That's right, Dan Brereton, creator of The Nocturnals, and many other amazing comics, is our new cover artist for The Spider!
Dan Brereton's phenomenal artwork first caught my attention about fifteen years ago with his moody and dramatic cover paintings for Neil Gaiman's Lady Justice series. One of the main perks during my brief stint on the editorial staff at Tekno Comix was being among the first to see these paintings, which editor Christopher Mills ceremoniously unveiled each month for those of us in the office. It was always, without fail, a thrilling ritual.
Around that same time, in the mid-1990s, Dan's masterwork, The Nocturnals, made their electrifying debut. Now it's no secret that I'm an enormous fan of this series. In fact, The Nocturnals are probably my most often recommended comics reading whenever friends and fans ask me what's good.
If any of you out there haven't yet discovered these terrifically written and gloriously painted comics, don't hesitate another moment...seek them out!
http://www.nocturnals.com/
Even a quick perusal of Dan's work, writing, drawing, and painting, displays an ardent love of the pulps and the macabre. He graciously made a couple kind comments on Facebook regarding my upcoming Spider series, a character which Dan also loves, and I mustered the guts to ask him if he'd be interested in providing a cover or two. I am absolutely thrilled that he has enthusiastically agreed.
Happily, Dan has even told me that he'd like to paint as many covers for The Spider as possible, and he's off to a rousing start with several already planned. With his permission, I'm including a few preliminary cover sketches here. Even in these early stages I can already detect that Dan's iconic vision for The Spider will rapidly become the definitive vision of the character.
Obviously, I'm very excited! This news is about as cool as the modern pulps can get.
Good catch, I like his art too, and The Nocturnals series. I hope he resurrects them soon :)
ReplyDeleteI insist: your (and Pablo's, and now Dan's) Spider comic can't come out soon enough.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous dream team!!
Awesome news......with that team they will fly off the racks!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI first found out about Dan a year ago when I was at Fall Con (Twin Cities comic book convention) and saw a print he did on the Herculoids. I was so impressed that I tracked down who the artist was and of course did follow up research. I was thrilled to learn more about his art style, but also heartbroken that the drawing was only a commission and not a new Herculoids comic!
ReplyDeleteYour post has renewed my interest in Dan's work, I'll be following this one closely!