ICYMI Art: Alpha Flight by Marcelo Mueller

I particularly like the way Guardian came out on this:

It's been up on deviantart since August 20th, but only has a little over 100 views at this point.  Criminal. ;-)

Let your hearts be gladdened...Nelvana will return!

One of the original goals of this blog was to shine whatever small amount of light I could on some of the Canadian superhero characters from the 40's.  This country's history in the genre appeared to be sadly overlooked and under-appreciated.

Being that there are currently far more Canadian characters, publishers and creators than I'd originally expected to find, I inadvertently deviated from that goal.  Most mentions of Nelvana refer to her appearance on posters and the like, though the basics of her origins are included in the "Superheroes to call our own" post from February 2012.

I mention this now because of recently-announced plans to reprint Nelvana's adventures of the time.

Lost Heroes researchers Rachel Richey and Hope Nicholson (Richey also manages the Comic Syrup blog, while Nicholson is listed among the Lost Heroes producers as well) have acquired the rights to reproduce Nelvana's stories.  They plan to do so following a crowd funding campaign which will begin on October 1st.  You can follow their progress through this Facebook group.

Nelvana creator Adrian Dingle is said to be have been inspired to create Nelvana by Group Of Seven artist Franz Johnston's stories from the latter's travels to the Arctic.  Nelvana, in turn, was at least to some degree the inspiration for Alpha Flight's Snowbird character.  Snowbird's mother is named Nelvanna, with an extra "n", presumably to avoid legal issues.  Her grandfather is named Hodiak, similar to Koliak above.

Nelvana was often assisted in defending the north by her far less celebrated brother Tanero who shared dad's inability to have his true seen by "whites".  Tanero would usually avoid this by changing shapes to that of a flying Great Dane.

Well, that's ONE way...

These books are a lot of quirky fun and having them properly collected would be a real treat.  I'm excited to see this project move forward.

Guardian / Captain Britain by Toni Solanes

There's your dream Marvel team-up book.

This picture has been floating around for a while, but the comicartfan version had only 17 views when I came across it.  Can't have that. ;-)

All I know about artists Toni and Javi Solanes is that they are from Spain (and that is based on their deviantart profiles).  Guardian shows up in other artwork pieces from Toni, though unfortunately that does not include the "all-time favourites" folder.  It does, however, include the Alpha Flight pinup below...

...and an interesting one of a number of heroes teaming to take down Namor and Cyclops.

But then, as you can see, Toni uses Guardian as his avatar so perhaps we have more Guardian / Alpha Flight art coming.

Canadian Heroes all over the map

Added a new toy!  Hope it works!

There's a new button at the end of the bar under the banner.  It is rather unimaginatively called "Map".  If you right click to open it in a new window, you will be taken to, well, a map which displays the birthplace and/or base of operations of a number of Canadian comic book characters.  They are separated by categories at the bottom left, that you can choose to isolate or remove from view using the legend at top right.  Use the scale at top left to zoom in and out.

Some notes:

• Daydreamer is not a member of Alpha Flight but I couldn't have her in the Indy category either, so she's with the Marvel team.
• Credit to Heroes of the North for eschewing the obvious choices for home towns.  For example, Acadia is in New Brunswick, but rather than make her a Moncton native, she is from Bouctouche.
• Look WAY up to find Snowbird.
• The old South Park gag about "downtown Canada" could well have been based on DC Comics.  Not a single character has a defined place of birth.  Plastique is clearly from Quebec, but where?  And in the case of a character like Sparx (whom I suspect has faded out of continuity with the New 52 anyway), her home town of Timberton is in British Columbia, but fictional.

There are some glaring omissions due to lack of info, or perhaps of clarity of that info.  Even though he is bar none the most prominent Canadian character in comics, Wolverine's actual birth place is actually quite vague.  I have seen it referred to as both southern and Northern Alberta, making it somewhat hard to guess.  I've also found one source which claims he was born in New York state.  Strange that this wouldn't have been determined by now.

In many other cases, there is consensus, but not specification.  Marrina was born (hatched?) on the coast of Newfoundland, but I don't know where on that coast.

Anyway, I have 30 characters currently listed, but it's still being worked on.  If the map does not display properly for you, please slip me a word at jf4nier@gmail.com to let me know.

A 2-part ICYMI Art post

It's no secret that I love me some Heroes of the North. It is actually because I look forward to their product so much that I actually ignore the material that is offered for free on their website.  I want my books "unspoiled" and in print form when it hits shelves.

As a result of avoiding previews and such then, I don't know for certain what the image of The Canadian below is from.  I follow colourist Keiren Smith on deviantart and was made aware of it by an automated notice that she had posted new artwork.  It's for a story called "Timeout" but I'm uncertain as to whether it will be included in the upcoming anthology (Heroes of the North: CODA) or a future one.

As pointed out on Mrs Smith's page: Pencils by Gibson Quarter, Inks by Guillermo Ortego, colours by Kieren Smith.

The second part of this "in case you missed it" art post is, in my opinion of course, a terrific version of Alpha Flight's Snowbird.

I first spotted it on a tumblr search.  The artist is Yu Lyn Chen and this artwork was actually posted on her tumblr account about a year ago.

Check out her archive page for all sorts of other examples of her work.  I find she's just fantastic. I have never commissioned art before, but Chen makes it very tempting.  I can imagine she'd put together a quality Aurora (classic edition) in black and white.  Hmmmm...

ICYMI Art: Snowbird by Jean-Louis Sanglan

An artist by the name of Jean-Louis Sanglan is selling this piece on comicartfans.com.  I'll have to be content with it as my computer background for a while.  Gorgeous...

Title:  Snowbird
Artist:  Jean-Louis Sanglan (Painter)
Media Type:  Paint - Watercolor
Art Type:  Pin Up
Added to Site:     8/29/2012

Alpha Flight Eaglemoss figurines

Comics are not my life. They're not even my primary interest/hobby. So with every post I wonder if I'm not stating the obvious to people who know far more than I do about the subject matter. But I have found very little mention of this collectible so I'm forging ahead.

The Eaglemoss Classic Marvel Figurine Collection (there's a DC version as well) is a combination of a lead figurine, about 3 inches in height, and 16-page (at least in this case) magazine. Eaglemoss is based in the UK and do not ship to Canada, making the acquisition of their product a little more tricky.

It is, however, worthwhile in my opinion. I purchased the Snowbird one on e-bay and am very pleased with it.


Now truthfully, the figurine doesn't fully stand up to extreme scrutiny. For instance, here's the paint job around the top part of the boots on the one I bought.


A little sloppy. If you're anal about that sort of thing, then you might want to take that into consideration. And it may be that I got a lower quality one. Whatever.

I love the magazine though. Both facets of her history (creation by John Byrne and adventures since) are explained thoroughly. The tone is light but it is still done respectfully which, as any Alpha Flight fan knows, has not always been the case for our team.

The magazine also provides an overview of enemies and allies and a checklist of key and/or prominent appearances including, but not limited to, Wolverine First Class #5 and the Astonishing Tales digital comic.

Overall, it's a quality package. Besides, anyone who can untangle the continuity of any Alpha Flight member in a mere 16 pages deserves major respect on that basis alone!

There is a Guardian figurine available, a very hairy Sasquatch / Puck combo (see below), which I believe was only released last fall and Northstar and Aurora are apparently now available (I had read about an April in-store date)!


I think it won't be long until these decorate my nerd den.