"Look, when the big bad can even control the metal in our blood, it's time to give the inflatable girl a shot."
β To Me, My Gnome Pals!
That line is cringe. Sorry, it just is. I know the millennials love the X-Men cartoon, and yeah, the theme song is a banger. Bit the animation on X-Men was atrocious, mostly because they were chasing that 90's extreme aesthetic that was so popular in the comics right out the window.
I kid. X-Men was great! And I really enjoyed the reboot that came out a year or two ago. But that look actually goes back to one artist that I have a bit of history with. Or maybe I should say, "without".
π¬ Some Gnome-Spun Truths:
When I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher (who was pretty big into comics, which was really weird for an adult to admit) was going to a comic book convention. I was already known as the "class artist", so this teacher was pretty aware that I was probably a good bet to be interested in comics. And, he wasn't wrong, per-se, but I didn't know anything about the people in the industry. I basically knew the artists of my favorite books (Mark Bagley from New Warriors, and Ron Lim from Captain America.). Neither of those two were going to be at the con, but my teacher did come back with an autograph for me.One was just written on the back of the con program, but it was personalized. It said, "Keep drawing, you'll make it big, [real name redacted]." And it was signed by some bozo I'd never heard of. My teacher said he was a Marvel artist, but didn't know his work really well. I looked at the name and assumed he was a nephew of Stan Lee and I didn't give it much mind. The personalized autograph ended up in a drawer. Forgotten.
The next fall I pulled X-Men #1 off the newstand and bought it (like everyone else on the planet). It was written by Chris Claremont. And huh. That artist's name seemed familiar:
That's Jim Lee, the guy who basically styled the modern look of the X-Men, as I mentioned above. Co-Founder of Image Comics. Future Chief Creative Officer and Publisher of DC Comics.
No, I never found that autograph. It wasn't like it would be worth anything, even with the speculator boom of the 90's. But it's a good story that I always think about when the X-Men come up.
βοΈ Gnome is Where the Art Is.
And speaking of coming... up. You pervs. I have a couple great pictures of mutants this week. First, a SFW pic featuring a Russian transplant who (through the help of some reality manipulation by the members of Excalibur) becomes a better lover for his on-again, off-again girlfriend Kitty (and for all paid members).
Then, later in the week, check out the BE expansion pic of everyone's favorite "look but don't touch" powerhouse Rogue. She'll be stealing hearts (and memories if you get to close) on Wednesday for Gnome Team and Gnome Pal tiers.
ποΈ New collection: Mutants and Marvels
I am going to try to get better about gathering my work into collections. We'll start this week with "Mutants and Marvels" which will be a collection of all my X-Men and Marvel characters, as well as some commissions of OC supers. (We'll save DC for another day).
π Thanks for reading!
Come back Mondays to see what I'm going to be up to throughout the week and month to follow.
Thanks, and as always...
...keep dreaming!
βGnome
PS: Even if you've been here forever, take a moment and let me know how you found me!