Me And Marvel's First Family

A look at my covers for the Fantastic Four comic series!

I’ve been asked to do a lot more series of covers lately. The Disney/Marvel Crossovers, Death of Spider-Man, Imperial, and a few more that I actually had to say no to. Godzilla Vs. for example. I was asked to do 4 or 5 of those. I wanted to be in but I knew I wouldn’t have THAT many ideas for that many covers. Godzilla is HUGE and then I draw little Marvel characters. I also try to make the gag the star of the cover. I came up with my gag for Godzilla VS. Fantastic Four and instantly knew I couldn’t top it. So I passed on the rest.

Marvel asked if I wanted to do covers for the first 5 issues of the new Ryan North and Humberto Ramos Fantastic Four series. You all know Humberto is both a hero and dear friend of mine. And, I love a chance to throw some Kirby Krackle around. One of the biggest moments in my early career was launching a Human Torch solo series. I’ll never forget Joe Quesada calling me a “future superstar” for that book in Previews in 2003. Man, it’s hard to look back at that art but I think things turned out okay.

Some people made fun of the way I drew flames back then. I was called “Laffy Taffy” flames once. They weren't completely wrong. haha.

I was experimenting with photo background like Jamie Hewlett did with Gorillaz. And I still have and wear that jacket Johnny is wearing on this cover.

On top of all that, the FF trailer was out and I thought it was great. I had to be in!

Marvel said that they wanted the covers to share a theme. The first thing I decided was they’re not gonna just share a theme. They’re going to connect! I mean, it’s the FF. Marvel’s First Family. They need to be one big unit. Or, you know, a family. Connecting covers are NOT easy. You have to think about a full image that also works for 5 pieces individually. It’s a puzzle inside of puzzle. So I started sketching.

Once I had the general layout, it was time to clean it all up and get it ready to be inked. I needed some background elements to help tie it all together. I thought I might do some Kirby type tech lab stuff flying around, but that didn’t feel kinetic enough. the characters just felt like they were in a flat side scrolling game screen. so I drew an asteroid under Things foot as if he was trying to use it to stop all the stretching.

I printed them out and inked them up.

I figured I’d have my right hand color man Jean-Francois Beaulieu add some spacey stars in the background later. But when I finished inking it and scanned them all in, I thought it would be fun to add some Kirby Krackle as the tie that binds. I’m pretty sure that was one fucking good call. Haha.

So I did a digital pass of Krackle and sent them both to JFB. He of course took the alley oop and broke the backboard with it as he always does.

And here you have the final connecting covers of Fantastic Four #1-5

And now a look at them each on their own.

Well, there ya go! Another peek behind the curtain to see how things get made. I’m sure Megan is cooking up some plans for the set of these as I type, so stay tuned. If you’re reading this and not subscribed to the newsletter, get on it! Sign up for this kind of thing and more of me blah blah blah’ing about all types of stuff.