Friday, August 15, 2008

20 years of Sandman



An anniversary of a different sort. Sandman's been around for 20 years if you can believe it. Coincidentally, Grant Morrison and my run on Doom Patrol started around the same time, part of DC's push with British writers re-vamping their older characters. But Sandman was different, as Neil Gaiman created a completely new property and mythology, with only some minor ties to DC characters of the past. And of course, as the series progressed, it grew further from those ties, and more entrenched into its own entity.

Along the way, I was blessed with the opportunity to work on the series, to ink Marc Hempel on the Kindly Ones storyline. Definitely one of the highlights of my comics career, as Marc's pencils were just so fun to work on. His amazing sense of design, draughtmanship and use of light and shadow was an inspiration to me already, but even more so when allowed to work over his pencils. A true joy to work on. Not to mention, the story was pretty good too!

Recently, I was asked to pitch in on a poster celebrating Morpheus' 20 years. It's a jam poster with art by various artists that worked on the series over time. It was designed by Mark Buckingham, and then each artist was asked to draw in a particular character. Some real talented folks involved here, an honor to be asked to join them on this.

And here's a close up on Nuala, along with the rough sketch. I was asked to make her look a bit more sour in the final, and yes, those are eyeballs she's serving for the Corinthian to enjoy.



And while I'm looking back, here's a sketch of Nuala I was commissioned to do in a fan's hardcover copy of Kindly Ones, with those great white endpaper that were just begging for cool sketches in white pencils or silver markers...


Pleasant Dreams!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool poster.
It's great that you got included in that and your part of it is almost center front.

Awesome Nuala commission.

Squeeze said...

LOVE that Nuala commission and the poster. I'm such a fan of the colored paper with colored pencils drawings- BIG fan of Craig and his Canson paper drawings.

I need to read some of this older GREAT stuff.

Hope you and the family are well.

Heywood Jablomie said...

20 years of sandman already??? holy crap i feel old now haha. while i wasn't an avid fan i still have the run that michael zulli did and the issue that p. craig russell did. sadly alot of my others were stolen back in high school.

nice stuff you posted though! i like that commission sketch alot!

todd said...

just gorgeous pics of nuala, rich!
always loved her and love her by YOU!!
it's always nice to see more "case women" ! : )

i am still working on the doom patrol trades--got a little behind in my reading last week due to work--but they are still wonderful and powerful here some 19 years later! i'd say 'relevant', but they're just so bizarre...
and the art, of course, still sings!! just wonderful stuff!

thanks!