Long John

I’m not the most competitive person, but I have been known to take up a challenge or two if it meant getting the opportunity to practice a skill. I’ve had fun with the 6 Fanarts Challenge a few times, and it’s always in the back of my mind.

Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics) sent me a new challenge that looked too much fun that I couldn’t ignore it. Created by cartoonist, Rich Smith, the Corner Box Challenge tackles a staple of classic (mostly Marvel) comics: the corner box.

While not pioneered by Marvel, I would say they are the ones most associated with the practice. These are rectangular boxes that would appear at the top left of a comic book’s cover that held the relevant information of publisher, price, and often publication month. Marvel even allowed artists to be experimental with the practice. The article, “The Lost Art of Comics Corner Boxes“, by Jessica Plummer on Book Riot thoroughly covers the history of corner boxes (and has a lot of great images and examples).

Being who I am, I had to tackle an X-Men corner box and the one from the original early ’60s comics intrigued me. I figured it would be fun to tackle those rudimentary costumes. Also, being me, I had to construct a narrative reason for the image.

To me, since they’re still new heroes at this point, Cyclops (Scott Summers), Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), and Iceman (Bobby Drake) have been surrounded not by supervillains but angry citizens who want to express their bigotry toward mutants. Iceman is a hothead (ironically) and Marvel Girl is already being coaxed by the power of the Phoenix Force (brought to a head in the fantastic Dark Phoenix Saga in the comics); they both want to fight back because they are legitimately feeling the threat of attack. Cyclops gestures to stand back, wanting to rely on diplomacy, cooler heads, and their shared humanity to get through the fracas.

This was a lot of fun (albeit time consuming) and I think I’ll try my hand at another a bit down the line.