HOPE YOU LIKE IT: The Art of DAKOTA ALEXANDER…
By DAKOTA ALEXANDER
1986.
A momentous year for DC Comics, and comics in general. Following Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman is rebooted with Man of Steel. Darkseid is reintroduced with the major crossover event, Legends. Green Lantern’s book is renamed Green Lantern Corps to shift the focus from the singular hero to a group of Lanterns. And, of course, the critically acclaimed Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. Suffice it to say, you could easily write a whole article about 1986 (and our Jason Czernich did!).
However, this story does not take place in 1986.
It’s very likely this story takes place a couple years later with a back issue of a DC comic from 1986. The back issue in question is a mystery to me (though I have my suspicions), but I distinctly remember pausing my casual page-flipping when I saw this:
Everything in this ad was new to me and filled my mind with questions.
Who is Matt Wagner? Who is the Demon? And what has Matt Wagner done to the Demon?
Furthermore, there is an almost post-punk sensibility to its layout and coloring that stoked the embers of my then-innocent mind. I knew right away, the Demon is cool.
Of Kirby’s creations for DC, I would easily rate Etrigan the Demon as my favorite. His written interpretations over the years have varied greatly, some not as much to my liking as others, but as far as artistic depictions go, Etrigan consistently remains in the cool camp.
So, three years ago, I drew this:
It remains one of my favorite pieces and easily scratches an itch for expressing my love of the character, but something always lingered in the back of my mind. A subtle, nagging feeling. Something that kept telling me that the Demon and I had unfinished business.
It was that DC house ad.
So, in order to get this Demon off my back, I set forth to make my own house ad for Etrigan the Demon! It was an exciting moment of grand inspiration! A momentous creative journey was about to begin!
But, I’m also admittedly quite lazy sometimes, so I decided to repurpose my existing Etrigan art, plus throw in some A-list characters for good measure (done with respect to Kevin Nowlan and Mike Mignola). Slap on a punchy bit of copy to spice it up and voila!
I give you The Demon: Books of Evil. A four-issue miniseries coming this fall, in let’s say… 1991. (This is make-believe, after all.)
Hope you like it.
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Want more of THE ART OF DAKOTA ALEXANDER? Come back in a few weeks! He’s going on a brief hiatus!
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MORE
— Thank You, JOSE LUIS GARCIA-LOPEZ, for the DC Superheroes of My Childhood. Click here.
— Why ROM Deserves So Much More Respect Than He Gets. Click here.
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DAKOTA ALEXANDER is an American artist living in Japan. He’s worked on many projects, such as The Liberty Brigade, The Masters, Charon 13, and G.H.O.S.T. Agents. His latest is his love letter to Bronze Age superhero-horror comics, The Hunter, which is now available at his Etsy, Drums of the Serpent.
