A modern master visits Gotham for the month of October.
I’ve said it a number of times: The highest compliment I can give an artist is that I’d want them on Batman full-time.
That’s no knock on the artists who draw him now, believe me. I’m just saying there are certain people whom I’d also love to see tackle my favorite character.
Chris Samnee is one of them. Obviously.
So it’s kind of a bittersweet thing that Samnee’s chosen Batman as his Inktober subject this year. (Inktober is a month-long exercise where artists draw a new sketch in ink every day in October. There are single-word prompts chosen by Inktober’s founder Jake Parker and the artists take it from there. Click here for more info.)
Why bittersweet? Because Samnee’s illustrations are exactly what I’d hope they’d be — which only emphasizes what I’m not getting on a regular basis.
Sigh.
Anyway, Chris has been sharing his sketches on Twitter (click here) and auctioning them on eBay (click here) and he’s given me the green light to share 13 of my faves here. Of course, there are still several days left in the month, so there’s a lot more to look forward to. (And, yeah, I’m also looking forward to Captain America by Chris and Mark Waid, launching next week.)
In the meantime, dig these, accompanied by the Inkober prompts. The comments are my own:
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RUN. This is my favorite. Everything I want in one image. And Robin’s classic costume, to boot.
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JUICY. This tells a whole story — or at least perhaps the start of one — in one image.
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FAT.
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SWIFT.
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TRAIL. Notice the subtle use of red. Contextually, this is how I see Batman seeing a crime scene. Everything is black and white but what he’s focused on.
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SCREECH.
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CLOUD.
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SHIP.
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SWORD.
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LONG.
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POISON. If you can’t see the Alex Toth homage, you don’t have eyes. Brilliant.
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FILTHY.
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GIGANTIC.
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Again, these are only 13 of the 31 Batman sketches Chris is doing this month. Make sure you check him out on Twitter (click here) and visit his store on eBay (click here).
October 26, 2017
Those are all terrific!