2019 Protex Houston Comicpalooza Commission by Ramon Villalobos

There are a number of artists that I've commissioned over the years that I was very impressed with, and yet did not go on to make the splash I'd hoped or expected for them. Ramon Villalobos is right near the top of that list of talents that deserve better careers than they've gotten so far. I think the skills are clearly on display, but he's had far more than his share of bad breaks. Basically, through no fault of his own, the artist was linked to three abusive individuals, leading to the premature cancellations of promising titles such as the 2019 Wildcats revival (meant to spin out of The Wild Storm) and DC/Vertigo's Border Town. He's still had some higher profile projects, including the Secret Wars mini-series E Is For Extinction, the 2016 Nighthawk mini-series with David Walker, and contributing to the event series Original Sins, but it's been too quiet for the better part of a decade.

Anyway, Villalobos hit Houston as part of a stable under a manager, one of the first years where I saw that really becoming a thing at comic conventions (and certainly contributing to the nosebleed rates being commanded these days.) That said, there are benefits to having someone besides the artist handling the workflow, which included encouragement to use screentones in commissions. Man, if I have a kink, it's Zip-A-Tone, which is how I ended up bringing home saucy/Not Safe For Work original manga art by Kimura Tomoe during my one trip to Japan, despite not really being a manga guy (and I really need to rescan those pages from the originals instead of Xeroxes now that I have an 11x17" scanbed.) Blame Paul Gulacy firstly, but I just really love the contrast between the organic line and mechanical precision the process offers.

It's taken me years to final set down the ultimate Hyperclan biographical entry with Protex, both leader and most visible member of one of the rare Martian threats that rates under JLA terms. The character was co-created by Howard Porter, and where on most of the Hyperclan commissions I've gotten, we went more retro, I liked the idea of revisiting Protex through a different Image-caliber Morrison collaborator, Frank Quietly. Obviously Ramon Villalobos has his own vibe, but also obviously, Quietly is an influence on both his style and on his assignments. Protex started out lean, and got mantis-like once he stuck to a purely White Martian form, so it's neat to see this husky take that looks a lot more believable as someone who could wrestle with Superman. Dig on the spaghetti bowl hair, the gleaming liquid paper highlights, those gorgeous hands, the Jim Morrison crotch, and the bonus slavering White Martian head to undercut Protex's posing at divinity. I love this piece so much-- it's one of my favorites-- and I'm just sorry the lengthy wait for the bio also meant sitting on this art. My other regret is that Villalobos did a second commission for me of one of my self-created characters that I'll be holding onto until my dreams of ever realizing published stories about them are fully crushed.

Ramon Villalobos

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