Super week
Super sketches, and super links.
If I look back on when I was a kid reading comics, I read a lot more Marvel comics. I read the X-Men, actually, and everything else was “the rest”. Depending on a crossover, or a particular creative team, I would expand my monthly reading habits. On a few occasions, I bought DC comics monthly. In 1989, ahead of the first Batman movie, I was hooked by the promotional pull for everybody to read more Batman, and I started reading it monthly. I didn’t hurt it was around that time that I had just read “The Dark Knight Returns”, or “Batman Year One”, but the monthly Batman around that time (at least here in Brazil) was the Jim Aparo Batman, so that’s the Batman I probably read the most.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, John Byrne took over Superman (at least in my mind), and that made me pay attention to Superman. I was paying attention, then, when they developed the Death of Superman storyline, and I was reading it monthly, comparing the differences between the creative teams on each of the Super titles, comparing the art between each book (and with Byrne’s version as well).
Jump ahead 30 years, and I get an email from the Metropolis editorial offices at DC asking me if I wanted to make a pinup for the 30th anniversary edition of that storyline and, besides being a part of Superman’s history I had some connection to, I had recently learned of Tim Sale’s passing, and Superman for All Seasons is probably my favorite Superman book, so I thought I could approach my pinup to honor both the Death of Superman storyline and the deep artist impact of Tim Sale’s work.
Two of my best friends in comics, Matt Fraction and Gustavo Duarte, worked on Jimmy Olsen stories recently. The fact that the editor suggested a pinup centered on Jimmy also helped me say yes.
The 30th anniversary special comes out this week. I’m in very good company when it comes to the other pinups and all the variant covers (so many variant covers!), and the original creative teams working on the title in the 90s have all done new stories for the issue.
Watching and learning
I really like when comics festivals and conventions keep what they’ve learned during the pandemic. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (aka CXC) did a virtual edition in 2020 during the first and most isolated year of the Pandemic (both Bá and I were virtual guests that year, and we were interviewed by Matt Fraction). Since they resumed in-person events, they kept recording the panels on video, and slowly they have been uploading the panels on their YouTube channel. I really enjoyed watching the spotlight on Tom Gauld, and have the spotlight on Jeff Smith to watch next. Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor, the Cartoonist Kayfabe guys, were guests of this year’s CXC event, and I’m waiting to see if their panel also comes online in the near future.
Speaking of Jeff Smith and the Kayfabers, recently Jim and Ed came across the collected edition of the early Thorn comic strips Jeff Smith made in college, which show Jeff’s first shot at creating the Bone story. They review this incredibly rare and fascinating book at their channel, and it’s worth every second.
My sketchbook are filling up nicely with objects, places and character studies for current and future projects. I don’t know yet how many projects I’ll finish this year, or the next, but they’re moving. We’ll see.
Be safe. Be kind. Be curious.
Pa-ZOW!
Fábio Moon
Moon Base, São Paulo
November 7th, 2022