Excalibur 46 Page 6 title splash by Alan Davis and Mark Famer

Excalibur was a favourite book of mine under both Davis’ tenures and I can say that having reread them last year, they still hold up as great super hero fun.

Alan Davis has always been good. He came to comics with a very good level, still maturing. While collectors will favour pages from his Excalibur run with Claremont because those pages are older and they were younger (hello, dear nostalgia), Davis was unarguably a MUCH better an artist and storyteller when he took helm of the book, both as a writer and artist (and to be transparent, I own examples from, both periods ^^). I’ll even say that he probably was a better storyteller than Byrne was on X-Men as the fluidity of his pages are unparalleled (whereas Byrne/Austin, while absolutely gorgeous, could be stiff in places).

Case in point, this superb and extremely fun title splash from Excalibur 46.

To me, this one exemplifies the uber fun that Excalibur was.

The dichotomy between the savageness of Colin the Barbarian (how fun!) bursting through the lighthouse bathroom door to find a flabbergasted Kurt brushing his teeth makes for great comedy. How can you not smile looking at this? (Unless you are drooling from the lushness of the art, that is…). On top of that, Nightcrawler’s leg is in a plaster and he is using a cane so he is clearly NOT ready to face a savage barbarian. Especially not in the morning.

Davis’ superb knack at anatomy is on full display here. From Colin’s super tense facial expression, ready to face a deadly opponent, and his body language to Kurt’s surprised face and over tensed left leg, compensating for his unusable other one, everything is well thought and yet feels natural.

I have to mention the superb staging as well. The tilted angle offers fantastic dynamism and the very mundane bathroom settings (the toilet, sink and bathtub) both ground the scene and again, counter its violence with a comedic aspect. Even the door bursting around Colin is thoughtfully drawn to centre him within the scene.

Mark Farmer has always been a very smooth inker/embellisher over any artist he has inked but he probably never meshed as well as with Davis. A perfect match as they say.

Lastly, let’s mention the lettering by Heisler as the Colin the Barbarian using the font to Conan certainly adds to the fun but so does the over bubbly “Mein Gott!” catch phrase of Nightcrawler. Both were probably a request from Davis but what fun.

This is the seventh day of my 2023 CAF birthday party.