March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #1

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's time again for everyone's favorite March-based bit of Madness and Mirth featuring that wacky, hyper-cephalic Jack Kirby creation Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

For the first one, I had an image pop into my head of M.O.D.O.K. as the poster for the B-Movie classic, "Attack of the 50ft. Woman".  Oh, sorry, "Classic" should be in scare quotes--but I liked it when I saw it as a kid as part of a double-feature with "The Amazing Colossal Man"... or was it "War of the Colossal Beast"?... I watched all of them at one time or another on "T.J. and the A.N.T. (All Night Theater)".

Here is the original, classic "Attack of the 50ft. Woman" poster.  Classic Poster and awesome art by Sci-Fi Movie Poster painter, Reynold Brown.  He painted so many of the Classic Sci-Fi posters that fascinated me in my youth.  Give 'em a Google!

I'm hoping to get about 8-10 submissions done and sent to the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog.  Visit the site to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the digital painting, done in Rebelle 8.  And, yeah, those cars are comically childish, but they were small and just in the background.

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Done digitally in Rebelle with an assist from Clip Studio Paint with the Lettering

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Unwanted Valentines: The Lord of the Rings (2001)

Unwanted Valentines:
The Lord of the Rings (2001)

Here's another Unwanted Valentine, this time featuring Sauron from "The Lord of the Rings" (2001).

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue pencils, done on a 2,000px x 2,800 @ 300dpi canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks, done mostly with an 10pt and a 15pt brush.

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STEP THREE:  The colors were done on the layer below.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint

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Unwanted Valentines: The Matrix (1999)

Unwanted Valentines:
The Matrix (1999)

It's another Unwanted Valentine, this time from "The Matrix" (1999), with an obvious Viagra joke.  Is that joke obvious?  Then you know I'm gonna make it!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue pencils, done on a 2,000px x 2,800 @ 300dpi canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks, done mostly with an 10pt and a 15pt brush.

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STEP THREE:  The colors were done on the layer below.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint

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Unwanted Valentines: Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

Unwanted Valentines:
Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

It's time again for an Unwanted Valentine--Valentines so nerdy and built upon puns so terrible that no one would be pleased to receive them... especially a loved one!  This time we're starting with an obvious Pirate pun with "Pirates of the Caribbean" (2003).

Also, I decided with a PG-rated joke, rather than on that is rated... ARRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr!  After that terrible joke, I'll show myself out... 

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue pencils, done on a 2,000px x 2,800 @ 300dpi canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks, done mostly with an 10pt and a 15pt brush.

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STEP THREE:  The colors were done on the layer below.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint

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Batman-uary 2026 - Adam West of Zur-En-Arrh

BATMAN-UARY 2026:
Adam West of Zur-En-Arrh

Na-na-na-na-na-nah... Batman-uary!  And, yeah, it's the same line I used a couple weeks ago, but this time it is fitting.

I always meant to do something with the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, but between Grant Morrison's and Chip Zdarsky's use of the character, it seems a little bit overused of late (wait, what the--?  Grant Morrison's run was almost 20 years ago?  That can't be right...).  And, yeah, there was even a gesture toward the Adam West version in a Multiverse part of the storyline, but, what the heck, I wanted to do this anyways.  And here it is.  With his Bat-Radia and everything!

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Here is a panel from "Batman #133" featuring Tlano/Batman of Zur-En-Arrh.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the scrawled, digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas @ 300dpi in Rebelle 8.

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STEP TWO: And here is the finished digital work, using mostly digital Watercolor/Gouache brushes and a digital Airbrush.

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Done digitally in Rebelle.

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Batman-uary 2026 - Batman #113 (1940) Cover Recreation

 BATMAN-UARY 2026:
Batman #113 (1940)

Batman-uary Returns!  This time it's a cover recreation of "Batman" #113 (1940)--a peculiarly significant issue in that it introduced the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh and his Bat-Radia.  It's a fun story with a goofy charm (the best charm there is, IMHO!).  Batman is compelled to go out on for a midnight fly in his Bat-Plane, only to be teleported by Tlano, the Batman of Zurr-En-Arrh.  On Zur-En-Arrh, Batman (our Earth Batman, that is) discovers he has the power of Superman on the alien world and uses them to help Tlano fight off an alien invasion and their giant robots.

I sorta wanted to do more with both Batman and the aliens on the cover, as they looked fun (and the fireballs from their lasers have an almost flower-like look to them which was intriguing) but, to be honest, the whole thing turned out better in my head than on the page.  Ah, well, that's the way it always goes, I'm sure.  Still, it wasn't a complete failure and is marginally OK.  Onward to the next one!

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Here is the original cover to "Batman" #113 (1940).

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STEP ONE:  Here's the briefly scribbled digital pencils, done on a 2,000px x 3,000px @ 300dip canvas in Clip Studio Paint.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks.

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STEP THREE: For the colors, the were mostly flat colors and for the building I used the Noise Filter to add some texture and the airbrush tool to add some shadows on a separate layer.  While it was modestly improved, I was mostly not too satisfied with the effect.  However, when I changed the shadow's Layer Property to "Hue", it resulted in an interesting, almost alien, color scheme that I wouldn't have chosen, but seemed fitting, methinks.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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Batman-uary 2026 - Luminous Uniform

BATMAN-UARY 2026:
Luminous Uniform

Na-na-na-na-na-nah... Batman-uary!  It's the Luminous Unoform, mentioned on the cover and one panel in "Detective Comics" #165 while fighting, um, I think it was Dr. Radium?  Anyhoo, I figured I'd do it up as a parody/pastiche for Alex Ross's cover to "Batman" #676, which seemed to lend itself to a glowing Batman costume.

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Here is the original cover to "Detective Comics" #165.

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And it was done as a parody/homage to Alex Ross's cover to "Batman 676"

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And here's the Batman-uary Logo.  Feel free to use it as you please...

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STEP ONE:  Here's a brief peek behind the curtain: I did up some quickly scrawled thumbnails done in Rebelle 8.  It was a choice of the Alex Ross cover, the Norm Breyfogle cover to "Detective Comics" #587, or a general looking Batman standing in front of the Moon while glowing.

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STEP TWO:  Here are the scrawled, digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas @ 300dpi in Rebelle 8.

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STEP THREE: And here is the finished digital work, using mostly digital Watercolor brushes and a digital Airbrush.  There was some digital trickery involving a couple Overlay layers to give that glow on the Bat symbol.

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Done digitally in Rebelle.

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Happy New Year - Supergirl-uary

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Supergirl-uary

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

What's this, a Happy New Year Post on the actual New Year's Day?  Who'da thunk it?

Just to carry on with last year's New Year's post, this time it's Supergirl instead of Superman.  I will admit, being a huge fan of "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow" (a book I've gifted to my daughters), I am looking forward to the movie set to be released later this year.  I'm also hardly the first to point out that it is a super-hero version of "True Grit", and the Charles Portis book and Coen Bros. movie in 2010 are also both great.  And, yeah, Supergirl-uary is a deliberately, comically a terrible name.

I want to give a sincere "Thank You" to all of you who have stopped by to gawk and rubberneck at my modest Blog.  As I mentioned in my previous End of Year post, there has been a 10x to 20x increase in traffic to this Blog (although, it may just be bots and AI scrapers trying to steal art and whatnot.  Again, suck it Tech-Overlords and Oligarch Dickheads trying to force AI Slop on everyone and everything).  The Blog also crossed a half-million Views, so that's something, I guess.  A mind blowing, humbling statistic to me.

Last year I was hoping to do some larger projects for the Blog.  Well, it was a resolution that sorta was half-done.  I did have several larger projects in 2025, but they fell outside the scope of this Blog, alas, although I did do the most posts on this Blog last year (69 posts--Nice!).

This year, aside from a trying to break last year's number of posts, I have a few comic-based projects specifically that I am hoping to do for my own amusement.  We'll see how that goes with this New Year's Delusions... er, I mean New Year's Resolutions!  So, stay tuned and check back often!  Well, not too often, of course, we don't wanna be weird about it...  Y'know, casual often.

The next post should be back to our regularly scheduled silliness, Batman-uary style!

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Done digitally in Rebelle 8, with as assist in Photoshop for the lettering.

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