Four Characters, Four Panels Bun Toons! YAY!

Fourth time is not the charm.

Jon Stewart retired this week, and Don Trump won the Republican debate.  But neither event can hold a candle to this week’s real disaster…

There is so much wrong with this movie that it defies critique.   At its heart, it’s a movie about brilliant creative people, written and directed by slow-witted dullards who understood nothing of the source material.

I tend to root for comic book movies, and it’s very rare for one to disappoint as much as this one did.  Green Lantern and Jonah Hex are the only other two that got down to this level of pure, unfiltered awfulness like the new FF movie did.  If you’ve seen either of those previous bombs, you know where we are.

Sigh.

A terrible adaptation encrappens us all.

Ty the Guy OUT!

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Without question, this is STILL the best Fantastic Four movie:

It even made a pretty good comic book, drawn by my buddy Marcio Takara!

Now, if Pixar ever made a live action Incredibles movie, we might have something resembling a proper FF picture.

Sigh.

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For last week’s Bun Toon about the internet’s favourite lion, click here.

For the Bun Toon archives, going back YEARS, click here!

Spidey-Torch

Issue 2, page 1  Spider-Man and the Human Torch, “I’m with Stupid”,

written by Dan Slott, pencilled by Ty Templeton

Keiren

Monday Marvel March Madness Merchandise

Spider-Man Human Torch “I’m with Stupid”

Issue 3, page 21, pencils by Ty Templeton, inks by Tom Palmer

8

Ty decided to fill up the shelves in the Art Store a bit today…and found some more of his Spidey/Human Torch pages (from I’m with Stupid). Each issue was drawn in a different style to represent a different era of Spidey (something a lot of reviewers didn’t quite figure out…even after two or three issues!  Every comment about how “old-fashioned the art looks” triggered some bombast around these parts!)

Ty and writer Dan Slott still muse about the possibility of a second mini (if Dan could fit it in–Marvel is keeping him a busy, busy writer-boy). Right now, they’re working on a little something together…but for now, here’s some more from one of their previous projects.

A couple of today’s pages (the one at the top of the page, for starters) were inked by one of Ty’s inking heroes–Tom Palmer. Ty was thrilled to hear that Tom was doing ’em–more thrilled when he saw the final pages. I’m sure he’ll have something to say about that when he posts later today.

Keiren

Spider-Man Human Torch, “I’m with Stupid”

Issue 5, page 19, pencils by Ty Templeton, inks by Drew Geraci

MARVEL ARTWORK YOU’VE NEVER SEEN

In honour of the fact that I’m doing some comics illustratin’ for Marvel at the moment (no telling you what it is yet, but it’s fun, fun, fun!), I figured I’d dig through the library all this week, to find some Marvel work I’ve done, that you guys have likely NEVER seen.  I’m not talking about comics  (Spidey-Torch, Mad Dog, Avengers, Ren & Stimpy and others) but things I’ve done for their toy department, licenses, special projects and other sundry items that fill an illustrator’s time.  All Marvel, All Week!  Collect them ALL!

Up above is the cover to a Fantastic Four DVD that collected up episodes of their cartoon from the mid-nineties, I think it only came out in Europe, as I’ve never been sent a copy, nor seen a colour version of the artwork.   Nevertheless, it was my first time drawing the famous first family (professionally, I mean…I must have drawn the Thing a zillion times as a child) and it was a little disappointing that I couldn’t draw Ben in his more familiar Kirby design…but the client wanted him “on model” for the look of the series.

Next , the first of MANY X-Men video boxes I did for the animated show that ran on FOX TV in the nineties.  I was a little ticked that they threw the title card over top of Wolverine’s arm for the first one, which mucked up the image a bit in my opinion (you’ll notice I figured out to work around it on the next two…), but I couldn’t have been happier with the colours that Paul Mounts put overtop of all three.  Somewhere in the house, I have Paul’s original colour pieces for these, done in gorgeous dyes, with a real airbrush!  Oh, the labour we artists had to put in, back in the primitive 20th Century!  Paul was nice enough to trade me all the colour art for one of the black and white pieces.  Hell of a trade on my end.

As I said, I did tons of art for the X-Men series, including designing the official jackets for the cast, with a fairly cool Wolverine patch on the back (that you can see a bit of in the corner of the video boxes, that little Wolvie is from the patch).  I may not be able to find the original art for that, but worst-case-scenario, I’ll find someone to model the jacket for ya.

Doing these covers was a lovely stretching exercise for my art brain, as I was doing them at the same time as Batman Adventures stuff in the late nineties.  Some days it took a few hours to shake the Bruce Timm out of my hands, and try to channel the more illustrative look of the Marvel house style.  At first I expected they wanted me to make the covers resemble the show designs, but they insisted I do nothing of the sort, and said “Draw it in your own style”.  Something I’m not sure I have any more.  But these are close to it, I suppose.

Tune in tomorrow for some Marvel 2099 artwork you’re not expecting, a couple of Moon Knight pages you’ve never seen, and plenty more X-Men…and then on Nepotism Thursday, my wife’s first ever coloring job for Marvel…and how it nearly ended the marriage!   And yes, it was all my fault, dear.  (She’s reading this, gotta be cool, gotta be cool…)

Ty the Guy

Doing these covers was a lovely stretching exercise for my art brain, as I was doing them at the same time

SOMETIMES, THE ROUGH…and another of the increasingly late Hoverboy Fridays!

Clearly, I’m mad, I tell you.  MAD.

I’m one of those guys who spend their lives liking the rough sketch better than the final art.  It’s a curse.   I have a fondness for the scribbled, eccentric, humanistic and unembarrassed linework of a rough sketch.  There’s a lovely connection to movement and thought in the first contact with the image to muscles and paper,  often softened unbearably by turning it into a final illustration.   As a professional drawer-boy, I’m always fighting between “cleaning it up” and “letting it live”.

The Batman sketch from an old, old Adventures cover, (which I just found in a box yesterday, and hence this post) is less than three inches high.  It’s drawn in pencil and a thick pentel marker which was clearly drying out, as the background becomes less dark to the right. But the sense of danger, the monster, and the expressions on everyone’s face works for me in a way the final doesn’t.

My Pekar’s AMERICAN SPLENDOR work last year did the same thing to to me.  I was going for a very sedate, “realistic” Curt Swan type of storytelling for Harvey, since that was the basic feel of this particular script…but the rough layouts had a Kirby-like energy to them, with a lively and playful sense of proportion that I wish had fit the story.

( for more Harvey online, click here)

Again, these layouts are about three inches tall, and the final art is fifteen inches high…so the movements of your hands vs. the movements of your shoulders are going to be different.

I just got through reading an issue of Marvel’s new “STRANGE TALES” comic, with folks like Peter Bagge, and James  Kochalka doing very indy looking work on Marvel super-heroes.  Astoundingly great fun, and some of the pages have the same feel as my rough pages do…before I clean myself up.

If only I hadn’t seen so much Harvey Kurtzman while growing up.  I could rid myself of this demon of liking the roughs.

AND NOW—

FOR THOSE WHO DEMAND THEIR HOVERBOY FRIDAYS ON FRIDAY, I GIVE A FIE TO THEE!  A FEE FIE!

Hoverboy Fridays continue to wander the calendar, and we find one barging into Sunday.  I’m only making this rare exception to move Hoverboy Fridays from its regular spot on Tuesdays, to this weekend, because the most recent update is topical!  It has to do with Hoverboy’s very tenuous connection to Sesame Street, which celebrated it’s 40th, or 45th anniversary this week, I wasn’t paying enough attention when Wolf Blitzer mentioned it.

Go to the Hoverboy museum and read more about this astounding connection between Kermit the Frog and The Boy Who Hovers.

www.hoverboy.com (for those who don’t hyper link well).

Ty the Guy.  AWAAAY!

New Pages!

starting now…

first up, a couple more of Spidey/Torch, including a Gwen Stacey page.

A video box cover from the 90s X-Men series.

And a couple from the story Ty did for the GLXmas Special Ty did Dan Slott.  (Grasshopper–will he die or won’t he?)

And, pages from one of Ty’s favourite projects:  Mad Dog!

New Pages!

Just finished putting up some new Spidey/Torch pages, some New Batman Adventures pages…a couple other things.  Will be posting more tonight and tomorrow, including some Dark Claw Adventures.

New Pages

Ty spent a bit of time scanning yesterday, so I’m adding pages throughout the week.  So far, some new stuff in Batman (animated), Justice League (animated) and Spidey/Torch, all for $75.

Here’s the much-seen picture of Barack Obama in front of Superman, in Metropolis, Illinois.  This is the statue Ty did a drawing of  for the Illinois Bureau of Tourism posters; the original drawing is on the Superman page.  I’m still trying to find an image of the final poster:  the posters were bus-shelter ad sized, so we can’t scan any of our copies!