Okay, boys... whip 'em out! Er, your costume and hairstyle designs for Rainbow Girl, that is.
On the left, is (the vastly more skilled) Gary Frank's cover for "Action Comics" #862, which just showed up on the internet this month (your time). To the right, is my makeover for Rainbow Girl, which I published on my blog last July (your time). In an amusing coincidence, both Mister Frank and I thought Rainbow Girl would look nicer with shorter hair, dyed purple. However, he forgot to layer it, and as a result it's hella limp. Mister Frank also thought Rainbow Girl's appearance would be improved with skeletal Barbie doll arms. You're alone there, buddy. Unless... are the arms a plot point? Does she suffer from an eating disorder? Will the shocking ending feature Lois Lane holding Rainbow Girl's hair as she throws up in the Daily Planet ladies' room? Maybe we can get Tina Fey to do an intervention for the Action Comics Rainbow Girl. "These are Princess Projectra arms! We want you to have Rainbow Girl arms!" But enough tomfoolery out of me. I thought I'd ask Rainbow Girl what she thought of her otherdimensional doppelganger's new look. And here's what she said:
Hey! I'm trying to work here! Why are you always shoving crap in front of my face? What is this? Another birthday card for Nightmare Boy? Didn't we just have a party for him last October? What? Fine, I'll look... what the hell?! Is this supposed to be me? Who drew this? I look like I haven't washed my hair for a month. And why am I in my gym socks? And who slapped ginormous rainbow stickers all over my jogging outfit? And what's the deal with my arms? Is this a joke? It's not? Huh. I don't know who modeled for this thing, but she needs to eat a food pill, STAT. Criminy. Yeah, I'm a real scream. ...Sorry I snapped at you. It's just that Eyeful Ethel has me working four different cases right now... at once! I barely have time for all my charity work! And I'm only sleeping two hours a night these days, instead of my usual three. No, I'm sorry. Can I get back to work now, Blockade Boy? I promise, we'll go out for space wine after work, and we can talk about it some more, then. Yeah, that little place on Gurn's Grove Parkway would be great. Okay. Goodbye... I said "Goodbye, already!" Criminy! ...I'm sorry.There you have it. I win!
18 comments:
I was waiting on you to comment on that book. Have you seen what they did to Tusker?
I thought that was supposed to be a transgendered Color Kid?
MaGnUs: No, I haven't. Let me guess, though: big, chunky monster, like Kilowog, but with spikes all over and a slobbering mouth full of teeth? Or, given it's Geoff Johns we're talking about, a sadistic cannibal who threatens to "drag Superman's soul through a pile of dirty socks" or somethin'?
Bill S.: Heh. If that's the case, my Color Kid redesign still is better!
Storm Boy's there, too. It's basically insane, the line-up of villains they have for this storyline. Golden Boy's there, for heaven's sake!
Give me a half hour and they'll be on my site, in glorious colour.
You a winnah!
WHAT DID THEY TO TO ABSORBANCY BOYS MUTTONCHOPS!!! NOOOOOOOO!
Jonathan: Not Golden Boy, too! NOOOOO!!! Oh, wait, I don't give a shit about Golden Boy. Never mind.
Lurker: Heh. Yes, I indeed a winnah!
MaGnUs: I've only seen the splash page, but it looks like he was drawn with a trimmed-up version of them, and somebody forgot to inform the colorist. At least, I hope that's what happened. The muttonchops were Absorbancy Boy's only redeeming feature.
More interesting is the character standing directly behind Rainbow Girl.
You know, the red haired kid with stone like skin and a, well, block for a logo. It's not Bloc, who's we see trapped in the current issue, which makes me think it's...
um...
you.
(also, that's very much Plant Lad at her feet)
Okay, I gave a couple of minutes thought to how I'd redesign Rainbow Girl and decided that I'd probably do her all retro with a cute little skirt and rainbow tights (or knee socks) and everything. The problem is, I've never seen a full figure picture of the original Rainbow Girl costume, and I didn't want to rehash what had already been done, so I went off to Google Images to see if I could dig up an image of said costume. I found this on the first page of results:
http://www.goodgoth.com/83090.jpg
The funny thing is...this is pretty much exactly the costume I was going to design. So now I'm screwed. Oh well.
Steven: Is that Alterna-Blockade Boy in the background...? To quote Hemingway, "wouldn't it be pretty to think so?" I'd bet a hefty chunk of space-cheddah (if I had any) that the rocky-pussed lug is Stone Boy. I know that in his initial appearance, he and his family all looked kind of like that, with craggy stone skin and normal hair. Check out my 12/4/06 post, to see what I mean.
Justin: Yikes. I can only imagine how the tarted-up version of Strawberry Shortcake must look. Like "Pink", maybe? (I bet your idea would have looked cool, though.)
Justin: I like that costume...
BB: No colorist fault, Absorbancy Boy (which is just an eufemism for Suck Boy, I guess) has sideburns, but no muttonchops.
MaGnUs: Sideburns?! Alterna-LAME! (Er, yours look awesome, though. For realsies.)
Well, having my costume idea somewhat pre-empted hasn't stopped me. I went ahead and worked up a design for Rainbow Girl which you can find here:
http://www.uatu.net/uploads/rainbow-girl-complete.jpg
The multiple arms represent RG dividing into her different energy forms. I kind of have this vision of RG where whenever she moves quickly, you see a kind of after-image of her, sort of like waving around a glowstick in the dark.
Anyway, I'm super lazy, so I didn't finish drawing the hands or even finish erasing my sketch lines, and I don't own a box of colored pencils, so the image is black and white except for the suggested palette at the bottom right.
Some may take issue with this and claim that this isn't really a superhero costume, and that's true, but I think it fits. I wanted a sort of old-school aesthetic, so originally I was going to go really old-school--like 1950s--but something about the concept of a rainbow girl screamed "hippie!" to me, and naturally my mind turned to the 1960s and 70s and discotheques and go-go girls and bright, crazy colors. So there you go.
The dress, itself, is stark white, because the outfit has so much color in it elsewhere that doing even a pattern would have led to design overload. Though I suppose if you wanted to plunk a super-logo onto the front, you could do that.
Hope you enjoy, BB!
BB: My sideburns look good because they go along with the real stars of my facial hair: the moustache and the beard.
Justin: I love that design. Making the dress primarily white was an excellent choice. That way, the rainbow colors accent the costume instead of overwhelming it. Good instincts, there. I don't think she needs a super-logo... that would be too much. Way ta go, pal!
MaGnUs: They are a sight to behold: a powerful mix of the classic and post-modern, majestically scaled. I give them my personal seal of approval (not redeemable for cash).
Thanks. Glad you dig it.
Somebody needs to tell Gary Frank to get his ass over here and stand up for himself in this design throw-down. I mean...it's almost as though he wasn't even _trying_. What the hell? A purple jumpsuit with rainbow gym socks? Does Gary Frank even care at all about Rainbow Girl? Does he??
I'm calling you out, Frank!!!
FRAAANNNKKKK!!!!
Thank you, thank you very much BB. I don't need to redeem it for cash, I will cherish that seal of approval forever!
Frank's design isn't exciting, but it's almost tolerable. Almost. What kills it is the rainbows across the toes. That's just...wrong.
And yet, I like the hair. Go figure.
Yours still works well, and I really like Justin's.
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