COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 19): "It's Midnight..."

The time of night when supernatural beings are at the height of their power—when creatures such as demons, ghosts and witches are about and black magic is best cast is known as the “Witching Hour”.  This time is usually thought of as Midnight” in modern times, but in the past Three o’Clock was considered this time due to it being exactly 12 hours opposite of the time of Christ’s death.

DC Comics’ THE WITCHING HOUR comic book ran for nearly ten years from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, a total of 85 issues, which was a pretty good run as far as horror anthologies go during that time period.  Stories in the book were introduced by three witches, based on Macbeth’s Weird Sisters: Morded, Mildred and Cynthia.  Mother, Maiden and Crone were all represented—the triumvirate of womanhood.

As a result of the “DC Implosion” (due to low sales, DC cancelled more than two-dozen titles at once—it was part of the scare of the time across the industry that had many predicting the end of the American comic book), the title was merged with another anthology, THE UNEXPECTED.

The series gave us some pretty nifty tales, but what I’m going to concentrate on this evening is the beautiful cover art some issues had—lots of it featuring Nick Cardy, one of DC’s all-time greats!  Enjoy the spooks...

And as for the music I leave you with tonight, it's The Kinks and their story of...

"Wicked Annabella"

PLASTIC MAN and STUPEFYIN' JONES

In an effort to continue to cleans my desktop of sketch files, here are two more...

First up is Plastic Man, one of many heroes "adopted" by DC comics--the guy's like a walking, talking piece of silly putty--fun to draw, too.

(Click to stretch)

Stupefyin' Jones was Julie Newmar's ticket to stardom when she appeared as the ineffable lady whose looks could stop any man in his tracks.  From the Li'l Abner comic strip, the character never said a word--and didn't really need to.

(Click to Stupefy) 

THE FEMBOT and the FICTIONAL FEMALE FINN

This here is LADYTRON...

a cyborg created for the WildCATS comic book series, she's a kind of psychotic teenage girl who lost the majority of her original body and happened to be lucky enough to have what was left shoved into a mechanical body built only for mayhem and murder.

Fionna is a fictional character created by an ice king as a female version of an actual male character by the name of Finn.  This all takes place in the world of ADVENTURE TIME, which I've yet to fully grasp as I've only seen two episodes.  I forget the name of her fictional cat, which is, again, a female version of a male dog.  This Ice King has issues, methinks.

MONSTER-MONTH: COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 15)

(Click to Frankensize)

“I am HIM… not born of man and woman!  I was created to be invincible!

And those who made me… made me well!”

--Adam Strange/HIM  from THOR #166

(Click to Frankensize)

Tonight we look to the wonderful world of funnybooks for a peek at a different kind of Frankenstein Monster.  This one created by evil scientists for an evil purpose.  This one who destroys his creators and seeks a companion because he is alone in the universe.

I’m speaking of HIM, a creation of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, a character for whom it feels a larger purpose was intended.  After all, it is rare that a character appears in one massive story arc in the world’s greatest comic magazine and soon is the feature of the mighty THOR shortly thereafter.  Who knows what larger story might have unfolded at the hands of his creators...

(Click to Frankensize)

The being who later became known as Adam Warlock was the creation of four geneticists who called themselves the Enclave.  “HIM” as Adam Warlock was known then, was the prototype for a perfect human life form grown from artificial genetic material, which the Enclave intended to mass produce to form an invincible army to conquer the world.

(Click to Frankensize)

These scientists miscalculated the strength of HIM, and after leaving his womblike cocoon, their prototype destroyed the Enclave and their island base which was known as the Beehive.  He then harnessed his cosmic power and left earth to find his own destiny in space.

(Click to Frankensize)

There you have it, a FRANKENSTEIN tale told in just a few issues of the FANTASTIC FOUR #66 and 67.  Overreaching scientists have their own creation turn against them, thus the morality play is played.  But waitaminute, where’s the part where this creation seeks out a mate to fulfill his life?  Ah, that’s where Stan and Jack bring back HIM again, this time in the pages of THOR #165-166!

A Watcher, having accidentally caused HIM to spin another protective cocoon, decides to return him to his point of origin so as to have interfered with his life as much as leaving him floating out in space would.  The cocoon eventually opened as Thor, Sif and Balder were investingating the disturbing power being unleashed.

(Click to Frankensize)

Seeing Sif and feeling a deep well of loneliness, HIM seized her as his mate and quickly whipped up a portal to another world.  Now this caused Thor to completely lose his mind and be overtaken by “The Warrior Madness”.  The god rages for five pages straight before deciding to simply follow them by creating his own portal with Mjolnir.

(Click to Frankensize)

Once they reach HIM and Sif, she tries to comfort Thor by explaining that he has no sense of things, that he is naive.  Thor will have none of it and prepares to throw down on the cosmic creation like a mad god will tend to do when his woman has been taken (Liam Neeson ain’t alone in metting out that kind of pain.).

(Click to Frankensize)

The fickle finger of fate, or, more precisely, Haag interferes by literally reaching through a portal to try and kidnap Balder as a favor for her queen, Karnilla.  Thor, as enraged as possible; because what the heck is it, grab a god week in the Marvel Universe, fights off Haag’s attack and saves Balder.  Then does he turn back to HIM and Sif only to find empty space as the golden godling has fled again, with his girlfriend.

(Click to REVENGE!)

So, Thor, in full immortal meltdown, teleports again to where they have travelled.   And thus the beatdown begins.  He rages and rages and hammers HIM so much that he eventually spins another cocoon and flees into the vastness of space.  Thor, now at the end of his berzerker rage calms down enough to relax.

(Click to Frankensize)

So, this is really where the story of Kirby and Lee’s HIM ends as it is much later before his story is picked up again and it is under the direction of another writer, another editor, another artist and the character, by this point has taken on another name:

Adam Warlock.  

And Roy Thomas and Gil Kane eventually ran with the story of Christ as a super hero… a different kind of story than the one as it began here.  Though, who knows--it seems as though Kirby imbued HIM with many of the qualities he put into the Silver Surfer.  The Surfer being a character Kirby had wanted to continue to develop, but couldn’t.  So, mayhap, he created HIM for this very purpose.

It was shortly after this that Kirby quit with the major character creations for Marvel--the Doctor Frankenstein who had served the House of Ideas so well for so long was off to work his strange magics and sciences creating life for a different company.

And other, new gods and monsters were born there.

Vas?

BLACKBRIAR vs HAWKGIRL

It's been quite a while since I've updated my blog with some of my own drawings,

so here goes what I've been up to of late:

I continued the Kubert Tribute with this ballpoint on cardboard piece which is actually two pieces

because I have yet to merge the two images into one (something I always hate).

You'll get the idea...

It's HAWKGIRL versus BLACKBRIAR THORN,

a character I love even more now that I know that Mr. Kubert co-created him!

About half-way through the image above, I really got into drawing the trees/vines that were grabbing at Hawkgirl and made some progress in understanding how to make them look the way I think they SHOULD look (see the one she's grabbing that wraps around to under her other arm for what I mean).

My first time drawing Hawkgirl my second time drawing Blackbriar Thorn.

Below are the Kubert Tribute Week images from the week before.

TOR

RAGMAN

SGT. ROCK

VIKING PRINCE

HAWKMAN

There were more characters than I could draw in a week created by Joe Kubert--some I hope to get a chance to draw again one day like Enemy Ace & Unknown Soldier to name but a few.

LOOKIT DAT!!!: ARE WE SURE ABOUT BILLY?

One of the many pieces of art that made us all wonder about Doctor Sivana, not necessarily Billy Batson...

But after all the rumors about Billy Batson possibly being the mystery gay character in the Nu-DC, I had to look back at the above to see his reaction to the rear assault just to be sure.

Kurt Shaffenberger was a damn fine artist, even when drawing the absurd.

WHAT IF SOLOMON GRUNDY...?

(Click for a closer look)

Another DSC--this one my own weekend challenge for members who thought DC really missed out by not including a particular title in their new DCU 52 titles. "GRUNDY" was my idea. I don't really think he could cary a regular title for long, but in this "what if" world, I thought what the heck!

IT'S GOOD TO BE THE THING!

Remember the line from the Mel Brooks film History of the World Part 2 (I think): "It's good to be the King!"? I sure do...

SHOWDOWN ON YANCY STREET by ~Ragnaroker on deviantART

Did the above piece of art for a group on DeviantArt that is about pitting artists against one another in a friendly pencil fight, a draw down, a paint-off or the like. We each chose a character and had to depict the two in a piece of art together. Not sure if they have to fight, but I went ahead and let them go at it.

BATMAN INK

Met yet another challenge over at DeviantArt yesterday. Batman was the subject (he seems to be the subject all too often) and I decided to throw in this quickie I came up with at Nostalgia when the gang started throwing around the idea of the new Batman series not being entitled "BATMAN INC." but being "BATMAN INK". What tatoo would Batman have, I wondered...


I HEART JUSTICE by ~Ragnaroker on deviantART

Black Canary and the John Byrne Art Challenge

Every great once in a while, John Byrne will propose a challenge to those of us who frequent his forum and I try to participate. This time out we had the challenge of coming up with a situation for a character drawing he did as a commission. We were to put in at least two other characters and a background based on the pose he had chosen for the Black Canary. So, while this is a drawing by me, the Black Canary part is pretty much me "tracing" Byrne's Canary with my eye. The rest is all me, poor perspective and all...



Black Canary copyright DC Comics, of course.