X-Factor Annual #7 pg 58 (Joe Madureira art, Andrew Pepoy inks, Peter David script) - Calvin and Guido

CALVIN and GUIDO

Technically my first mash-up, purchased from Jim Warden, many thanks. This page featured from X-Factor Annual #7, published May of 1992, is some of Joe Madureira’s earliest work. He had previously done a few issues of Marvel Comics Presents the year before. I absolutely love his anime stylings and it’s great to own such an early piece of his FANtastic art. I’ve been a longtime fan of his work from UNCANNY X-MEN to AGE OF APOCALYPSE to the cover of one of my all-time favorite books X-MEN UNLIMITED #4. And to top it off, it’s written by one of my favorite quirky writers, Peter David.

This page mashes up, in a unique and somewhat sad way, a much beloved character from my youth, CALVIN (likeness from Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Madureira even throws in a Hobbes ref on someone’s t-shirt in title page) with hulking hero GUIDO famously known as Strong Guy. I absolutely love the top center panel, Madureira’s way of doing character design is epic, so full of sad emotion but comical in nature. The center panel does an amazing job of showcasing the immense difference between the wimpy little Cal vs the hulking huge Guido, while they are in mirror position of each other. The story telling is a lot of fun in this story and David does an X-cellent job in twisting the moral outcome for this mini adventure.

I’ve read so many of the Calvin and Hobbes stories growing up, from the various books I got and the comic strips I would see in the papers, I definitely related to this character. And grew to really love Guido from the X-Factor pages, at some times wanting a hero like him to be my personal body guard as well, if it couldn’t be a bengal tiger, then maybe it could be someone like him. Another X-citing addition to my ever-growing nostalgic collection.