· artists

Cover of the Week – 7/10/13

July 15, 2013 in art, artists, comics | Permalink

A little late (and I missed a week), but here we are!

Rules: one cover from the “mainstream” (i.e. DC/Marvel) and one cover from the “indies” (i.e. anything NOT DC/Marvel).

In the mainstream corner we have this absolutely stunning Young Avengers #7 cover from Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson. The text integration alone – “Young Avengers” as an actual gorgeous part of the illustration warrants inclusion, but it also happens to just be a great illustration all around. The big red “Marvel Now” band at the bottom is annoying, but a necessary evil I’m afraid, and it’s honestly pretty mild, comparatively.

In the independent corner we have Image’s utterly fantastic East West #4 by Nick Dragotta. Man does this tick all my boxes! A lot of white space, limited use of color (monochromatic for bonus points!) exceptional graphic design on the text, and then superb text placement. In fact, the cover is so innovative in the way things are placed, it almost doesn’t look like a comic book cover. LOVE IT.

Tags: comic covers, comics!

Cover Of The Week – 6/26/13

June 26, 2013 in art, artists, comics | 3 comments

Two weeks in a row! Imagine that!

Rules: one cover from the “mainstream” (i.e. DC/Marvel) and one cover from the “indies” (i.e. anything NOT DC/Marvel).

From the Mainstream:

This should have been an easy pick this week, but with excellent covers by Frasier Irving (Uncanny X-Men #7), Kris Anka (Uncanny X-Froce #7) David Aja (Hawkeye #11) and Marvel made it tough on Olivier Coipel, still, his “X-Men” #2 takes it, for a bunch of gorgeous reasons, observe!

From the Indies, Michael Lark’s cover for “Lazarus” #1:

Tags: comic covers, comics!, Cover Of The Week, things made of awesome

Cover of the Week – 6/19/13

June 21, 2013 in art, artists, comics | Permalink

Thought dead, now resurrected, the ever popular “COVER OF THE WEEK” makes its triumphant return to 1979 Semi-Finalist!

Rumors of its demise were much exaggerated!

So yeah, from here forward going to try doing this again, and going to stick to one cover from the “mainstream” (i.e. DC/Marvel) and one cover from the “indies” (i.e. anything NOT DC/Marvel).

This week’s picks are awesome for being such similar ideas, executed completely differently and with really emotionally riveting results.

From the Mainstream:

Julian Totino Tedesco’s THUNDERBOLTS #11

From the Indies:

Becky Cloonan’s DEMETER

And if you haven’t found Demeter yet, you can buy print versions via Becky Cloonan’s store, or you can find it (and the other three awesome books in the unofficial trilogy) on Comixology.

Tags: comic covers, comics!, Cover Of The Week, things made of awesome

More THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING Fanart!

June 16, 2013 in art, artists, awesomeness, bonne braverman, fan art, The Girl Who Would Be King, the novel | Permalink

Google alert is sometimes good to me, so is twitter! It brought me this past week, two lovely pieces of THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING fan art, both for the Bravermans.

This Bonnie by Briana Mora (she did a gorgeous Lola LeFever for the fan art contest too) is gorgeous – looooove the eels as a framing/portrait device:

Bonnie Braverman by Briana Mora

The other, from the lovely Rachael Stephen, is of Bonnie’s mother, Scarlett Braverman, who nobody has drawn yet, not even Stephanie, Ross, or Meredith, so that is awesome!

Scarlett Braverman by Rachael Stephen

Tags: Bonnie Braverman, The Girl Who Would Be King, things made of awesome

Meredith McClaren is an utter badass – support her Kickstarter!

May 12, 2013 in art, artists, badassery | 3 comments

Reposting from There’s The Door Spaceman, for those of you that don’t follow. Also, for some reason, the images I posted there (no matter how many things I tried) came out a bit pixelated, so see them here in all their gorgeous glory!

STUNNING! These practical superheroine redesigns by Meredith McClaren are just to die for. I love how fashionable they are, how much they take into consideration the real world, there’s a practicality and function that is nevertheless completely badass. They’re also so far away from “basic catsuit” type stuff that it all feels so damn new and fresh!I mean…Look at that freaking Zatanna! I’ve never seen anything like that!

AND, you’ll be able to buy the original line art for some of these as she releases rewards this week for her AWESOME KICKSTARTER…although you guys are going to have to fight me for that Catwoman.

Tags: Batgirl, carrie kelly, Catwoman, kickstarter, poison ivy, things made of awesome, Wonder Woman, zatanna

FAN ART ENTRIES & WINNER!

February 1, 2013 in art, artists, bonnie braverman, fan art, lola lefever, The Girl Who Would Be King, the novel | 2 comments

Thanks to all of you who participated – this was so fun for me! I hoped we’d get more, but I always want more, I’m greedy that way.

In the meantime, less is good for those of you that entered! 😉 We did not get to 15 entries, so there will be only one winner today. Below are all the entries I received (in random order)…and the winner (drawn at random as per the rules) is at the bottom!

Our first entry is from Jessie Dawn and you can find her at both these links!

Second entry is from Natacha Bustos!

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bonnie Braverman, Lola LeFever, The Girl Who Would Be King

The Girl Who Would Be King Fan Art Contest!

January 28, 2013 in art, artists, bonne braverman, bonnie vs lola, contests!, fan art, lola lefever, The Girl Who Would Be King, the novel, writing | Permalink

A reminder that you’ve only got about 5 days left to enter THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING fan art contest!

Get all the details here.

And here’s a quick little sharpie fan art sketch I did myself to encourage you. GO! DRAW! SUBMIT! WIN! (maybe)

Tags: Bonnie Braverman, Lola LeFever, The Girl Who Would Be King, things made of awesome

The Girl Who Would Be King Art – MOAR LOLA PLEASE

October 5, 2012 in art, artists, bonnie braverman, lola lefever, superheroes, The Girl Who Would Be King, the novel | 1 comment

I think all of us that dabble in comics know how awesome the idea of “fan art” and “reinterpreting characters” is, so with that in mind I commissioned the fantastic Meredith McClaren to do portraits of Bonnie and Lola for me. These are of course going to look different than Stephanie’s interpretations – and Ross’s – but that’s part of what I love about them. You saw a Bonnie by Meredith a couple days ago, but here is her Lola, which I LOVE. And I think it’s an awesome contrast to Stephanie’s “Lola and bike” – both beautiful, both different, both so much of what I love about Lola (and this book).

So huge thanks to Meredith! Oh, and when the store opens on TheGirlWhoWouldBeKing.com to sell all the extra swag from the Kickstarter, there will be both oversized promotional cards and bookmarks to buy of this version of Lola. BE EXCITED! 😉

Last thing! Some of you are putting up amazing reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you SO MUCH. And for those of you that have finished reading and not yet reviewed…what’s stopping you!? And if you haven’t even bought it yet…then REALLY what’s stopping you? Get it now!