Aquaman Pin-Up by Joe Prado

Joe Prado has been busy finishing up his "pre-NYCC" commissions and posting the results on his Facebook page. Of course, this was one too good to resist: a majestic shot of Aquaman, wonderfully contrasted against two of his finny friends. A great piece, I'm jealous of whoever it's for!

We'll be seeing the soon-to-be-former-Aquaman art team at the show tomorrow; I'm sure I can speak for all of the Shrine staff when I say we can't wait!

DCU Holiday Bash Pin-Up by Sergio Aragones

This festive pin-up of the DCU's heavy-hitters engaging in a little Christmas Caroling (conducted by Alfred E. Neuman, no less) is courtesy the legendary Sergio Aragones, and it appeared in 2003's DCU Holiday Bash #3.

Probably our only chance to see Aquaman, Lobo, and Cain from The House of Mystery all in the same place!

Aquaman Sunday Funnies - Pin-Ups!

These two pin-ups are from 2001's Bizarro Comics, the last items from that book that feature Aquaman.

Click the images to see larger versions, see if you can find the Sea King!

More next week!

Alex Ross "Justice" Pin-Up - 2005

This pin-up by Alex Ross first ran in the back of Justice #1, as part of a series of character bios.

As one would expect from Ross, its a cool, perfectly iconic shot, and feels like a modern-day version of the classic piece of Aquaman stock art seen on a bajillion products in the 70s and 80s:

This piece has since been used on t-shirts and few other items. If (when!) Aquaman gets his own series again, it would make a great little cover corner symbol, like the ones Marvel had for decades.

Come to think of it, I'd love to see these two pieces of art used on the front and back of a t-shirt; kind of like an "Aquaman: Then & Now" sort of thing. Somebody get on that!

JLA Gallery: Chuck Wojtkiewicz

I've posted many of the pin-ups from the 1997 JLA Gallery book, but for whatever reason this Aquaman-centric one fell through the cracks, moving further and further down in my "to post" folder.

It's by artist Chuck Wojtkiewicz (its like they were trying to make it as hard as possible to pronounce), and features Aquaman and Green Lantern fighting undead Nazi zombies. Heck, I'd read that story!

Amazing Heroes - 1986

This fan Aquaman drawing (by Greg Moustafis) ran in the letter column of the August 15, 1986 issue of Amazing Heroes, one of my favorite comic 'zines back in the day.

AH ran lots of fan art, especially in the letter columns, but I never thought I was good enough so I never sent any drawings in. Oddly enough, I did send a number of letters, many of whom got printed. A harbinger of things to come?

As fan art goes, this piece is pretty good; I think the influence of Craig Hamilton and his take on Aquaman is pretty apparent from the pose. Overall a nice piece; I remember at the time being happy someone else liked Aquaman!

This scan was sent by F.O.A.M.er King Megatrip, thanks KM!

JLA-Z: Satellite Era

Another pin-up from the JLA-Z series, this time of the "Satellite Era" of the team.

What Flash, Black Canary, et al, are standing on, exactly, I'm not sure. How Aquaman seems to be flying is also mysterious. Also, where's Zatanna?

Hmm...its probably best not to ask questions and just enjoy the superb artwork by Jerry Ordway.

Justice League Pin-Up - 1996

This striking shot of the ret-conned original JLA is by Mike Zeck, from the Green Lantern Gallery one-shot DC put out in 1996. I particularly love Aquaman's about-to-dive pose.

I've loved Zeck's work ever since I first saw it on Captain America in the early 80s. He's simplified it a bit here--this look would be perfect for an all-ages JLA book, if DC ever decides to do one.

Wonder Woman by Phil Jimenez

This pin-up by Phil Jimenez ran in the recent Wonder Woman #600 anniversary issue, and it was sent to me by F.O.A.M.er John Lijewski III because not only does Aquaman appear on it, he gets a little more space than some of his other fellow JLAers, which is always nice to see. Thanks John!

JLA-Z: JLA Year One Pin-Up

Another JLA group pin-up from the JLA-Z mini-series, this time of the (retconned) original JLA line-up, courtesy artist Michael Avon Oeming, who does a spectacular job here. I love that shot of Aquaman diving toward the reader!

Back in 2006, there were a bunch of internet practical joke memes going around, announcing some huge artist was doing an All Star: (Fill In Name of Character) book, and none of them were ever true.

Around that time, I met Mr. Oeming at my LCS, All Things Fun, (where he did this awesome Aquaman sketch for me) and he said that if I was willing to spread the rumor he was doing an All Star Aquaman book, he'd go along with it. Looking at this piece, I realize I should have taken him up on it!


(BTW: this and all the JLA-Z scans are courtesy F.O.A.M.er Shawn Myers. Thanks Shawn!)

Missed Opportunity: DCCP Pin-Up - 1981

This beautiful pin-up by the master, George Perez, appeared in DC Comics Presents #38, the first issue of the series sporting the increased 60 cent cover price. DC was trying to give readers "more for your money" so they threw in little bells and whistles like this for the first few issues with that new price.

Anyway, this pin-up was, as it states, celebrating Superman and his co-stars of the first 38 issues of DC Comics Presents. That's all well and good except...where's Aquaman? Aquaman did, in fact, team-up with Supes in DC Comics Presents #5, and yet he is nowhere to be seen here. What's a Sea King gotta do?!?

Somehow, Arthur was either forgotten by Perez when he was roughing out the sketch, or he was left off a list presumably sent to him by DC (by editor Julius Schwartz?). And yet no one forgot Man-Bat or Hoppy The Marvel Bunny. Geez.



(As a side note: I wrote a piece about this issue of DCCP over on my Hey Kids, Comics! blog, which in some ways could be called "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." I don't want to oversell it, judge for yourself)

JLA-Z: JLA Detroit

F.O.A.M.er Shawn Myers sent me a whole bunch of Aquaman-related scans from the 2003 mini-series JLA-Z, a Who's Who-esque collection of pin-ups and character profiles.

Of course, Aquaman and the JLA's history are forever intertwined, so he shows up a lot in this series (I posted the Aquaman solo entry here). This pin-up focuses on the "JLA Detroit" iteration of the team, featuring spiffy art by Tom Grummett.

Grummett is such a solid superhero artist that its a shame he didn't land the Justice League of America art assignment after original artist Chuck Patton left. His style is perfect for action-based superhero comics, as this pin-up will attest. He even makes Vibe look cool!

Thanks Shawn!

JLA-Z #1 - Nov. 2003

Comics Weekend JLA-Z was a Who's Who-style series that I somehow missed back when it first came out.

But while buying comics for my Phantom Stranger blog, I bought the third issue (since it featured a PS pin-up), and was impressed at the line-up of diverse talent DC recruited to do the pin-ups.

So I went back and bought the first issue in the series, seeing how Aquaman was represented:

A very nice pin-up, by Aquaman's then-regular artists Patrick Gleason and Christian Alamy; Arthur looks strong and tough, and I'm a sucker for a bright blue sky when you're talking about Aquaman (reminds me of those awesome Ramona Fradon stories from the Silver Age).

Aquaman's origin, as listed here, is the more modern version:

...ah well, can't have it all.

For anyone who's a fan of solid superhero pin-up art, you could do a lot worse than this series. Aside from Aquaman, there are other really beautiful shots in here, like Amazo by Rob Haynes, The Atom by the late great Mike Wieringo, Darkseid by Walt Simonson, and Despero by Dean Haspiel!

JLA/JSA Pin-Up by Dave Gibbons

Back at the time of the Watchmen movie being released, I did a post focusing on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' rare interactions with Aquaman.

For Gibbons, I posted a couple of pages he drew for the World's Funnest one-shot, saying "[T]he only time he ever got to draw him[Aquaman] was in the 2003 one-shot World's Funnest, a fall-down-funny effort written by Evan Dorkin."

Well, of course, while going through some old comics, I looked through the above book (released in 1998), and found this pin-up by the one and only Mr. Gibbons, making my earlier statement wrong, wrong, wrong:

(click to see a larger version!)

In contrast to his work in Watchmen, everyone in the DCU looks so cheery when Gibbons draws them, Aquaman included!

JLA Gallery Pin-Up by Steve Pugh - 1997

This is another pin-up from the 1997 JLA Gallery comic, a book that, as I mentioned previous posts, featured a surprising amount of Aquaman-centric shots (other pin-ups from the book can be found here, here, and here), giving further credence to my theory that, among comics professionals, Aquaman is a pretty popular character.

The pin-up is by artist Steve Pugh (who would end up doing his own version of a sea-faring character), and I like everything about it--the layout, the sense of movement, the slight cartooniness of it, and the pairing of Arthur and Carter, two characters that I always thought had more in common than most other members of the JLA.
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Shameless Plug Dept.: The newest issue of TwoMorrows' Back Issue, #33, is now out in digital .pdf form (the print edition ships next week), and the reason I'm mentioning it is because it features my very first piece as a gen-u-ine writer!

Its just a little thing--a one-page piece on the Mego Teen Titans line--but I'm proud of it, and seeing my name attached to an article in a magazine I really love is a tremendous thrill.

And there are more to come...!

JLA Gallery Pin-Up by John Delaney - 1997

This is another pin-up from the JLA Gallery, a 1997 collection of pin-ups by a wide array of artists delineating the world's greatest superheroes.

This famous moment from the JLA's past was drawn by John Delaney, who did a lot of the art for the short-lived Adventures in the DC Universe book. (I love Professor Ivo's super-wide grin, click the image to see a larger version)

As an old-time comic book reader, the only thing that bothers me about the piece is that the icy hand of retro-continuity has touched it; instead of getting Wonder Woman like in the original, we have Black Canary.

Of course, that's not Delaney's fault; so let's just enjoy the nice art, shall we?

JLA Gallery Pin-Up by Chris Weston - 1997

This spiffy pin-up is by artist Chris Weston from the 1997 JLA Gallery comic.

There was a surprising number of Aquaman-centric pin-ups in that book, underscoring my belief that Aquaman's ability to sell a comic book is disproportionate to the size of his actual fan-base both in and out of the comics industry.

That's a really cool, if a tad creepy, throne Arthur is rocking there.

AquaContest Pin-Up Winners!

We have a winner--two, actually!

As you can see above, the pin-up is in fact by Mike Mignola, from a 1981 issue of the magazine The Comic Reader. Mignola, in an interview with Comic Book Artist several years ago, said he was still "searching for a style" at this point and you can clearly see the Berni Wrightson influence on this piece. And considering Mike's well-known apathy for superheroes(drawing them, at least), this will probably be the only time we'll ever get to see a Mike Mignola Classic Aquaman.

I've decided to declare two winners from the guesses--Sean, who guessed Mignola first, and Frank Lee Delano, who guessed correctly but also figured out that it was probably a fanzine pin-up. Well done, fellas, send me your addresses and your choice of stand-ups!

Hope everyone enjoyed our first contest, I don't think it'll be our last!

AquaContest Pin-Up - ?

This nifty pin-up of Aquaman in a very dire situation is by...ah, but that would be telling, wouldn't it?

All you have to do to win one of the Super-Hero Stand-Ups from yesterday is name the artist. The pin-up is only by one person(pencils and inks) so only one name is correct. Leave a comment with your answer, multiple guesses ok!

If no one guesses correctly by around 9:30am Tuesday, a hint will be given. Further hints will appear if no one manages to guess correctly. Good luck, everybody!

JLA Gallery Pin-Up by Jay Stephens - 1997

In honor of Michael Netzer's efforts to save the Martian Manhunter, this week on the Shrine I'll be posting all the stuff I can find that features both the Sea King and the Manhunter From Mars. It won't be easy--J'onn didn't make it onto too much merchandise pre-JLU--but I'll do my best, by H'ronmeer!

This awesome piece by Jay Stephens is from the 1997 JLA Gallery pin-up book. Its so good it would stand out in any collection, but it really does so here because this book was published in 1997, when not only was Aquaman in his pirate look, but Superman was going through his blue-and-white uniform "ice skater" phase--so that didn't leave room for many timeless, iconic JLA pin-ups.

I love how Arthur and Barry look tired, Ollie is playing, Supes and Bats are handling official business, and Hal and Ray are reveling in the victory.

Martian Manhunter, of course, retains his composure.
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Shameless Plug Department: It's also an all-Martian Manhunter week over at Coming Super-Attractions!, featuring nothing but ads concerning everyone's favorite endangered Martian! All you Manhunter fans check it out!