Chaykin Draws Down on Jonah Hex

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What with all the talk lately about James Brolin playing Jonah Hex in the up-coming movie and Darwyn Cooke providing the cover to Jonah Hex 56, I’ve been thinking about my favorite artists who’ve drawn the deformed gunslinger.

This is Howard Chaykin’s prelim for the cover of  Jonah Hex #4 which was cover-dated February 2006.  It’s interesting to note that this appears to be an older Jonah Hex than we normally see and the powerlines in the background would indicate that the story takes place later in Hex’s life.  Chaykin said that…

“My inspiration for the image – and this is based on memory, as opposed to actually looking at the artwork in question – was a cover for a MAX BRAND paperback by an illustrator named Roy Andersen – who did a beautiful series of covers for Warner books back in the seventies or eighties…”

The artwork appeared in Rough Stuff magazine #4 and can be found in back issue bins in most comic shops.

Miller Visits Jurassic Park

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If you’re a Frank Miller completist, then you’ll want to pick up the first issue of Jurassic Park: Redemption since Miller provides the cover.  The mini-series from IDW will run five issues and is written by Bob Schreck with art by Nate Van Dyke.  Tom Yeates is also providing a variant cover to the first issue, so be sure to let your comic shop manager know which cover you’re after should you decide to get one.

Future issues will feature covers by Arthur Adams, Paul Pope, Bernie Wrightson and Bill Stout.

Brolin is Hexed

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The Entertainment Weekly Summer Preview issue takes a look at 96 films coming out this summer.  Guess that’s why it’s called the summer preview issue, right?  Anyway, one of the films covered is Jonah Hex.  The picture above is the first clear close-up that I’ve seen of Brolin in character.  I thought it was pretty cool.  Hope you do too.

3 Title Fights, 3 Upsets

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Strikeforce: Nashville was held last night and aired on CBS.  Three titles were on the line and all three fights were exciting examples of an underdog going into a fight well prepared, with a plan that he stuck to that led to a win.

Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal vs Gegard Mousasi.  In just his seventh fight, King Mo was a huge underdog going in against Mousasi, who held the title.  From the first round on, King Mo was able to take down Mousasi at will.  Early in the fight it appeared that King Mo was going to gas out.  At the end of the second round, Mo appeared to have trouble standing and walking back to his corner — he was that tired.  Yet, Mo continued to score takedown after takedown and ended up winning the decision.

Gil Melendez [Strikeforce Champion] was the underdog when he entered the octogan against Shinya Aoki.  Most experts thought that once the fight went to the ground Aoki would submit Melendez.  It seemed that even Melendez thought that a possibility when the fight started — so his plan was to make this a standup war.  And he did.  Each time Aoki attempted to take Melendez down, Melendez punished him with hard punches.  Melendez had a beautiful fight plan, stuck to it, and won a unanimous decision.

The biggest upset of the night was Strikeforce Champion Jake Shields scoring a unanimous decision against Dan Henderson.  Early in the first round it looked to be lights out for Shields when Henderson rocked him with a punch that dropped him.  Shields recovered enough to keep the fight going, but was dropped again in the first.  Again it looked to be an early night for Henderson.  Shields didn’t see it that way.  From the second round on, he scored takedown after takedown and dominated Henderson.  Several times Shields even achieved a full mount to rain down punches on Henderson, who to his credit, each time was able to avoid a ref stoppage.  Shields earned a well deserved unanimous decision.

Re-Imagined Marvel Covers

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Re-imagined covers and posters are popular.  Recently we checked out Laz Marquez’s cool redesigns of classic Hitchcock movie posters.  Marquez followed that up with some re-imagined Stephen King book covers.   Turner Classic Movies offered up some re-imagined classic/iconic movie posters that were also very popular.

Designer, Steven Finch recently posted five re-imagined Marvel comic series that he recreated as dime store paperback covers.  It’s a cool idea and he promises more are coming.

Thanks to io9.com for the original link.

Ray-Anthony Height’s Rocky

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I had the good fortune to meet Ray-Anthony Height at MegaCon this year. I was talking with a con buddy who had a table near where Ray was set up and I saw him knock out one cool sketch after another. It didn’t take long before I checked to see if Ray would be interested in doing a Stallone sketch. He was, and created the nice Rocky piece that you see above.

You can see more of Ray-Anthony Height’s art here and here. And if you’re so inclined, tell him I sent ya!

The Rawhide Kid Rides Again

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When I was a little kid first reading comics, one of my favorite characters was the Rawhide Kid.  In 2003, Marvel decided to bring back the Rawhide Kid in a mini-series called Blaze of Glory.  It was supposedly a humorous take on the Kid as being gay.  I said “supposedly humorous” because I didn’t read it.

Marvel is bringing back that Rawhide Kid in a new mini-series called The Sensational Seven.  Although the change in the Rawhide Kid’s character still bugs me, I might give this series a shot.  Written by Ron Zimmerman with art by Howard Chaykin the story will bring together some of the most popular Marvel western characters along with real western legends.

When Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp are taken prisoner, The Rawhide Kid sets off to rescue them.  Along the way he meets up with The Two Gun Kid,  Kid Colt, Red Wolf, Doc Holiday, Annie Oakley, Billy the Kid and others.

If this sounds like something that you’d like, then you might want to check out Zimmerman’s interview at CBR.com where he talks about his plans for the series.

Andrew Robinson Hulks Out

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Here’s a pencil sketch of the The Hulk for a Marvel trading card set.  It was drawn by Andrew Robinson and appeared [in much smaller form] in Rough Stuff #4 [April 2007]. Yep, the same Andrew Robinson who drew The Punisher and Nick Fury cards.  Here’s what Andrew said about the piece:

“I think this is the only time [for publication] that I’ve drawn the Hulk, and man, did I have a good time.”

Looking at the drawing, I can’t help but smiling.  The funny thing about the Hulk is that I’ve never really cared for the character.  Outside of his “guest appearances” to fight Ben Grim or Spider-Man, or the X-Men, I probably have read less than a handful of Hulk comics.  The best of those being Hulk drawn by Jim Starlin and Alex Nino in the Hulk’s own magazine.  But, although I’m not a fan of Hulk stories, I am a fan of Hulk drawings.  Perhaps it’s because there are so many ways that artists can draw him.  Andrew Robinson’s take is one of my favorites.

Pinocchio Paradox

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I like paradoxes.   You know, a statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction.  Perhaps the simplest paradox is…

This statement is false.

If the statement is false, then it is in fact a true statement thus making it false.  Huh?  Exactly.

Another paradox…

God is all powerful and can do anything.  God could even create a rock so heavy that he couldn’t lift it.

If God couldn’t lift the rock, he isn’t all powerful… and if he couldn’t create the rock, then he isn’t all powerful.  But suppose God could create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it… then the fact that God couldn’t lift it would mean he wasn’t all powerful.  And if he could lift such a rock would mean that he wasn’t powerful enough to create a rock he couldn’t lift.

There are also a lot of movies [The Terminator, Back to the Future, 12 Monkeys, etc.] that involve time travel paradoxes. So, I’m pretty familiar with a lot of different types of paradoxes.  I’d never heard of the Pinocchio paradox until I stumbled across it at Neatorama.  I got a kick out of it.  I hope you did as well.

Riddick’s Return Lookin’ Good

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Earlier today, Patrick Sauriol of Coming Attractions posted a very positive script review of David Twohy’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking. According to Sauroil, Twohy has created a script that acknowledges all that happened in The Chronicles of Riddick and yet takes Riddick back to the type of character he was in Pitch Black.

From all that Sauroil writes, Twohy has crafted the perfect return for Vin Diesel as Riddick.  The only thing that I would suggest is to change  the title of the new film from The Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking to Riddick.

Andrew Robinson & Nick Fury @ War

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As promised, here’s a pencil sketch of the Nick Fury for a Marvel trading card set. The art is by Andrew Robinson and appeared [in much smaller form] in Rough Stuff #4 [April 2007]. Here’s what Andrew said about the piece:

“Nick and the commandos in one war and I was in another, the battle of tangents.  In this case I used Photoshop after finishing the sketch, to cut out background figures and move them slightly to avoid bad tangents.  For example Nick’s right arm seems to be leaning on a commando’s back.  So to correct this bad tangent, I just moved the background figure to the left.”