1 - Posted on 4/22/2025

Depending on the time period, this is as good as anything that came out during the Tim Burton Batman movie era to be an illustration featured in one of many Batmania comics publications. 

1 - Posted on 4/22/2025

Reinhold was already a pretty well established artist by '96. What exactly was he trying out for with this piece?

1 - Posted on 5/11/2025

At the time I was in between gigs, as you always are as a freelancer, so with several samples, including this one, I proposed to Archie Goodwin I do a Batman story. He told me the the samples were
 unnecessary, and offered me a LOTDK job.

1 - Posted on 5/11/2025

Ah, thanks for following up on this, Bill, it's much appreciated. I know that for some it may just be a matter of semantics, but I personally have always distinguished between an illustration that an artist is asked to do by an editor (what I refer to as a 'sample') so they can visualize how that artist's look & approach would fit the project, and illustrations that artists draw up of their own volition in order to attach to a proposal (what I refer to as a story or series proposal illustration). The reason I distinguish is because it allows us to better know the intent of the piece in question. Thanks again!

1 - Posted on 5/13/2025

That makes sense. I've done proposal art for a specific projects. This was a little more casual than that, though it's intention was made clear. Not something I usually  do,  or had to do. I get asked to be on projects purely out of belief I can do. Afterwards I'll do many practice pieces for myself before starting.

1 - Posted on 5/13/2025

Oh yeah, I certainly understand the desire to do practice pieces just before you get started on a new project. You want to get the "feel" for the characters you'll be drawing every day for a few months, if not indefinitely, so it makes perfect sense that you do that.

Even some of the great newspaper strip artists did the same thing. It makes sense, especially if they were taking over for an artist who might've been drawing the strip for many years and essentially "set in stone" the look of the characters. Though perhaps in those cases, it's more likely that the syndicates requested the character sketches because they wanted to be sure the new artist could and would maintain the same stylistic look that the departing artist had established. John Prentice, for instance, was an absolutely fabulous artist. So you'd think he wouldn't need to show the syndicate what he could do. But when you're taking over for the even more brilliant Alex Raymond, I suppose that were I a decision maker at the syndicate, I'd probably want to see a few character illos just to be sure! 😉