Kirby and his Demon...

If there is one artist that influenced not only myself but generations of others...it's Jack Kirby. I feverishly poured through his work on superhero titles for Marvel when I was a kid. But then one day a friend of mine bought a copy of a DC title Jack had created. The Demon fed my already ravenous appetite for action and comics, but also made the tie between comics and monsters...The tale of Merlin, Etrigan and Jason Blood ignited a spark in my brain untouched previously. It was also THE very first comic page I ever did. Copying a page from the first issue as Etrigan dives into the forces of Morgaine le Fey's invading army, helmets armor, shrapnel and weapons flying. The way only Jack could illustrate it. I chose Etrigan for purely that reason...a sticker will be available at Carol and Johns Comic Shop, to not only celebrate Jacks birthday, but also raise funds for the Hero Initative....And Jack....thank you for the spark. Happy Birthday.
REV~

I Believe In Jack Kirby

When John Dudas of Carol And John's Comic Shop asked me to put a sticker together to celebrate the King's birthday, it was a pretty big deal for me. John was the one who pushed Mr. Kirby's work on me years and years ago, and forever changing my underground comics influenced artwork.  More than a decade later I'm constantly looking to Jack for inspiration, and this sticker is a very small thank you for that. Happy Birthday, Sir. 

The stickers will be available at Carol And John's comic shop to support the Kirby4Hero's campaign. 

Hail to the King!

Happy Birthday Mr. Kirby (yes, I know...i'm a day early, August 28th is the King's birthday)! Thanks for sharing your imagination with the world, and inspiring countless others to do the same.

The RBMC made these stickers to commemorate the day, and raise some money for the Hero Initiative (a publicly supported not-for-profit organization dedicated to raise money for comic book creators in dire need), they'll be available at Carol & John's Comics in Cleveland, Ohio.

-Tim

Ben says "Welcome to Apokolips!"

"Had I known one human's death would pained you so, I would have killed more. And kill more I shall. Carry that agony with you to oblivion, Superman."

I really like Darkseid.  As a character, as a design, it just works for me.  Granted, the majority of my experience with him is from Superman: the Animated Series.  So a lot of that appreciation may come from the voice of Michael Ironside.  Either way, I decided to draw him up last Sunday and here he is.

Sketch and inks with Manga Studio.  Colors in Photoshop.

-Ben
www.NeedYourDisease.com
Twitter @NeedYourDisease 

The Darkseid High-Five

If you have such hap hazard eye lasers why would you hold your hand up when you were firing them off?  Cause your Darkseid that's why!  

It's 5:00 somewhere

Part of a poster illustration I've been working on that I thought I would share.  Graphite on vellum.  The final will have vector, traditional drawing all tied together with a little Photoshop, will keep you posted!

Creature Comforts

I was asked to contribute some monsters for the first opening at Gallery Galore tonight. Alongside some color prints (I'll share those next week) they asked me to produce some sketches to sell unframed. Boy oh boy I sure fun with these. It's  been a nice reminder that Im capable of quickly taking sketches to ink and that I enjoy it a whole heck of a lot.  

If you follow me on instagram (@randycrider) you've already seen these, but I wanted to formally share them on the blog.  We're the Rust Belt MONSTER collective after all.  

Your Pal,

Randy Crider

Tim: "Almost got away"

Well, I did it again, I made promises not ignore this ole blog here, and then got stupid busy and did just that. Well I'm still "stupid busy" but here's to trying again! 

Spider Woman!

We've had a busy summer out painting and such, even so, back to our mini challenges!  This time it's Spider Woman.  I decided to take the opportunity to mess around with my ink brush pen again as well as my exercises in limited color but this time I stumbled across a look from one of my favorite things growing up.

They use to sell these small, plastic pencil sharpeners with puffy stickers on the back of them, diecut out so you could stand them up and play with them like action figures.  Action figures you could have, play with on your school desk and when the teacher got mad you could say they were just harmless pencil sharpeners.  They were great, cost like 25 cents in the school office and looked kinda like this.  Always a yellow background and always limited color, but more importantly secret school time toys!