Stormwatch Sourcebook 1 featuring Nautika by Richard Bennett

Let’s get the elephant out of the room first, this is a pure guilty pleasure wrapped in nostalgia pick up :)

First, Richard Bennett has left the comic for the movie industry a long time ago and his original art is consequently pretty scarce (Platt level), especially if we are talking his own pencil and ink art. This is but my second piece from him.

Second, out of all the various Image “studios” back in the day, the Wildstorm universe is the one I’m still the most fond of, probably the best in quality content (art and writing). Savage Dragon probably ranks up if only for the fact that it’s still (mostly) ongoing and fun.

Wildstorm produced many pin up books disguised as TOHMM/Who’s Who type sourcebooks. A perfect way to both sell a new book and train/showcase the newbies artists at the same time.

I have always LOVED that kind of books from any publisher, considering them as little artbooks and enjoying the fun fact sheets that come with the art to learn more about the featured character.

Case in point, Nautika from Stormwatch, a title which would later benefit from a higher profile recognition under Warren Ellis’ tenure.

Bennett at the time was a more seasoned artist/pro (than the other artists of the book) due tohaving worked for Continuity comics (CybeRad, anyone?) and it shows at the very least with the insane inks he provided for this piece.

I always liked Nautika as I like characters with no nose if done right (Toriyama does it a lot, Keown did it with Pitt). The higher cowl of her costume design is also a nice touch.

Now YES, she is meant to be sexy and yet the anatomy is a bit awkward here. The overlapping legs which means you do not know how she could be standing, the overlong torso, the super thin waist, her rib cage and the position of her breasts on each side like a boob job gone bad, the fact that she has no nose but he felt he had to draw some beginning of her nasal arch, I could go on…

But it’s 90s Image, so perfectly in style ^^.

The precision of Bennett’s very thin line and inks, the use of the light source coming from her hand and the way he drew her energy display (which was butchered and thickened by the coloring, by the way), some of it with white out, is super impressive. The crosshatching around her blast is positively insane (Art Adams level).

Lastly, it’s good to fully appreciate the art as it was badly cropped for publication, not to mention the overlapping text on top of it (don’t you just hate when it happens ^^ ?).