] type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

AquaSketch by Mike Manley - 2007

sg
With the New York Comic Con only a few days away, I thought I'd put up one more sketch before I start adding to my collection again.

This beautiful, iconic shot is by
Mike Manley, writer/artist of a whole bunch of comics plus the TwoMorrows mag Draw! I had talked to Mike online about his oversized MonsterMan comic, so when I saw him at the con and I made a beeline for his table. I dropped my book off and went about finding other ways to spend all the money in my pocket.

When I picked the book back up, I couldn't have been more happy--this is such a great piece; Aquaman looks dynamic and solid and I love all the extra backgrounds Mike threw in. Arthur has a classic heroic profile and it's one of my favorite pieces in the book.

9 comments:

Siskoid said...

It's terrific. I love how dynamic it is.

Adama said...

Wow, that is freaking awesome.

On an unrelated note, where do you live again? Do you frequently lock your doors and windows? Where exactly in the house would you store these sketches...

Why do I ask? Oh, no reason...

rob! said...

once i scan the sketches in, they are sent to a remote location and placed under heavy, heavy security.

Anonymous said...

That is gorgeous Rob. I think Manley is really underrated. I enjoyed his brief Batman run back during the Knightquest storyline. Too bad he didn't get much of a chance to draw the real Batman. It was mostly Azbats he drew. His Batman had a real Bronze Age Neal Adams feel about him.

I'd pay to buy an Aquaman book he drew based on this sketch alone!

Chris

rob! said...

not to sound too much like an old curmudgeon, but this is one of the things that has confirmed something i've felt for a long time.

if you go through the sketches i have, some of the best are not by the names you'd expect, but workhorses like Manley or Neil Vokes, guys who have been around for a while but never attained superstar status, yet the work they did was simply superb.

if there was an aquaman comic with this cover, it would JUMP OFF THE RACKS with its simplicity and solid construction, yet i doubt DC (or any comic company, really) would ever hire someone like Manley to the book--no, it has to be some Hot Artist named Jock or Squiggly-Doo or whatever.

Anonymous said...

Curmudgeon away my friend. True craft has fall to the wayside for flashy photoshop skills. Filters have replaced draftmanship. Artwork that would only look good in a coloring book is now colored in such a way as to replace deep blacks and well placed shadows and light.

Comic art aint' what it used to be.

Chris

Anonymous said...

I agree about the way comic art is handled these days, and it's funny how striking it is when you see some of that classic, bright, clean Garcia Lopez stuff after reading so much of the modern dreck. Anyway, I have to say, that is probably the most beautiful of the pieces you've shown so far Rob. It is just about perfect, so dynamic, heroic, and POWERFUL!

Scurvy said...

Wow! That's a gorgeous sketch!

Anonymous said...

Man, I gotta get me a Manley sketch!