Those of you who are regular visitors to this gallery -- yes, talking to both of you -- may be familiar with the concept behind "Heroes Redrawn." Basically, it involves taking a page from an old comic -- usually something published decades ago -- and having a contemporary artist revisualize and redraw the scenes depicted. Then, we contrast the original and the newly-drawn page. That's the way this USUALLY goes, but not this time.
For one thing, the page that's being redrawn is not very old. Its taken from a limited series that came out in 2012 entitled "Masks." Published by Dynamite Entertainment and drawn by Alex Ross, it featured such crime noir heroes as The Shadow, The Green Hornet, and Kato -- and therein lies the second twist here. While previous "Heroes Redrawn" pieces have featured the same character or characters as shown in the original, I decided to mix things up by having the original characters replaced by some other, lesser-known heroes from that era. Specifically, the old Timely comics heroes The Witness, The Phantom Reporter, and Mister E -- and if you're asking "Who?," you're probably not alone.
Those three characters -- whose original features didn't last more than a handful of issues at best -- starred in a Marvel limited series entitled "The Twelve," published in 2007. I found them to be very intriguing, and would love for Marvel to publish a series featuring them together during their heyday. That's highly unlikely, so I decided to do it myself -- kinda -- by having them hijack the scenes from the Shadow and company. They'll get over it.
Next, I had to find someone to pencil this bad boy. Enter: Luke McDonnell! Luke is one of my go-to artists, meaning I go to him when I want a professionally done job and don't have a lot of cash to toss around. Luke is highly affordable, and by his prices you'd never know that his credits include runs drawing such titles as "Justice League of America," "Suicide Squad," "Iron Man," "Hawkworld," and "Deadshot." Hit him up yourself at [email protected]. You won't be sorry.
Special thanks to Kevin Moorhead for combining the original and newly drawn images.
