I can finally reveal the cover I illustrated for Dauthuz‘ first full-length album — in all its original black-and-white glory and goriness.
Mind you, this version — the one I prefer and give you here — differs signifcantly from the definitive cover art, as can be seen on their website.
I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus. The band couldn’t get behind the design as originally intended by me, and so they had some changes made (by someone else than me). I don’t like it — but there’s no pleasing everyone, and that’s just the way is. So I’m not going to complain or throw a fit. But I do feel a need to explain what I feel has gotten lost in the final design.
For starters, gone now is the simple triangular composition, and with it the tight negative space surrounding the skull and corpses; gone now the eye in the right socket, and with it a centrifugal focal point. On that last note, the focal potential of the center skull is even further undermined by the bright candy red color scheme of the background — an area that due to its radiance, now “pops” to the foreground.
And it’s not just the layout that took a hit. Subtle references to some of my favorite artists and bands are no longer there anymore. Take the eye, for instance. It was meant to be a design nod to Mark Riddick, one of the industry’s greats, whose work has been of great influence to me. Now it’s just a gaping hole, void of any reference.
Oh well, it is as it is. But it does make me think about how I want to go about things in the future. And, well, I still got a solid portfolio piece out of it, which also counts for something.
The album titled by the way, Destined by Death will be out in November.
Oh, before I take off, I also want to stress that Clip Studio Paint never seems to lag on my work rig, no matter the amount of layers or the resolution. ArtRage, on the other hand, seems capable only of coping with a limited layer limit. But then, ArtRage emulates analog painting, which in real life constitutes putting down layer on layer on layer, all in the same layer if you will. If high-resolution layer management is what you’re after, look elsewhere. (Did anyone say Clip Studio Paint?)
As early as 1962, but especially from the late-1960s on, writers, artists, writer-artists, and creative teams, who were either themselves involved, or had a connection with people who were involved, in a drug and sex underground counter-culture, started making comics — or, I should rather say, comix, so as to set them apart from mainstream fare — that run deliberately counter to what was dominant in the mainstream, so as to openly challenge the icy, tyrannical grip of the CMAA and the Comics Code. Often, especially initially, that simply came down to them churning out vulgar, tongue-in-cheek, cheerfully sketchy comix, featuring stories no doubt dreamed up while under influence of psychedelic drugs, propagating experimental sex and, of course, also experimental drug use, sometimes with some violence thrown in. In truth, quite a few of these comix puerile and paltry attempts at wit and humor, at best, or worse — nonsensical waste of paper and ink. But eventually, when all was said done, comix artists, who let their imagination fly in all directions and dimensions, contributed in a positive way to maturing the medium; in any case certainly more than their mainstream colleagues, who were dictated by a desire, not to to express themselves freely but to make competitive commercial products. The former’s ceaseless, curious desire for exploration and experimentation made them unafraid to challenge aesthetic-narrative conventions and push the boundaries of what was thought to be possible in comics, and this led them to explore new styles, genres, and themes. To give a concrete example, while, in the early 1970s, mainstream comics artists were still entrenched in superhero tropes, underground comix artists then experimented with autobiographical comic narratives; and in so doing, they helped liberate comic books from the deathhold that fantasy pulp fiction enjoyed over the medium for so long.
Now, back to the mainstream. By the late 1960s, early 1970s, the people at the Big Two saw the volume of sales beginning to drop off again. They then must have begun to notice that the sex and drug culture was both an undercurrent in society and impossible to ignore. So, both these publishers decided on publishing some edgy, offbeat issues and titles that run counter to the CCA’s guidelines. First, in 1970, a Green Lantern-Green Arrow miniseries featured a dramatic drug-related plot line throughout its entire run of thirteen issues, gaining success both critically and commercially among the comics reading public. This then inspired The Amazing Spider-Man‘s writers to the same a year later; but their efforts met with limited success. But in late 1973, Marvel struck gold again, when they introduced Howard the Duck, a satirical, anthropomorphic character that starred in an eponymous comic book series that could easily have been an underground comix hit, in terms of wit and personal style. So clearly, there was money to be made with flirtations with the underground.
Also, around that same time, the Big Two looked again to 1930s pulp fiction for inspiration. This timearound, though, it was the sword-and-sorcery fiction of the likes of Robert E. Howard, rather than hard-boiled detective fiction, that attracted attention. Perhaps, I assume, to have their artists and writers push the boundaries of contentious issues like, e.g., violence and power abuse openly in comics — just not in a realistic, contemporary setting. But then, between 1973-1974, Marvel dared to venture where DC feared to thread. They introduced a slew of so-called antiheroes (including, e.g., Wolverine and the Punisher), whose fictional worlds were contemporary, and more than anything else — bleak and violent. Now, these antiheroes are something else, alright. I’ve talked before of how Golden Age superheroes are altruistic and humanitarian to a fault, always ready to come to the rescue, and of how Silver Age multi-heroes are only heroes when push comes to shove — but these antiheroes are, seemingly, no heroes at all! You might suspect them of having given up on theworld and its citizens — apart from their want for redress. In any case, they certainly don’t throw their personal squabbles aside in the face of the enemy; they, rather, embrace the conflict and anger within. Bringing such dark, troubled characters into the otherwise always so bright, cheerful superhero genre entailed quite a risk, the risk of tarnishing the house image — but there was no outrage, not even from the conservative elements. These antiheroes were quite popular, however — and would remain so. Yet still, senior DC editors were hesitant to follow suit; though eventually, in later years, they would. However, as CCA guidelines were getting reformed and relaxed during these 1970s years, probably because they would be undermined anyway, to no consequence, DC did venture into the pulp-horror genre, with titles such as Swamp Thing and Demon, presumably so as to have dark heroes of their own.
All this, everything I’ve talked about so far — the hard-boiledness of first-generation superheroes, the raw satirical stylings of the underground, the emergence of antiheroes, the change to a direct distribution system, and so on, creates the backdrop against which the emergence of a new, different breed of superhero comics is set. I’m talking of those that went beyond what the genre was thought capable of, demonstrating even that superhero comics, and comics in general, could actually be works of literary art! Here, Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen are two that come to mind easily. Well, obviously of course, because these keep popping up in every discussion and in every debate on comics and art — and this, not just because of their genre-novelty, but more so because they are the definitive apotheosis of the genre! Now, Watchmen is the more cerebral of the two, with complex and layered plot lines, and lots and lots of text, while The Dark Knight Returns is more of a visceral read; but both on their own terms, these two titles, like no other superhero comics before or after, offer insight into the gnarled psyches of the superheroes, and make us think of their position in their respective worlds, in terms of whether they bring advantage or harm. But what makes these two particular titles really great works of art is not what they explicitly communicate to the reader; more than anything else, they managed to capture the rebellious zeitgeist of the 1980s — self-reflectingly so. In a word, both comics are about superheroes and, or so I like to think, comics in general making a comeback in society — in the most in-your-face way possible, pushing the boundaries and possibilities of the comics medium to the extreme.
so doing it set the template for basically all other superhero movies up to and including our current era. But perfect as it was and still is, in terms of special effects it left something to be desired — and I say this as a fan of old-school, practical effects. By now we have reached the point where special effects are about as good as they’re going to get right now — but I have yet to see a superhero movie, which brings something new to the table in terms of narrative, character, and action.
sympathizers he believed had infiltrated U.S. government, seeking to structurally undermine the U.S. position in the world, and these had an impact that reached well beyond the Senate chamber. There are plenty of cases of actors, directors, and others active in the arts, and even men of science, who had to face loss of employment after being “blacklisted” for being labeled as a Communist sympathizer. Taken on the whole, however, media-at-large came out of it pretty unscathed; but the comics industry, in particular, came under heavy scrutiny by various Parents’ Organizations as well as the public — but more on that in a bit.
Here, one must know that quite a few, perhaps even most, of the early-1950s comics on the stands were actually pretty out there, with stories of revenge, murder and matricide, featuring gratuitous gore and violence — indeed, a far cry from the innocent, innocuous, and family-friendly superhero comics of yesteryear. In case you’re wondering how it ever came to this, the answer is actually pretty simple. To overcome audience apathy, comics publishers and distributors opted for a throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach and, in so doing, happened to end up with grisly horror fare. Added to this is the fact that, in all the years leading up to 1953, there were no regulations whatsoever; publishers could just print and publish whatever they wanted to put out there, and distributors would carry all comics, irrespective of content. It is no wonder, then, of course, that for conservative parents, teachers, religious and civic groups a mere boycott of comic books didn’t go far enough — much more deliberate action was needed. And, thus it went, that conservatives, spearheaded by Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist and author of Seduction of the Innocent, pressured the government to censor, or downright forbid the sale to children aged 15 or less of, comics — all comics, not just the grisly ones!
You will respect my authority!
some backlist goldmines, they still had to face closing down — and even actually having a strong superhero property didn’t guarantee a thing, either! A truly tragic example is Fawcett Comics, who held the rights over the Shazam! property, a comics series that ran from 1940-1953 and which, at its peak durng the Second World War, rivalled, and even surpassed, the Superman comics series in terms of popularity and revenue. They were bankrupted by legal expenses, in 1953, after National Periodical Publications (later renamed DC Comics), the then-biggest shark in the world of comics, filed suit for copyright infringement, claiming that Shazam was substantially similar to Superman — as if they only just found out! Anyway, in short, a harsh dog-eat-dog kind of environment was created in the wake of the CCA, which eventually effected a de facto duopoly between Marvel Comics and DC Comics — but with each riffing off each other’s innovations, the U.S. mainstream comics field became a monopoly of sameness.
Atlas Comics was the first to, or at least attempt to, revive the superhero genre with the Human Torch, Captain America, and the Sub-Mariner, with rather disappointing results. This because their “comeback” stories were written using the same formula that had brought Atlas success years earlier — same heroes, same stories, with only one difference, namely, that now communists, spies, and saboteurs starred as villains. All this while the audience had moved on. When National Periodical followed suit with the revival of the Flash, in 1956, they were at least smart enough to contemporize their formula, by revamping the Flash from the ground up, e.g., by grounding his origin story in science and sci-fi, which were increasingly hot topics in popular literacy; and so their efforts did meet with success, in that readers’ numbers went through the roof, at least in relative terms (i.e., relative to post-1954 levels, not relative to pre-1954 levels). They repeated this su
ccess three years later with the revival and re-imaging of the Green Lantern, thereby further, and again substantially, cementing the popularity of superhero comics. To no surprise, their prime competitor (by now renamed Marvel Comics), looked to them rather than to themselves for direction in those years, late 1950s-early 1960s. In so doing, this duoply brought about a second great age of superhero comics — the Silver Age. This Silver Age lasted until 1970; and while, obviously, this specific time period didn’t prove as golden and profitable in overall terms as the years between 1938 and 1954, it did witness first the re-emergence of the (social group or) multi-hero and not long after the creation of an entirely new superhero type — the flawed hero, with a little less holier-than-thou attitude, even wrestling with inner demons.
Now let’s first talk multi-heroes. Here again, it’s National Periodical that deserves the credits. After having successfully revived the Flash and the Green Latern, they thought it smart to do a crossover of sorts. So, in 1960, they revived the Justice Society of America, a superhero group originally created in 1940, consisting of, among others, early incarnations of these two superheroes; and this new revived group, though now renamed the Justice League, 
Now, the flawed hero figure makes for a perfect multi-hero; and this, obviously, because in a group hero story heroism isn’t attributed to just one individual, it’s the sum total of the hero group’s efforts that matters. But in the years following the successful profitable launch of The Fantastic Four, Marvel decided to introduce some new single heroes, as well, quite a slew of them, and all flawed, such as, e.g., Spider-Man and the Hulk. Again, their introduction, too, was heralded with success, thereby proving their formula, or template, for superhero comics a winning one, all across the board.
As for why multi-heroes became only popular after the Second World War? Here, theories diverge. Some claim a male malaise set in, in the wake of the war. They say, the war led to a paradigm shift in society that made man doubt his ability to be a master of his own existence. From this it follows, then, that the conceit of a single hero saving the world from disaster went lost to a post-1945 audience, to be replaced, perhaps, by the conceit of a multi-hero who is more likely to require help than to give it. Others, though, take an opposite stance by saying that psychotic dictators, such as, e.g., Hitler and Stalin, rather reinforced the idea that an individual, through wit and resourcefulness, can definitely make the world a better place for all; but left unchecked, will lead the world to destruction. This they follow up by saying that, in the post-1945 period, there was a shift away from a moral focus on individual responsibility and blame towards a focus on sharing responsibility and blame for what goes wrong and praise for what goes well. And this, in turn, then provides an ideal backdrop against which to view the much-welcomed re-emergence, after decades of slumber, of group hero titles throughout the 1960s (and later decades), as witnessed, e.g., by the mass popularity first of The Justice League and The Fantastic Four and soon after The X-Men and The Avengers. So, with everything previously stated, all in all, I think we can understand why it is that multi-heroes came to the fore.
elf-identity — because for them, it’s very difficult to know who they are, where their parents come from, and what their religion is. Now, while the earliest superhero template, that of the 1930s, was but an emotional stick figure, if you will, with black-and-white morals — after the 1960s, there was finally added another layer of characterization; for from then on the superhero character, too, struggled with identity issues. So that’s probably, definitely, why in later days, the U.S. audiences embraced these costumed superheroes still, or anew. But we’re still talking 1930s superheroes here. So here, I want to entertain the idea that, even in those early days, superhero fiction perhaps really hit home, as well. After all, isn’t Superman, the first, and for long the most famous and best-selling name, of costumed comic book superheroes, an alien immigrant himself, cast into a strange world, unable to return home? And, more generally speaking, is the idea of a hero with a secret identity and superpowers not an apt metaphor for the immigrant’s wish-fulfilling fantasies, i.e., of making it big in the U.S. while remaining true to oneself?
ge, literary heritage, mythology and philosophy into the mix, and this created a rich and diverse reservoir from which artists could draw. The Greeks and Italians obviously brought with them the tales of Hercules and his labors of strength and fortitude, and of the quests of Ulysses and Jason; from northern Europe, there must have come stories of Beowulf, of how he battled with Grendel; then you had your Judeo-Christian and Middle-Eastern heroes, from Moses to Gilgamesh; and, of course, last but not least, there were the modern influences like Wagner’s Siegfried and the Nietzschean concept of Übermenschen — which got so grossly misinterpreted and abused by the German Nazis. I imagine early comics artists, confronted with all these different story ideas and character concepts floating around, taking it as a bit of a joke, picking and choosing whatever, just as they pleased. Then the war broke out, and things got serious. In the years that followed, they had to forge new heroes out of the surrounding discourse that felt fresh, yet familiar at the same time — authentic American, yet vitally close to Old World roots that now needed protection.
in a time, it is well-known, when Adolf Hitler makes a bid for the German “Aryans” to be a master race at the expense of, in the Nazi’s mind, lesser races and people. Then, as World War II broke out, in 1939, these comic book superheroes became more than two-dimensional paper heroes — to the readers, they became symbols of American optimism in this bleak time of war. In the comics, superheroes battled criminals, entire criminal organizations, and even Hitler’s Nazi Empire and the Axis of Evil endlessly over and again — but in the end, they always prevailed. And while so simple a narrative, the people just couldn’t get enough. So much so, in fact, that during the war, the comics audience had such an insatiable appetite for these repetitive heroics and struggles that there was plenty of room in the market for even the most blatant imitations to flourish. I’m talking here of — I’m not making any of this up! — The Shield, Uncle Sam, Minute Man, American Avenger, American Crusader, American Eagle, Fighting Yank, Commando Yank, Yankee Eagle, Yankee Boy, Yank and Doodle, The Liberator, The Sentinel, The Flag, Flagman …
merican soldiers serving in the U.S. Army, many of whom were sent to liberate Europe and defeat the Japanese. They, these soldiers, took to reading comics to combat the long periods of boredom and routine between the short bursts of action, like, e.g., air raids and offensive operations and this, because, unlike, novels you could speed-read comics from cover to cover — which is, of course, handy when you don’t know when it’s go-time again. So there’s that. Then there’s also the context of war-time paper shortage. During the years of war, paper was rationed. While this spelled problems for pulp publishing houses especially, publishers that were also or exclusively engaged in the business of publishing and distributing cheap, thin, flimsy comic books reaped profits, at the former’s expense no less! Indeed, this was a good time to be in the business of comics; for not only was there little outside competition, but there wasn’t much inside competion, either. That is to say, there were plenty of competing comics publishing houses — in fact, in the years following 1940, they even popped like mushrooms; where there used to be but five before the war broke out, there were now thirty or so. But such was the scope of the escapism market, in these years, that there was room aplenty for all these comics publishers to co-exist, and to grow prosperous in their publishing ventures. The only thing holding them back was the paper rationing. That would change after the war — but more on that later.
to the comics medium and its format, but instead featured only reprints of mostly 4-panel, mostly in black-and-white, newspaper “funnies” stacked on top of each other — hence the term “comic books”, or “comics” for short, a term that stuck and this, even though, in the years to follow, other comic strip genres got reprinted in comics format, as well. While, initially, these comic books were instant successes with readers, they never quite set the world on fire, and eventually, a few years down the road, the public lost interest and sales dropped. A new impetus was needed: something which would excite reader attention, again. From 1935 onward, comics publishing houses committed themselves, now and finally, to publishing comic books that consisted of all-original material, specifically created for the medium — and so the first real actual comic books emerged. Still, nothing earth-shattering. Then, in 1938, Superman was introduced. And everything changed. Now, the U.S. reader audience already was familiar with costumed and masked comics heroes, with, e.g., The Phantom, the first of the “long-john” heroes, being a star of syndicated newspaper comic strips as early as 1936, and The Clock, a masked detective, “starring” in comic books also published in that same year — but Superma
n was something entirely else, alright. Here you had this superhero in a tight, bright, colorful costume, whose powers were more or less unlimited — limited only by the imagination of his creators, like, e.g., he had superhuman strength, he could fly, he was virtually indestructible, and basically he was a god among men –, and in the comics medium it all just seemed like a natural perfect fit. After all, at the time, his superhuman heroics just simply couldn’t be translated to the silver screen — indeed, it wasn’t until the late 1970s that movie producers were finally able to do so –; and the then-limited color-printing methods, which weren’t suitable for printing imagery of credulous and dreamy nature, were more than adequate for bold, costumy action. And so it was that Superman’s resounding success with readers created a need for original superhero material, exclusively created for the comics medium, and this, then, in turn sparked a demand for comics. This reciprocal synergy led to the creation of a slew of new superheroes (e.g., in chronological order, Batman, the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, Captain America) and comics series.
And then along came Jack Kirby, a rising star in the 1940s and 1950s. Nowadays somewhat forgotten, not in the least because the woeful and willful erasure of his creative authority by Stan Lee (of Marvel Comics fame), Kirby was a powerhouse who took the art of comics to a whole new level. It’s no exaggeration to say that he, virtually single-handedly, defined the look and feel of superhero comics for decades to come. Before he entered the industry, comics characters were wooden and the panel and page compositions oozed little sense of motion, or rhythm — but he, before becoming a comics artist, had worked 
Iosua Illustrations 
