X-Men Spec Art pg 2 of 4 - Kevin VanHook - Bishop, Malcolm and Randall

Kevin VanHook and I first met working on a film together called PROJECT POWER, a fun movie that we filmed in New Orleans late 2018 for NETFLIX. We became fast friends as we both had careers in VFX and my interest in comic books and his long history as an artist and writer in that industry, working at Valiant and co-creator of BLOODSHOT (November 1992).

Kevin made four pages of X-Men spec art (sometime between late 1991 - early 1992), which he used early in his career to shop around at various comic publishers. Ultimately landing him at the door of Valiant comics and connecting with Jim Shooter, eventually co-creating the BLOODSHOT character with Bob Layton and Don Perlin. And in some sense these spec pages have some fun history for the fact that they got him into the door to be a creator.

Another really fun fact for these pages, is that they are a very early appearance of Bishop, Malcolm and Randall. They were created late 1991 (Uncanny X-Men #282, November 1991), and Kevin chose to feature these new XSE characters in his spec art. This page features some great posing in the top panel,s one fun insert headshots and jumps right into some toppling action of Wolverine taking down Malcolm. It’s cinematic and striking for some great storytelling that introduces characters and jumps right into the action beats. It’s a really good looking Wolverine as well as he pounces on top for the kill.

I’ve really cherished my friendship with Kevin, both as a fellow VFX co-worker, fanboy for his comic history and creations, but most of all as a friend inside and outside our various industries. Cheers Kevin and looking forward to many more comic cons, dinners and ideally working together again.