Sign of the Hammer!

Monday 10 October 2011

And I was thinking how the world should have cried on the day Jack Kirby died...

A bit of cross-blog fun – over on his corner of the web, the inimitable Louis Carter, my new partner in time-crime for 2012’s Dr WTF?!, has previewed some of his preliminary designs for the ‘good’ Doctor and his sidekick. Louis’s work on ‘Halo and the Gryphon’ in Dirk Van Dom’s excellent Vanguard #1 was recently described on Comics Bulletin as “stunning” – well-earned praise indeed. Anyway, Louis has some kind words for my script, which are much appreciated, as is the chance to see his take on some of my loopy concepts. Got to say, even at this stage, the attention to detail is just lovely – check out the intricate jacket braiding. In fact, in regards to the sidekick, Louis has taken my initial idea and absolutely run with it, adding in a few visual flourishes of his own. Just as with 2011’s Dr WTF?!, I know that no matter how my script goes down, it’s going to look bloody gorgeous. Owen Watts says he paired up Louis and I on the basis of mutual lunacy. From where I’m standing, it’s looking like a marriage made in glorious madness.

Spanish Carter Magic?

And the Kirby reference? Well, it’s an object lesson in how a writer can casually bung a line into a script without thinking about how it might screw with the poor artist’s brain. My script mentions a guitar and sound-system looking like the sort of thing Jack Kirby might have built – but nowhere did I bother to say what that actually meant. Hell, I’m a huge Kirby fan, but if you asked me “What defines Kirby Tech?” I might have struggled once I’d got past “shiny, lots of buttons”. Thankfully, Louis went above and beyond the call of duty and got hold of some rather natty guidelines, the results of which are beautifully evident in this pic I’ve shamelessly ripped off from his site.
May the madness continue!

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