I had a request for this a few weeks ago and kept forgetting to put it up, so in the absence of a Reader cartoon this week, here’s the cover art for the Lincoln Journal Star‘s football preview Sunday supplement from last month. The request was to portray coach Bo Pelini as a superhero.
And as always, I love to show the stages…
This was the very first rough sketch of the eventual idea, presented as one of several options.
This one was actually my favorite — a tribute to Action Comics #1, which I thought was fitting given that they wanted Pelini portrayed as a superhero.
The first sketch was chosen, but there was concern that showing Pelini standing victorious atop other Big 12 mascots would be presumptuous at this point, so the pile of victims was replaced with a giant football.
Here is an early demo on the colors. There were two areas of concern at this point — too much orange and too much definition in the crotch.
Too much definition in the crotch — always an area of concern.
Thanks Neal. This is really cool.
The remaining outline would lead me to believe that Bo is a tighty-whitey man…here I had him pegged as a boxer-brief guy.
Neal, I want a poster of this! or a printout. or a tattoo.