DAKOTA ALEXANDER | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Apr02

A DEMON MINISERIES You Never Knew Existed — Because It Didn’t

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Apr 2, 2026

A DEMON MINISERIES You Never Knew Existed — Because It Didn’t

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...

Mar26

Thank You, JOSE LUIS GARCIA-LOPEZ, for the DC Superheroes of My Childhood

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Mar 26, 2026

Thank You, JOSE LUIS GARCIA-LOPEZ, for the DC Superheroes of My Childhood

The Art of DAKOTA ALEXANDER: A Birthday Tribute… By DAKOTA ALEXANDER My love for superheroes began before I could read comics. I was born in 1979, so in the early ’80s my introduction came from all the media and merchandise presented by Marvel and DC. TV shows, toys, View-Masters and videos were plentiful at the time, and I was hooked from a young age by the exciting world of adventure that surrounded these costumed crusaders. With all the various merchandise that showcased the heroes of the Big Two, even at a young age I noticed that any merch with DC characters had a specific “style” to its images (I think many of you know where I am going with this). Of course it wasn’t until later that I realized that these images, in fact, were not repurposed from the comics (as was often the case with Marvel). They were part of an immense gallery of art known as… THE DC COMICS STYLE GUIDE. As you probably know, the 1982 DC Comics Style Guide was the binder that contained official images of nearly all the company’s characters used for licensed merchandise around the world. It’s been updated many times and is still used today for DC’s retro goods. (Standards Manual’s 2024 hardcover Style Guide reprint, on which 13th Dimension‘s Dan Greenfield was a technical adviser and writer, was nominated for an Eisner last year.) As former DC head Paul Levitz wrote in a previous 13th Dimension article: “The Style Guides were done to change a policy that was unfair to artists — most earlier DC licensed products or ads simply picked up images from the comics, without any additional payment to the talent. Led by president Jenette Kahn, we changed that policy so that most licensees had to use artwork created specifically for that purpose, either in the Style Guides (for which the talent was paid a higher rate and knew the intended use) or newly drawn.” Basically, from 1982 to 1989, if you saw any merch that was DC-related (not counting the Superman movies) it was likely that artwork was licensed from the DC Style Guide. I remember the paper plates, cups, and napkins for my 4th birthday were all superhero art from the guide. It was the visual language for how kids would recognize the characters from the...

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