I've gone back and forth on whether I wanted to end the anniversary month on a jam piece, or new stuff. Given how much of this month was devoted to finally getting a Marco Xavier bio page online, and all the revisiting of his vast criminal organization that entailed, it was only natural to end September on Vulture. For the record, besides being part of the blog's bucket list, I'm also still miffed that Marco Xavier doesn't have a page on Fandom's DC Comics Database (defaults to Amalgam and House of Mystery results,) Comicvine (defaults to Mister X,) or Wikipedia (a small Vulture page.) Not to get a swell head, but let's be real, a lot of what is out there is derived from my work here, often using art that I commissioned, sometimes by folks who were/are regulars here (Alien Atlas Apostles?) For nearly thirty years, I've been the Martian Manhunter-related change that I've wanted to see in the world. The work's still not done either, but I did take advantage of time spent here to bookmark future entries and built much of a Vulture profile/link list for later.
Enough about me though, because this is supposed to be about the artists... who were mostly paid a decade ago and I don't see much/at all anymore. Chris Foreman was at a small show in Baytown earlier this month, but he'd already contributed to the only related jam I was trying (and failing) to nudge forward there. I see Johnny J. Segura III every once in a while, but the rest of these folks have been missing from my sphere since at least COVID. I got a relatively large amount of work from Antoine Mayes in the short time that he turned up at local shows, including Porto “The Man of 1,000 Disguises” (twice,) The Alien Robots, The Doom Shadow, The Giant Watery Hand of Gilgana, and the Horn Firing Creature of Gilgana. Better luck next year for getting that still deferred jam out to the public! Anyway, I asked Adrian Nelson to do some wraparound art for the 2015 J'Onzz Family Portrait Artist Jam, and wanted to do something similar for this jam. By the way, I keep up with art commissions in part through creators' business cards, and I've had a stack on my desk for a few months now. Adrian's with his take on Deadpool sits right on top, and Bad Cog had a small booth at that Baytown con. He passed a few years ago, and I get a bit maudlin when I glance over at it.
Back on track, I found Mayes' work to be cool and imaginative, plus he didn't some nice work with ballpoints without being overly precious and taking forever. Since it was a selection of Vulture's more monstrous operatives, with Marco Xavier embedded at right like some sort of horror host, it made sense to have the specter of Mr. V hanging over the gang. Also, there wasn't a lot of space to work with, and he didn't have a lot of face to work in. Because he's Faceless, see? Anywho, I think Mayes put the capper on this around 2015-16, but nobody dated their contributions, and I only ran into him at a couple or three shows. I hope he's still out there. I'm sorry I kept everyone waiting on this, but maybe it's a fun blast from the past and not gross negligence on my part?
Vulture Jam
3 comments:
It was worth the wait!
Glad you dig it. Another (mostly) complete jam reveal later in the month...
I love "group pics" LOL. Well done.
Post a Comment