Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Vile Menagerie Redux

This blog has spent nearly two years analyzing at great length and depth the various villains comprising the Martian Manhunter's rogues gallery. As I discussed in depth here, getting the Vile Menagerie to a more comprehensive place with better representative art has actually been more than a decade in the making. I promised long ago that I would get at least one VM entry out per month, and have some catching up to do. However, after weeks of on-and-off but meticulous effort, I feel I finally have a picture that well represents the concept. I'll be better organizing and expanding upon this motley crew over the rest of the month and beyond, but for now enjoy this sneak preview of things to come...

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The Martian Manhunter Rogues Gallery


vile ('vîl)

1: morally despicable.
2: physically repulsive.
3: degrading, ignominious.

menagerie (me-'na-je-ré)

1: a collection of wild animals, especially for exhibition.
2: the place where such animals are kept.
3: an unusual and varied group.


The Menagerie Census

Spotlight Exhibits
  • B'rett
  • Bel Juz
  • Commander Blanx
  • Ma'alefa'ak
  • Mr. V
  • Professor Arnold Hugo
  • Vandal Savage

The Vile Corpus: Villains that elude the gallery

The Traveling Menagerie:
Everything Else That Doesn't Fit

8 comments:

  1. This is very cool looking. How did you make this? One complaint and only because I have a weird fascination with Malefic, its hard to see him in the left.

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  2. It's like Colorforms. You take a picture of a character, then erase or white out the background around the figure in MS Paint. From there, you can lay the figure every which way on top of a new background and/or other figures.

    It takes a while to do that once, so you can imagine how time consuming it is to do it about thirty times. To cut corners on time and effort, I recycle from old projects as much as possible. That's the same Malefic from 2010's "New Years Evil" banner, because it was a cool handy shot that was close enough to being a full figure, like I thought I needed. I regret it now. You're right about him being too dark and hard to see. I tried playing with the contrast and even recoloring the shadows in flesh tone by hand, but that just made it worse. For now, Master Gardner's casting a big shadow over Malefic, but maybe down the line I'll go all George Lucas on it.

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  3. Yeah, this is effin' cool. Great goin' as always!

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  4. I have no problem with the Human Squirrel and Tor the Indestructible Robot being more visible than Malefic. Great job!

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  5. Looking at it, I can't replace Malefic's body without ripping out a whole hunk of the picture, but I don't think that's the problem. If I can just find and paste in a new head, I think that'll do it.

    It also occurred to me that some artist information may be in order...

    Joe Certa:
    B'rett
    The Diabolu Idol-Head
    The Falcon
    The Human Squirrel
    Mr. Moth
    Professor Arnold Hugo
    TOR

    Dick Dillin:
    Bel Juz
    Commander Blanx

    Curt Swan:
    Mongul
    Re's Eda

    Tom Mandrake:
    Bette Noir
    Malefic

    Phil Hester:
    Mr. V

    Doug Mahnke:
    Scorch

    Pat Gleason:
    D'Kay

    Alan Kupperberg:
    The Marshal

    Sal Velluto:
    Vandal Savage

    Al Barrionuevo:
    Cay'an

    Walt Simonson:
    Darkseid

    Ed Barreto:
    The Master Gardener

    Luke McDonnell:
    Despero

    Jim Starlin:
    Martian Manhunter

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  6. Where did you find Phil Hester's Mr. V?

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  7. No, Frank. Malefic is placed perfectly, being eclipsed by Prof. Hugo's head.

    The Human Squirrel hanging off the banner is a stroke of genius.

    This is absolutely wonderful.

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  8. Find? Try bought. ;)

    Liss, Hugo's being a team player and obscuring Malefic's lack of legs from the calves down. Cay'an is the real cameo-blocker, and I think the guys are a bit embarrassed by her. Blanx tried to keep it kid friendly by covering her breasts (genocide yes, immodesty no,) and Hugo tried to censor her crotch slingshot. At least, I hope that's what Hugo was groping about for...

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