Some of these costume designs are a little... bizarre, especially coming from an adolescent perspective. Both Wonder Woman and the Black Canary have exposed belly buttons, which I guess is fine. But Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Batman seem to be wearing some kind of fetishistic bondage outfits, with lots of high boots, halters and straps. Do not ask me what I was thinking at the time, but in the new piece I felt I had to embrace the freakiness of the designs by indicating that Batman's high boots and gloves are made out of some kind of vinyl-like substance. Or vinyl. Batman's wearing vinyl.
I actually kinda like the Flash design here, with just a bunch of blurring lines on his face and extremities (presumably all of them). The Atom isn't that far off from his comic book costume in the 1970s. The Superman (complete with low-waisted yellow speedos) is yet another example of how you just can't mess with the perfection of the character's iconic design. And I don't know what the deal is with that Aquaman.
I think my favorite thing in the entire original drawing is how Wonder Woman's hair completely covers her eyes, like a cool 70s hippie chick (I wish I could see a Jeff Jones or Mike Sekowsky version of this costume).
In the original drawing (clipped to save space), the "2050" is out of the green circle because when I originally dated the futuristic version of the team (with its "traditions passed over the years"), I wrote the year, "1092." Apparently, I quickly realized that 1092 was indeed the past, and not the future, hence the clumsy alteration. Ah, if only I'd have had Photoshop back then.
(Note: the cover template is loosely based on the cover of DC SPECIAL BLUE RIBBON DIGEST #11 from July 1981.)
1 comment:
I absolutely love that you did this. When I first saw the new piece on Covered, it reminded me of the DC One Million JLA. My thought was, "This is great, too bad DC has become so conservative and reactionary about their properties and will never allow such tinkering with their characters in the actual comics." But coming here and seeing the original drawing really made me smile. That's excellent!
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