Some of you may know, I’ve been working on illustrations for Natalie Zina Walschots’s DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains for a while. The good news is that DOOM will be published in Spring 2012 by Insomniac Press! The bad news is that none of the beefcake illustrations of Lex Luthor and Magneto and friends will appear in the book, due to the legal complications of depicting trademarked supervillains in the nude without permission. (Whatever.) It’s okay. We were all half-expecting to be unable to use those illustrations. But they certainly made for some conversation-starting calendars!
I’ve been working on new illustrations for the book, which include frontispiece illustrations for each of the sections: Rogues Gallery 1, 2 and 3, Stronghold (about supervillain lairs or bases) and Containment (about supervillain prisons), as well as a supervillainous illustration of the author herself. I’ve put some early drawings below, but most will likely not be used in the final book. The reasons are twofold: (1) The final ones will more accurately reflect the thematic thread running through each of the rogues gallery sections, and (2) I realized, after the fact, that these illustrations are not the least bit sexy. These are sexy love poems! None of the illustrations (save maybe the author illustration) even hint at that. My bad.
This Rogues Gallery illustration is based on the popular detective-wall-of-crime-incidents seen in many a mystery tale, complete with generic supervillain mugshots. Also, an editorial sin: an apostrophe in the wrong place! I’m so … embarrassed.
This Rogues Gallery illustration didn’t work out so well – the blood from the gruesome crime scene (that chalk outline is cut in half!) was supposed to spell ‘Rogues Gallery 2,’ but it’s barely legible.
And this final Rogues Gallery illustration is an homage to that weird Anti-Monitor ship or whatever it is in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Trying to pull off a George Perez level of detail here.
My renditions of Apokolips and Latveria appear in the two Stronghold illustrations.
And Arkham Asylum is featured in the Containment illustration.
I’m always anxious when attempting to depict real people. So, doing a supervillain illustration of the author, Natalie Zina Walschots, was a bit intimidating, even if it was a fantastic idea. But I’ve heard from Walschots and she really likes it (or is really good at lying to me), so colour me relieved.
I’ll post new sketches soon. And watch for DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains this spring.
