Merry Christmas, Everybody!
Now at long last it can be told! I can reveal my cover for Your Pal, Steve starring Steve Harvey!
Okay. This isn’t a real cover for a real comic book. This was a private commission commissioned by my friend… and the very first ever Die Kitty Die cosplayer, the lovely Shannon Phillapaitis. Here’s Shannon in full Kitty couture at 2017’s New York Comic Con. Shannon is sporting a dress I designed for Kitty for the cover of Die Kitty Die Hollywood Or Bust #4.
Shannon commissioned this piece as a Christmas present for her beau, my dashing pal, Adam Alamo. The whole thing was her idea! It turns out that Adam and Shannon are big fans of Steve Harvey. Adam, of course, is also a huge fan of all things Archie Comics and in particular, Jughead. Over on Facebook, Adam runs the best fan page for Archie comics out there. You can check it out here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Archiecomicfans/
It’s interesting to note that Adam’s fan page gets far more traffic and has more members than any other fan page out there. It even surpasses the official Archie Facebook page on activity. It’s no wonder that Archie Comics themselves closely monitor his page. Yes. There be spies there! Despite this, Adam runs a very honest page and does not often censor his members’ posts. Even if the post is critical, as long as it is honest and valid, Adam will let it stand which is one of the things I find uniquely refreshing about it and why I go there over any other page or site for my Archie news. In addition to myself, there are a number of Archie professionals who frequent the page. If you’re interested at all in Archie Comics, its worth checking out.
Adam also runs the Fans Of Astrocomix Facebook fan page. You can check that one out here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Astrocomixfans/
Adam has been a huge supporter and booster for all things Astrocomix and Die Kitty Die. There is no question that Dan Parent and I could not be able to wage the successful Kickstarter campaigns we have had without all of the support Adam has been able to rally to us. He’s one of our biggest cheerleaders. Here is a pic of Shannon, Adam, and myself at NYCC recreating a panel from Die Kitty Die Hollywood Or Bust #1.
That particular panel is one of Adam’s many cameos in DKD. Shannon, of course, is playing Kitty, and I, also appropriately enough, am playing the obsessive comic book fan.
This piece, of course, is a riff on the classic Archie cover, Three On A Straw. It’s 11″ x 18″ and it was colored with a combination of Copic and Chartpak markers. It’s also intended to evoke the classic Archie comics of the 1970’s complete with the cover graphics and logo font of the time. For me, it was fun to add the little figure of Jughead on the logo in the same way that tiny characters used to run across the covers of the actual vintage comics. On the real comics, those tiny figures were taken from the book’s interior artwork. I’d rather come up with original figures that could deliberately interact with the logo. There are more potential for good new gags that way.
This is also my very first drawing of Steve Harvey. What do you think? Would Steve approve? If anyone knows him, please pass a link to this page onto him.
Thanks, Everybody!
