Coming Up, Soon...

Just a sneak peek of an upcoming cover. Me and Eugenio, actually did it last year. What do you think?

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Did you say...COMMISSIONS?

For the next few days only, I'll be available for commissions.  (Hurry up!) If you're interested, you can email me.
My commissions fees can be found here. Below are some samples. (Click on each image to enlarge)
As of  May 29, 2010 this offer is no longer available. Sorry to cut this so short, folks :-(

Before The Phantom

I just wanted to share a memento of a fortuitous encounter between three members of Team Fantomen that happened way before, all three of them, got to draw The Phantom.
The year was 1997.
The artists were  Don Perlin, Dick Giordano and Sal Velluto.
The project was a limited lithograph, produced by Joe Petrilak, head of the Valiant Fan Club, as part of the "Acclaim Ink" fan club program.  The lithograph was titled "VH-1 Bloodshot meets the VH-2 Bloodshot" and depicted both the Valiant and Acclaim versions of Bloodshot drawn by the respective artist of each book, Don Perlin and Sal Velluto. Here's what the Lithograph looked like. (Thanks to Magnus Ramström for the scan) What do you think?

P.S. I still have a few original pages for sale, from my run on Bloodshot (But not this particular lithograph) If you're interested, check my Art For Sale page.

My First Phantom [4]

I am pleased to present a series of short stories describing the first time we read The Phantom.
This fourth installment has been written by Indrajal Comics Super-Phan, Ranjan Dutta.  If you want to share the memories of your "First Phantom" with the readers of this blog, please contact me.
 

The memories of my early school days are always sweet and become even sweeter when it comes to the time when I read My First Phantom.

I was only eight years old, then. One day, in my classroom, I witnessed a group of boys forcing another kid out of his seat. The poor outcast was left with no other choice than coming to sit right beside me. He was very angry with those boys, he grumbled and complained. After a few minutes, speaking in a really low voice, he said, “Do you know I can defeat those stupid boys in a second?

“Oh... - I replied in surprise - ...can you..?”

“Yes I can! - he said - But I don’t want to show them my powers, here in the classroom.- Then he added - I know Judo and Karate and I read The Phantom. That’s the way I became powerful.” Then,  he flexed his biceps...

At the time I didn't know much about Judo and Karate, and it was first time I ever heard about The Phantom.

So, I asked him, “Who is The Phantom?”

“Oh! You don’t know who The Phantom is? - He replied in surprise- The Phantom is The Masked Man of the Jungle! He's The Ghost Who Walks!" Then he told me much more about this mysterious man.

For some reason,  right then and there, his story didn't appeal much to me.

Later, that afternoon, I was playing in front of my house with some  friends when I saw him again standing outside his house. He looked at me, ran into his house and came back out, immediately, holding in his hands two comic books.

That was the first time I saw some Phantom comics. They were “The Mystery of the Veiled Lady”  by Lee Falk and Sy Barry (Indrajal #41, 1 May 1967)  and “The Great Riddle” by Lee Falk and Bill Lignante (Indrajal # 54, 1 Nov 1967).

“Take them... -  he said - ... and you will know who The Phantom is.”

I ran into my house; showed the comics to my elder brother, and we read them together.

We read “The Great Riddle” first. It talked about a female Phantom and a witch who had kidnapped a girl. The old witch spoke about a riddle which, at the time,  I didn’t completely understand. Nonetheless,  I enjoyed how brave and smart  The Phantom came across in the story.

The second story was marvelous and it is still my all time favorite. Inside a volcano called Veiled Lady, lived some big bugs, 12  feet butterflies, praying mantis as big as horses and many other incredible creatures. The Phantom was there to rescue a professor and her assistant. I can still remember a huge frog with its huge tongue trying to swallow the assistant and  The Phantom killing it with his gun. At the end of the story they safely came out of the volcano right before it violently erupted. Reading that story was a wonderful experience for me that I'll  never forget.

Then I realized the masked the man was very smart, strong and intelligent, and above all he was very brave. I was really attracted by his bravery. " The Phantom fears nothing!" (Old jungle saying)

I tried to be brave like The Phantom, but I found out that being brave was not that easy. Then I read another Phantom story where bravery was described as "being afraid and going ahead anyhow.” That was a lesson I remembered throughout my whole life.

That's how I started reading  The Phantom. As of today, more than 42 years later, I haven't stopped yet.

Ranjal Dutta is a freelance illustrator who lives and works in Kolkata, India. He's married and has a kid who also likes to read The Phantom. Some of Ranjan's works can be seen  here.

Happy Mother's Day!

To all mothers, past, present and future, since they help CREATE and SHAPE the lives of their children, I'd like to dedicate this video clip about creativity.

También disponible en español, aquí.

Marvel, Again and Again...

 It looks like Marvel's reprint department has decided, yet again, to publish another hard cover volume containing a classic cross-over storyline.
The volume is X-MEN INFERNO CROSSOVERS . It's a 603 pages tome including some of my POWER PACK stories from 1984 intertwined with other stories from Avengers (1963) #298-300, Fantastic Four (1961) #322-324, Amazing Spider-Man (1962) #311-313, Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #146-148, Web Of Spider-Man #47-48, Daredevil (1964) #262-263 & #265, Excalibur (1988) #6-7, and Cloak & Dagger (1988) #4.
X-MEN INFERNO CROSSOVERS is written (in order of appearance) by Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, Jon Bogdanove, Julianna Jones, Steve Englehart, David Michelinie, Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, Ann Nocenti and Terry Austin, pencilled  (in order pf appearance) by Sal Velluto, John Buscema, Jon Bogdanove, June Brigman, Keith Pollard, Todd McFarlane, Sal Buscema, Alex Saviuk, Alan Davis, John Romita Jr and Mike Vosburg, with cover art by Todd McFarlane.
 The volume's shipping date is July 2010. Its list price is USD 75.00, but it can be pre-ordered from Amazon for USD 48.93. (Click here)

Iron Man Too

 As the much anticipated "Iron Man 2" makes its theatrical debut, this Friday, allow me to share one of my old Iron Man  illustrations, straight from the pages of Marvel's Black Panther. The inks are by my long time collaborator (and Avengers Fan Extraordinaire) Bob Almond. (Hi, Bob!)