Hawkeye

August 10th Drink n Draw. I finally caught up and read Mark Millar's The Ultimates last year. If you don't know, the Ultimates is essentially non-canonical Avengers - grittier, and in many ways, more "plausible". Captain America is a knee-jerk patriot, Ant-Man/Giant-Man is a physically abusive alcoholic spouse, Wasp is a cheater, Thor might be having insane delusions of grandeur and Nick Fury is, well, Samuel L. Jackson. Hawkeye was the character who most appealed to me, and continues to fascinate me. He begrudgingly works for Fury and is easily the least powerful Ultimate, yet the writers seem to have amped up his abilities to the point where he truly is the world's greatest marksman. He literally killed his captors by flicking his own fingernails into their throats, while still bound to an interrogation chair.

Consequently, I've also been reading the canonical Avengers, starting with the Heroic Age reboot drawn by John Romita Jr. Currently, the overarching storyline is called Fear Itself, yada yada. The series is interspersing interviews with the various Avengers into the action storyline. The interviews are fascinating. A cautious romance has been struck between Hawkeye and Spider-Woman and I'm very curious to see how it will play out.

In the LOTR series, I've been a fan of Boromir since the first book. I see him as a flawed character, but ultimately he is a hero at heart. I feel the same way about a Jedi named Ganner Rhysode in the New Jedi Order series. He's a brash but inwardly insecure character with many flaws, but, in the end, he summons incredible heroics to save those closest to him, namely Jacen Solo. I feel the same way about Hawkeye. He's always been a poor man's Captain America, but he is truly just as heroic and inwardly strives to be Cap. He has, on occasion, channeled Cap and assumed the mantle of leadership in critical situations.

Long story short (too late), I've a new found fascination with Hawkeye. He is one of the B-list characters in the Marvel Universe, but his "human" attributes make him one of the most compelling.

Thunder!!!

The other night we had another sideways rain thunderstorm. I laid in bed, timing the seconds between the lightning flashes and the sound of thunder. Each second is supposed to equal a mile, right? Anyway, the thought crossed my mind that people used to say that thunder was just God bowling. Then I laughed and thought, "what if it was the THUNDER god bowling." Ladies and gentlemen - Thor bowling.

Afterward, maybe he'll try his luck at the Claw and finally snag that elusive lobster harmonica.

Pig-vitation

This is a scan of a drawing I did for a pig-roast invitation. The font is Bold Copperplate Gothic.

I started making linocut prints again, after, oh, about a 15 year hiatus. These two strapping lads were my first attempts at 2-color lino prints. I did runs of 12 for each design.

This was the image from a card I drew for my buddy John's birthday. It's really just a copy of a Mike Mignola drawing. I edited the text, as we were meeting to drinky drink at the Long Room in Chicago.

Johnny-Come-Lately's bandwagon

I'm creating this blog to collect musings, artwork, writing, etc. so that I can easily review it. If you find anything interesting or thought-provoking, feel free to comment.