More Hotfoot.  The first half of this image is assorted footwear designs for a super speedster, and the second half is the construction drawing for a promotional poster I did, featuring the women of the Squadron Premiere.  I drew this second picture while sitting in a park, and the duck or goose pictured kept pestering me.  These ducks are bigger than you imagine, especially when they are nosing around for a treat, so I left before I could draw Hotfoot’s clothes on.  Luckily, the duck posed for me.

In the last decade or two, the ideal of feminine beauty has transitioned from the long, lean ideal of my youth to a more robust, healthy, capable look. This is a good thing, of course, and probably a direct result of Title IX, which made athletic participation so much more possible for girls all over the country. I mention this because Hotfoot somewhat exemplifies that quality for me.

Hotfoot’s design from the back.  Why is she standing like that?  Had I just read some 90’s comic with their ultra-sexpot bad girls?  I have no idea.  I was already getting tired of her lightning bolts, as you can see.  After the War in Heaven, Hotfoot transitioned to a deep navy blue suit, abandoning the dreaded lightning insignia.  Characters have often changed or upgraded costumes in Johnny Saturn, largely because I think they should, and because it gives me a chance to improve upon what I’ve done before.

Hotfoot was one of the original Squadron Premiere characters I conceived of, and her design wasn’t as automatic as you would think it would be.  When first thought up, “she” was going to be a “he,” and he was going to be long and skinny.  I soon abandoned that idea, and the science fiction version of Hotfoot was next up with her fancy post-industrial uniform.  In the third picture Hotfoot is almost done, although I had her in bizarre looking shoes that somehow remind me of the Michelin Man.

Head Case made a brief appearance in issue six.  The idea of a tiny little guy operating this robot character struck me as vaguely funny, and it is a pretty interesting design.  To be honest, I never thought up a back story for Head Case, because his appeal pretty much begins and ends at his cool visual for me.  Now that I think of it, most of our characters are far from high concept—I think it makes for an interesting juxtaposition when you take “lame” characters and treat them complete seriousness.  It’s part of that old saying, “there are no bad ideas, just bad writing.”

The French Curve has only made a background appearance in issue six to day.  I never actually figured out what her powers are, but she was really built on the concept of a voluptuous woman (curves) from France.  Not high concept, I’ll warrant you that.  Most of the women that appear in the comic have trim, muscular physiques, as befits superheroes and villains.  Now that I think of it, the comic needs a voluptuous woman for no other reason than she’d be fun to draw!

Life is funny.  When I was a kid, I drew lots of comics.  These were terribly crude affairs, and as incredibly trite as you would expect most 6-10 year-olds to write.  But, I never forgot the characters I made up.  The Clump appeared in several of his own stories, and he was the result of lightning animating undersea pollution.  Almost four decades later in our world, when it came time to populate the Squadron Premiere of their 1950’s I had to include the Clump.  So far, he has only appeared as a statue in the trophy hall of Squadron Premiere Plaza.  The Clump is also noteworthy in that I, with a friend of mine, made a miniature Clump out of clay, and using a super-8 camera we tried to animate him.  This footage was never developed and long gone.

Harvey Torres, the Tailor.  Harvey is one of my favorite characters.  He’s big in this drawing, but in his appearances in the comic he’s even bigger yet.  If you haven’t noticed, I love to draw almost every variation of the human body, and the Tailor is a real treat for me.  Ad to this his cynical attitude and his expressive face, and he’s a natural for me.  He and Greg Buchanan throw insults at each other all the time, but I strongly suspect that this masks a genuine friendship between them.  Neither character would admit to this, obviously.

Molly the cyborg girl went through many different designs, and I was changing her look right up to her first appearance.  Benita’s original concept was of a girl who was more machine than human, and whose form and function didn’t necessarily match that of the human body.  For a while she looked sort of “Robocop” like, but eventually we arrived at the design you’ve come to see her as in the comic.  Molly was really difficult for me to design because the horror of her condition bothered me a great deal.  This was a hurdle I had to jump on my own, and now I’m cool with it.  Mollie is one of our more popular characters, and she plays heavily in the next story arc.

My first conception for Lacerator was as a Hispanic tough guy.  When he appeared in issue six, though, Benita gave him surfer-dude language, and for me the character came together.  So, he’s a southern California surfer dude, complete with the lingo.  He’s also one of Tactical’s original four supporters, which includes Alaric, Skorn, and Warmonger, and this makes him very high in the Iron Brigade’s command structure.  As originally conceived, Lacerator’s power blade was a monstrous clawed hand, but luckily I saw the light and updated him.