My Fan Art: The Rescue of Kandor

The Rescue of Kandor, 2012

acrylic, colored pencil, pen on 140 lbs. watercolor paper

14 x 20"

I've been pecking at this one for over a year, having to put it aside to work on a large collection of over twenty canvases for a big art show this past spring in the city. I stopped work on these in December to whip out a Captain America painting for my nephew, but then went right back to work on the show. As I've said before, I'm not really a comic book artist- these are merely fun distractions from my usual body of work. When I was a kid in school, I dreamt of being a comic book artist, but those guys are just in a league above and beyond me- lightning fast and super-talented! Still, I occasionally crank out an illustration of a favorite hero, and starting this blog in 2010 renewed interest in that. This one may have been a tad overambitious for my level of ability, but it was a good effort- time to move to the next one!

The idea for The Rescue of Kandor came from two action figures I reviewed here on the Super-DuperToyBox recently: DC Direct History of the DC Universe Superman (as Nightwing) and Brainiac. For those of you not familiar with the origin of Nightwing: before Dick Grayson assumed the alias, Superman (his favorite superhero) used the moniker as a vigilante in the Kyptonian city of Kandor. The former capital city had been miniaturized and bottled by the supervillain Brainiac. Rescued by Superman, it has been traditionally kept and monitored in the Fortress of Solitude. In the more recent New Krypton storyline, Superman finds Kandor on Brainiac's ship, recovering the bottled city after their confrontation. But without Brainiac's control, the field surrounding the city that keeps it miniaturized becomes unstable. Superman takes Kandor to the North Pole where it expands to its original size, freeing all of Kandor's citizens, all of whom gain powers just like Superman upon release from the bottle and exposure to Earth's yellow sun.

More Later-Make It FUN!