Superman

Strangely enough, for a guy whose favorite character is Superman, and whose blog is even named after one of his memorable intro lines... I don't have any drawings of Superman. So, just to kinda get me slowly back into the groove of drawing again and finishing my book, I set off trying to draw him up.

Look out, here comes a rant.

You know I really do like the Man of Steel. I'm a fan of Batman, and I LOVE Batman year one, and sure I was into Wolverine too, but I think the older I get, I realize I get really sick of all the dark and brooding heroes nowadays.

The comic book industry set off to make comic books so mature back inna day, that in my opinion it alienated newer generations to enjoy them. Comic books are mainly geared for older comic book nerds like me. Not really for kids, and not really bringing new readers in.

Plus, I think where I am now, with what I'm trying to do with my comic book, I want to reach out to younger comic book readers. Not to say Superman is just for kids (Geoff Johns and Grant Morrisson's recent takes on him have been great super hero reading), but his appeal is just more bright, universal. He's a hero's hero. Anyway, that's me ranting... let's get back to drawing...

As I was drawing I came to realize three things.

One: I can't draw Superman.

Two: My anatomy is horrible.

Three: I can't draw.

Here's the proof:

Yeah, pretty sad huh (shudder)? It was a lot of starts and stops, and a lot of disappointment because I couldn't get what is in my head out onto paper. On top of that, I saw Superman only as how he was drawn by other artists. Joe Shuster, Neal Adams, Kurt Swan, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Jerry Ordway, John Byrne... great stuff right? But what was mine? With a lot of struggling I got a rough sketch done:

And with still a lot of messing around and sloppy trial and error, I brought it to finish:

To be honest I still don't know what MY Superman looks like. The drawing that I ended up with was kind of what I settled with and deemed passable. I guess it'll have to do as my representation for now, I'll have to work on the Big red 'S' a little bit more...

Okay until next time! Up, Up and AWAY!