Thing sketch cards, part 10

I've got five-ish more Thing sketch cards from my collection to show. Let's see them! LET'S SEE THEM RIGHT NOW!

Corbett Vanoni - Let's start out with this mean-looking headshot from artist Carbett Vanoni. It comes on a  2008 Marvel Masterpieces sketch card, the second in my collection. Wh...what are you looking at, Ben?

Here's the back of the card, which also has a nice shot of the Fantastic Four in their hero poses. This definitely adds something to the card.

Rich Molinelli - This next card comes sealed and graded, which is how I bought it. Apparently it's a 10? That probably means that the Thing is a 10/10 character, to which I heartily agree. This card, with full-frame color art by Rich Molinelli, is from the 2011 Marvel Universe line.

Here's the back!

J. Whitlock - This big-eyed, contemplative Thing is on a card bought straight from the artist, and it looks like it was completed in colored pencil on a hand-cut stock. The use of red to complement the orange and yellow is nice. This is a different sketch but I like it.

The artist also included this Hulk card with my order. I guess he wanted to send the Thing and someone the Thing could beat up.

Kelly M. Powers - Okay, I love when sketch cards have the blue trim/bleed lines on them, as if they were tiny sheets of comic art board. This one was drawn in 2011 on Atomic-brand sketch cards, and that's a classic Kirby-style big-digit Thing hand.

Cameron M. Clark - Lastly, here's one that I just got, bringing my Thing sketch card running total to 50. It's by Cameron Clark on a self-cut brown stock drawn in what I suspect to be marker. It's one of the few full-figure Thing sketches I've got! Love those blue trunks.

That's all for now. Thanks for checking out my Thing cards!

What now for the comic industry?

About a month ago, I was in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and of course, I stopped at a comic shop - Comic Kings, to be specific. While I was in Virginia, the national conversation started about the coronavirus in the US (this in itself was a few months too late), and a few weeks later, much of the country is under lockdown, with businesses, sports leagues and, well, seemingly the entire comic book industry mostly closed or on hiatus.

There are many considerations more important than the shipping schedule of comic books right now, of course, but hey, this is a comic book blog and I sometimes write comic books, so...it seems pertinent to talk about it here. This has affected me personally beyond being just a fan - Free Comic Book Day has been delayed for the foreseeable future, which means the Tick FCBD 2020 Special I wrote won't be out in May. I have a few projects that I'm working on that are now up in the air and might be cancelled outright. I'm delaying my Planet Comics Kickstarter campaign and pushing it back to some later date. I was even helping out at a local comic shop on a temporary basis, organizing stock - with shops closed, that's finished.

Wednesday, April 1st, will be the first Wednesday without new comics for non-holiday reasons for the first time that I can remember after Diamond announced that it would no longer be receiving any new shipments from publishers. Comics showed up in stores the day after 9/11, if you remember - though this is a different circumstance.

Organizers are postponing and cancelling comic conventions all over the world. Emerald City Comic Con was the first major show to be pushed back (at least) in March, followed quickly by Wondercon in Anaheim. I am, of course, closely watching for any news on Comic-Con in July. This is a gathering where over 100,000 people show up in a relatively confined space for five days in a row. Unless something changes quickly, I have to believe that this show will be delayed until late 2020 (September or November, maybe?), if it won't be cancelled altogether.

All of these precautions are, of course, good ones. Going to a Free Comic Book Day signing or a comic convention would be a terrible idea during a pandemic, and all of the current social restrictions will be worthwhile if we stick with them. But I still have some disappointment that these yearly staples are in jeopardy while we all stay home.

What does this mean for the comic book industry, though? For one, it shows the vulnerability that exists by having a single point of distribution - Diamond Comics Distributors. That's not to say that things wouldn't (or shouldn't) be shut down right now if there were a hundred different distribution channels, but it does point out how much power Diamond has. If something were to happen to the company - a natural disaster or financial issues, let's say - to the point where it couldn't ship anything, the entire industry in North America would shut down in a day. That's a scary thought.

This also shines a spotlight on digital comics. Comic fans have always resisted changes in format, and moving from a physical product to a digital one is one of the biggest changes you could have. But now, with no physical distribution for the near future, digital comics are pretty much the only way anyone can read new stories. So far, it appears the reaction has been mixed, as some companies are sticking with print-first, while others are releasing a few titles digitally this Wednesday.

As someone who spends way too much of his income on comic books, I've always been mostly ambivalent about digital copies, especially when they're stored elsewhere and you can't copy them to a hard drive. And going digital completely eliminates variant covers - which is kind of a relief, but it's hard to deny that variants are a big part of some publisher's business models.

This also means that comic shops are left in a very precarious place. A hypothetical shift to digital means that a lot of these stores would be left in the lurch and will go out of business - I can't see how that wouldn't happen. Even if graphic novels and collections would stay in print, comic stores could never compete with Amazon. There wouldn't be anything for them to sell, and that, I think, would have catastrophic impacts on the industry.

In the meantime, I'm actually kind of relieved to get a chance to catch up on some of my unread books. I know that I'll never be completely caught up - this is the curse of a comic collector - but not having a pull list that I have to keep up with, when my income is, well, down, is a small silver lining. I cleared out my folder on March 18th and placed an online order for books on the 25th, so I've got plenty to tide me over for now, and I guess we'll see if I can make a dent in my unread pile in the next few weeks. Still, it is very weird to not have any new comic books to look forward to this coming Wednesday, and if this turns out to be a long-term issue, who knows what lasting repercussions it'll have?

For now, stay safe, blog readers, and try to stay inside. The next few weeks and months are sure to be very interesting. Here's hoping that the comic industry can make it to the other side, even if it comes out looking different than before.

Oh, and Comic Kings had this great Thing/Hulk artwork hanging up inside the store. Check it out!

Fantastic Four Unlimited original artwork by Herb Trimpe

I managed to find some original art from the 1990s quarterly series "Fantastic Four Unlimited" recently. Let's take a look!

Fantastic Four Unlimited was part of a line of oversized quarterly books that Marvel published in the mid '90s. Each issue was 64-pages long and cost $3.95 (quaint!). There was a whole line of these titles...Spider-Man Unlimited, X-Men Unlimited, and even weird titles you might not expect like Star Trek Unlimited and 2099 Unlimited. I suspect that they shipped during months that had five Wednesdays, but I'm not sure. Spider-Man and X-Men long outlasted the rest of the titles (X-Men Unlimited ran for 50 issues!), but for a while, we were all treated to bizarre, mostly self-contained, long-format stories that sometimes even had an effect on main titles.

Fantastic Four Unlimited #3 took the FF back to the Negative Zone. For a place that encompasses an entire negatively-charged universe, Annihilus and Blastaar (the Living Bomb-Bust) sure do show up with some regularity. This issue was no different, but it also featured another of my favorite rarely-used villain.

Herb Trimpe ("Trimpe" was autocorrected as "Trump" when I first typed it, so thanks for that, Internets) provided most of the art throughout the series, including this issue. Trimpe is best known for his work on the "Incredible Hulk" title, as well as being the co-creator of Wolverine, but growing up, I knew him for this book.

Trimpe's style on this book is a bit of a departure from his earlier work. A few years ago, I heard that Trimpe wanted to update his art style to something a little more relevant to the hyper-cool 1990s, so he tried his best Liefeld impression for this title. I think it shows, especially in the characters' faces. I probably would have preferred he use his classic style, but I don't blame him for changing it up as this was, of course, 1993/94.

I really enjoy this page for a number of reasons. First, it includes the entire team, even if we only see Sue Storm in a rather awkward pose from behind (in which it looks like her hair might be on fire). Annihilus (what a fantastic comic book name!) and Blastaar (not my favorite comic book name!) are also in on the action!

Second, it includes all of the original word balloons and sound effects, inked directly on the page, something that's probably lost forever to the digital age.

And lastly, the Reed Richards you see in the first two panels of the page is actually...not Reed Richards! Instead, it's the alternate universe Reed imposter, The Brute! I always thought that the Brute had a really cool design (in his purple bad guy form). I don't know if the character has been used more than once or twice since this issue was published about 25 years ago.

This new page goes well with this other item I recently came across - a retailer preview of FF Unlimited's first issue!

Retailer previews today usually consist of a PDF attached to an email (or a link to the same), but back in the '90s, an intern (probably) would spend time and effort photocopying and stapling artwork to mail out to shops across the country.

The paper here is actually magazine sized, for whatever reason, printed on both the front and back of most pages. This preview reproduces the first 34 story pages and then just...ends, as the FF travel to Wakanda to visit the Black Panther and take on, of course, Klaw.

'90s comics could be pretty wild. Look how edgy this one managed to be! Be sure to count every one of Klaw's teeth.

2099 original artwork!

Marvel's 2099 line launched right as I was starting to read and collect comics, and something about it struck a chord with *slightly* younger me. Who can say what it was that made such an impression on me? Why, it could have been any number of...uh...well, okay, we all know what it was: Spider-Man 2099's incredible design by Rick Leonardi:

Has there been a better costume to come out of Marvel in the last 25 years?

Anyway, ever since I picked up a few issues of the 2099 books in the early '90s, I've held a soft spot for them. I tend to try and focus my original art purchases on the Fantastic Four and books I've personally worked on, but these few have managed to sneak their way in. Let's take a look!

This first piece is from Spider-Man 2099 #27, and even though he's out of costume, this page features Miguel O'Hara, Spidey himself.

The art is by Joe St. Pierre, and it was gifted to me by one Ian Nichols. I worked with Joe on a short story for Rhode Island's AR Comics, and even though he was doing me a favor by letting me write something for the book, Ian sent me this page as a thank you.

They - they said the word "Alchemax"! It wouldn't be a proper 2099 title without it.

This next page is from the second issue of Ravage 2099, the 2099 line's only non-derivative title of the launch!

This is the second page of original art I own from the late, great Paul Ryan, one of my favorite artists of all time. Oh, and it was also written by none other than Stan Lee! That's pretty exciting.

One fun note about this page is that the word "blasterproof" was added in the second-to-last panel as a late edit. I guess "bulletproof" didn't sound futuristic enough! Oh, Ravage 2099. You were weird.

These next two pieces are a bit more modern, coming from the recent relaunch of the Spider-Man 2099 series. Both are pieces of preliminary art, and both are by Pasqual Ferry. The first one is rough pencils that eventually became the a variant cover to Spider-Man 2099 #4, with a number of 2099 characters, like Spider-Man, Hulk and Doom!

Here's the final version. It changed a good bit from concept to print.

The next rough sketch eventually became a variant cover to Contest of Champions #4, which featured  a number of Marvel's characters from the future, including Iron Man 2020, who has two years left to remain a part of this group.

Here's the final cover, which took a lot from the rough sketch on the left. I do like the Killraven/War of the Worlds inspired Martian ship in the image to the right! But I'll take Spider-Man 2099 original art any way I can get it.

Hulk vs. Thing original artwork by Jae Lee - one of my favorite pieces of all time!

I got a heck of a surprise for my birthday this year - a page of original art from the Hulk vs. Thing miniseries by artist Jae Lee. And not just any page, but one of my favorites of all time.

"Hulk and Thing: Hard Knocks" was a miniseries from 2004, written by then-Incredible Hulk writer Bruce Jones. As such, it picked up a few of the plot points that were running through the regular Hulk book at the time. I was thrilled that the Thing was getting a series, but also a little worried that, since it was pretty much just the Hulk comic with another name, the Thing would get knocked around a lot in the book in deference to the title character. The opposite actually happened, though, as the Thing spent a good bit of the book beating up the Hulk (and Bruce Banner), and it was even revealed that the Thing was the winner of the original matchup back in Fantastic Four #12.

In the series, the story keeps coming back to Ben Grimm and Bruce Banner in some out-of-the-way restaurant/bar. The Thing is in a bad mood and wants to commiserate with the Hulk, one of the only others out there who can understand what it's like to be a monster. The problem is, the Hulk shows up as Bruce Banner, and he's happy to stay that way. To force him to change into his green alter ego, the Thing slaps his around a few times...which is just really...well...I enjoyed seeing it a lot.

And now I own a page from the first time it happens. This particular page is from the first issue of the series. Jae Lee both pencils and inks this beauty. Lee draws a different Thing than most - his version keeps some of Grimm's human features, and his hide looks more scaly than the segmented rocks that most artists draw. But it's a good variation and one that stays true to the character's obsession with his disfigurement.

I never thought I'd own a page from this book, let alone THE page that makes this series so enjoyable, I guess in my own twisted fashion. This is a real beauty.

Pictures from the 2015 Comic-Con International, part 4: Friday (Rick and Morty, Rotten Tomatoes, Seth Meyers and more!)

I just got back from the New York Comic Con, so...I guess it's time to share pictures...from a different Comic-Con! Why not. Here's Friday at Comic-Con in lovely San Diego!

This banner always seems to tucked away. Unless you enter from one side, you won't see it. But here it is.

It's always fun to make new friends at the show.

This picture doesn't really do the thing justice. It's the Devastator combiner from the Transformers line.

This was a pretty popular display for obvious reasons. LEGO always seems to show up big for these events. I wonder if these get pulled apart after conventions are end, or if they're stored whole in a big LEGO warehouse.

While walking the floor, I ran into and probably embarrassed comic creators Mark Waid and Christy Blanch!

I'm not much of a panel goer at these shows, with a few exceptions, but I did take in a few.

This one was particularly interesting because a guy with stuffed dogs strapped to him came up and asked a question. I saw him a few other times over the weekend, and each time he had more dogs on him, including one time where the dogs surrounded his head. It was interesting.

It's the obligatory "going down the escalator at Comic-Con" shot! Yeah!!

I had took a few minutes on Friday afternoon to pick up my pre-orders from Mattel. I'm always a little stunned at the volume that big companies sell at this show. This is just one room full of items that were also on sale elsewhere at the show. There's even plastic wrap covering the floors to protect the carpet. Here's to consumerism, I guess!

While walking back to the convention, though the hotel, I found this gentleman with the Super Mario Bros. backdrop. This is the voice actor who plays Mario in the video games. Yes, he was doing the voice for those who dropped by, too.

Back to the convention hall - what a great Hawkgirl!

Here's Thanos and Loki.

I tried to make it to a Rick and Morty panel, but apparently I didn't get there in time. I was no where near making it in. It's a shame, but I got lucky later in the evening and it made up for this disappointment. On the way over, though, I saw some good costumes, including this one of two-ton 21!

X-23 and Wolverine.

Adult Swim had a big presence at the show, as in years past. This time they were set up behind the convention hall.

Rick and Morty seemed to be the biggest focus of all the [AS] displays and events. It's my favorite new show on the network (is Adult Swim a network?), so it was nice to see that other people apparently enjoy it as well.

There are always impressive costumes at this show, but this one might have been my favorite because of how dang accurate it was and how much this lady looked the part. I half expected to see her start stretching. Fantastic job.

CHECK OUT THIS AMALGAM COSTUME! That's the Storm/Wonder Woman hybrid from DC and Marvel's joint venture in the '90s. The Storm costume is really impressive as well, but I can't get over the great mashup.

Entertainment Earth had a number of celebrity signings at their booth over the weekend, and they were surprisingly easy to get into. I won the opportunity to meet late night host and SNL alumni Seth Meyers, who, by the way, is a big fan of Pittsburgh sports. We talked about the Pirates and Steelers briefly, and I got a few signed items from him. It was an incredibly smooth process, so hats off to Entertainment Earth for setting this up.

It's weird to say that I met Jamie Hyneman from "Mythbusters" in the bathroom at Comic-Con, but that's what happened. He was washing his hands and I didn't know how to approach him. The correct answer was to wait until we were both out of the bathroom, so I'm glad that I remembered some common human etiquette before getting this picture.

Matthew and John Yuan played on season four of Arrested Development. I saw them walking around in 2013 but managed to get a picture this year in which we semi-recreate one of my favorite scenes from the show. Both of the guys were very friendly and let me ask them the questions that they probably always get.

I was excited to once again make it to the Rotten Tomatoes "Your Opinion Sucks!" panel in the evening. This is one of the only panels that I feel I have to make it to every year, and it did not disappoint once again. It's lively and fun and everyone should try to see one at some point. This one was pretty crowded, so I guess people are getting the memo.

Emcee Grae Drake was in a Muppet costume.

And I got a picture with Rotten Tomatoes EIC Matt Atchity after the panel as well.

The show closed for the night after the panel, at which time I rushed out of the building in an attempt to make it to the Rick and Morty screening that was happening immediately after. We barely made it in, but it was a successful attempt.

There was a Star Wars event happening nearby...and soon after we sat down, fireworks started to go off. This drowned out everything else that was happening nearby, so we all just sat and watched the fireworks for ten minutes or so.

The screening consisted of Rick and Morty creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland acting out a scenario while animators drew the character. It quickly devolved into madness. Seth Green was in the audience, and he was invited up to perform as well. Most if not all had a few drinks beforehand, so it went how you might expect.

At the end of the night, we all got to see an early screening of a season two episode! This ended up being the second episode from the new season.

As we were leaving, I got to see my good Comic-Con friend, Russian Guyovich! There was apparently a Venture Bros. screening the night before, and an upcoming episode of that show was played for the unsuspecting audience. I guess I'll have to catch that when the new season (finally, mercifully) starts next year.

Two more days to go! We'll get there. And then maybe some NYCC pictures, too.