COVERED! 100 Spideys

I was invited to participate in Robert Goodin's COVERED Art Show at Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles.


(postcard art by Aaron Renier)

The show starts this Saturday, March 6th from 8-10pm. Apparently there will be drinks.

I'm really excited and proud to be included, it looks like it's going to be really cool. If you can't make it to LA you can check out the show on Secret Headquarters' Flickr page where you'll also find info on how to purchase original art and prints from the show. You can also check out the Covered Blog where the art included in the show will be posted, one every day, starting March 6th.

The theme of the Art Show and the Covered Blog is to have artists re-imagine old comic book covers in their own style. I did a screen-print for the show (the image at the top of this post).

It's about 15.5" by 12.25"
5-colors, hand-pulled by me
signed and numbered - a series of 50
$40 at Secret Headquarters (you can pick one up at the show, or email them about it and they can mail one to you)


It's (loosely) based on the above image by Mark Bagley. Ultimate Spider-man #100. Most of the contributors to the show and blog tend to pick older, more classic covers, and while this one is a few years old it's not really classic. It's not even really all that great, nor is the issue inside. But when I thought of doing a screen-print for the show this was the first cover that sprung to mind - the opportunity of trying to design something with 100 spider-men was one I couldn't pass up.


Above, some sketches figuring out the composition and style.
In these comics he there is a nice sense of place because he spends a lot of time at home, in the suburbs of Queens. He's always having to figure out ways to sneak out and hide his costume and try to avoid being followed home by his enemies, and sneak smooches with Mary Jane. It's charming and consistent. And it helps that one artists drew over 100 consecutive issues of the series, which is rare in super-hero comics.


Here is the first stab at the pencils, on a piece of computer paper.


Next I lightboxed the buildings onto a sheet of bristol board. Drawn with a G-Nib & Ink.


Then the Spider-Mans onto a different sheet. I did the houses and figures separately because it's easier to manipulate the colors in Photoshop that way. I also put the lettering on a separate strip of paper. Everything drawn with a G-Nib.

For some reason I was fixated on the idea that it would be redundant to include the words "Spider-Man" on the cover since there was 100 of the guy swinging around. It would have been an opportunity to do some fun lettering but I couldn't figure out how to fit it into the composition without making it look tacked on. So instead of his name I put that little spider symbol after "Ultimate".

And you'll notice that I moved the letters from a horizontal layout on the bottom to a vertical one on the top left side in the final version. I did that in photoshop after realizing that my original version wouldn't fit on my printing screens.


I forgot to take pictures at any stage of the printing other than after the second color and the final fifth.


All finished!

The red layer ended up being a little transparent, which I hated at first, but now I kind of like it.