With Guardians of the Galaxy doing gangbusters business in the cinemas right now, it is only to be expected that parent company Marvel Comics would make a push in print with all the characters involved. Rocket Raccoon, Star Lord, Guardians, Nova, and Thanos all have been playing major parts in the comic universe through individual titles... and characters from the "cosmic" side of the Marvel Universe have been popping up in every major title. So on a trip to one of our local mom & pop comic shops (Pinocchio Comics in Brooklyn) I looked over and I seen a stack of Skottie Young's new Rocket Raccoon #1 variants sitting there. They had all 3: The one with Rocket with a huge gun, the one with Stan Lee, and a white blank cover. Now I am not one of those comic collectors that will get caught up trying to track down variants and chase covers... its not my style. But I have been talking to Tommy (resident artist here at CCD) about doing something with one of these... having him create me a unique cover image (a 1 of 1) that is hand drawn. But I have been waiting for the right one to come along, and since Rocket is one of my favorite characters ever and I started collecting monthly comics again with the launch of this particular title I figured now was as good as a time as any. So I bought it, turned over to Tommy, and awaited the results. My man TL did NOT disappoint.... he did a bang up job on this awesome cover, and took the character way back to it's roots as being inspired by the Beetles song "Rocky Raccoon". Great, just great.... TL also happened to snap some incredible WIP shots of his initial sketches and the finished product. So great... thank you my friend. This has definitely "Rocketed" to the top of my collection as one of my favorite books (see what I did there). Check em all out after the jump...
BUY SOME OF TOMMY"S ART NOW AT HIS WEBSITE....
The original cover by Skottie Young |
The blank Variant cover I gave Tommy |
Initial sketch and pencil on the variant cover |
B & W before color |
background details |
The raccoon of the hour close up |
Wider detailed shot |
Top of the title card has a play on Rocky Raccoon lyrics changed to fit the character |
The Finished BOOK!!!!!! |
And a back cover inscription for Me.... Thanks TL! |
Great stuff. I'd love to see more.
ReplyDeleteThat is how you turn something cool into something priceless.
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