I’m not sure why I got going on this particular tangent, but here’s a drawing of the early 80s X-Men (I used the lineup from the 1982 X-Men/Teen Titans crossover) done in the “bigfoot” style common to newspaper strips in the 1920s/30s. I used E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theater characters as my models here. In reverse order here it is–first the final colored drawing, below that the inks, and below that the pencil drawing from my sketchbook:
You can find more of my superhero pinups here, or by clicking the “Superhero Pinups” link in this site’s tag cloud on the right.
The original art for this is for sale here.
6 comments
1 ping
Isaac says:
10/20/2010 at 10:52 pm (UTC -4 )
That is freaking hilarious.
Andy Mansell says:
10/21/2010 at 6:48 am (UTC -4 )
“I loves ya, Dark Olive”
“And I, youse, Scott–I mean Popeye”
Great stuff Ben!!
Ben says:
10/21/2010 at 10:13 am (UTC -4 )
@Isaac @Andy – Thanks!
Looking at this now, I should probably have fixed Prof. X’s slightly caved-in head and should maybe rotate the whole thing slightly clockwise…
I haven’t done a mini in forever. Maybe a “bigfoot” X-Men fanfic mini is in order. Thimble Theater and the Claremont/Byrne X-Men have some common elements: ensemble cast + adventure story w/ soap opera elements.
vollsticks says:
10/21/2010 at 4:11 pm (UTC -4 )
Really lovely, Ben! Great stuff.
xmen characters says:
6/4/2011 at 11:39 am (UTC -4 )
LOL! That’s amazingly funny :D
bativeel says:
3/3/2012 at 6:51 am (UTC -4 )
awsome
The Best I Yam: Ben Towle’s X-Men/E.C. Segar mash-up | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment says:
10/21/2010 at 5:00 pm (UTC -4 )
[...] Ben Towle channeled Popeye creator E.C. Segar to draw the Uncanny X-Men. “I used E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theater characters as my models here,” he said, noting [...]