The Immortal Hulk

I've been a fan of The Hulk from the time I was four or five. As I probably said in the previous inks-only variant, I wanted to pour it all into this project. My biggest influences when approaching this iconic character are Dale Keown, Jack Kirby, Sal Buscema, Alex Ross, Herb Trimpe, Mike Mignola, Andy Kubert, Adam Kubert, Todd MacFarlane, and recently Joe Bennett. As of this submission, I've been both watching the original Bill Bixby-Lou Ferrigno tv series on DVD and clips of David Cronenberg's The Fly. I guess the latter lends itself to the horror aspect of the book's current theme and audience. As I noted before, I wanted to capture the agony and pain of the transformation, but do so in a traditional composition. I guess I had Trimpe in the back of my head during conception because he's done something like this before. But given that death is now the trigger for Banner's change, I threw in a stab wound. I also had Bernie Wrightson in the back of my mind for horror influence; he will always be one of the world's foremost artists on monster art. Hell he even created Swamp Thing with Len Wein and did a spectacular adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with cross hatching I've never seen before. Etched on 9 x 12" Canison 98 lb paper with mixed media, I also threw in canary yellow on the greens of the Hulk's skin because it had become too dark. Thankfully it balanced everything out. As to my choice of colors for the shirt and pants, it's my homage to Incredible Hulk #1 way back in 1962. The Grey-skinned Goliath had worn that color scheme for his first appearance. I did my best to channel Dale's cross-hatching style on the big guy and thankfully I was successful. To date this is one of my best renderings of The Hulk and one of the darkest works in general to date.