college buddy's wedding...and so on.

I'm getting some minor nasal surgery this Wednesday, so I'll be laid up here in the house for a few days, and the my posting will either spike or do another fade depending on drugs, but first...

Some more Nova sketches!

Erik Larsen
The very first Nova sketch I ever got, from the Image founder and one of the character's biggest fans among pros back at a Big Apple Con in 2005. I actually saw Erik doing a Nova for the guy right ahead of me in line, so that gave me the idea to do a theme sketchbook in the first place--thanks, Erik! My sketch ended up looking almost identical to the other guy's, so I take it Erik gets a lot of requests for the character, though he still actd surprised when I asked for one. The most incredible thing about watching Erik work was the way he holds his pencil: as opposed to how most people hold writing implements, he treats it almost like a thin paintbrush, making a fist and then drawing from above. It was very cool, very different, and a great start to my collection.

Chris Marrinan
I was wandering Artist's Alley at WonderCon back in 2006 when I spotted Chris Marrinan, who was doing sketches and had an opening. Now Chris was mostly displaying DC stuff he had done (primarily Superman work), but I fondly recalled his stint as both artist and writer of Nova circa 1995. I had a nice chat with him about his time on the book, something I gathered he didn't get to discuss a lot, and told him he was a dude whose stuff I really dug as a kid; in return, I got a nice sketch.

Steve Lieber
At that same WonderCon, Steve Lieber was offering free sketches to any member of Comic Bloc, so I cheerfully took him up on his offer. Having only gotten fairly traditional takes on Nova from guys who had actually worked on the character in the past up to this point, Steve was a cool change of pace, and I love the darker, moody look he went for; it's really a beautiful piece and reminded me of something Neal Adams might have done (that's high praise).

Todd Nauck
This was Todd's first go-around drawing Nova for me, and you can check out my previous post to see how his take has evolved over the last three years. Todd has a lot of the same tastes I do when it comes to the comics, so I was not surprised to learn he was a fellow Nova devotee and had tremendous enthusiasm to draw the Human Rocket. Perfectionist that he is, Todd wasn't fully pleased with this finished product (hence one of the reasons he did another one for me so recently, I presume), but I think it's rad and he's at least half-crazy. I dig the way he really accentuated the big, bright shapes, from Nova's helmet starburst to the stars on his upper bodies; this sketch makes Nova like appropriately heroic and larger than life (much like Todd Nauck himself).

Jim Lee
The unquestioned crown jewel of my collection in many senses: it's an amazing "sketch" (I hesitate to call it that), most people can't believe I got a Jim Lee sketch, just as many people can't believe I got Jim Lee to draw Nova, and Jim Lee was my absolute favorite artist when I was growing up (he's still up there today). The way it went down was at WizardWorld Los Angele in 2006, I was up in the Green Room when Jim came by to take a load off in between signings and my bosses asked me to do an interview hyping the show; this was actually my second time meeting Jim as we had met over Korean food at WonderCon to discuss WildCats a couple months before and he remembered me (he has remembered me every time since, from saying polite hellos in the halls of the New York show to yelling my name outside of L.A. bars in front of my then-girlfriend, and for Jim Lee to know my name is a huge deal for me to this day). After we wrapped our interview, I innocently kidded with him about whether or not he did sketches at shows anymore, never in a million years expecting him to say he did, but instead he just went, "You got a sketchbook?" Instead of fainting with delight, I pulled out my Nova book, explained to him the theme (which drew a chuckle) and became to my knowledge the owner of the only Jim Lee Nova sketch in existence.

Watching Jim work was absolutely incredible as he only had about 15 minutes and had certainly never drawn Nova, but he just went into a zone and produced this incredible piece of art; the thing I remember most was that after doing an initial pencil layout, rather than go over the lines with a marker or anything, he just dumped a ton of India ink on the page and then basically used Witeout to noodle in the details from memory, so he basically worked in reverse of any other artist I've ever seen. At one point he spilled a bit of Witeout, but ended up just making it into the little glint coming off the helmet. He capped things off by using an empty glass to make a perfect circle for the moon and then signed it and bid me adieu; absolutely incredible. Jim Lee rules.

Whatever Happened to Jim Lee's Watchmen?

At San Diego Comic-Con in 2008, Jim Lee was supposed to unveil a Watchmen jam piece from him and all his studio buddies. The above art is the the only thing I've seen online about it and that was back during summer 2008 here. Lee just did the layout.

Has anyone seen the finished product? WAS it finished?

Either way, this Lee layout is rad. Can't wait for the movie on March 6.