The Various Design Elements For Carljoe Javier's GEEK TRAGEDIES
Posted 9:12 PM by AD in Labels: a few explanations, book design, carljoe javier, comic books, essay, geek tragedies, josel nicolasAll the homagey art pencilled and inked by Josel Nicolas and coloured and assembled by me.
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| The GEEK TRAGEDIES title banner, based on the FANTASTIC FOUR logo. |
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| THE FANTASTIC FOUR #1, art by Jack Kirby |
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| The cover for GEEK TRAGEDIES, based on the first issue of THE FANTASTIC FOUR, as drawn by Jack Kirby. I have flat out forgotten what the SBC in the monster's jersey stands for, but the monster is supposedly a caveman jock monster spin on Moleman's subterranean giant. The author's photo is a reference to the old EC Comics design aesthetic. I drew the UP Press logo at the bottom right. This underwent a lot of recolouring, the latest being just last week. Narrative-wise, I love how utterly non-sequitor this cover is in relation to the book's interior, it's really just all about the geek angst. |
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| THE AVENGERS #1, art by Jack Kirby |
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| The plate for my intro to the book, appropriately an intro to the main characters of the drawings. Trying to play up the geek stereotype of not knowing how to please a girl, with Venus's word balloon and Iron Mac's somewhat depressed reading of MEN ARE FROM MARS WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS. Also confronting geeks with overt sexuality via the nakedness and the packet of condoms on the bedside table. |
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| THE FANTASTIC FOUR #51, art by Jack Kirby |
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| The first story in the collection is a clarion call to geek alienation, thus the appropriate cover to homage ought to be the Thing's solo melodrama obra "This Man, This Monster" only with Carl replacing Ben Grimm. I don't remember whose idea was it to have Carl be naked in the train station, but seeing it right now, it strikes me as something very appropriate, heightening the alienation and the loneliness and the general hard luck vibe of the story. |
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| THE FANTASTIC FOUR #275, art by John Byrne |
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| The plate for a cosplay story, narrated by a young woman dressed up as an LOTR elf. The hobbit is later revealed to be one of the main characters. For some reason, Josel drew the character to look a bit like Miles Strom from the TV series LOST. In keeping with the narrative thrust, the woman in blue is Venus, from the intro plate. This was fun to colour. |
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| THE X-MEN #49, art by Jim Steranko |
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| Based on one of the too few X-MEN covers by Steranko, a personal hero of mine. The story was about insomnia, so I thought it'd be nice to have one of the main characters reclined and having trouble sleeping, so we had this guy trying to sleep, with images of his exes troubling him. I thought Josel did a great job with rendering the face here, and I love the small detail of the garter belt along the Storm character's thigh. Again, subtle overt sexuality. |
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| THE UNCANNY X-MEN #135, art by John Byrne |
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| Riffing on the story title and the stereotype of the girl who doesn't understand geekdom and thus strives to eradicate it, as shown by the Dreamgirl holding up comic book pages that she had previously ripped apart, much to the dismay of the main characters. Josel tried giving the girl a cameltoe and some prominent nipples. It didn't work as well as it should have, as Josel still had no idea how to draw women back then. I thoroughly enjoyed putting the Kirby Krackle here and colouring the Hulk character weeping green tears. |
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| THE FANTASTIC FOUR #49, art by Jack Kirby |
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| The plate for a horror story, thus the evocation of cosmic horror in the giant cosmic god of death face floating in the sky. For the peeps who do not know, "Bloomsday" is a Joyce reference to the day when ULYSSES was set, June 16. Joycean scholars around the world celebrate the day every year with fora and conferences on Joyce, which they call "Bloomsday." JP Cuison also homaged this cover in the first issue of the komix vulgarity effort PUNNX KOMIKS. I really enjoyed colouring this one. |
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| THE FANTASTIC FOUR #16, art by Jack Kirby |
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| This was one of the least immediate cover ideas, but as soon as I saw the FF cover, I thought that it was perfect for this story. Josel outdid himself with the inking of the character's face, the anxious paranoid Ditko eyes, and the Kirby Krackle by the computer. "Gorram" is a FIREFLY reference. |
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| IRON MAN #128, art by Bob Layton |
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| One of the more obvious cover homages, this was by far for me the most pitch perfect in the homage:story ratio. I love the heartbreaking crestfallen pantsshitting loneliness apparent in Carl's face in the reflection. I love the play in absence-presence in this cover, the mild Narcissus reference. More artists ought to use reflections as a design conceit. |
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| THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #129, art by Ross Andru |
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| Yet again one of the most obvious homages. Josel gave this to me in parts, which I then assembled. For some reason, I'm really proud of the crosshairs that I did in Photoshop. The Spider-Man character is supposed to be a writer, so that's his Moleskine fluttering away from his arm's reach. I enjoyed colouring this. |
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| THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #50, art by John Romita, Sr |
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| Yet another no-brainer homage. The story is a bit of a downer, set on a street corner. The street corner portrayed here is the corner of Kamias-EDSA-Kamuning, with the character crossing EDSA from the Kamuning side, near where Carl lives. Notice the Moleskine jutting from behind his pants. |
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| THE X-MEN #50, art by Jim Steranko |
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| Based on the other Steranko X-MEN cover. This is also a not-too-subtle Suydam homage. I love the simplicity of the colouring of the original, which I tried to reflect here. I love the Iron Man character's pleading terrified look here. This remains as one of my favourite drawings by Josel. |
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| TALES OF SUSPENSE #39, art by Don Heck |
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| One of the few plates that don't really jive with the story they accompany, aside from the basic "he's off to an adventure" thing this image evokes. I had great fun with the (for some people) stealth reference to the 60s-era Iron Man cartoon. Here it is revealed that the hobbit cosplayer from before is actually the Iron Man character. And if it's still not obvious, the Iron Mac's costume - or at the very least the helmet - is made from the late 90s/early 00's Mac desktops. |
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| THE X-MEN #138, art by John Byrne |
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| Yet another completely relation-less plate, just Carl walking away from geekdom. For some reason, the red Livestrong rubber bracelet switched sides somewhere between the arcade image and this one. Favourite detail: how bummed out Super Mario is about Carl leaving. |
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| GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1, art by Gil Kane |
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| What may be one of the most homaged cover ever if not THE most homaged cover ever. The exes return here, one with pregnancy, the other with Meralco bills, one more coming from a shopping spree. Having characters burst out from the book interior, through the cover and (theoretically) on to your face is one of the best most pro-active design conceits I've ever seen. More people should do this. |
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| THE AVENGERS #4, art by Jack Kirby |
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| The outro plate, a bookender, meant to be an epilogue of sorts for the images' narrative. The Spider-Man writer character is now in a beatnik get-up with three Palanca medals around his neck, the Iron Man character is now a flamboyant iPad, the Hulk character is now a mature sophisticated hooligan (basically Hulk's "Mr Fix-It" character, recoloured), and Carl - now having embraced his geekiness - is a superhero himself. |
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| The author profile photo for Carljoe Javier. |
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| The artist profile photo for Josel Nicolas. The bear giving up the ghost by his feet is Bear, Josel's surrogate in his autobio komix WINDMILLS. |
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| The designer profile photo for me. By my feet are some holes and a Whackamole mole. This was when I still had long(ish) hair. |
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| The Kirby Krackle, acting as copyright page in the book. |
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| The paragraph breaks, as per Carl's suggestion. I also used this as a sort-of classification tool, a subtle announcement on what sort of story it is the reader is reading: a "writerly" story if the Spider-Man character, a "techie" story if the Iron Man character, and a "socially-inept" story if the Hulk character. |
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| The story end indicator, an homage to the old Marvel Comics side banner faces which they did circa late 70s/the whole 80s/early 90s. |
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| The back cover of the book. When read with the front cover, it is also a three-panel opening story. The UP Press has a design conceit where they cut the back cover in thirds, the top tier featuring a detail of whatever the front cover art is, the second tier holding the book's blurbs, the third tier being a generally blank space for maybe another blurb and the barcode. Being a smartass, I decided to play around with that conceit, sort of bending it a bit, claiming poetic license. Dean Alfar's blurb - the blurb I love the most - is inside the book, on the first page, acting like an intro, cradled in the hands of a cosmic god of death. Hopefully, they won't change a thing. |
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