My redesign of Wolverine for Project Rooftop.

This was fun, I enjoyed tackling a design that wasn't intended to be loaded with symbolism or backstory.

Basically, for this, I figured that there are two sorts of Wolverine: You've got your high-octane adventurer and you've got your brooding loner.

The basic outfit is a superheroic goulash, lots of those absurd tiger stripes which Wolverine periodically gets on his costume, neverminding the fact that wolverines have nothing of the sort (nor are they yellow and blue, but I digress). There's plenty of X-symbols, those great shoulder armor things he's had since he debuted, and then I added a rakish off-the-hip belt and something relatively like chaps, for the adventuring feel. I also eschewed the mask and opened up the arms so that he's got a more loose, wild attitude. Plus, I got to draw that hair.

There's a hood and a small cape on the back, which can be unzipped, unfolded and worn in the gray version to the upper right. This is handy for looking depressed in the rain, which I think is something like forty percent of all Wolverine stories.

So, ta-daa, my Wolverine for Project Rooftop's current content. I don't get to participate as a contestant, but it's always fun to join in anyway.

It's been forever since I've posted any art in here. Most of my time lately is taken up with proper art-related stuff, so instead of that, here's some head sketches I've done over the last week or so ...







That Batman was a costume redesign idea I had well after the Project Rooftop contest closed. My mind, it is like greased lightning ...

So, some folks were recently doing something called an hourly comic, the idea being that you drew a short comic each hour of your waking day. Since I'm trying to do more comics this year (resolution #4 or something), I took time out of my Saturday to draw one up. Completed some of the inks and scanned it last night (which was probably breaking the rules, but what are you going to do, sic the hourly comic police on me?), and put together twenty of them into teensy tiny little minicomics for the Friends of the Nib and Drink N Draw (which is this Friday!) crowds.

Anyway, boy, what a fascinating introduction! I bet you're practically salivating to read the thing now! Oh boy. Can you stand the uproarious thrills and outrageous laffs of a Saturday in the life of Calamity Jon Morris, unemployed fat stupid man? Pregnant women, young children and people with heart conditions should check with their doctors before reading this comic. Please keep your arms and legs inside the panel borders and, please, no smoking or flash photography.



( Read below the cut for more stories about the mundanities of my day and my plethora of neuroses - AWESOME! )

Man, it's a big day, but let's not let this momentous turning point in the history of America and the free world distract from the fact that I'm broke and unemployed and am selling vital organs for Snickers money. Today, I'm listing my Tiny Heroes Defenders group shot over at eBay, starting at the ganga deal of ninety-nine stinking cents, no reserve, someone's possibly walking away with a steal ...



In a more focused note, hey my fellow Indiana Jones sketchcard illustrators - have you gotten your cards back yet? I've noticed mine starting to pop up on eBay, much to my and my dilapidated pocketbook's chagrin ...

I changed my mind about my Batman redesigns.

Okay, I did sketches of my new Batman designs, nothing finished nor submittable. Oh, and just as a timely reminder, of course, this is all a part of Project:Rooftop's upcoming "Dynamic Do-Over" (those guys are so good at the puns!) Batman redesign contest:



( Anyway, Bat-redesigns behind the cut ... )

I just got a hankering to draw a likeness of Stephen Fry, lightly caricaturized at best (though with the way I draw noses, there's only so realistic the picture's going to come out). It's nice to sit down and do something that isn't coming fully formed out of my head, like all the superhero and cartoon nonsense, as a reminder that I actually got chops here and there. Also, it's a real delight to draw Stephen Fry, above whom no living person do I admire more, I reckon.

The primary reason I was drawing the likeness was so that I could simplify it for a cartoon, because I felt this scene - mentioned in Stephen Fry's Twitter account - deserved immortalization.

( Behind the cut )

Besides all the drawing I've been doing lately, I've been working on a few scripts. I've become kind of obsessed with this throwaway character (actually a red herring, if I may ruin the reveal) for one of these, a superhero named The Laughing Samson, and I couldn't resist sketching him up as he appears in my head.




This is in lieu of any REAL new art from me in a week or so. I need to get these Star Wars cards done and then finish a trio of Darkpages illustrations, before I can get back to Zayde Todt. My time management skills? They are not to best.

I am not very good at drawing trees (my wife's advice: "They don't usually go all thick again at the top, Jon"), so I thought I'd take a couple pages in my sketchbook and doodle some up. I'm also doodling some death-birds, who feature as details and background elements in Zayde Todt<sup>1







1</sup>For those of you just joining us, Zayde Todt is a graphic novel on which I'm currently working. It's going very well, thank you, although I've decided once again to redo the cover ...

I've just missed the deadline for the Iron Man: Invincible Upgrade contest being held over at Project: Rooftop. This is okay by me, on account of (a) all the prizes being offered to the entrants are Iron Man-related and (b) I do not like Iron Man.



Which may lead one to ask "Why do a redesign of Iron Man if you don't LIKE him, Calamity Jon?" John Waters has this great line about movie remakes, where he asks why they continue to remake GOOD films of the past? Why not remake the awful films and try to make them good? This is why I drew my own Iron Man. Because I honestly never liked the guy (although I'll probably enjoy the hell out of Robert Downey Jr playing Tony Stark, because who doesn't love Robert Downey Jr. playing a drunk genius solipsist with laser hands? NO. ONE).

I whittled it down to three reasons, why I don't really dig on Iron Man: First, he theoretically has some sort of incredibly dangerous heart condition which only his Iron Man armor could protect him against, and yet it didn't ever seem to really hinder him in any way. He was still quaffing whole bottles of champagne from the navels of Norwegian porn stars and doing blow off of the great works of the Renaissance, being all handsome and brilliant and rich all the time, even though he's supposed to be seconds away from a cardiac arrest that would make looking into the Ark of the Covenant seem like swimming in the shallow end of the kiddie pool. I KIND OF DIDN'T BUY HIS INFIRMITY. Secondly, I didn't ever get why he'd bother fighting crime in the first place - he never had a decent motivation for bothering to fight evil crossdressers and mutants, or at least he didn't until they made him a drunk-o and therefore qualified every decision he ever made with "he might've had a few beforehand."

And lastly, I never like science fiction that seems to be primarily about the technical exposition - so much of Iron Man is "I'll hook the framistat to the orgasmotron and modulate the frequency waves from the parabolic phase booth through my repulsor ray, plus radiation and the sun I think," and action as seen through the POV of the tiny control panels surrounding his eye-holes or visor or whatever. Hell, I still remember some Seventies' issue of the Avengers wherein Iron Man is actually taking a panel to tell the other Avengers what time it is, and it turns out he has this enormous LCD display of the current time constantly flashing above his right eyebrow. What does that teach us about Iron Man as a character? Bupkiss.

So anyway, I redesigned him from scratch, trying to design something that - at least from a visual angle - really appealed to me. That means "trashcan robot."

I've got it in my head that Stark's actually been the victim not of shrapnel but of a flesh-and-bone consuming engineered bio-weapon, and that he's utterly dependent on the armor all the time, locked in a life-support chamber composing the central component of the body. Since it's not armor so much as it is a robot carrying a totally almost-dead and utterly fucked up Tony Stark in some sort of chamber-like womb, the Iron Man technology itself doesn't have to conform strictly to human body shape, and it can be all crazy with as many arms and weird technology as needed. And also a huge wrench. Which is awesome.

Drew these at the Friends of the Nib sketch group tonight, based on photos from the book Least Wanted.

Just flitting around my desktop, I found this caricature I'd made of Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian chemist who - among other accomplishments - discovered the 'perfect' molecular balance in the dilution of vodka (38%, for you drunks with OCD) and crafted the first periodic table of elements.



In other news, the Lords of the Rings Masterpiece Series II cards have apparently been released, and the sketch cards are popping up. Twenty-first century sensation grafunkel pointed me towards this message board where collectors are showing off their finds, including some of mine.

Some of them are much better than mine.

Some ... make me feel better about mine.

A MIXED BAG! Lord have mercy!

Oh yeah, and just a reminder that my Tiny SuperHeroines of the Marvel Universe auction is ending tomorrow. They are:

• Tiny She Hulk!


• Tiny Spider-Woman!


• Tiny Dazzler!


• Tony the Tigra!

More to follow!

Hey all, as you know I've just recently made a big move cross-country and practically all the way through the alphabet from Arizona to Washington. To help offset some of the costs of the trip, I'm selling some small pieces of original art on eBay right now. I expect them to sell for a pittanceMILLIONS OF SMACKEROOS!

( These are the four illos currently up for auction. They are small and adorable... )

Everything I'm selling on eBay (including my old Captain Britain comics) is here. I'm also featuring them on on my sparsely-populated but recently redesigned website, CalamityJonSave.Us. Enjoy that, too ...

You remember that, some time ago, I got a commission to draw Superman riding Devil Dinosaur?

Same guy commissioned Doctor Doom riding Devil Dinosaur.



I'm gonna be drawing guys riding Devil Dinosaur until I'm old and gray.

I had almost forgotten: A week or so back when Steve Gerber passed away, I mentioned that I had done some Howard the Duck drawings. I scanned them in while I was visiting Tucson over the weekend...



Just a standard Howard to start with. I think I could be pretty happy drawing a Howard comic. I like his look...

( More after the cut, WAUGGGH! )

As I get to the gym every Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I typically encounter coming through the door a group of elderly women carrying wooden practice swords (Chinese swords, or jian, I believes). I've never inquired of them what exactly it is they're practicing, nor bothered to check the class schedule to see it, but I do know that they otherwise present me with an unparalleled opportunity to see old women hit themselves in the head with or drop wooden jian.

Seriously, rummaging through their purses for their car keys, bam, whack themselves on the head. Trying to get out the front doors three abreast, inadvertently whacking each other in the head and gut with their swords, going down the stairs, bonk bonk bonk dropping their swords down the steps.

I largely suspect these ladies represent the last wave of the Eight Nation Alliance, which explains a lot about how the Boxer Rebellion ended. Bullet-proof, my ass...

(And on another note)

I picked up a copy of The Black Dossier, a suitably thick read for my trip to Seattle. I've heard mixed reviews about this book, which is a tetch light on the actual Extraordinary Gentlemanliness and heavy on the Lost Girlishness, but whatever the case I will say the following: Any book embracing a Wodehouse/Lovecraft mash-up entitled "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss" which ends with the line "Eldritch old business, this, eh, Jeeves?" has won my heart forever.

Meanwhile, Ghost Rider: