Friday, June 29, 2012

Commission Friday Pop Quiz!!!

Mike Zeck didn't do much X-Men art, but here's his rendition of Wolverine:


Bonus points to whoever can name the other X-Men contributions by Mike Zeck which will be the subject of a future post!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

An Exceptional Homage

Up until this point, the only artists featured on this site were Marvel artists who have worked on X-Men related comics at some point.  However, I had to make an exception for Covered, a blog that features reinterpretations of classic comic covers.  One of my favorites is this version of Uncanny X-Men 234 by Roderick Constance, a concept artist from California.
Covered can be found here: http://coveredblog.blogspot.com/,
and Roderick's website is located @ http://shadowshapes.com


Monday, June 25, 2012

Unpublished Limited Series - Technet

This art for a limited series that never saw print - featuring Excalibur villains Technet - was published in a Marvel preview book for 1993.  The art and synopsis appear alongside art for the first Gambit limited series, which did see print that year.



Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Marvel Age - Rarity Wednesday

Many have noticed that along with unpublished work, I also use this blog to showcase rarer works that may have been overlooked when they were first published.  I'm now separating these posts - truly unpublished art will be posted every Monday, while rarities will be posted on Wednesday.  Now, without further ado, let Rarity Wednesday begin!  
Marvel Age, the Marvel Comics promotional magazine, published an annual each year that featured a single page promotional story for each book it published.  Here is one example from Marvel Age Annual #3, featuring the X-Men and the New Mutants by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri.


Monday, June 18, 2012

X-Factor - Marvel Comics of the 1980's

Courtesy of Jason Shayer's fantastic blog "Marvel Comics of the 1980's", here are several unused covers to X-Factor #1, featuring the original X-Men reunited for the first time since Giant-Size X-Men #1.
Here's a version by Bob Layton that's very similar to the published cover.
Also, here are some unused costume designs:

This last image doesn't show Jean Grey, because it was printed in a Marvel Age article when her return from the dead was still a secret.  
 And finally, here is Walt Simonson's final cover art!  For more great 1980's Marvel masterpieces, check out
Thanks, Jason!



Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Almost Unpublished

Sometime in the 1990's, Dave Cockrum was assigned several fill-in issues, one for Uncanny X-Men and one for New Mutants, which were not used.  In 2008, two years after his death, the stories were finally published as X-Men:  Odd Men Out.  It's a real treat to see Dave back on the X-Men, pick up this issue if you can find it.  There's some more preview art and a tribute to Dave at Comic Book Resources:

Friday, June 8, 2012

Commission Friday 3

Another great commission, this time a portrait of Marvel Girl by J. Scott Campbell.  


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Barry Windsor-Smith's First Cover

Greetings, children of the atom!  Normally we bring you a new post on Tuesdays, but this find was so astounding, we're starting the festivities early!!  Today we have a rare treat for you, a fully colored rendition of Barry Windsor-Smith's unused cover for his first published comic, X-Men 53!
Special thanks to Professor H for the wonderful colors!

Here is the original cover.  Faintly, at the top, the title is pencilled in: "The X-Men Featuring The Rage of Blastaar!"  This kind of logo was replaced with Jim Steranko's new X-Men logo as of issue 50.  However, most likely the artist didn't know about the new logo as he was producing this art.
Also, the faint lettering at the left reads:  "Extra: We discovered an English Jack Kirby!"
Above, I have photoshopped in a quick approximation of what the logo would have looked like.
You can see the originals, along with more unpublished sketches from this issue at the Barry Windsor-Smith Unofficial Blog:
Finished inks are courtesy Stephen Donnelly's comicarfans.com post here:
Finally, for your perusal, I present the published cover!




Friday, June 1, 2012

Commission Friday 2

This picture of the Black Queen was produced for Brandon Peterson's art book.  For more information and lots of great art check out his website at:

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