So Super Duper

Brian Andersen's "So Super Duper" is a fun, frenetic little comic about a motor-mouthed and deeply closeted twink, and his travails as the least-powerful member of a rather bitchy JLA-type team called "the Amazin'naughts." Andersen's artwork is cartoon-styled (it reminded me a lot of DC's old "Angel Love" comic) but his character's faces and poses are so expressive that there's never any doubt as to what's happening in a panel. Also, some of the costumes are so well-designed that I wanted to try my hand at depicting them in a slightly more realistic style.

Here's the star of "So Super Duper", the empathic (and that's it) Psyche. He often strikes these kinds of melodramatic poses in the midst of all his swanning about. To bring a sense of that into my own drawing, I based his posture on a photo of a cheerleader. A teenage, female cheerleader.

One of the many other superheroes to be found in "So Super Duper" is Comet, who is also in denial about his sexuality, and who seems to have a little crush on Psyche. Comet is one of the few genuinely sweet characters in the book. (Seriously, poor Psyche is just surrounded by jerks, the poor guy. Let's hope these two crazy kids manage to hook up!) This is my favorite out of all of Andersen's character designs. The icing on the cake? Comet and his twin sister Star have matching cheek-moles. Adorable!

Remember those jerks I mentioned? Here's one of 'em! ...Okay, so he hasn't had much panel time -- in fact, I have no idea what his boots look like so I just mimicked the style of his gloves -- but he seemed pretty snide to me. And it wasn't even anything he said! I guess it's just his face. Which is par for the course, since he has fire powers. Heck, I can't think of any heroes with fire powers who had gently-arching Joel Hodgson eyebrows. There must be some kind of genetic link between pyrokinetics and angry-looking Romulan eyebrows (with red hair).

There are also a lot of female superheroes in "So Super Duper" but to be honest, most of their outfits either veer perilously close to Hoochie Mama Territory or just flat-out plunge right into it, off a cliff, like Thelma and Louise. But then, Brian told me he wouldn't mind me posting some costume redesigns for his characters, so... I'll work on some for next week!