Gussy hates your housepets.
Gussy, the Big Jerk of a Little Bear, began as a recurring character in a comic book I drew. He was the insufferable ex-boyfriend of another character, forever hanging around and moping.
Eventually Gussy’s aggressive pessimism grew on me, plus he was fun to write, draw, and sculpt. He became kind of my mascot, adorning numerous website avatars, my signature, and even this site.
The Clown Prince of Crime.
Does the Joker need any introduction? I’m going to guess he’s the most famous comic book villain of all time.
I’ll just tell you a little about my version here.
With a nod to Conrad Veidt from The Man Who Laughs, whose look inspired the Joker, I think of the Joker as a handsome man whose only deformity is his bleached skin and green hair. Otherwise, it’s his violence and unpredictability that make him a monster. I updated his traditional jacket-with-tales and bolo tie with an ensemble which, while still old-fashioned, is sharp and tailored. The Joker’s a dandy.
I also left one shoe untied. Ultimately, the joke’s on him.
The hero of my all-time favorite cartoon, SCIENCE NINJA TEAM GATCHAMAN, known (in bowdlerized form) as BATTLE OF THE PLANETS or G-FORCE in the US. Gatchaman is seen here in his unmasked civilian guise, Ken. The stand is a replica of Ken’s handy weapon, called a “Sonic Boomerang” in English (in Japan he’d shout “Bird GO!” in English when he threw it). The producers of the 2000s TEEN TITANS cartoon used this same birdlike boomerang design as Robin’s weapon.
Ken as he appeared on the cartoon.
Comic book painter Alex Ross is a fan of the series, and did some nice covers for the DVD sets as well.
The big Gs in action.
Update 6/22/13:
They’ve made a live-action GATCHAMAN movie. I have no idea whether or not it’s going to be any good, but the trailer is suitably flashy:
I was hoping to present some new work today, but it’s not quite ready. So I hope in the meanwhile you’ll enjoy this one from the vault.
Robin Node was created by Daniel Lundie, who also designed this piece.
This older piece was recently included in the “We Love Monsters” show at the Andromeda Gallery in Allston, MA. The titanic battle you never thought you’d see!
Frankenstein’s Monster has been re-imagined as a creation of Nazi science. He’s heavily influenced by the waterlogged Nazi zombies of the 70s B-movie SHOCK WAVES.
With Der Golem I kind of had a top-heavy, Mike Mignola monster in mind. I probably should have pushed him further in that direction.
At a loss for how he might be dressed, Golem is wearing purple, Jack-Kirbyesque trunks, much like the Marvel monsters of the early 60s.
I’m not sure how this fight turns out, but both monsters traditionally turn against their masters.
This is the first, and so far only, entry in the Monsters Series.
Another oldie.
I enjoyed BATMAN BEYOND, but never loved Terry McGinniss as a character. I liked the “Dirty Harry teamed with Spider-Man” dynamic Old Bruce and Terry shared, but Terry was never more than adequate. I once complained to a friend that Terry had none of Batman’s detective skills, that other than a gung-ho attitude he had little that wasn’t provided by the powered armor he wore. “That’s because Bruce isn’t training a replacement,” my friend said, “Terry is his arm.”
Fair enough!
Another piece done for the English charity Childline. I asked for and obtained permission from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen creators Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil. Getting their imprimatur was a exciting in and of itself.
The initial premise of LoEG was that various characters of fantastic Victorian literature were recruited by Great Britain to become a kind of 1890s superhero team. As the series continued, Moore and O’Neill broadened the concept by including an ever-increasingly number of literary and pop culture characters, suggesting a world in which all fictions are real and coexist. Almost no walk-on or background character, location, or sign is included without referring back to another work of some kind (Jess Nevins has done a phenomenal job of annotating LoEG) . In that spirit I wanted to make sure that all the details of this piece carried a little bit of narrative in them.
The scene depicted is from the second volume of LoEG, as Mr. Hyde is saying goodbye to Mina Murray, heroine of Dracula, before he confronts the Martians from War of the Worlds. Later in the story they mention a memorial statue will be built, and Serpentine Park will be renamed in honor of Mr. Hyde. I was trying to fit this into the narrative, suggesting this was the memorial statue (Ade Brown, the organizer of the charity auction, proposed the statue would have been sculpted by Mark Gatiss’s character Lucifer Box, and so Box’s signature is visible along with a date of 1900, two years after the events of the book).
Wanting to include the rest of the League, I placed them in simulated-stone cameos around the base of the statue, Quatermain, Nemo, and the Invisible Man, Hawley Griffin, with their adversaries the Martians included in the fourth cameo. Along the “stone” base are reliefs of the Nautilus famous Martian walkers along the Thames, the League “mystery man” logo, a depiction of Mars ringed with red creeper vines, and the League’s handler, Campion Bond with his family’s motto. Numerous other, minor details are packed away in there, too. The finished piece was shipped to London where it sat in the window of the defunct Comics Showcase, a shop I’m told Kevin O’Neill frequented, until it was auctioned.
When O’Neill drew the scene I used as a the basis of the sculpture, he drew Mina and Hyde mostly in close-up, so I needed to guess at their relative positions and postures. I gave Mina ramrod-straight Victorian posture, her hands bunched into fists at her sides. The most recent issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3: Century 2009 included this picture of the (now immortal) Mina Murray:
I thought it was funny that O’Neill had given Mina the same posture I had…
And then I noticed the monogram on her hooded sweatshirt. It’s a stylized “JF” nearly identical to the one I use to sign my sculptures.
I’m going to chalk it up to a neat coincidence and not the most obscure allusion ever made in LoEG, but I would love to imagine I’d been born into a world of stories and become one myself.
As I work on new material, here’s another one from the vault I haven’t posted here.
A companion piece to the Warner Bros. Studio Store Batman Animated Maquette, photographed by Patrick Lentz. Batgirl currently adorns my business postcards (and my heart).
This life-sized replica of the mask worn by X-Man Xorn was a Secret Santa gift for an X-Men fan. To keep it under the $20 price-cap on this gift exchange, this mask was made entirely from things I already had around the house, primarily modeling clay and found objects, cast in cheap, brush-on liquid latex meant for securing carpeting to the floor, and cast in left0ver Smooth-On resin.
I got some work done this weekend!
This piece is about 10″ high, a mixture of Super Sculpey, Sculpey III, and Sculpey Firm over and aluminum and brass armature, based on a design by Sean Downey. The mixture of Super Sculpey and Sculpey firm give me a texture I prefer to work with, particularly in the hot weather when polymer clay gets a little gummier.
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