Here’s another page fro DC COMICS PRESENTS #97, where Steve Gerber delved deeply into the Jungian concept of Self. Steve’s script directions asked for the mandala layout here, along with various rings of water, fire and matter surrounding the jeweled heart. Steve and I never spoke so he had no idea I was versed in Jung. I’ve often wondered what someone like Curt Swan would have made of this one!

I probably should have posted this a couple months back when Steve Gerber passed away, since it’s a page from the only time we got to work together. It was an odd, once-in-a-lifetime situation because SUPERMAN was about to rebooted completely by John Byrne and some of the titles the character appeared in were ending, including DC COMICS PRESENTS. Steve was given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with the old mythos and Julie Schwartz called me to pencil the double sized issue, probably on the strength of the SUPERMAN-SWAMP THING team-up I’d drawn a couple issues earlier.

Steve had real problems turning in the script and I basically had to hack out my part of it to keep the book on schedule, so I was never too proud of the final product. What was interesting to me though, was the “Self” symbolism that Steve wrote into the story. As an old Jungian, I immediately recognized the philosophical underpinnings Gerber built his story on, so maybe I was a good choice for this particular story. Rereading it now, it seems to me that Steve was writing from the deepest part of his gut while doing this one.

Considering the current political and financial mess, it’s not hard to imagine any number of bleak futures. Here’s one I did as a rough sketch for the cover of a 1984-ish sort of game module back in the late 1990’s.

Thanks to eagle-eyed Bryan Galatis, who emailed info on yesterday’s post. The splash page was from CABBOT: BLOODHUNTER #1 and was inked by Eric Cannon and Norm Rapmund and lettered by Steve Dutro. There was only one issue of the mini-series published, with two chapters ending up in the back of SUPREME #46 and 47. Bryan asked to see this particular page which ended #1. Thanks, Bryan!

Continuing to explore the nooks and crannies of my past creative work, I found this splash page in the files. It was done for a proposed BLOODHUNTER mini-series at Awesome that never got off the ground. Maybe a few pages of it ran in the back of SUPREME, if memory serves. The concept was to reboot BLOODHUNTER, who’d been killed in his previous mini-series, as a Frankenstein sort of super-agent. Script and pencils by me, 1998. Not sure who inked or lettered.

This painting of Raphael, with his brother Turtles lurking in the background, was done to accompany an interview AMAZING HEROES did with me in 1989. I’d just left DC over the SWAMP THING 88 brouhaha and was doing the first of a bunch of TURTLES work and announcing my plans to launch KING HELL PRESS, my own self-publishing imprint. Pen, ink, dye, pencil and airbrush, 1989.

Marker, direct to sketchbook, from a dream. 1998.

Another find from the back of the flat files! I think this was done for some sort of horror portfolio that was published by Mirage Studios. The concept was that there were devils that lived in the sand who would rise up if you spread your towel in the wrong place on the beach. Pen, ink, dyes and airbrush, 1990.

Tattoo design. Pen and ink, 1993.

A recurring element that seems to pop up when I mindlessly doodle monsters is a sort of liquid brain encased in a transparent cellophane bag. Gel ink in notebook, 1994.