Monday, May 5, 2008

D. Ops Here...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Paul Crocker, Director of Operations for British Intelligence, and my favorite character from the series Queen & Country (created by the incomparable Greg Rucka for Oni Press).

If ya know me at all, you'll see why I love this. If you happen to know the character, then you understand even more.

Chris Samnee did this sketch for me this very day, and I love how it turned out. Generally, I enjoy asking artists to draw characters that they don't often get requests for but are still characters that I love. That way, the artists have fun doing something different, and because they're having a blast drawing the character, I end up enjoying the finished product so much more.

Like so...




Samnee told me it had been a long time since he'd drawn Crocker, and I get the impression that I'm the only guy (in the midwest, at least) who asks for him.

There's a lot to recommend this portrait of the toughest bastard in MI6. The resilient, frosty eyes. The obligatory hanging cig. The hatching on the vest. The obscured hand on the armrest.

Apologies for the unfortunate rhyme.

In the end, though, there are a couple of details that absolutely drive me nuts--in a good way--and they're easily the most boring things on the page. Look under Crocker's seat.

Samnee has put in the controls for raising and for reclining the chair. He didn't have to do that. I mean, it's a sketch, not a finished page. Even so, those two little details give the sketch depth it wouldn't have had otherwise. It also signals to me that he enjoyed being in that "artist's zone" for the time it took him to pencil and ink this.

In the future, I'll post some other sketches I've gotten over the past couple of years. Best to start off with a bang, though.

(TECHNICAL NOTE: Would someone please tell me if you can't enlarge the pic for some reason? I want to make sure you can see it, after all.)

In the meantime, a huge thanks to Chris Samnee...a wonderfully nice guy, and one of the best ops in the field.

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