Old Old School Batman

For a very short time right after Batman debuted back in 1939, he was one badass MFer. He was like a mix between The Shadow and James Bond (James Bond wasn't around back then but you get the reference). This is the Batman I'd want to do (not to say that there aren't other versions of the character I'd like to give a shot at). He looked very different, very menacing, and he actually carried a gun a few times. Within a year or two he became the washed out bland character that he remained until the 1970s (not to say there weren't some high points in there). Every now and then we see someone take a shot at this version but it's never really been played seriously and it's potential has never been realized. If I were to "Ultimatize" Batman, this is the version I'd do.

Super Lois

To me there are three great versions of Superman. There's the 1940s Superman that Siegel and Schuster created and which was brought to beautiful life by the Fleischer cartoons. There's the Silver Age Superman with all the fantastic elements of that age. And there's the Christopher Reeves Superman. A dream project for me would be to get to do a version of Superman that borrowed from all three. Capture the style and tone of the 40s Superman, add the fantastic elements of the Silver Age Superman, and thow in the progressive inspiration of the Chris Reeves Superman.

Yes, a lot of what came out of the Silver Age was hokey as hell. But also cool as hell. And what we've seen from Whatever Happened to the Man From Tomorrow by Alan Moore, and All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, is that it works when you play it straight. It more than works, it produces the best Superman comics of all time. And I think that's the key to producing great comics, do something fantastic, and make no apologies for it. There is a time and a place for deconstruction, but there's also a time and a place to ditch it.

Anyway, I love Kurt Schaffenberger's gorgeous good-girl art on the classic Lois Lane comics. Lois was always getting into the strangest situations that were a lot of fun, and some of my favorites of these are the issues where she gained super powers and became Super Lois. So anyway, in the spirit of those classic comics, this is my version of Super Lois.

Spider-Man - The Crime-Master's Mask Pt. 3: Spider-Man Page

I really stepped up my game for the Spider-Man page. I may not be objective but I think it turned out pretty nice. I kind of like the way the image looked uncropped so I decided to present it that way here.

This page was done entirely in ink. There's lots of stippling, it was a very time consuming page that required a lot of patience and focus on my part, but I wanted to create an iconic Spider-Man page. That's not to suggest that I came anywhere close, but I think you should always shoot beyond what your currently capable of.

I want to create a pages that don't lean on digital colors. I'm actually pretty good with Photoshop, but then so is every kid half my age, so it's not exactly a rare trait. I also feel that Photoshop is overused, over leaned on, and abused, and I tend to favor more traditional art styles, like the 80s Brit style with lots of blacks, to the manga-pop that I see all over the place these days. And I HATE it when photoshop drowns out inks that have a strong use of black. And I want to challenge myself not to just do pinups, but to pack as much story into a page as I can. At the same time I realize that we live in an age where people expect more than just a layout with a hack job finish in comics. They're used to something detailed that jumps off the page. So I'm really trying to bring something different to the table that can appeal to a mature sensibility but without alienating the mainstream. And every page I do, I'm thinking about storytelling and design.

Ink is my favorite media to work in thus far. It's probably Robert Crumb's Robert Johnson piece that really blew me away with what you can do with solid black lines alone. This stippling technique is new for me. I'm really experimenting as I go here and you can bet that I used quite a bit of Titanium White acrylic (my best friend) on this page. I had Steranko and Ditko in my mind when I started this page. They both have strong designs that don't necessarily mix, so I wasn't trying to ape either one, but they more so inspire me to try to stretch myself beyond what I've done before. Obviously the center figure is a classic Ditko pose redrawn in my own style.

I'm not exactly sure what my next move is. Things are getting pretty tight so I might have to get a "real job" soon. So if you like my work and want to see more from me, I am available for commissions and every little job helps keep me going. If this interests you email me at todd@toddnovak.com.

Spider-Man Warm Up Drawings

Almost every morning when I sit down to my art table I've got those creative cobwebs. This can be a bit of a problem when facing a deadline with the expectation of quality work. I was looking at Scottie Young's art blog and I noticed that a number of his pieces were labeled "warm up" drawing. Anyone who is familiar with Scottie Young's work is knows that he's amazing. The pieces I saw don't look like warm up anything, but I really took notice of the idea of shaking those cobwebs off, on something self indulgent, to get those creative juices flowing so that the work will flow.

So anyway, I think people get the idea that I love Spider-Man, especially the original Ditko Spider-Man who was almost like a pulp character at his inception. So these four little headshots are just little fun quick attempts to capture that Ditko look without too much pressure or intention.



Ditko's Peter Parker had this almost effeminate quality. His face was long and thin, Ditko took the time to draw his lashes that were generally ignored for more masculine characters. Peter Parker was always an attractive character, in fact, despite his popularity issues, he never had a problem attacting women. So you have to figure that his popularity issues were probably due to not fitting the typical macho male.


Ditko's Betty Brandt has this sad, almost tragic, sexiness to her. She has a kind of pixie-Jackie-O aura. If I were to pick an actress at any time in their career to play her, I'd pick Winona Ryder in the late 80s.


Ditko's Gwen Stacy is almost forgotten. She was a little more coy and sassy than the version that John Romita coined. When I draw these girls I'm trying to channel the Ditko look but I'm also thinking about Dave Stevens, the creator of the Rocketeer, whom just past away this last month. Stevens drew the most beautiful, most sexy women I've seen in comics and whenever I draw a sexy girl, especially in a period piece, which is how I think of Ditko's Spider-Man, I try to borrow something from Stevens.

Spider-Man Underworld

This isn't brand new, I did it last year, but I don't have it displayed here and even though it's in my gallery on my website, I figured it wouldn't hurt to have it here as well. I put this together for a local comic shop that I've been going to since I was a kid. The design is based off of my favorite poster I had as a kid which was done by Ron Frenz. The art for that rare poster is for display on my Non-Art Blog.

Again, I'm going for a Ditko-esque Spider-Man. This character design is slightly different than the one I'm working on with my Crime-Master Portfolio. I chose to use characters that were more crime based. I think I make it pretty clear that my favorite Spider-Man stories are more pulpish and I prefer the Mobsters and Gansters to fantastic supervillains (for Spider-Man at least). And the two time periods that interest me most for the character of Spider-Man are the 60s and the 80s.

Private Sketchbook

With Permission Only...

Last night I was looking through old files of previous versions of my website and I found a private sketchbook webpage that was password protected when it was on my website. I had shared this password with just one other friend but I had never intended this information to be exclusive. Most of the drawing in this sketchbook were done in my teens or early 20s. The material in it is of a mature nature, some of it is a little out there.

I am an artist and I do want to display my work but I have no desire to offend or overtly put things in the face of people who don't want to see it. I also don't want to be liable for material that some people should not be exposed to. There is nothing wrong about free expression through art but I do not want to be careless in anyway that might draw negative attention or impose unintended consequences. I do not want to attract the wrong attention to myself so this is the only place I am letting this information be known and I will not be reposting this again.

I have loaded these files onto my website at an unlinked password protected location. For this information, first, subscribe to this art blog (this sketchbook is not part of this blog but if I'm going to share it, I want it to be with friends of my "art"), and then please email me at the email address shown on my website, with the subject line: Private Sketchbook. In the body of this email please let me know your name and verify that you are of a mature age. If you do not know me, do not give me any private information or contact information that could compromise yourself. State that you are not offended by images of this nature, and that you will not distribute these images, draw unwelcome attention to them, or share the web location or password. Tell me anything else that would suggest why I should share this information with you.

If I have any doubt about the nature of the person contacting me, I simply won't reply. Don't take this personally, but this is, after all, a private sketchbook.

Spider-Man - The Crime-Master's Mask Pt. 2: Peter Parker Page

This is the first of the character pages for my Spider-Man portfolio. It's will also probably be the most challenging page for me. When there's lots of action it's easy to make a scene look interesting but when the story slows down it's a challenge to keep the story flowing. There are a lot of nuances here that will probably be unnoticed (more noticeable without them though). This sort of page is never going to be the sort that people remember. It's not the one that will jump off the page at people. But it's very important as a part of the whole and it is very intentionally part of this portfolio to show my ability to stage such a scene.

Obviously the image has not been colored yet. I may get to that eventually but I think it's more important to get the other pages done first. I haven't added the word balloons yet either, and while they're important in the story, hopefully the images give you enough so that you get the gist of it.

The Return of the Man in The Crime-Master's Mask Pt. 1

The Return of the Man in The Crime-Master's Mask is a portfolio series of 6 or 7 comic pages with the purpose of promoting my work. The work is based on my favorite Spider-Man story by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, The Man in The Crime-Master's Mask, which appeared in Amazing Spider-Man issues #26 and 27. This under appreciated story stands out in the run and it's gitchy-noir element is one that has been seldom tapped into in a Spider-Man comic since and works perfectly with the character.

My goal is to capture the essence of Ditko's Spider-Man but in my own style, more a homage to Ditko than a swipe. I've had something in mind like this for sometime and then at one point I was re-reading one of my favorite superhero comics of all time, Batman The Long Halloween, and it clicked with me that while that story was pure Batman, there was something in there that could be applied to Spider-Man. The Romita Spider-Man is what has endured, bold, bright, very superhero-ish. But the original Spider-Man, Ditko's Spider-Man, was a bit darker. It was filled with gangsters, in fact that's what the Green Goblin was, a gangster. Spider-Man is a character with a lot of tragedy, a lot of sadness. Things don't go right for him. He's a bit like Charlie Brown. He keeps trying but his victory is that he manages to survive. He hasn't won yet.

The storyline is a sequel to the Crime-Master saga of the 60s. The story adheres only to the continuity established by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko together outside of the current Marvel Continuity or the retroactive continuity added by writers and artists since. The concept itself would be a dream project for me, not something I expect to work on anytime soon but something I would aspire to after making a reputation for myself.

This first page, the splash page, was designed almost two years ago and sat unfinished until I recently decided this concept was unique enough to put together as a portfolio. Each of the following pages will focus on a different key-character in the story, including Peter Parker, The Green Goblin, The Crime-Master, Betty Brandt (finally getting her due), J. Jonah Jameson, Frederick Foswell a.k.a. the man called Patch, and finally Spider-man himself. The different character focus will give me a chance to show my range in storytelling.

This page was designed in an over-sized Sketchbook filling the page from corner to corner before being removed to be scanned. It was actually drawn two years ago and I just recently applied color to it when I decided to put this portfolio together. The following pages will be drawn and inked on hot pressed premium quality bristol board. When I present those pages I'll go into the story concept a little bit more.

The original art for this page is for sale in my ebay store.

Season's Greetings - 2007

Bean: Interdimensional Mercenary - The Cover

This was an illustration that I had originally done in the year 2000 as a class project, that was meant to be the cover to an issue of my mini comic, Bean. It was my very first Adobe Photoshop illustration ever. It wasn't horrible for a first effort but it was obviously amateur.

Last week I was going through my files and after coming across this I ended up reworking the entire illustration. It's still not perfect, the central figure was a "Frankenstein" creation pulling almost every body part from a different figure in magazines. I wasn't thinking about light sources back then so even with the retouches, those who know what to look for will find the inconsistencies. But I'm satisfied with it enough to show it now.

I'll be releasing the PDF of the comic online within the next month. I was considering drawing a cover from scratch but I'm glad to recover this image so that I can focus forward in my aspirations...