If H.P. Lovecraft Wrote SHAZAM?

SHAZ-THULU!

OK, this was idea that came to me a while ago, but **FINALLY** got around to working on it.  While looking at some of the origin stories of SHAZAM, I came across the panel talking about Elder Gods, which immediately makes me think of H.P. Lovecraft:

I've always been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft's stories and the idea of a cosmic horror-based mythology (one that was more-or-less Open Source--with other authors adding to it, which delights me even more).  So, it was just a matter of plugging in the Outer/Elder Gods from the H.P. Lovecraft Mythos into the acronym/initialism of S.H.A.Z.A.M.:

S - (Yog) Sothoth, the Key and the Gate
H - Hastur, the Unspeakable
A - Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God
Z - Zhar, One of the Twin Obscenities
A - Abhoth, the Source of Uncleanliness
M - Mordiggian, the Charnel God

Yes, Yog Sothoth is a bit of a cheat for "S", but Yog Sothoth is a far more well-known Outer God and has more cultural cache.  Besides, the other name in contention, Shub-Niggurath, is... problematic.  And a bit too long to fit properly into the scroll, so that bullet was dodged due to lack of space.

As a side note, I was considering doing this as a full 4-6 page pastiche of the original origin story with subtle changes here and there, but I guess they say brevity is the soul of wit.  Or, in my case, half of the wit.  Maybe I'll come back to it.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done on a blue line layer in Clip Studio Paint on a 1,500px x 2,250px canvas.  It amused me to mix together the cartoony drawings of Billy Batson from the original origin in "Whiz Comics" and a slightly more realistic drawing.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.  I thought it would be more of an in-joke to have Cthulhu's symbol as part of the lightning blast to transform Billy Batson into SHAZAM.

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STEP THREE:  And here are the colors, done with a series of Multiply and Normal layers.  When it was finished, it was exported as a .jpg at 1,000px x 1,500px.

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Done digitally in Clip Paint Studio.

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