Project Basement takes the fight to the mat with two awesome sketches by two different artists!!!
Okay, the that's a lie... Chris and Wayne aren't really fighting. I just thought "Wayne Wise vs. Chris Maverick" sounded sexier than "A Sketch by Wayne Wise and a Sketch by Chris Maverick." Anyway, let's get to the art!
Fixer by Wayne Wise
So this is a quick sketch/doodle I did of the Fixer. Not a character I hate, or love particularly. He was one of the long time Marvel villains that Kurt Busiek used in Thunderbolts and is pretty representative of the book at that time. Here was a character with a 30-plus year history that we really knew nothing about. He was a pretty generic villain. Kurt gave him a personality and made him interesting.
Unlike Songbird or Mach 5, both of whom became genuinely heroic over the course of the series, the Fixer was never really redeemed. I like the take on him, which Nicieza expounded upon after Busiek left the book, that Norbert (the Fixer) really likes the challenge of fixing things and solving problems. He is morally grey and his attention can be focused on solving problems for the good guys as well as the bad. He doesn't need redemption so much as redirection.
Not sure why I sketched him. He's not playing a huge role in the new Thunderbolts, but he is there, and I kind of like this iteration of his costume.
Cloak and Dagger by Chris Maverick
Ok, so characters you love and characters you hate. Cloak and Dagger fits both of those bills for me. I love the concept of Cloak and Dagger. The costumes are simple and elegant, and while mired in the 80s, stylistically, their look is immediately indicative of their abilities and the concept. The idea behind the base premise is classic. One character that epitomizes light, and all that is good in the world. The other, the essence of darkness and evil, and yet the two are forever tied together. Linked to each other in total dependence.
On top of that, we eventually discover that their powers aren't correct, the process that gave them their abilities mutated and corrupted them. Cloak was intended to be a being of light, while Dagger should have been possessed by darkness, thus showing us the readers that both light and darkness are forever linked. Opposite sides of the same coin. This is the stuff of Shakespearean drama. The metaphoric possibilities are endless.
But what went wrong? Well, everything! As perfect and pure an idea as Cloak and Dagger are on paper, in execution they were flawed from the very start. For one, the co-dependence wasn't bilateral. Despite the way the story was pushed, and while Cloak's abilities make him completely addicted to Dagger's "light", she's not actually dependent on him at all, at least not in any physical way, and while in classic storytelling, emotional dependence could be all the stronger, in order to really make the characters equals the physical dependence needed to be there to push the metaphor.
On top of that, the heroes were the victims of something that can ruin any comic book character. Bad storytelling. Since they were a bit too high concept to ever really take off with the mainstream right away, Marvel resorted to marketing trickery and ruined them even further. From pairing them with Dr. Strange, who also wasn't lighting the world on fire at the time, to revamping their entire concept to make them "mutants" just so they could pretend they were somehow linked in with the X-books line, despite the fact that it was a complete retcon of their origin and that retcon didn't even make sense in relation to itself. As a result, the X-book characters never acknowledged Cloak and Daggers mutantcy at all and Cloak and Dagger barely ever referenced it themselves, instead floating from one bad storyline in a soon-to-be cancelled title to another bad storyline in a new soon-to-be cancelled title.
So there you have it. A story far too common in comics. A brilliant idea ruined by mediocre writing and poor editorial control. They might as well have been the Spider-Man clone saga. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
And that, my friends, is a wrap -- the end of Project Basement vol 2!!! I want to send out a ginormous THX to everyone that contributed. Whether the art was made out of hate or out of love... I LOVED IT ALL!
Project Basement vol 3 is up next, and it's gonna be the best one yet! We've got a brand new theme -- Costumes and Powers -- which means you're going to be treated to some awesome character designs and capabilities over the next few months.
BUT FIRST... while I build up a backlog of PB v3 artwork, Project Basement is going to take a three week detour with a special "Spotlight" series, featuring some awesome pinups and fan art from Time Log, Super Haters, and (the upcoming) Pepper Jones: Adventure Scientist.
NEXT WEEK: Project Basement Spotlight on Time Log featuring Aimee Cummings!!!
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