(Re-)Coloring the classics...

So I wanted to update my Facebook profile picture for the holiday season.  And I love me some Batman, so I did an image search of "Batman, Christmas".  Very little came up... but one image that kept coming up over and over again was the cover to Batman #27 that was released to public back on December 8, 1944.  Yes, the image is 69 years old... hehe... 69...

Anyway, I liked the image... but it had elements that were not so good.  First of all, the bright solid yellow background.  And Robin acting like an idiot.  Stupid Robin.  Dick Grayson became so much cooler when he became Nightwing, but in the 30s and 40s... he was a complete tool.  But I was like, the main part of the image... Batman and Santa... that could work.

Enter Photoshop.  I pulled a very high rez image of the Batman #27 cover off the Internet and took it into Photoshop.  I then went about altering the image.  I cropped the image down to just Batman and Santa, cutting Robin out entirely.  Cuz... screw Robin.  I then touched up and re-did the black linework of the image.  Once I had cleaned up line work on it's own seperate layer, I took out the color... and proceded to re-color the whole thing.  I updated the blue and grey of Batman to the more current shades of blue and grey used in the comics.  Everything else, i took cues from the original cover as for the base colors... and I then went in and shaded everything.  I replaced the glaring yellow background color of the original comic book cover with a blue to white gradiant, and then I added some snow, to help solidify the winter season.  You can view the process here:

After all was said and done, I was really pleased with the end result, and I wanted to "sign" it.  But... I'm not the guy who drew the image.  I just touched up the original image done by "Bob Kane".  Except, after some Internet research... Bob Kane did NOT draw this image, either.  In fact, although Bob Kane is credited as being the creator of Batman, He did very little artwork (or writing?) on the Batman comic books back in the day... though he was credited for it well into the mid 1960s.  Apparently, back in the day, DC Comics would hire "ghost artists" to work on their books.  But the creator of the character would get all the credit.  So although Batman #27, is credited to Bob Kane, it was in fact... drawn by... JACK BURNLEY.

Jack Burnley apparently did a lot of sports illustrations back in the 30s and 40s, but also worked for a period at DC Comics drawing Superman, and of course, the Batman.  He retired from art just before I was even born, and died about 7 years ago, at the age of 95.

Anyway, since I wanted to throw my scribble on the end result, I felt Jack Burnley should get his credit, too.  Since he wasn't given the credit back in 1944, he might as well get some now.  It was hard finding a useable signature for Burnley.  Being a "ghost artist" means your name doesn't show up anywhere.  I eventually found it on a basketball illustration.  So I lifted it off that, slapped it on there, and threw my (much smaller) scribble under it.

Merry Christmas!

I go all of November, posting 30 new pieces of art, and all I can scrounge up for December is 1?  Love the holidays... really.   Anyways, one thing I DID do that was artistic this December was this little beauty here.  That's approx. 4 feet by 4 feet of Disney Christmas magic.

Let me backtrack a bit, last Christmas the girlfriend and I decided to check out the neighborhood nearby that is "known" for their Christmas displays.  Y'know the kind that goes all out?  So we check it out and walk around and I make the astute observation that most of the "characters" seen on people's houses and lawns are nothing more than painted things of wood (and some aren't drawn all that well, but I digress).  To which I say... "Hey, I could totally do that!"

She takes me up on the offer.  Lady and the Tramp is what we consider "our movie", so it became the natural choice for our balcony (cuz we live in an apartment, and can only go "all out" so much).   So we bought the wood, grabbed reference material and went to work.  I drew the characters out on pencil, we cut them out, painted them, glazed them and hung them up, and wah-la!

These took a lot longer to make than my cocky arrogance thought, so we only had time to finish the sign and the spaghetti eating dogs.  The chefs, Joe and Tony, remain pencil sketches on wood.  They will make their debut NEXT Christmas, joining these dogs.  It was quite fun to do, actually, and we easily have the best decorated apartment in the complex.  Yay!