Vengeance of Vampirella 23 page 24 splash by Ed McGuinness & Nathan Massengill

A fun and veeeeeeeeeeery early Ed McGuinness splash. This must have been his third published issue but I was already paying attention to his Capcom influenced art (and loving it).

This one has some (hopefully) fun backstory to it. Ed's art was probably my earliest target in collecting art at the early days of the Internet. My first significant buy was his Supreme variant cover (visible in this very gallery). But I continued cruising the web and found Nathan Massengill's website. He was inking Ed on Vampi related stuff and I bought two splashes from him. One is sadly long gone and the other was the unpublished version of this very page that you can find here (with a tiny scan that I lifted of his site back when):

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=79998

Now when this one popped at auction recently, I thought it would be fun to reunite the two versions under the same roof 🙂

It's always fun to compare the two versions in such occurrences. The published version is obviously better here in concluding the issue in the sense that it offers better storytelling in showing the two protagonists as well as a much better angle to the scene. The negative space used to define the trees and the splatter of inks to fill the space between is fun. You can tell that these are young artists not having fully mastered their craft simply trying things and throwing effects around to see what sticks.

The werewolf's musculature, mostly defined in shadows & inks is the most impressive technical aspect of the piece and my own favorite. The pose of him on four legs looking up to his mistress is also nice. Gotta love the worm view and the perfect symmetry of his torso 🙂 It kind of reminds me how werewolves were portrayed by Whilce Portacio in Wetworks around the same period. And though I don't remember who that nearly fully silhouetted villainess is (is that Nyx?) you HAVE TO love the fact that they managed to showcase her nipples in (despite the fact that she is seems to be clothed). That is perfectly acceptable good taste, obviously in tone with the titillating aspect of Harris production back when.

Comparing this splash to the unpublished one, you get the same sense of perfect symmetry to the werewolf body and a nice drop of saliva. The interesting bit is that the inks are much sharper on the unpublished one (not that you can see it). Probably due to the fact that it came first and that the second was a bummer to draw/ink again under most likely a reduced deadline.

A fun addition to the collection, reuniting the two as the odds of that happening were thin.

ps: let's not forget to underline the atrocious coloring as it really conveys a touch of amateurism to the page which looks much more professional in b&w.