Day 114 of 365 days.
Yesterday, I was "called out." In a nice and friendly way, sure. But make no mistake about it, Jack Scoresby and Stephen Poff laid a punk card down right in front of me. Jack and Stephen are fellow photographers, who also both happen to be doing this crazy 365 Days project and both happen to be big comic book geeks like myself. A couple days ago, Stephen posted a picture which he dedicated to Jack and me. Then yesterday, Jack dedicated his 365 shot to Stephen and me. They both then pointed out that I’d be a total jerk not to follow suit. They were right.
I actually thought of the idea for this shot last night. But then when I got up to do it this morning, I discovered that the lens I wanted to use was filthy and I didn’t have any lens cleaner. So I rushed off to the camera store at the mall to get some and decided I should run some other errands while I was out. So I eventually I got home and took the shot but then went to work on it and discovered that I only had under 3 gigs of hard drive space free. For me that’s nothing. So I had to clean out some old photos to my external terrabyte drive. I finished with that just before people came over to watch the football game. I spent the entire game and some time after it with Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. I am happy to say that my beloved Steelers managed to win, though.
So anyway, this picture is dedicated to Jack and Stephen. For the uninitiated, the character I am portraying here is Venom. A Spiderman villain and sometimes anti-hero. I actually hate Venom (his existence invalidates Web of Spiderman #1, one of my all-time favorite comics). And I’m not terribly fond of the artist who created him, Todd McFarlane, who’s drawing style I attempted to emulate in this photo (down to his annoying signature banner taking up valuable composition space). However, I thought this would be a fitting tribute to Stephen’s penchant for superhero-iffying himself and Jack’s penchant for dark, macabre, face obscuring artwork. I recommend everyone check out their work. I very much enjoy it.
"Jack’s penchant for dark, macabre, face obscuring artwork."
I lol’d.
Nice man. Now we’re all even. =D I’m even faving this one just because of the story behind it.* Well done.
*Not to mention the truly insane amount of work you must have thrown into this.
thanx. Glad you like it. It was a lot harder than I anticipating it being, and honestly I’m still not totally happy with it, but I’d had enough.
I was actually going to post it to your mini challenge, but I just reread it and realized that its not actually about just being a tribute, but it was meant to have the other people in it as a cameo as well. *sigh* oh well.
Ha, ha! I love it! You’re an excellent Venom! Love the story behind it all…
Speaking of that challenge, could you add a link to it to that big blob of challenges on the 365days front page?
LMAO… we’ve been trumped! I love it. I look forward to seeing more from both of you guys in the future for sure.
By the way, it’s sort of a coincidence that you did this at the same time that I’m reading "Secret Wars". I had been wanting a copy of the entire run from the 80’s that propagated the "Black Spiderman" who would become Venom. So I had my comic shop order me a copy. It came in this week.
@Sandman5: Really, I’d much rather be Spiderman. I hate Venom.
@Jack: No problem. It’s done.
@Stephen: I love Secret Wars. I have friends who hate it as everyone is really out of character. But given some of the bad stories that were written later in the 90s (read: Hero’s Reborn) it actually doesn’t seem bad anymore. And at the time I had just really gotten into comics so I’ve always greatly enjoyed it.
Right, well… it was my introduction into the sprawling Marvel Universe. I’d been reading X-Men and Daredevil for a few months before Secret Wars. But Secret Wars allowed me a peek at more than I’d seen before.
That said, I’m enjoying reading it again, but the dialogue is shockingly amateurish. Overall I like the story and it’s pretty interesting, but I don’t remember it being so corny.
I didn’t know you were such a Spiderman fan. I’m a big Spiderman dork. I had so many Spiderman artifacts on my desk at my last job that they just started calling me Spiderman. I’ve always related to his character cause he’s usually drawn tall and skinny… which is how I see myself. Not to mention that his high school years seem to reflect my own. That said, I’m been enjoying Ultimate Spiderman for the return to the high school years.
that’s funny. You must have started reading comics around the same time I did. Amazing Spiderman was the first comic I subscribed to. I actually had a subscription for years and eventually dropped it when McFarlane basicaly drove me away. I started reading it again when Larsen picked it up and over the years since I’ve kind of been on and off with it.
Secret Wars was great for me at the time. Like you, it gave me exposure to the other characters. Particularly the Avengers. In fact, Secret Wars has a couple of my all time favoirte comic moments in it. 1) All the heroes buried under a mountain with the Hulk holding it up and Spiderman trying to pretend he didn’t have mechanical web shooters. And 2) Hawkeye begging Piledriver to back off, Piledriver not listening and Hawkeye shooting him pointblank with an arrow.
Yeah, I’m very much enjoying the Ultimate line these days. Particularly, Spidey, Ultimates and X-men. I like the back to highschool aspect of the Spiderman book and one of my favorite things is them exploring the relationship between Spidey and Kitty. Something that would never work in the "prime" universe but I think comes across as brilliant in the Ultimate line.
I swear I’ll get in on this discussion when I’m not so damn tired. I really want to.
Ok…
I also am a big fan of Secret War. I’ve had the trade for a year or two now. It is pretty bad, but I love the Wolverine/Cap standoff in it.
I’ve never been all that into Spiderman because, while I identified with him, it made me mad as a child because while he was picked on like I was, I didn’t have spiderpowers, so I was just worse off I figured.
My escapism came with the X-Men, specifically because they were like the unpopular kids in the superhero highschool. Specifically Wolverine mainly because here’s a guy who gets nothing but physical and emotional trauma, and he’s the strongest willed toughest most unbroken S.O.B. in the whole Marvel Universe. That really appealed to me.
Nowadays though, and for the past 2 years, Wolverine has been butched monthly in his own book, as well as many others. It’s a sad time for me.
Luckily, I’m really enjoying Green Arrow and Black Panther these days. So that helps.
I saw the beginning of this one at your house, and was so curious to see how it turned out! Very creepy!
I like McFarlane……Spawn is fabulous!
@Jack: I didn’t start reading the X-men til a little later. But it became another of my early favorites.
@Shan: See, I think conceptually Spawn is a good idea, and I think McFarlane’s style was very well set for horror comics. And I read it for a little bit, but it quickly got tiring. A lot of the writing was poorly paced and kind of jumbled. The cartoon version worked a little better, I think.