Ominous Press Poster 2 - Who's Who?

A mere week after introducing you all to the characters from Ominous Press’ Poster 1, here I am again to introduce the characters from Poster 2! It is interesting to note that Poster 2, while we (Bart and myself) believe it came out after Poster 1, was actually drawn before it. It has some nifty looking characters that don’t appear anywhere else, but would have played a large part in Ominous Press’ future.

So here's the poster:

And here are the outlined characters, the same as the last time:

And here's who's who:

1. Arkon
One of Bart’s favourite and oldest characters, who was due to have his own series eventually if Ominous Press had have continued.

2. Auoro (Pronounced Or-oh)
Taken from the Brutes & Babes tutorials in Wizard. I like to think of Brute & Babe and Mael & Auoro as separate characters, as their personalities are completely different in the two forms.

3. Mael
Also from the B&B tutorials. Bart was originally going to go with Arkon as the main character of the Ominous Press comics, but was urged to go with recognisable characters like Brute & Babe by Wizard founder Gareb Shamus.

4. Intrepid
One of Bart’s earliest creations, as far back as the early to mid 80’s if Bart recalls correctly. Intrepid is a very important character.

5. Nightbeast
Perhaps the coolest looking character in all of the Ominous Press Universe.

6. Insidious
Would kick Doctor Doom’s ass in a second, whilst kicking Lord Havok’s ass simultaneously.

7. Wolfhound
A detailed design process can be seen for this character in Bart’s B&B tutorial in Wizard #29, same with Pheros.

8. Warhammer
A member of a band of warriors who derive their strength and powers from a unique weapon wielded by each of them. This band of warriors are good guys and gals.

9. Sunder
Was initially named Thashur, but Bart was informed of another character with the same name, so he changed it to Sunder.

10. Pheros (Pronounced Fair-ose)
He looks huge in this image, but then, he is over 7 feet tall!

11. Steele
Another early character of Bart’s. Steele, along with many other characters, was created for a roleplaying game invented by Bart, Michael J Morrissey and John Pedercini in High School. The game was called, quite amusingly, 'The Game.'

12. Warspear
Another member of the weapon wielding WARriors. See what I did there?

13. Thrace
Just darn cool looking. He’s a really nasty fellow, apparently.

14. ???
Mystery will continue to surround this one, as Bart intends it. Not even a name will be forthcoming!

15. Slike
Snake dude. A late addition to this poster, by all accounts.

16. Zeus
Yep, he looks very different to the same character in Poster 1, and I’m not just talking about him appearing to be billy-bollocks nekid. This was an early design for Zeus, before he lost the hair, got the lightning strike mark on his scalp and some clothes to cover his various... ahem... appendages.

17. Talis
Talis is one of those characters that is to remain in the mysterious shadows, as per Bart’s request. But I can reveal that the big and cool looking hammer thing he is holding is called Skullsbane.

18. Warmonger
Just one of a variety of Armorgedden Armor types, Warmonger is considered a Stealth Class model, capable of great speeds for short amounts of time.

Fantastic stuff isn't it? You betcha! I personally love all of this Ominous Press stuff. I used to make lists of all of the known characters and where they appeared, what they did and a bunch of other information. Then I got talking to Bart and managed to get my hands on stacks of scripts and notes from the Ominous Press days and it soon became pretty clear that the published stories were really only the tip of the iceberg. There are literally hundreds of characters, in various levels of development (some are little more than a name, while others like Arkon are thoroughly fleshed out), and while I can't reveal much from the Ominous Press confidential files, whatever Bart has granted permission to release has been passed straight on to you. The names of the characters in these two posters is a perfect example of that.

Anywho, the next Who's Who will most likely deal with some of the gang from 'It Begins,' and it won't be far away! See you all soon.

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #7

After waiting what seemed like an eternity (but in reality was only three weeks), my latest delivery of comics arrived from Mile High Comics yesterday.

This was a bit of an unusual shipment as I wasn't entirely certain that Bart Sears had anything to do with some of the comics I ordered. As it turned out, Bart had something to with only a few of the comics I ordered.

But it isn't as bad as it sounds, because a lot of the comics I ordered were ordered for the sole purpose of establishing whether Bart had anything to do with them.

Take the below image for example.

Its a pin-up of Rob Liefeld's Prophet, a decidedly one-dimensional character, I'm sure you'll agree. Well, I've been looking everywhere on the internet for this image for many years now, and have never found out anything. I somehow already own a few issues of the comic, namely issues #1, 5, 6 & 7. Bart's pin-up obviously doesn't appear in those issues. But I still wasn't sure if that pin-up appeared in any of the other issues, so I went ahead and bought Prophet #2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10 and the Annual. And guess what? Yep, the pin-up doesn't appear in any of those issues either. BUT AT LEAST I KNOW NOW THAT IT DOESN'T!

And then there's this guy-

Bart produced two pin-ups for the company Dagger Entertainment back in 1994, whilst Sears Studios was taking in such jobs. One character was fantastically called Black Box, and Bart's pin-up of him appeared in all of the May 1994 titles from Dagger. But I've never been able to discover the whereabouts of the above pin-up, whose name is Nebular. So I bought some Dagger comics, namely Team Anarchy #5, 6 & 8 (#7 has the Black box pin-up in it). And guess what, the pin-up doesn't appear in any of those issues either. BUT AT LEAST I KNOW THAT IT DOESN'T! (sound familiar?) Why so interested in this guy? Well, I happen to own the original art of this pin-up, that's why.

Also, a warning, if you can avoid it, don't buy any Dagger Ent. comics, they are god-fricking-'I can do better than this crap'-'so could a 5 year old'-baaaaddd. It is kinda worth it for seeing an advert for a how-to book called 'Step by Step Drawing & Creating your very own Superheroes,' by acclaimed Dagger artist, Rick Leach. Never heard of him? That's because he flat out sucks. I mean, would you want a guy who draws like this to teach you how to draw?

I certainly wouldn't.

Next up was a bit of a shot in the dark. In 2007, as part of the 'Free Comic Book Day,' Wizard released a small comic reprinting some of their 'How To' Tutorials. I've never been able to get my hands on a copy of it, until now, that is. I had kinda hoped to open it up and see one of Bart's B&B tutorials in there, as it would be a pretty neat little addition to not only my collection, but the Bart Sears checklist. But guess what? ...you know the rest...

Next up was another shot in the dark, maybe not complete dark, but certainly difficult to see.

I often search Google for Bart Sears related stuff, and I often check comic databases for any additions. One day, whilst browsing one such database, I saw a listing for Bart as a contributor on a comic called 'Real Heroes #3' published by Marvel and released through Pizza Hut of all places, back in 1994. So I bought that comic too. But guess what? Well, this time I was close. Whilst it doesn't actually have any Bart Sears art in it, it does have a cool trading card drawn by my old pal, Andy Smith. The artwork from the card also appears on the inside of both the front and back covers. It's a cool piece, and I'm happy to add it to my Andy Smith card set.

So those are the comics that didn't have Bart Sears art in them. Now for the cool stuff that did!

First of all, I got a few comics to replace my old copies, to be re-laminated to fit with my new laminating method. They included -

The Ballad of Halo Jones #6. Which, despite what Bart thinks, I think is quite nice.

Blade: Strange Tales #2 & 3 (some of the better covers Bart has ever done, in my opinion).

And Spider-Woman #10, which, despite what the cover says, does not have interior art by Bart Sears (Erik Larsen made a brief return to Marvel to do this issue's pencils and a few other projects).

But I think the pick of this particular litter is this puppy -

I only discovered the existence of this 'comic' about a month ago. Essentially, it is a publication review for the titles that Image produced, month by month (several comic companies were doing this sort of thing at the time). This is issue 15, for May 1994, and obviously features Bart's promotional art for the Violator series, with another buddy of mine, Mark Pennington (and possible relative - Pennington+Penn!), inking it as if he were a god amongst tracers.

There is also a 3-page article on the series, and shows a few of the pages in inked form, as well as a nice rough of the first cover.

So there's the latest package. A mix of great finds, items to cross off the list, and a few replacements thrown in. A worthy wait, I think.

Wizard the Guide to Comics: Bart's Mascot

Bart Sears has had a long history with Wizard, going all the way back to its first couple of issues. Over the first 100 issues, Bart produced more covers than any other artist, even Alex Ross.

But he also did other things for Wizard other than covers (the covers of which will be featured in another post soon), and the one thing I want to concentrate on in this post is the Wizard Mascot that was used from Wizard 4 through 16.

Bart produced, as far as I've seen, a total of 10 different Mascot images for Wizard. Let's go through each one and what it was used for.

Mascot #1 - The Headshot

This image was used in the regular article titled 'The Wizard's Crystal Ball,' it is the only Mascot image using only his head.

Mascot #2 - The Director's chair

This image was sometimes used on the regular article 'Hollywood Heroes,' but was also used on an issue 9 full page advert in issue 8 and one side of issue 8's Subscription Coupon.

Mascot #3 - The Spotlight

This particular image was definitely used the most of all of the mascot images. It was used on the section called 'Wizard Spotlight,' but also appeared on 'Wizard Comic Watch,' 'Wizard News' and 'Recommended Reading, as well as the back side of Issues 8's Subscription Coupon.

Mascot #4 - Lucky Dip

This image wasn't used much, but features in 'Picks from the Wizard's Hat.'

Mascot #5 - Strike a pose

As far as I know, this image was only used three times, most notably on the Subscription Coupon for issue 4 and on the card featuring Jim Lee's Wildcats. It is pretty badly pixelated, and I've never seen a good copy of it.

Mascot #6 - Mailman

This guy was used a lot in the 'Magic Words' section, which was essentially the reader letters column.

Mascot #7 - Ta-da!

Another one not be used much at all, only in issue 15 as far as I know in the 'Special Thanks' column.

Mascot #8 - Really hot comic

Yet another image only used once, for something called the 'Wizard Cool C.O.R.P.S.' in issue 12. The Cool C.O.R.P.S. was some kind of fan club they set up, can't imagine too many people joined it with a name like that.

Mascot #9 - I'm excited about something!

This Mascot was never used, as far as I know, so its another exclusive to this Blog, I guess.

Mascot #10 - Now I'm running from something scary!

Again, this Mascot wasn't used, I guess they couldn't find a department for him either.

Please note I am yet to scoure issues 2, 3, 5, 6, 9 and 11 for Mascots (a problem I'm hoping to remedy soon), so there may well be further Mascots out there. But I though I'd go ahead anyway, seeing as they're such as nice little corner of Bart & Wizard's history virtually unknown to most people. Hope you liked it.

I've got a lot more to say about Bart's work for Wizard The Guide to Comics, so this is only the first step into that world. I still have to write about Bart's covers (both used and unused), interviews, adverts, articles, and most importantly, his Brute & Babe tutorials.

So check back often for further updates, which will be coming thick and fast from now on.

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #6

This is the delivery I've really been waiting for.
As I mentioned in my Mile High Comics post, I've bought a lot off of them, and this is what I got in the delivery that arrived today-

Bad Company #3 - cover by Bart. I've had a copy of this for about 10 years now, maybe longer, but about 5 years ago, the tape that I use to seal the backing board and bag got stuck on the cover, and ripped a nice little chunk off it. It'll be going through the laminator tomorrow so that doesn't happen again.

Rogue Trooper #14, 15, 17. Just cool early covers. Replacing old laminates.

Weapon X: Days of Future Now #5. My worst laminating moment. I laminated my original copy of this and the laminator chewed it up. I'm a far more experienced laminator now, and it hasn't happened since.

The Dark #1 Second Printing, Continum Comics. There are two variant covers to the first printing of this, one with a Blue Chromium cover, one with a red. I didn't know about these until I saw that Bart had copies of them when I was visiting him. They're cool looking.

Legends of the Dark Knight #200. Another replacement copy. I bought LOTDK #200 the day it came out, but didn't think to check the comic for printing mistakes, and wouldn't you know, when I got home I noticed that there was some odd ink smudging going on. This new copy is clean.

Legends of the Stargrazers #2. This comic has such a cool pin-up by Bart on page one that I've bought it twice now. Actually, this one is a case of my old laminated copy wasn't laminated the best, so this will replace it. I used to use laminating sheets of about a 150 micron thickness, I now use 250.

Ramayan 3392 AD Reloaded Guidebook. Has all of 1 reprinted panels from Bart's back-up story in Reloaded #5. Still, now I know.

Wonder Woman #28. This issue features a full-page Ad for Justice League Europe. Nice.

Wizard #37. Hands down, the best Wizard for Bart stuff ever. First off, you get the Brute & Babe Infinity mini-comic in the bag, there's a 6 page 3-point perspective tutorial by Bart, not to mention a 6 page Ominous Press interview. I've actually owned two copies of this magazine, but have needed to redo the laminating.

Wizard #61. Has a cool Sabretooth v Psylocke cover. Again, I've owned it twice, but needed to re-laminate.

Wizard X-Men Special. Another one to be put through the laminating machine. This cover is interesting in that it features Wolverine, Cyclops & Jean Grey, but Colossus & Nightcrawler were then added after printing. It features Wolverine with those dumb-ass skeletal claws.

Wizard #115 Megacon Edition. The Megacon Edition has a cool cover of Seahn & Persha from The First. It's a hard enough issue to come by, and this one will replace my previous version and it's old laminating style. For those interested, my old laminating style consisted of laminating the page, then cutting off the excess laminate to the edge of the page. I now buy A4 size laminating sheets, center the page on the laminating sheet, and store it properly. They look great done this way.


Wizard #83. Not much in the way of Bart stuff in this issue, but it does have a full-page Ad on page 129 for the X-Men Special, and the advertisement uses Bart's cover for Wizard #56, but mirrored over.

Wizard #110. Pages 14-15 have a two-page Ad for The First. Wizard #'s 109 & 111 also have two-page spread Ads. Each subsequent Ad has a shot of Elysia from above, zooming in as it goes. I got these issues when they came out and actually joined the Ads together to make a poster, but I now have them all again to laminate normally. Anal much?

So there you go. Not a bad bunch, I think.
Jay (the Laminatrix, to coin a word)

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #2

Lots and lots of Wizard magazines!
I got these badboys yesterday, and I've put them to work already. I got issues #4, 8, 16, 17, 20, 21, 26, 29, 39, 50 and 75 from a dealer in the UK for about $40 odd.
I mostly got these magazines for Bart's Brute & Babe tutorials, which are featured in 16, 17, 20, 21, 26, 29 and 39, but there are plenty of other things in there relating to Bart. The first issue, #4, has an interview with Bart and several of Bart's illustrations for columns and departments, which are all in the shape of the Wizard mascot that Bart produced 10 different versions of. There are also plenty of advertisements featuring Bart's art, and of course the Wizard Top 10 Artists list, featuring Bart who seemed to hover around the #7 position for a long time.

Now I'm sure I can hear you ask 'Don't you already have all of this stuff?'
Well, the short answer is: Of course!
I have all of the B&B tutorials, have so for many years, but hindsight is a bitch, and I didn't hang onto all of the other stuff, like the articles that mention Bart's name, or the credits pages that have Bart listed, so...
This also gives me the chance to re-laminate the things I already have, now on the A4 sheets so they are uniform and just flat out pretty.
I managed to cut out a total of 74 pages with something or other to do with Bart, which will get the laminating treatment early next week. If I get a chance too, I'll list what appeared in each issue, for those interested parties, or is it just me...?