Superman 2-pager.

We can draw heroes.

By: Karl Borst & Paul Marhue
Title: Superman 2-pager
Digital Illustration using Clip Studio Paint

I don’t normally draw superhero comics. I do a one-off pin-up on occasion but nothing sequential.

Certainly I grew up reading superhero comics but, eventually I started to read more independent and underground ones. As a result, my illustrations tend to be more suited to those.

After recently getting a digital tablet and a copy of Clip Studio Paint, I wanted to revisit the superhero genre and try my hand at illustrating something new. But I didn’t want to invest too much time in it because A) I didn’t know if I could pull it off and B) I didn’t know if I could keep my own interest long enough to finish a short story, let alone a full comic.

I asked my friend Karl to come up with a two page script. 2-pages is how much confidence I had in my attention span.

The catch was I didn’t want to know what he was giving me and it had to be a 2 page snapshot of a longer story. He didn’t have to write the entire thing but just give me 2 pages from something he may have written. Oh, and it had to have muscles and punching. You don’t get to do a lot of that when you’re drawing characters drinking coffee. I guess it would depend on which coffee shop you’re thinking of. Note to self… idea for comic about violent and muscled coffee drinkers.

These are the two pages from the non-existent Superman story.

  • Page 1
  • Page 2

I’m generally happy with it. I didn’t hit the mark as well as I wanted to in terms of action. And there are some places where the paneling could have been tighter so that the story was told better, visually.

However, I do like some of the shadowing I did. Inking black normally terrifies me when I’m drawing. I should be more like Mignola.

Some things I learnt.

  1. I enjoyed it. There’s something nostalgic about drawing in a style you grew up with and loved.
  2. Using Clip Studio Paint challenged me to rethink how I would normally accomplish things by hand. I believe CSP will be my go-to for most comic work in the future.
  3. I should have spent more time sketching the characters so that they were consistent throughout.

But, overall I’m relieved to know we can all draw heroes.

Paul